MAGPIE TALES: The Holy Terror

(Our contribution to the latest Magpie Tales)

We never fully understood the story behind the egg that grandmother always kept next to her locked box.

Aunt Mildred told us that locked within the box were the two characters pictured on the egg. "Never open that box, or it will release the man and that flying red...creature. Your grandmother and I locked them in there when we were your age so you will never have to be terrorized by them."

We didn't really understand the word "terrorize" back then, though we heard our mother often speak of the pug-faced Johnson twins over on Gravenstein Lane as being "holy terrors". We knew that we liked that contradiction, like sweet and sour pork. We came to call the Johnson Twins "Sweetie and Sourpuss" or sometimes the "piglet twins", to the point we forgot that their names were really Randy and Rusty.

One morning we went to the front parlor and saw that the egg was gone. Neither Grandmother or Aunt Mildred would share details. "Oh, it's still around. You just shouldn't have all of your prized things on display and should alternate them now and then so you have a better appreciation of them. Don't you like the new one better."

We regarded the glass figurine of a ballerina centered formally on a tiny doily to be far more terrorizing than the old beloved egg. But we let it rest. We never saw the egg again. Did it take flight, or did it hatch and release the flying red...creature. Maybe it's out there somewhere laying more eggs in other households.