SquidgeWorld Archive

EASTER EGGS-TASTROPHE

"Miss Loren, I'm afraid that you've violated the California penal code, section 323.4, paragraph D, subsection 5-E. Operating a motor vehicle with your top completely down."

"But…but Officer Malloy, I did not realize that driving with my top completely down was illegal here in the United States. After all, in Europe, it is not uncommon for beautiful women to drive their convertibles in that manner."

"Well, while it's not against the law here in the United States to drive with your convertible top down, it's the…ah…uncovered headlights that you're flashing that's just a bit illegal, Miss Loren."

"But Officer Malloy, if I kept my headlights covered up, how would the oncoming traffic see me? Wouldn't I cause an accident?"

"Miss Loren, you almost DID cause an accident back there, when the guy ran the stop sign 'cuz he was ogling your…ah…headlights. And might I add, what a delightful pair of headlights you have, Miss Loren. They're…they're nicely plump. And rather perky-looking, too. I can definitely see why someone would run a stop sign looking at them."

"Why thank you, Officer Malloy. I'm pretty proud of them myself, which is why I was showing them off. Plus, with the sun beating down and making me all hot and sweaty, I felt that they needed to be aired out. After all, I don't want any chafing or heat rash, you know."

"Uh…yeah, I can totally sympathize with you right now, Miss Loren. I'm…um…pretty hot and sweaty myself right now, plus I'm beginning to chafe a bit in certain spots."

-giggle- "Oh, Officer Malloy, you naughty boy! Now then, does this mean you're going to arrest me?"

"I'm afraid so, Miss Loren. Now if you'd just step out of the car so that I can feel you up…I mean, pat you down, I'll place you in my handcuffs and escort you to my apartment…I mean, the police station, where you'll be…uh…booked for flashing your luscious headlights at oncoming traffic."

"But…please, Officer Malloy, I honestly had no idea such a thing was illegal in California. Can't you just let me off with a warning?"

"No, Miss Loren, I'm sorry, but I can't. Now please, come along nicely, and don't make me use my nightstick on you."

"Oh MY, Officer Malloy is THAT your nightstick? It's…it's so large! And thick! I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it! May I touch it?"

"Well…I suppose it would be a crime NOT to let the beautiful and sexy Sophia Loren touch my nightstick, so sure, go ahead, play with it all you want. Just be careful not to drop it or scratch it. I don't want it dinged up."

"Oh, Officer Malloy, what exactly would you do to me with your wonderful nightstick, if I were being…ah…naughty?"

"What WOULDN'T I do to you with my nightstick, Miss Loren? I'm pretty well-versed in the art of using it, if I do say so myself. The handcuffs, too. AND my service weapon."

"My, what a lovely service weapon it is, too, Officer Malloy! You say you're pretty proficient with it?"

"Which one? The actual gun or my…uh…service weapon?"

"Hee hee, what do YOU think, Officer Malloy?"

"Well, let me put it to you this way, Miss Loren. I have a license to thrill with one of 'em, and a license to kill with the other. Kind of like James Bond, only without the really cool car and the sexy girl to seduce."

"Well…if you play your cards right, Officer Malloy, you might…you know…get lucky."

"Really?"

"Yes, maybe I'll let you drive my really cool car. How's that sound?"

"Um…I was kinda hoping for something else, Miss Loren."

"Oh, all right. I'll let you drive it with the top down."

"Well, I would really rather drive YOU with YOUR top down, but I suppose that's fine, too."

"Now I didn't say I wouldn't let you do that, either, did I? I mean, I AM playing with your nightstick, aren't I?"

"Well, yes, you are, but the fact of the matter is right now, I must perform my duties as a sworn officer of the law. We can discuss driving each other with our tops down later on. Now please, step out of the car, Miss Loren."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll be forced to use my nightstick on you. And I don't think you want that, do you?"

"Which nightstick, Officer Malloy?"

"The one in my gunbelt. I'd use the other one on you later on."

"Mmm, Officer Malloy, has anyone ever told you that you're incredibly sexy when you're being demanding…I mean, commanding? I DO adore a man in uniform. Especially one with such a large nightstick. And a gun. And handcuffs. Makes me all smooshy inside."

"Uh…well…maybe I'd better read you your rights, Miss Loren. You have the right to scream my name out during…I mean, remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say or wish to do to me will be held against me…I mean, against you, in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…oh hell, let's just skip your rights and just get to doing…uh…you know."

"Oh YES, Officer Malloy, I was just waiting to hear you say that! Handcuff me, because I've been a very naughty girl!"

"Indeed you have, Miss Loren. You need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Now please remove the rest of your clothes so that I can strip-search you, and use my nightstick on you while I handcuff you."

"Oh, Officer MALLOY! Please be gentle!"

RING RING!

-Snort- What the?

RING RING!

Since when did Sophia Loren start ringing?

RING RING!

Oh Christ, it's the stupid phone…Who in the hell would be calling me at this time on a Sunday morning? Oh man, somebody had better be DEAD, cuz if they're not, they're GONNA be, for disturbing my nice little dream about the luscious Sophia Loren and her headlights. I reach over and grab the handset to the phone on my nightstand, yanking it viciously from the cradle. "Yeah?" I growl into it. "SPEAK!"

"Pete, it's Jim," comes the nervous-sounding voice of my erstwhile partner, Jim Reed. "I'm in a huge jam and I need some help."

"Of course you are," I sigh. "Why ELSE would you be calling me at…" I glance over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. "Eleven A.M. on the ONE morning I have to sleep in this week."

"Sorry, but I didn't know who else to call," he apologizes sheepishly.

"So, what's up?" I yawn, rubbing sleepily at my eyes with the palm of one hand "And this had better be goddamned good, too, pal. You interrupted a really nice dream I was having about Sophia Loren and her headlights."

"Well," he begins hesitantly. "Last night I promised Jean I'd dye Easter eggs for Jimmy and hide then them around the house for him to find this morning when he got up."

"Yeah, so?" I ask a bit warily.

"Well, I kinda sorta mighta fallen asleep on the couch last night while watching 'The Ten Commandments' on tv, and kinda sorta maybe might not have gotten them done. And now Jean's pissed at me for not doing them." His words rush out in a torrent.

I pull the handset away from my ear and stare at it in utter disbelief for a moment, then I hold it back to my ear. "So…lemme get this straight. YOU are calling ME at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning, just to tell me that you fell asleep on the couch and didn't get Easter eggs colored and hidden for Jimmy last night, and now Jean is mad at you, right?"

"Uh…yeah," he says timidly. "That's pretty much it, Pete."

"WHY!" I roar into the phone, and I can hear him flinch over the phone line, giving new meaning to the term 'reach out and touch someone'. "Do you KNOW what you did, you jerk? You woke me up out of a mighty damned fine dream in which I was going to arrest Sophia Loren for driving topless in the city. I was gonna handcuff her and everything, and she wanted to play with my nightstick!"

"Um…was I in your dream, Pete?" he asks with curiosity.

"WHAT!" I snap. "Hell no, you weren't in my dream, Reed! You're NEVER in those kinds of dreams, NOR do I want you to be!"

"Good," he says, sounding rather relieved. "No offense, but I'd really rather not watch a topless Sophia Loren playing with your nightstick, Pete." He pauses a moment. "Although, I did have a dream one night where we'd stopped this carload of nuns for speeding, and when we got them out of the car, they started doing a striptease act to the song 'Ave Maria,' flinging their wimples, their habits, and their rosaries off, in order to try and get out of the ticket. And boy, I did NOT know that nuns have…"

"Jim," I sigh wearily, interrupting him. "Your point is?"

"Um…it was just kinda funny, that's all. I mean, most guys dream about naughty Catholic school girls, not naughty Catholic nuns. Although, come to think of it, their habits WERE kinda sexy…"

"Jim, please tell me you did NOT call me to tell me about your naughty nun dreams," I say with irritation. "'Cuz if you did, I'm hanging up on you and going back to dreaming about handcuffing Sophia Loren and poking her with my nightstick."

"No," he sighs. "I called about my eggs, Pete."

"What about your eggs?" I ask. "Keeping in mind, I also do NOT want to hear any erotic dreams you've had about Humpty Dumpty. Or all the King's Horses. Or all the King's Men."

"Well…" he hedges. "I kinda need some help coloring them, Pete."

"Can't Jean help you?" I ask.

"Eh…no. Jean stormed out of the house with Jimmy and went to her sister's for awhile. I'm supposed to get the eggs colored and hidden for Jimmy by the time they get back," he says. "Anyway, I was kinda hoping maybe you'd come over and help me out."

"Reed, I'm not leaving my bed, NOR a naughty dream about Sophia Loren on a Sunday morning, just to come over to your house and help you color Easter eggs," I tell him. "Just read the directions on the dye box and do it."

"It's kind of a little more complicated than that, Pete," he says.

"Wait…don't tell me, you need to get the chickens to lay the eggs first, right?" I ask wearily.

"No, no, it's nothing like that," he hastily assures me. "It's just…uh…maybe you'd better come over here and see for yourself."

"What'd you do, color yourself with the dye instead of the eggs?" I ask.

"Pete, PLEASE!" he says in exasperation. "Just…help me out. Come over to the house and help me out. You can think of it as your Easter present to your godson."

"I already gave him a chocolate Easter bunny," I tell him. "Wasn't that good enough?"

"Yeah, it was," he says. "Mighty tasty, too. Thanks, Pete."

"You mean to tell me you ATE my godson's chocolate Easter bunny I got him?" I ask with dismay.

"Just the ears, I swear!" he says. "Anyway, Pete, get over here as soon as you can. I REALLY need your help."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna need it even worse if I get over there and find out I've left my bed and a half-naked Sophia Loren for absolutely no good reason at all," I tell him.

"Trust me," he says. "It's enough of an emergency, I think, to have you leave half-naked Sophia Loren and come help me out. And Sophia would thank you, for being such a good friend to me, too, Pete. Think of that."

"I'd rather think of her playing with my nightstick," I grumble. "I'll be there in a little while, Reed. And so help me God, if this turns out to be something you coulda handled on your own, I swear, I WILL stuff those eggs down your throat until you choke on them."

"Thanks, Pete, you're a pal!" he chirps. "See you in a bit!"

I stare at the handset for a moment before I drop it back into the cradle. "This had better be goddamned good," I mutter to myself, shaking my head and sweeping the sheets aside, clambering out of bed in order to go shower. "I'd better not find out I've left poking Sophia Loren with my nightstick in order to help him with something he coulda solved himself."

It's a relatively good sign when I see that the Reeds' house is still standing as I pull into the driveway. Evidently whatever mischief Idiot Boy has gotten himself into hasn't involved any serious structural damage…yet. I get out of the car and walk up the sidewalk to their front porch, ringing the doorbell.

"Yeah, it's open, Pete, c'mon in!" Jim hollers from somewhere in the house.

I open the screen door and step inside and…

Promptly freeze, my eyes going wide at what I see before me. Five fuzzy little yellow-brown ducklings scurry frantically in single file across the carpeting in front of me, chirping loudly and looking rather lost and forlorn. Hearing demanding peeping noises coming from underneath the coffee table, I bend over to see what it is that is making the shrill noise and am astounded to see a bevy of tiny yellow chickens huddled under there. They dance out on pipe cleaner legs to greet me, but the sight of my shoes sends them fluffling madly back to the safety of the coffee table, peeping and pooping in chicken-y fear. A very large white rabbit hops lazily across the center of the room, his dark eyes scrutinizing me carefully as the ducklings zoom past once more, cheeping and flapping their skinny little wings. They scoot wildly around a cardboard box that is tipped over onto its side in the middle of the living room floor, bits of hay and wood shavings from it scattered out onto the brown shag carpeting. The chicks peek out to watch their brethren zip past before retreating fearfully once more under the coffee table.

I stare at the incredibly odd sight for a moment in slack-jawed astonishment, then I blink, rubbing my eyes with my fists. Am I perhaps hallucinating seeing farm animals running around inside of the Reed family home? Was there something more than just coffee in my Folger's this morning? Or are there truly baby ducklings and chicks, along with a rabbit, hurrying about in the living room?

"Pete, I need your help here in the kitchen," Jim says from the doorway of the kitchen, one of Jean's frilly aprons tied over his jeans and red LAPD sweatshirt. The lacy pink bib of the apron has Jean's name hand-embroidered across the chest in delicate blue script, while the bottom part of it is embroidered with dainty bunches of flowers along the hem and sides. It's the kind of "dress" apron she would wear while cooking in the kitchen for a fancy dinner party, and the frilly pink fabric looks extremely amusing on the tall, lanky frame of Jim Reed.

I study him, my eyebrow quirking up as I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. "Eh…I don't think I'm quite equipped to help you in the way that you so obviously need, Mr. Julia Child," I say, gesturing to the apron. "Are you sure pink is really your color? I had you pegged more as a blue. Or perhaps a green. Or maybe burnt sienna. But I gotta admit, you sure look…ah…interesting in your pretty little apron, partner. Kinda like an ugly transvestite version of Betty Crocker." I smirk at him.

"Crack jokes all you want, Malloy, but if I don't get these eggs colored and hidden, Jean's gonna kill me," he replies dourly.

"Well, at least you can say that you died with your apron on," I tell him wryly. "Too bad I didn't think to bring my camera so I can snap a picture of you like this. And then show it all around the station. My patrol partner, Madame Fifi the French Maid." I snap my fingers. "Not only is he a whiz at writing speeding tickets and chasing burglars, he can also dust, vaccum, do the dishes, AND the laundry!"

"Pete!" he sighs in exasperation. "Are ya gonna help me or are ya gonna stand there and crack wise?"

"Crack wise, of course," I tell him, grinning. Hearing peeping noises again, I glance down in time to see the ducklings scurrying between my feet, chirping wildly, before they zoom around the tipped-over box and nearly collide with the back end of rabbit as they hurry down the hall in the direction of the bedrooms. The rabbit hops lazily after them, completely unconcerned about the near-duckling pileup that just barely missed his fluffy white ass. Shaking my head, I start to ask Jim what's up with the farm animals running amok in his living room, but my erstwhile partner has returned to the kitchen. I cross the living room in order to go see what he needs me to do, the chicks cheeping and shrilling hysterically at my shoes as I pass by their hiding spot under the coffee table. I guess some chicks aren't a fan of Hush Puppies. "So what do you need me to do?" I ask him as I enter the bright, sunny kitchen. He is frantically dropping dye tablets into six bowls of vinegar and water that he has set up on the yellow Formica countertop near the stove, and he ignores me, fairly intent on his task. "Uh…Jim?" I ask politely.

"Yeah?" he says, without looking up, dropping a fizzy disk into the briney solution, where it bubbles, releasing colorful speckles of purple. Other droplets of color freckle the countertop around the bowls he's got set out, testament to the mess he's already started to make in Jean's nice clean kitchen.

"Isn't that Jean's good china you're using there, pal?" I point to the white china bowls with the delicate scrim of gold leaf around the rims and golden chaffs of wheat etched into the bottoms of them…bowls that are NOW turning bright, merry shades of red, blue, purple, orange, yellow, and green.

"Yeah, so? It'll wash out," he says, wiping his hands that are already smudged with dye on his frilly apron, leaving behind streaks of vivid color on the sheer cloth.

"You'd better hope it does, anyway," I comment. "Otherwise Jean will use that cute little apron to strangle you with." I pick up the coloring kit that is lying on the kitchen countertop, reading the directions on the back. In addition to the dye tablets, it also has an opaque transfer sheet of various little decals that you could transfer to the eggshell by placing the sheet over the wettened shell and lightly rubbing it. "Cool," I say, pulling the transfer sheet out of the box and studying it. Some of the decals are just decorative borders you could put on the egg, while others are little smiley faces in the Groucho Marx-like style, with glasses, big nose and moustache. "How many eggs were you planning on coloring and hiding for Jimmy?"

"Four dozen," he says, matter-of-factly. He opens the refrigerator door and pulls out two yellow styrofoam cartons of eggs from a shelf inside, setting them down on the countertop next to him with a thunk. He opens the top carton, the styrofoam squeaking under his hand. "I'm starting off with doing two dozen, and while I'm waiting for them to dry, I thought I'd do the other two dozen."

I quirk my eyebrows in surprise. "FOUR DOZEN?" I ask, shocked at the high number of eggs he's planning to color. "Good lord, are you guys gluttons for devilled eggs or something? I don't think I'd dye THAT many, Jim. You don't have that many places to hide them all, do you?"

"Yeah, well, you are not the brains behind this operation, I am," he informs me rather crisply. "And trust me, I'll get them all hidden." He pulls open one of the kitchen cabinet drawers and removes a spoon, stirring the color solutions in the bowls in order to make sure the dye tablets have all dissovled. He lays the spoon on the counter, the bright driplets of color running off of it and dribbling onto the countertop.

"Well, if you're the brains behind the operation, then why do you need my help?" I ask. "Surely you can do this yourself, can't you? It's not that hard." I point to the coloring kit in my hands. "See, the directions are right on the box and everything. All you hafta do is just follow them."

"Look, Pete," he says tightly. "I've not had a good morning so far. Jean read me the riot act after she found out I didn't get the eggs colored and hidden last night. She was really pissed at me when she left with Jimmy. She said that if I didn't have the eggs dyed and hidden by the time they got back, I'd be sleeping on the couch every night, instead of just last night."

"So why didn't you color and hide them this morning?" I ask. "Surely you could have done a few, couldn't you?"

"No," he says, sighing and shaking his head. "I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because I kinda sorta forgot to pick the cartons of eggs up on my way home from work last night," he admits. "So I had to go this morning after church and get them. And I got the last four cartons on the store shelves, too. I had to fight off a grabby grandma who tried to snatch them from me." He picks up the gold metal dipper from the dye kit and bends it carefully into position. "Punch out the holding holes from the cardboard kit there," he orders me. "That's what I need to stand the eggs in until they're dry."

"I hate to tell you this, but I don't think six holding holes are gonna hold four dozen eggs," I say dryly as I punch the holes out of the cardboard box.

"Of course they will. I'm doing six eggs at a time, and when I get them done, I'll dip them out and put them in the holder to dry while I'm dipping the next batch of six. By the time I get the next batch dyed, the first batch should be dry and ready to move," he says. "Now shut up and start handing me the eggs." He waves the metal dipper at me menacingly.

"You're the boss, Julia Child," I say, shrugging. Picking up the opened styrofoam carton, I start to hand him the eggs, watching as he drops them one by one into the bowls of dye, splashing merry rainbow droplets of colors all over the Formica countertop and Jean's pink lacy apron. When he gets six eggs into all six bowls, he starts gently stirring them around with the metal dipper. I soon tire of watching him, so I pick up an uncolored egg and reach over, turning on the kitchen faucet and dunking it under the stream of cool water. Then I pick up the transfer sheet of faces and gently press it against the damp egg, rubbing across the surface of the eggshell lightly with my thumb, before I peel the transfer sheet away. "Heh heh," I chuckle as I inspect my handiwork. "Pretty cute. They didn't have these when I was a kid."

"Pete, stop playing with the smiley faces," he says. "I think they're supposed to go on the eggs AFTER they've been dyed." He gives me an amused smirk. "And of course they didn't have these when you were a kid. Easter probably hadn't been invented yet."

"Oh, ha ha," I say, rolling my eyes. "Another joke about my age. How original."

"I do hafta ask, Pete," he says, grinning. "What was it like to see Jesus rise from the dead?"

"I dunno," I say. "You can ask Jesus himself what it was like to arise from the dead when Jean strangles you with your apron. Providing I don't strangle you with it first." I pick up another blank egg and wet it down, proceeding to carefully transfer another smiley face onto it. I wiggle it at him. "Here's lookin' at you, egghead," I say, grinning at him.

"Will you STOP!" he says with irritation. "Look, if ya wanna do something, punch out the little feet the eggs are supposed to sit in from the sheet of cardboard inside the box there, okay?"

"Ooh, I can do that," I say, plucking up the box and upending it, dumping the thin sheet of cardboard out into my hand. I gently punch out the little strips of cardboard and fold them carefully, inserting the tabs together so that they'll support the weight of the egg. I plunk one of my smiling eggs upon the little feet, stepping back to study it. "Looks kinda like eggish Groucho Marx," I say.

"Pete, don't be annoying," he says, stirring the eggs in the dye. They roll around in the bowls, clunking lightly against the sides as he turns them with the dipper.

"Who's being annoying?" I ask. "I'm merely amusing myself, that's all. Is there a law against it?"

He shoots me a frown. "When you're supposed to be helping me, yes, there is."

"I AM helping you," I say in exasperation. "There's just not anything for me to do while I'm waiting around for you to ask me to hand you the next batch of eggs, that's all." I peer at the eggs that he's got in the bowls. "Christ, how dark do you wanna dye them anyway?" I ask. "I think they've been in there long enough."

"Hand me the holder to set them in," he orders. When I hand him the cardboard holder, he places it next to him on the countertop, and gently begins to remove the eggs with the metal dipper, gingerly setting them into the place holdings.

"Careful," I warn, watching as they wobble unsteadily on the dipper during transfer. "You don't wanna crack them."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," he says, casting me a sour look as he grabs onto the eggs with his fingers in order to steady them. "Now don't just stand there and look stupid, Pete. Hand me some more eggs to dump into the dye." He holds his palm outstreched wiggling dye-stained fingers at me.

I hand him the two eggs I transferred the faces onto. He plops one into a bowl of orange dye, while he dunks the other into a bowl of green dye. Then I pluck four more eggs from the open carton and hand them to him to dump into the rest of the bowls, too. I pick up the transfer sheet and look it over once more.

"I swear to God, if you transfer another face onto a blank egg, I will stick this dipper where the sun don't shine, Pete," he warns, shaking the dipper at me rather menacingly, scattering droplets of dye all over, including me.

"Ooh, kinky," I reply. So instead of transferring one of the smiley faces onto another egg, I lick the back of my left hand, wetting it down with my spit, and transfer a smiley face onto it, rubbing the transfer sheet across my fist with my thumb. "Hey, look," I say, holding my hand up for Reed to see. "I got a tattoo."

"You'd better hope that washes off, pal," he tells me dryly. "Otherwise, everyone WILL think you have a tattoo of Groucho Marx on your hand."

"Maybe I do," I smirk. "Have a tattoo, I mean."

"Oh, puh-leese," he says, rolling his eyes. "You? Get a tattoo? Yeah, right. And these eggs we're dyeing are from dinosaurs."

"Really?" I ask. "'Cuz I kinda thought dinosaur eggs would be a tad bigger, ya know?"

He casts me a look of curiosity out of the corner of his eye. "So…do you?" he asks casually.

"Do I what?" I reply innocently.

"Have a tattoo?"

"Heh heh," I snicker. "I'll never tell." I give him an enigmatic look.

He studies me for a moment, then he shakes his head, turning his attention back to the task of rolling the eggs around in the dye. "Check and see if the eggs in the holder are dry yet," he tells me.

I touch one gingerly, my fingers coming away wet with red dye. "Eh…no," I say. "They would not be."

"Blow on them," he orders. "Maybe that'll dry them."

I stare at him. "I am NOT blowing on eggs to dry them, pal."

"Then how the hell can I get them to dry faster?" he whines. Snapping his fingers, he looks around. "Oh wait, I have an idea! I'll go get Jean's hairdryer and use that to dry them!"

"Are you KIDDING me?" I snort at the notion. "Jean's hairdryer is one of those bubble-helmet dryers, isn't it? Where in the hell are you gonna set it up? There's really no room for it anywhere here in the kitchen." I grin. "Besides, do you know how stupid it's gonna look to set a bunch of eggs underneath a hairdyer?"

"Crap, you're right," he sighs, rubbing at his forehead with the palm of his hand, leaving behind smudges of color on his skin. "Okay, get into the right upper cabinet by the sink and get down the gigantic wooden bowl that's in there. It should be on a lower shelf. I'll put the wet eggs into that for now."

I reach up and open the cabinet he indicated, pulling out the large wooden salad bowl that Jean uses when she makes salads for large gatherings. I hold it out to him. "Here."

"Just set it down and put the already-dyed eggs into it," he tells me.

"Don't you wanna line the bowl with a paper towel or something?" I ask. "I mean, the eggs are still pretty wet, Jim. They might stain the wood."

"It'll wash out, I keep tellin' you," he says. "Now please, do as I ask you, Pete."

I shrug, setting the bowl down on the countertop. But I hesitate before picking the eggs up, not really wanting to get any dye on my hands.

Reed catches my hesitation. "Now what?" he says with irritation.

"I don't wanna get any more dye on my hands than I absolutely have to," I say. "I have a date tomorrow night, and I don't wanna go looking like I'm the victim of a freak tie-dyeing accident."

"This is coming from someone who already has a smiley face design on the back of his hand," he says, rolling his eyes. With a heavy sigh, he picks the eggs up from the cardboard holder with his fingers and plunks them down into the wooden bowl. "There," he says with an air of finality, shooting me a glare. "You won't get your hands dirty, you big chickenshit. Now do you think you can hand me some more eggs once I get these out of the dye?" He begins to fish the next batch of eggs out of the bowls with the dipper, transferring them gently to the wooden bowl, where they nestle amongst their brightly hued bretheren.

"I guess," I say, opening a fresh carton of eggs and handing him two each, until he's got six dropped into the bowls of dye again. Spotting Jimmy's brightly colored blue and yellow wicker Easter basket on top of the table of the breakfast nook, I wander over to it, picking it up and inspecting it. Nestled within the bright green plastic Easter grass are little color foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, pastel malted milk balls, and a good-sized chocolate Easter bunny. A pair of cellophane wrapped packages of neon pink bunnies and vivid yellow chicks are also tucked within, both packages opened and missing a bunny and chick each. "What are these?" I ask with curiosity, holding the box of pink bunnies aloft.

Reed glances at me over his shoulder. "Those are Peeps," he says. "And if I were you, I wouldn't eat them."

"Why?" I ask, fishing inside the package of bunnies with my fingers. I manage to snag one and pop it into my mouth.

"Because they're pretty gross," he says. "They're basically sugar-coated marshmallow fluff. They're too sweet, even for me."

"Oh great, NOW you tell me," I mutter thickly, running my tongue around the gob of marshmallow fluff that is now stuck to the roof of my mouth, trying not to gag on the sickly sweetness. "Bleah," I say, working the gob of fluff free and swallowing it with a grimace of distaste. "You're right. They ARE pretty disgusting."

"Told you," he snorts, stirring the eggs in the bowls. "But I suppose you had to find out for yourself, didn't you?"

"Of course." I spy an opened package of jelly beans inside the Easter basket and grab them, tipping the bag up, dropping a few jelly beans into my palm. I pop a few into my mouth, hoping to cut the sugar-sweet taste of marshmallow fluff from my tongue. "Looks like my godson got a nice Easter basket from the Easter bunny," I say, chewing ruminatively on the spiced candies.

"Yeah, Jean made it up for him yesterday. In addition to the candy, he also got a big blue stuffed bunny, and a package of Hot Wheels racers, along with a coloring book and some crayons. And you wouldn't happen to be eating his jelly beans, would you?" Reed asks, without turning around.

I stop chewing and swallow rather guiltily, as I shove the bag of jelly beans back into the basket. "Uh…no, I am not." I hastily toss the rest of the handful into my mouth, lest my crime be discovered.

"That's good," he says, his back still to me. "I'd really hate to think that Jimmy's godfather was filching jelly beans from the poor kid."

"Mmgmph," I reply, frantically trying to chew the rather large wad of jelly beans in my mouth. They stick to my teeth in a gooey mass, and I scrape my tongue across them, trying hard to work them loose.

He looks over his shoulder at me. "What's that, Pete?" he asks, turning away from his duties stirring the eggs and approaching me, the dipper still in his hand, color dripping from it onto the floor. "What do you have in your mouth?"

I stop chewing and stare at him. "Um…nuffink," I lie. "Iz sdill da Peep dat I haf in my moud," I say around the dratted lump of jelly beans that refuse to dissolve quickly for me, no matter how hard I try rubbing them with my tongue.

"Oh is it now?" he asks with curiosity. "Funny, but I think the Peeps would melt pretty fast in your mouth. However, jelly beans would not, especially if you were eating a whole gob of them. So are you eating a whole gob of Jimmy's jelly beans, Pete?"

I shake my head, giving Jim my best innocent altar-boy expression, although I was never particularly that innocent when I served as an altar boy. "Idz faldse accoozations," I tell him, finally managing to work free one of the smaller masses of jelly beans and swallow them.

He scrutinizes me carefully. "Then open your mouth, Pete, and show me that you're not eating Jimmy's jelly beans."

"Nuh-uh," I say, shaking my head again as I free the second gummy mass of jelly beans from my teeth with my tongue and swallow them, too. "I'm not opening my mouth unless you you have a search warrant, pal."

He grabs my face with his hand, his fingers pressing into my cheeks. "Is this enough of a search warrant for ya, buddy?" he asks with a smirk.

"Hey, leggo!" I snap through squished fishy lips, grabbing onto his wrist and yanking the fingers that are smooshing into my face away from me. "You've got dye on your hands, you idiot! I don't want it getting on my face!"

He sniffs at me. "Just as I thought," he says, shaking his head. "You have fruity breath, Pete. A clear indicator you've eaten some of Jimmy's candy, and not just the Peep."

"Okay," I reluctantly admit. "So I had a few jelly beans. You ate the ears off of the chocolate Easter bunny I got him, so we're even."

"Oh well," he sighs, returning to his eggs in the bowls of dye. "Jimmy doesn't really like jelly beans all that well, anyway. I was planning on eating them myself."

"Really, now?" I ask with mild curiosity, as I pick up the bag of candy and shake out a few more, popping them into my mouth once again, not feeling guilty in the least for stealing them from Jim. The cellophane crinkles in my hands, giving my act of petty thievery away.

"Pete, drop the candy!" Jim orders, whipping around and pointing to me with the dye-wet dipper, spraying droplets of color all over the nearby cabinets.

"I wasn't doing anything, I swear!" I cry defensively, gesturing to the bag. "I just picked the bag up to look at it and they…they just jumped out of the bag and into my mouth!"

He gives me a dark look. "Do tell," he says.

"I'm innocent, honest!" I tell him, completely deadpan. "It's a conspiracy by the jelly beans to frame me!" I shake two more beans out into my hand, tossing them into my mouth. "SEE?" I say, giving Jim a look of astonishment as I chew them. "You saw that, right? They just hopped out of the bag and into my mouth!"

He sighs, shaking his head wearily. "Ya know, I'm beginning to think I was better off trying to do this by myself," he says, turning away from me and going back to his eggs that are still soaking in the dye.

"Hey," I say, holding my hand up. "As God is my witness, I will never eat another jelly bean again." Then I dump the rest of the bag into my mouth, grinning at him as I chew them. "Afder now, I mean," I say around the glob of candy that is again stuck to the roof of my mouth. Frowning, I work my tongue once more against the sticky lump, trying vainly to free it.

"You know, our dog used to have much the same expression as you do right now, Pete, whenever we'd feed her a blob of peanut butter," Reed remarks, catching sight of my rather intent expression.

"I kinda rezent bein' compared to a dog," I mutter, nearly crossing my eyes in my attempt to extricate the mass of gummy goo from the sides of my teeth and mouth. "An' judst for futcher refrence, id'z nod doo wize to pud a whole hanful ob jelly beanz in your moud."

"I'll keep that in mind, Pete," he smirks. "And in the meantime, your facial calisthenics are pretty amusing to watch." He fishes the current batch of eggs from the dye, plunking them gently into the wooden bowl, then he opens the refrigerator door and pulls out the last two cartons of eggs, setting them on the countertop, leaving behind merry-hued fingerprints on the handle and door of the yellow fridge. "If you can manage to direct your attention to the new batch of eggs, perhaps you could start handing them to me once more." He shoots me a wry look. "That is, provided you can concentrate on chewing your candy and working your hands at the same time."

"Oh, trust me," I tell him, still chewing and chipping away at the blob of jelly beans in my mouth. "I can concentrate on MANY things and still work my hands at the same time." I smirk widely at him as I open the styrofoam carton of eggs. "Just ask any of my girlfriends how well I am at accomplishing just that."

"It's not hard to do when it's pretty single-minded," he smirks back. "And I know how your mind works, Pete. When it's something like that, it's not hard for you to focus all your energies on it."

"Energies, hell," I snort, handing him a couple of eggs to dunk. "I devote my entire body and all five senses to the pursuit of that delightful little pleasure." I glance into the wooden bowl that contains the already-dyed eggs. "I still say four dozen is WAY too many eggs to color," I say, handing him a couple more to color. "Two dozen is plenty. You'll be eating eggs until Christmas." I glance into the wooden bowl once more, eyeing his handiwork with a small frown. "Hey, you DO realize that the colors are dripping onto one another in the bowl, dont'cha?"

"I do, and right now, I really don't care," he says. "I just need to get these done before Jean comes home."

"Then for God's sake, stop at two dozen," I tell him. "That's plenty, I assure you. I'm sure Jimmy will be very happy with what you've gotten colored so far."

"Gimmie some more eggs," he says, holding his hand out and wiggling his brightly colored fingers at me. "I've got four dozen eggs, and I'm DOING four dozen eggs, so that's final." He takes the last two eggs that I hand him, dropping them into the bowls, splashing droplets of blue and green up onto me.

"Hey, watch it," I snap. "You're getting dye on me."

He shrugs. "Payback for stealing the jelly beans I was gonna eat."

"Do you want them back?" I offer. "I still have some of them stuck to my teeth."

"Eh…no," he says hastily. "Think I'll pass. Pre-chewed candy isn't my idea of a treat."

"Can I ask you a question?" I inquire, rubbing at the spots of green and blue that freckle my arms. The color smears on my skin, leaving streaks and coloring my fingertips blue and green. I eye them with mild dismay, silently hoping that Reed is right, the dye will wash off.

"Yeah, I guess," he says, stirring the eggs in the dye with the dipper.

"You ARE aware of the chicks, the ducks, and the rabbit that are…"

"Yes, I AM aware of the chicks, the ducks, and the rabbit in my living room," he informs me crisply, plucking the dyed eggs out with the dipper and plunking them into the wooden bowl. "C'mon, keep the eggs coming, pal," he urges.

"Eh…I don't think they're exactly confined to your living room anymore," I tell him as I hand him more eggs.

He gives me a puzzled look. "Huh?"

"Well, the last time I saw the ducklings, they were headed down the hallway to the bedrooms," I tell him. "The rabbit was hopping around in your living room, while the chicks were staked out underneath your coffee table, looking pretty freaked out."

"Sonofabitch!" he snaps in frustration. "I was hoping they'd go back to the box!"

"Just kinda curious, partner," I say. What are you doing with livestock like that in the first place? I mean, they don't exactly make the best of housepets, ya know."

He sighs, rubbing at his forehead with a dye-stained hand, leaving behind even more streaks of color on his face. "The neighbor next door brought them over for Jimmy to see. He has an uncle that owns a farm, and the neighbor borrowed the chicks, ducks, and rabbit from him, thinking that Jimmy would enjoy seeing them."

"Okay," I nod. "Sounds plausible. But why didn't they go BACK with the neighbor?"

"Because when he brought them over, Jean had already stormed out of here with Jimmy, so he wasn't here to see 'em," Reed explains. "I had him set the box in the living room, so that Jimmy could see them when Jean brought him back. I wanted to surprise them."

I cock my head. "Jean and Jimmy or the farm animals?" I ask.

He shoots me a deadly glare. "The eggs, Pete," he says in a low tone.

I study him for a moment. "Well, I don't think the eggs will be all that surprised, considering that they're…well…eggs, but you can bet that Jean will be surprised to return home and find that she's suddenly married to the Farmer In The Dell. I can just imagine her expression when she sees several little Lucky Duckies and Chicken Littles running amok in her house, not to mention an extra-large Peter Rabbit hopping about." I point to his forehead. "By the way, you kinda got a little dye there, pal."

"Pete," he says warningly, rubbing at his forehead once more, leaving behind more streaks of color on his face. "Knock it off!"

"What?" I ask. "I'm merely pointing out the fact that you're beginning to resemble an Easter egg yourself. So tell me, how exactly did the critters escape from their box?"

"They got loose," he sighs in exasperation. "Does that satisfy your curiosity now?"

I eye him with avid interest. "No, not really. In fact, it piques it even more. Whaddaya mean they got loose? Weren't they pretty much contained to the box that the neighbor brought them over in?"

"Yes," he nods, fishing the next round of colored eggs out of the bowls of dye and plopping them into the wooden bowl. The eggs within the bowl are beginning to look like a multi-hued mess, like all 64 colors of the Crayola box has exploded in there in a tragic melting accident.

"Were they still in the box when the neighbor set them down in the middle of your living room?" I ask.

"Of course they were," he snaps. "Where else would they be?"

"Well, that's actually a really good question to ask for right now," I muse. "Considering that they're pretty much running god-knows-where in your house. But what I can't figure out is how they got free in the first place."

"They got away from me," he says through clenched teeth. "Now are you happy? They got away from me."

"So how'd they get away from you?" I ask. "I mean, I've seen you chase down human suspects that were WAY faster and WAY more steadier on their feet than those little cheeping fluffs of cottonball with toothpick legs happen to be." Catching his sour grimace and gritted teeth, it hits me then how the animals wound up getting loose. "Oh…" I say, nodding slowly with understanding. "I get it now, Reed. You just HAD to see them, so you took them out of the box, right?"

He clinks the egg dipper against one of the bowls, slopping green dye onto the countertop. "No," he says angrily, shaking his head. "I only took ONE chickie and ONE duckie out to play with. The rabbit and the rest of 'em made a break for it when I accidentally knocked the box over. I left it tipped over, hoping they'd return to it on their own."

I stare at him. "Play with them?" I ask with a snort of laughter. "You took a duckie and a chickie out to PLAY with them? Aren't you getting a little too old for shit like that?"

"Damn it, Pete, never mind that! Just give me a couple of more eggs!" he snaps angrily.

So I do, grabbing two from the carton and smacking them firmly into his palm and…

They promptly break, the sunshiney yolks dripping through his fingers in a gooey, goopy mess, slithering over the countertop and slopping down to the floor. The two of us stare in wide-eyed horror at the runny puddle on the pale yellow linoleum, the egg whites still dripping snotlike from Jim's hand, mixing with the broken yolks and bits of eggshell on the floor.

I clear my throat, finally breaking the silence. "Uh…didn't you cook them before we started dyeing them?" I ask.

He shook his head sadly, still staring at the mess at his feet. "No, I didn't know I was supposed to."

I eye him. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to cook 'em before you dye 'em."

"Can this day get ANY worse?" he mutters, snatching a handful of paper towels from the holder atop the counter and wiping his hands off with them. He bends down and begins to wipe up the gooey mess of eggs. "Don't just stand there," he snarls, shooting me a dirty look. "Grab the garbage can and help me, Malloy."

I grab a wad of paper towels myself, snagging the garbage can from next to the fridge, and I kneel down to help him. "Should I go tell the chicks?" I ask solicitously, watching as he scoops up the mess into a paper towel with rather nimble precision, making me wonder if he's had previous experience in cleaning up broken eggs from the kitchen floor.

He gives me a puzzled frown. "Tell the chicks what?" he asks, dumping the egg snot into the garbage can.

"That you just murdered two of their relation," I say, gesturing to the boogery ick that lingers on the floor.

"Honest to God, Pete, I swear, you really take the cake sometimes," he mutters, shaking his head.

"If I take the cake, can I have it and eat it, too?" I ask hopefully. "Cuz really, I'm getting kinda hungry. Jelly beans and a single Peep aren't that filling, ya know."

"Sure," he grumbles. "Take it, have it, eat it, wear it as a hat, I really don't care right now." He tosses the paper towels into the garbage can with a slimy plop. He takes the fresh paper towels I hand him, scrubbing at the floor to make sure he has gotten all of the goopy mess up. "There," he says, nodding. "I think I got most of it." He stands up, going over to the kitchen sink and washing his hands off.

Straightening up, I put the garbage can back where it belongs. "What about the eggs?" I ask.

He shrugs. "What about 'em?"

"Idiot Boy, ya hafta BOIL 'em before you can do anything more with them," I explain with a sigh. "You don't wanna be hiding raw eggs for Jimmy to find, do you?"

He thinks for a moment. "No, I suppose not." He bends down and opens a lower cabinet door, pulling out a large metal cooking pot, leaving behind brightly colored fingerprints on the wooden cabinet door. Sticking the silver pot under the kitchen tap, he runs some water in it, then carries it sloshing over to the stove, placing it on a front burner. He turns the burner on, the blue flame licking merrily up over the bottom of the pot, as he leaves behind more colored fingerprints on the burner knob.

"Um…you might wanna turn that burner back a bit," I advise. "You don't wanna…"

"Look, Pete," he says, interrupting me. "Don't tell me what I wanna or don't wanna do. What I HAFTA do is get these eggs cooked and fast. Jean's liable to be home any minute now, and I don't want her to find out that I've not gotten the eggs colored and hidden." He nods to the bowl of drippy colored eggs. "Now then, start handing me eggs so I can dump 'em into the water."

"You might at least put a bit more water in the pan," I tell him. "You don't want them boiling dry."

"Oh, for Chrissakes," he says, rolling his eyes. "They're not gonna boil dry, trust me. And so what if they do? It's not like they're actually gonna catch on fire or anything."

"You hope," I say dryly. "However, they MIGHT explode."

"Pete, just start handing me the eggs," he orders, ignoring my advice and zipping the burner light up a bit higher. "So I can dunk 'em into the water and get 'em cooking."

"Uh…" I hedge uneasily, eyeing the blue flame and the bowl of wet eggs with trepidation. "I don't wanna touch 'em. They're still wet yet. And aren't you worried the dye will wash off in the boiling water?"

"The dye will be fine in the water, I'm sure," he says, giving me a dark scowl as he reaches for the bowl of eggs. "You know, you certainly aren't being much help here, pal." Plucking the eggs up in his fingers, he begins to drop them into the water, the eggs clunking against the side of the pan.

"Whaddaya expect?" I say with resignation, gingerly plucking up a couple of eggs myself and dropping them with a plop into the water. "You woke me up from a THOROUGHLY pleasant dream about topless Sophia Loren playing with my nightstick, in order to help you dye and hide eggs."

"Stop thinking of yourself, Pete," he admonishes archly. "This is for your godson, after all."

I stare at him. "You want my opinion, Jim? I think Jimmy's too young yet to care whether he has eggs hidden for him or not. He's actually liable to try eating them, to be honest with ya."

"Which is why I need to cook 'em before I hide 'em," he replies. "I don't want my son to get that sam disease."

"What sam disease?" I ask with confusion.

"Jesus, Pete, are you dumb?" he asks with exasperation. "That disease that makes you really sick to your stomach…sam and something?"

"Oh, you mean SALMONELLA!" I say in understanding. "Yeah, I don't want my godson getting that from raw eggs."

"I told you it was sam and something," he replies. He looks into the pot that is half-filled with colored eggs. "I don't think I should put any more eggs in there for now, so I'll let this batch of 'em cook and do the rest when they're done." He looks at me a bit crossly. "But we DO have them all dyed, right?"

"Right," I nod. "We've got them all dyed. Now you just need to get 'em cooked and hidden."

"I think this calls for a beer," he says, opening the refrigerator door. He reaches in, grabbing a couple of amber bottles of Heineken, closing the refrigerator door and leaving behind another lovely set of rainbow-colored fingerprints on the handle and the yellow door. He opens the kitchen drawer and pulls out a bottle opener, uncapping one of the bottles and handing it to me. As I lean back against the counter and take a swig of it, he uncaps his own, tossing the bottle opener that is now dotted with his dyed fingerprints on it back into the drawer. He pulls out a slotted spoon next and stands over the pot of eggs on the stove, stirring them gently, his beer in his other hand.

"So…" I ask contemplatively. "What do you plan to do with 46 eggs once Jimmy finds them?"

"Oh, I'll have Jean make devilled eggs outta them, or egg salad sandwiches," he says. "Eww," he grimaces, stopping his stirring. He motions to me with his bottle of beer. "C'mere and look at this, Pete."

"Do I really wanna?" I ask warily as I approach and lean over the pot of eggs with a frown. "What, I don't see anything."

"There," he says, pointing with the spoon to one of the smiley-faced eggs I decorated earlier. "That's disgusting."

I study the egg, the little smiley face grinning up at me as it jostles merrily amongst the other eggs in the pot of water that is just starting to bubble. "It's…it's staring at me," I say in a low tone.

"I KNOW!" he says with irritation. "It's gross!"

"It's an egg jacuzzi!" I tell him, snapping my fingers. "A little eggy hot-tub!"

He closes his eyes, shaking his head. "And I arose from the dead for THIS?" he murmurs.

"Hey, if anyone arose from the dead today, pal, it was me!" I say with irritation. "I gave up…"

"Yes, I know," he says, holding a brightly dyed palm up to stop me. "You left a nekkid Sophia Loren to come help me out. But I kinda think I might've been better off going this on my own, Pete. You haven't been a big help to me at all. All you've done is crack silly jokes and eat my jelly beans, not to mention break a couple of my eggs in my hand and make a mess on my floor."

"Well, SOR-RY!" I huff, glaring at him. "I was gonna offer to help you round up your stray chicks and ducks, but maybe you'd like to try corralling them yourself!"

"Oh SHIT!" he says, slapping his forehead with his hand, his eyes going wide with surprised rememberance of the farm animals still moseying around in his house. "That's right! We'd better catch them before Jean gets home!" He plunks the spoon and his bottle of beer back onto the counter and wipes his hands on Jean's apron, starting towards the kitchen doorway.

"Hey, you DO know that you've managed to dye your forehead all six of the colors you were using, don't you?" I ask, setting my beer down on the breakfast nook table and following behind him as we re-enter the living room.

"I keep telling you, it'll wash off," he assures me. He holds up Jean's apron by an edge. "I mean, if I didn't think it would wash out, I wouldn't have used the apron Jean's mother made for her sixteenth birthday, would I?"

"I dunno, you had no qualms about using her good china to put the dye in," I point out. "Plus you've left a helluva mess in the kitchen, with dye all over the countertops and just about everything else we've touched."

"I'll worry about that in a bit. And besides, you've gotten some dye on your own face, too, pal," he says.

"Yeah, thanks to you getting your grabby hands on my face," I say in annoyance. "And I'm tellin' ya, this crap had better wash off, 'cuz I'm not going on a date looking like an Oompa-Loompa."

"I only put my grabby hands on you 'cuz you stole my jelly beans," he says. He looks around the living room, searching for the runaway Chicken Littles and Lucky Duckies. "Maybe they all went back inside the box, huh?" he says, giving me a hopeful grin.

In response, the long, low-slung coffee table starts cheeping hysterically again. "And maybe not," I say. "Unless, of course, you've got a cheap coffee table." I grin. "Get it? Cheep…cheap?"

"I do," he groans, rolling his eyes. "And it was a terrible pun, believe me." He gets down on the floor on his hands and knees and looks under the table. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing that the chicks are still under here," he sighs. "Get on the other side of the coffee table and I'll try to head 'em your way. When you grab 'em, just plunk 'em back into the box, okay?" He reaches over, righting the tipped-over cardboard box that the animals came in.

"Hey, who said I wanted to be the head chicken wrangler here?" I ask, getting down on my hands and knees on the floor at the opposite side of the table. "What the hell's wrong with you just reaching under there and grabbing them yourself, pally?"

"I've got more dye on my hands than you do, Pete," he says. "And while it's supposed to be non-toxic, I'm not too sure that it wouldn't harm the critters if it got on them. And I'd be mighty upset if I accidentally killed one of 'em that way." He shrugs, shooting me a smirk. "And besides, like follows like. You're being a birdbrain, Pete, so it stands to reason they'd come to you."

"Oh, har-de-har-har," I say sourly, shooting him a glare. I peer under the coffee table at the five fuzzy yellow cotton balls that peer back at me with bright little oildrop eyes. They study me with avian interest, cheeping at me with curiosity, cocking their fuzzy little heads as they gaze at me. "Eh…they ARE kinda cute," I admit. "Okay, start shooing 'em my way and I'll grab them."

"SHOO!" Jim suddenly shouts at them, smacking his hand against the dark brown shag carpeting, making dust fly up into his face. "SCAT!" he says, then promptly sneezes loudly.

And then I get to find out exactly HOW cute the little baby chicks are, as they hurtle pell-mell towards my face, cheeping in chicken panic and flapping their tiny wings frantically in an effort to escape from the big noisy idiot at the other end of the table, their little toothpick legs sending them surging towards me in a weeble-wobbly fashion. "YARGH!" I shriek, jerking my head up to escape the mad wave of frightened yellow cotton balls that is rapidly running at me at a full teetery tilt. I crack my head on the edge of the coffee table and let out a yelp of pain. "Goddamnit!" I snap, wincing and rubbing the back of my head with my hand. "That hurt!"

AH-CHOO! Jim sneezes, rubbing his nose with his hand, leaving a streak of dye across his nostrils and upper lip. "Damn it, Pete, you were supposed to catch 'em, not let 'em get away!" he tells me, glaring at me from over the top of the coffee table.

"What in the hell was I supposed to catch 'em with?" I demand angrily. "My mouth? If a chicken is gonna pass beyond my lips, it had damned well better be fried or baked beforehand!"

"You mean to tell me you're scared of a few little baby chickens, you chickenshit?" he says.

"When they're trying to escape up my nose, yeah!" I snap back. "Need I remind you of the turkey at Macy's? And how you shrieked and cowered in fear when it flew at you?"

"That was a full-grown turkey, Pete," he says. "These are basically dandelion fluff with spindly legs. They AREN'T gonna hurt you."

"Yeah, well, I'd really rather not find out," I say. "I don't wanna be the first person to undergo surgery in order to remove a chicken from his nostril."

"You're gonna be undergoing surgery in order to remove my foot from your ass," he tells me in a warning tone. "If we don't get these stupid animals caught before Jean gets home." He looks around. "So where in the hell did they disappear to so fast?"

As if to answer, the couch begins peeping, the chicks evidently having sought hasty shelter beneath the green and blue floral print davenport. "Oh Christ," he mutters, eyeballing the rather large couch. "That thing is a bitch to move."

"You know, it woulda been wiser if the neighbor had brough over something a bit bigger to catch, like a maybe lamb," I say, propping my elbows up on the coffee table.

"His uncle didn't have lambs," he says. "And besides, I wouldn't have been able to bring a lamb into the house."

"You brought the chicks, ducks and rabbit in," I point out.

"Yes, but they were in a box," he says.

"Yeah, until some idiot decided to take them out to play with," I reply.

"I didn't take them all out, I only took one of each out," he says tightly. "I told you, the rest of them made a break for it when I knocked the box over."

"Why'd you knock the box over anyway?" I ask. "Did you…"

"I bumped it with an elbow when I was trying to put the baby chick I was holding in my hand back into the box," he interrupts. "And since I know you're gonna ask me why I was putting the chick back into the box, it was because it pooped in my hand." He jabs an index finger at me. "And don't start laughing, either. It's not that funny. It was kinda gross."

"I'm not laughing," I say, biting the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from doing just that. A minor snort escapes from my nose, though, despite my efforts to keep my amusement at a minimum. "If a single chicken did that in your hand, imagine what they've done under your coffee table and now your couch," I snicker.

"Don't tell me," he sighs, slowly standing up. "Let's go see if we can find where the ducklings and the rabbit have gotten to."

I stand up with a groan, not being accustomed to kneeling like that. "Fine," I say, rubbing at my sore knees. "We'll split up and look for 'em."

"Right," he says, starting down the hallway, while I follow behind him. "I'll take Jimmy's room and the bathroom, while you take the guest bedroom and the master bedroom, okay? If you find either of them, try and grab them. And for God's sake, don't let them get away."

"Got it," I tell him, the two of us parting ways as he ducks into Jimmy's room, while I duck into the guest bedroom. I poke about in the closet, finding nothing but boxes labelled 'out-of-season clothes'. I bend over to look under the bed, lifting up the frilly dust ruffle that matches the delicate rose-patterned bedspread, peering underneath it for any sign of the ducklings or the rabbit. I see none, and since there's nowhere else in the room they could be hiding, I step back out into the hallway, closing the door behind me so they can't try to escape into the room when we do find them. "They're not in the guest room," I call out as I glance into Jimmy's room, looking for Jim. I spy him rooting around in Jimmy's toybox, his ass stuck up in the air. "What in the hell are you doing?" I ask sharply. "We're supposed to be looking for the ducks and the rabbit, not playing with Jimmy's toys."

"I'm not playing with Jimmy's toys," he says, his voice muffled by the toybox. Keeping the lid open with one hand, he surfaces, holding up something in his fingers. "Look," he says with obvious dismay, wiggling it at me. "Just look at this, Pete."

I frown, studying it. "Eh…what is it?" I ask.

"It's that plastic glowing minnow that I bought awhile back and used when we went fishing the last time, remember?" he says. "The hook broke off when I snagged it on that chunk of rotted log, and I put it back in my tacklebox in order to replace the hook on it."

"Yeah, so?" I ask, shrugging. "What's it doing in Jimmy's toybox?"

"That's what I'D like to know," he says. "And I'd also like to know how in the hell he even got into my tacklebox in the first place." He sets the plastic minnow on the floor next to him, turning back to the toybox. "Jesus Christ," he mutters, diving in to rummage some more, the lid closing gently on his head and shoulders. "I wonder how much else of my stuff he's got buried in here." He surfaces again, this time holding a spoon aloft. "Look at this!" he exclaims, shaking his head. "One of Jean's decorative spoons from her Spoons of the World collection. What in the hell is my kid doing here? Turning into some kinda little sneak thief or something?"

"Spoons of the world?" I ask with a twitch of laughter. "Um…all I can say is…why?"

"Jean's mom started her on the hobby a long time ago," he sighs. "Don't ask any further." He studies the spoon with a frown. "Where in the hell is Latvia anyway? It sounds more like a pastry instead of a country."

"Beats the hell outta me," I say, shrugging. "Somewhere in Europe, I guess." I lean against the doorframe. "Look, are you gonna help me find the ducks and the rabbit or are you gonna root through Jimmy's toybox to find out what else he's pilfered from you?"

"Yeah, I'll be along in a minute," he says, diving back into the toybox once more, his butt wiggling high in the air. "Go ahead and keep searching for them, Pete. If you find them, let me know." His butt stops wiggling. "Sonofabitch!" it exclaims loudly. "My Archie comic book! And my super Nerf ball! That goddamned kid! I'll wring his little neck for him!"

Shaking my head, I leave him to his archaeology dig into the ancient depths of James Reed Jr.'s toybox, heading further down the hallway to search for the rabbit and the ducks. I glance into the bathroom, not finding them in there, so I pull the door shut, and head to the master bedroom that Jim and Jean share. I hesitate, pausing in the doorway, rather uncomfortable at entering the domain of my partner and his wife, the room where they not only sleep, but also where they get intimate. "Here, duckies," I call softly from the doorway. "Here, bunny." I take a wary step into the room, the sunshine poking in through the window shining across the blue-diamond-patterned quilt on the queen-sized bed. A frilly dust ruffle in white eyelet cotton is along the bottom of the bed frame, while matching pillows adorned with lace and sequins are plumped against the oak headboard. I nervously scan the room, searching for any sign of the ducklings or the rabbit, my eyes landing on Jean's white wooden vanity along one wall, the top of the vanity loaded with her cosmetics and other feminine doodads. I cautiously cross over to it, carefully bending down to peer underneath it, finding nothing. Frustrated, I straighten back up, looking around once more, attuning my ears to any possible peep, chirp, or other noise that would indicate their presence within this room. "C'mon little guys, come out wherever you are," I call softly again, feeling like a complete idiot for calling to farm animals. "Here duckies, here bunny."

I'm rewarded by a faint peeping noise coming from the closet. A wave of relief washes over me as I cross the room to the partially opened door, pulling it open the rest of the way in order to look inside. "There you are!" I exclaim as I spot the five little yellow-brown ducklings, all cowering under a small pile of dark blue satiny material. They peer up at me with dark little eyes, cheeping and shivering miserably in fear. "It's okay," I softly reassure them as I kneel down on the floor. "I'm not gonna hurt you little guys, I just need to catch you, okay?" I reach a gentle hand out for them and they flinch away from me, burrowing en masse into the pile of shiny material, shrinking fearfully from my hands as if I'm the duckling version of a boogeyman. Sighing, I start to pick up the piece of cloth they're huddling into so I can snag them and…

I promptly drop the shiny material in wide-eyed horror, drawing my hand back with a sharp gasp as I realize what it is I have just touched with my fingertips. The ducklings wiggle and chirp in confusion from underneath what happens to be Jean's lacy teddy in midnight blue satin. "Oh my god," I moan, closing my eyes and shaking my hand vigorously like I've got the cooties, my face burning red hot with embarrassment. "I…I touched…"

"You touched what, Pete?" Jim asks from the doorway.

Startled, I jump nearly out of my skin at the sound of his voice. "Jesus Christ, you scared the crap outta me!" I hiss at him.

"Sorry," he says. "So what did you touch, Pete?"

"I…I touched Jean's…um…you know…" I hoarse out.

He frowns in puzzlement. "No, I don't know, Pete."

"Her…her nightie!" I stammer, pointing to the closet with a horrified expression.

"Oh, the flannel one?" he asks, shrugging. "So? Surely you've seen a flannel nightgown before, haven't ya, Pete?"

I draw a hand down my face in exasperation. "No, you idiot!" I say. "Her lace teddy! I touched her lace teddy, Reed! And completely by accident, too, I swear!"

"Oh," he says, nodding. Then his eyes go wide as he realizes what nightie I'm talking about. "OH!" he exclaims. "So THAT'S where it went the other night! We were both wondering. I kinda flung it off of me in my haste to…um…well…you know," he blurts out.

I hold my hand up, closing my own eyes, trying to hard to sear the highly unwanted image of my partner, his wife, and her little lace teddy out of my mind. "Say no more. And spare me the further details, too. I'd REALLY rather not know, partner." Then one of his sentences replays itself back in my mind and I open one eye, squinting at him curiously. "Uh…don'tcha mean you flung it off of her in your haste to do…you know?" I ask cautiously, opening my other eye to scrutinize him.

He studies me for a moment in contemplation, chewing on his lower lip. "Oohhkkaaayy," he slowly drawls out, nodding. "We can certainly go with that phrase, if you want."

I stare at him, my mouth dropping open in shock as I realize his implication. "Oh dear Lord, please tell me…"

"Look," he says hastily, holding his hands up. "All I can say is this, Pete. When you've been married for as long as Jean and I have, you kinda need to…ah…mix things up in the bedroom, so to speak."

"So…so you…ah…wear…um?" I stammer, trying hard to maintain my composure in the face of the little shocker he's just revealed to me. An image of virile and manly Jim Reed prancing about in a midnight blue lacy teddy flashes into my mind and my resolve promptly crumbles. I begin to snort a little with laughter as I look up at him, my mouth twitching with a barely-suppressed grin. "I mean…you? You wear Jean's…"

"Yes!" he snaps, glaring at me as he blushes a furious bright red. "Once in a great while! And there's nothing wrong with that, either, damn it! It's…it's perfectly normal to want to explore…ah…different aspects in a marriage!"

"If you say so!" I choke out. Then I collapse against my knees, howling with laughter, my fist pounding the carpeting with hysteria.

"I swear to God, if you tell anyone about this, I WILL KILL YOU, Pete!" he hisses angrily, his eyes narrowed to slits as he regards my display of hooting laughter.

"Ooh, you gonna strangle me with your lacy teddy, Mr. Happy Hooker?" I snort, my shoulders shaking with hilarity. "Or maybe your pretty little apron?"

"This ISN'T funny!" he snaps, stamping his foot on the floor. "Stop laughing, damn it!"

"Tell me, do you also wear Jean's other underthings, like her bra and girdle?" I gasp, tears of mirth streaming down my face. "Or perhaps her garter belt and stockings?"

"Damn it, Pete, shut UP!" he snarls.

"All I can say partner, is if the nightie fits, wear it!" I chortle wickedly, cackling with hysteria. "I mean, who'd a thunk…" I can't finish my sentence though, as I'm overcome by another wave of giggles.

"Yeah, well, take this!" he growls, snatching up Jean's pink powder puff from atop the vanity and throwing it hard at me.

I have chosen that moment to raise my head to look at him, and I end up getting smacked squarely in the head with the pink powderpuff, the white powder upon it exploding all over my face, coating me quite liberally in a cloud of sickly-sweet White Shoulders. I sneeze loudly as Reed begins giggling at my predicament.

"Heh heh," he chortles. "Now how's it feel to be laughed at, pally? Not so great, is it?"

I sneeze again, my eyes tearing up. I rub at my face with my hands, trying to swipe the cloyingly sweet powder off of me. "Christ," I choke. "That wasn't very nice, Reed." I sneeze a third time.

"Sure it is," he giggles. "You look like a redheaded geisha girl, Malloy."

I dig in my pocket and pull out my handkerchief, blowing my nose mightily into it. "You jackass," I mutter, rubbing at my face and eyes with the cotton handkerchief. "You coulda gotten powder in my eyes." I pick up the pink powderpuff and chuck it back at him. He catches it in an explosion of white powder all over his hands. "I found the ducklings," I say, jerking a thumb at the closet. "They're hiding under your lacy teddy, pal."

"Great," he says, putting the powderpuff back onto the vanity top. "Let's catch 'em. You shoo 'em outta the closet and head 'em my way. I'll scoop 'em up before they get out the door."

"I don't think that's such a great idea," I say, sniffling a little yet from the powder assault and trying not to sneeze again. "Remember it didn't work too well with the chickens. And I thought you were worried about getting dye on them."

"It woulda worked, had you maintained your position on the other side of the coffee table," he says, getting down on his knees in the bedroom doorway. "Instead, you literally chickened out at the sight of a few little balls of yellow fluff coming at you and broke your position. And right now, I could really care less if I DO get dye on them, as long as we get them caught."

"Hey, pal," I warn, jabbing an index finger at him. "YOU try maintaing YOUR cool when those chicks decide to re-enact a scene from Hitchcock's 'The Birds'."

"Just try it my way," he sighs. "We need to get these stupid critters caught." He gives me a nod as he holds his hands out wide on either side of him. "Okay, shoo 'em out, Pete. I'm ready."

Reaching into the closet with a grimace of supreme distaste, I gingerly pluck the lacy blue teddy off of the fuzzy ducklings, who are still cowering in fear beneath it, chirping softly. Their little webbed feet scrabble for purchase as the satiny cloth slips away from them, revealing them, and as I quickly toss the teddy into a nearby wicker clothes basket, they suddenly decide to make a break for it, shooting past me in a panicked, fluffy blur of brown and yellow fuzz. Their webbed feet scamper in unison as they scurry around me in a mass of moving ducklings, flapping downy little wings, chirping frantically as they dart, not towards Jim like intended, but under the bed, seeking solace underneath the frilly dust ruffle. I hear muffled thuds as they all slam into the boxes that are under the bed, effectively stopping their hasty flight. I wince in sympathy at the startled cheeps of surprise.

"I said shoo them TOWARDS me, Pete," Jim say crossly. "Not under the bed." He crawls on all fours to the bed with a heavy sigh, lifting up the dust ruffle and peering beneath it. "Well," he says, turning his head to look over at me. "The good news is, I found the rabbit under here, too."

"And the bad news?" I ask warily, sliding the closet door shut.

"He's back in the farthest corner under the bed, hiding behind the boxes and eating one of Jean's shoes," he informs me. "We'll likely end up moving the bed out to get at him, 'cuz he's tucked behind those boxes pretty good."

"But we'd better catch the ducklings, first, 'cuz you don't wanna squish 'em," I say.

"Yeah, I know," he says, thinking for a moment. "Okay, I think I can shoo them out, they're hiding behind a couple of boxes, but they're not back under the bed too far. So it should be fairly easy to get them out."

"Let me guess," I say. "I'm supposed to catch them as you shoo them out, right?"

"You got it, Geisha Pete," he says, nodding. "Get in the doorway and grab them as they run towards you. And DO NOT freak out at them coming at you, either. They're not re-enacting a scene from 'The Birds'."

"Have you ever actually SEEN the movie 'The Birds'?" I ask, crawling on my hands and knees across the beige shag carpet in order to go position myself in the doorway so I can catch the wayward ducklings. "It's pretty scary. You'll never look at a parakeet the same way again."

Reed ignores me and begins to root around underneath the bed, shifting and moving boxes about, sliding them across the carpeting in order to shoo the ducklings out. "C'mon," he mutters, his butt wiggling in the air. "Stop trying to duck me, you stupid ducks." The ducklings peep and shrill as they evade him.

"You know, speaking of ducks, how come Donald Duck wore a sailor blouse but no pants, while Mickey Mouse wore pants but no shirt," I muse contemplatively. "And what the hell was up with Goofy, too? I mean, was he supposed to be a talking dog or a really ugly guy?"

Reed's butt stops wiggling and he pulls his head out from underneath the bed to look at me with clear dismay on his face. "You know, you ask some of the DUMBEST questions, Pete. How the hell should I know why Donald never wore pants, while Mickey never wore shirts, and whatever the hell Goofy was supposed to be?" He returns to rooting beneath the bed once more, the sound of cardboard sliding across the carpeting being drowned out by shrill duckling chirps.

"But haven't you ever kinda wondered?" I ask. "About stuff like that?"

"No," he says. "I don't." Then he hesitates. "Well, maybe sometimes I do. But right now, I'm seriously beginning to wonder about YOU, Pete."

"Funny, I was thinking likewise about you," I comment dryly. "Can't you get those ducklings corralled?" I sigh.

"I am working on it!" his butt snips at me. "The little buggers keep shying away from me, though."

I spy Jean's curling iron atop her vanity and I pick it up with idle curiosity, hefting it about in my hands while waiting for Jim to shoo the ducklings my way. Suddenly, a wave of naughty impishness washes over me and I eye Jim's wiggling butt with mischevious glee. And while I really should know better, I simply can't resist pulling my next truly wicked move as I thrust the rounded end of the curling iron out, jabbing him right in the ass cheek with it.

And two things happen almost simultaneously. Jim yelps in shock and surprise at the sudden attack on his ass by the curling iron, jerking his head up and banging the back of it hard on the underside of the bedframe, while at the same time, the ducklings shoot out from under the bed, merrily zipping past me in a cheeping, chirping fluffle that is moving so fast that had I blinked, I woulda missed them. Momentarily surprised by their unexpected, web-footed zigzag around me, I stare over my shoulder at them as they hurryscurry back down the hallway in retreat to the living room. And when I turn back around, I see Jim staring at me through dangerously slitted eyes, hand rubbing the back of his head with a murderous expression on his face, and I immediately decide it might be wise to join the ducklings in their flight myself, hastily dropping the curling iron to the floor and leaping to my feet, with Jim fairly hot on my heels as I flee into the living room myself in the vain hope of making it to the safety of my car outside, so that Jim can't strangle me with his little pink apron.

"GODDAMN YOU, PETE!" he roars as he chases after me down the hallway to the living room. "YOU MADE ME HIT MY HEAD!"

"I couldn't help it!" I yelp back as I flee. "It was just too damned tempting!"

The chicks, meanwhile, have popped out from their hiding place under the couch and are huddled in the middle of the living room floor, trying to see just what all the commotion is about. And at the sight of their fellow chirping fowl hurtling madly right towards them, being chased by two pairs of large, yelling shoes, they completely freak out, breaking rank and scattering wildly around the room, every chick for itself. Two dart back under the couch, while another two seek safety under the coffee table. The fifth one wheels about frantically in the room, looking for its mates, then it decides to dive under the couch, too. The ducklings also break rank and file, following much the same tactic as their compatriots, three of them hiding under the coffee table, while the other two scooting for safety under the couch. The entire living room fairly echos with frightened peeps and chirps from the poor befuddled and beleagured creatures.

Jim manages to catch me by the shoulder, since he's always just a tad faster than I am, and he spins me around, jerking me back just as I nearly reach the front door and relative safety. His action throws me a bit off-balance and I stumble a little, putting my hands out to catch myself, colliding rather ungracefully with the side of the small, three-shelved, wooden-and-glass display hutch that Jean keeps her various knicknacks in. It teeters precariously, obviously not designed to withstand a collision with a 180-pound idiot, and I freeze, holding my breath as I watch to see what it will do, while an angrily sputtering Jim tries to yank me around to face him. It starts to tip forward, and suddenly both Jim and I are pressed into hasty emergency action, the two of us rather deftly catching it before it crashes to the floor in a heap of broken glass and shattered wood. Saved in the nick of time by our quick thinking, we set it back upright against the wall, the two of us exchanging a relieved look that we managed to catch it before it crashed.

But however quickly we reacted to save the display case itself, we are not so fortunate in saving most of the items within it. Various brightly colored geegaws, doodads, and ornaments slide out from between the glass-fronted doors, falling from the wooden shelves and slipping to the carpeting with muted thunks and tinkles of crystal and china. Some survive the fall, while others clearly don't, breaking into little bits of broken china and plaster shards upon the floor. We both stare silently in wide-eyed rapt horror at the mess on the brown shag carpeting, even the ducklings and the chicks stunned into momentary silence in the echoing gulf that is left behind in the wake of breaking porcelain and shattering crystal.

"Oh man…" Reed breathes, then he turns on me in a veritable hurricane of fury. "Goddamn it, Malloy, NOW look what you've done!" he yells in red-faced anger, pointing an accusing finger at the sad heap of destruction. "You broke Jean's knicknacks!"

"Hey, you were the one who grabbed ahold of me and made me lose my balance in the first place!" I yell back.

"Yeah, but if you hadn't of goosed me in the ass with the damned curling iron to begin with, making me hit the back of my head on the underside of the bed, I wouldn't have been chasing you!" he hollers, the veins in his forehead standing out in bas-relief.

"Yeah, well if you wouldn't have presented such an ample target while rooting around under the bed for those stupid ducklings, I wouldn't have been inspired to goose you!" I snap back. "And besides, you're the idiot who let the damned things loose to begin with!" I storm at him. "If you hadn't of been childish and taken them out to play with, they'd still be in the goddamned box and you wouldn't have them running loose in your house!"

He grabs me by the front of my shirt, violently jerking me towards him. "Yeah, well believe me, pal, I'm regretting even ASKING you to come over here and help me dye eggs for Jimmy…you've turned this whole thing into a catastrophe for me, Malloy!"

"Yeah, well I'm beginning to regret coming over here myself, Reed!" I growl back. "I coulda stayed in bed and saved myself the trouble!"

"Saved yourself the trouble!" he snorts like a bull that's seen red. "Shit, you coulda stayed home and saved me my sanity!"

"Then leggo of me and I'll leave you to your sanity, pal!" I snarl, snapping my hands up and trying to break his hold on the front of my shirt. I grapple with him for a moment, shoving hard at him, then there is a sharp sound of tearing cloth and he stumbles back a bit, crunching bits of china under his tread, a piece of my favorite blue-and-green checkered sports shirt in his hand. The two of us stare stunned at the scrap of cloth for a second, then I l rip into him with the unabashed fury worthy of the Tasmanian Devil. "You JACKASS!" I shout, shoving him hard against the wall. "You tore my favorite shirt!"

"AARRRGHH!" he explodes in screaming battle cry and launches himself at me, tackling me and taking me down to the floor with a violent, bone-jarring crash. "You RUINED my Easter!" he shrieks at me as the two of us thrash wildly about, hitting and struggling madly in an attempt to beat the living crap out of each other, like angry five-year-olds in a playground dispute. For a moment, I gain the upper hand by knocking him into the couch with a kick of my feet and a shove of my hands, but he bounces off, deftly landing upon me and pinning me firmly to the carpet. Straddling me, he draws his fist back in preparation to punch my lights out.

Momentarily trapped, I quickly change gears and try a different tactic, going completely limp and raising my hands in surrender. "Okay, you got me," I growl at him. "Now let me up, you jerk."

"I want you to apologize," he tells me in a low, deadly tone, his fist still hovering near his head as he pants, sweat beading his colorfully dyed forehead. The bib strap of Jean's frilly pink apron is torn and hanging limply around his collar.

"Only if you apologize first," I snap.

"I'm not apologizing to you!" he growls. "You're the one who screwed this up for me!"

"You're the one who asked me over here in the first place!" I snarl back. I nod my head to his hovering fist. "Go ahead and hit me, if it'll make you feel any better."

He stares at me through angrily slitted eyes, the blue irises flashing fire at me. The he suddenly gets a crafty look on his face. "Oh…I'm not gonna hit you, Pete," he says in a dangerously quiet tone. "No, I'm not gonna hit you at all," he murmurs softly, giving me a purely evil grin full of sharp malice. Then he throws his head back, making a snorking sound deep within his throat.

My eyes flash open wide in horror at what torture I realize he's about to inflict upon me…the hanging string of loogie over my face. I struggle hard underneath him, squirming and shoving frantically at him in an attempt to escape the awful fate. "I'd rather be hit," I say hastily. "Than get loogied by you."

"Too bad," he says thickly, and works at horking up some more phlegm from his throat.

I cringe at the disgusting, juicy-snot sound. "Get off of me!" I snap, thrashing and pushing at him again, trying to knock him off of me. I shake a finger in his face as I narrow my eyes at him. "Don't you dare spit on me! Or I'll make you write all the goddamned reports for as long as you and I are partners!"

He regards me with evil amusement. "You already do now, Pete. So what's the difference?" He leans forward over me, preparing to deliver the loogie. "Say you're sorry!" he warns me one last time.

"I will NOT!" I snarl, twisting my head away from him. Suddenly, an acrid odor begins to drift past my nose and I punch him in the shoulder. "Wait, do you smell something burning?" I ask, sniffing the air.

"Don't try to worm out of this, Malloy," he threatens, then he stops, sniffing the air himself with a frown of puzzlement. "Yeah, I DO smell something…" he begins, then his eyes go wide and he slaps his hands to his face in surprise and horror. "Oh my God, MY EGGS!" he gasps, leaping off of me and scrambling to his feet, racing madly into the kitchen. I hastily jump to my own feet and follow him, definitely relieved at missing out on the loogie-torture. "AAIIYEE!" he shrieks at the sight of the grey-white smoke that is rolling viciously from the cooking pot on the stove. He hurries towards the stove in order to turn the burner off and remove the pot, but the eggs pretty much have other plans by now. They begin to explode rather majestically, in soft muted whumps of sound, raining brightly colored bits of eggshell down around us, along with sticky clumps of egg white and yolk, spattering onto the underside of the range hood, the backsplash, the countertop, the nearby fridge, and the floor.

I stand there stunned, never quite having seen eggs exploding like Fourth Of July fireworks before, while Reed darts to the cupboard the pot came out of, wildly flinging it open and frantically dumping the contents of the cupboard out in search of a lid, while the eggs continue to merrily detonate on the stovetop. He finds one and scrambles to his feet, lurching across the kitchen to plunk the lid on the pot. He grabs the handle of the pot, yanking his hand back with a hiss and grimace of pain. "Damn it, that's hot!" he yelps, grabbing a potholder from a magnet on the fridge. Turning the burner off, he gingerly moves the pot of ruined eggs to another burner, the eggs still exploding underneath the lid like eggy kernels of Jiffypop. "Don't just stand there, open a damned window!" he orders me in a panicked voice. "Christ, it smells like…like…"

"Burnt diarreah?" I ask nasally, holding my nose pinched between my fingers as I work the latch on the window near the breakfast nook. I throw the window wide open, trying not to gag on the horrific stench. Then I hurry over and open the one above the kitchen sink, hoping like hell to air the kitchen out before Jean gets home.

"Oh my God," Reed moans with abject misery, dropping his head into his hands and shaking it with dismay. "My eggs. My beautiful, beautiful eggs…they're ruined." He gently uses the potholder and picks up the pan of eggs, carrying it over to me. "What am I gonna do?" he asks with a sorrow-filled voice, lifting the lid on the pot. The two of us stare down at the gooey, sticky, disgusting mess of melted eggshell and scorched egg whites and yolks that have pretty much been seared into the bottom of the pan. "What am I gonna do?" he asks again, and in answer, one last egg blows up, exploding in our faces, sending bits of egg white, colored shell, and yellow yolk all over us. Sadly, Reed turns away and takes the pan over to the kitchen sink, sticking it under the tap and running water in it, a combination of steam and smoke rising from the contents of the pan.

I think for a moment, plucking a chunk of egg white from the bridge of my nose. "Well, you've still got that batch of eggs in the bowl that you didn't cook yet, that you could still use," I say. "But if I were you, I think I'd quit now while most of your house is still intact."

He stands there at the sink, staring horrified at the ruined eggs in the pan. "Jean is gonna KILL me," he whispers hoarsely. "Look at the gigantic mess we've made in her kitchen. There's dye everywhere, exploded eggs everywhere, and the house smells like…"

"Burnt diarreah," I helpfully supply.

He takes a deep breath and continues. "Plus, I set a bunch of farm animals loose in the house, letting them poop on the carpeting, and then to boot, we knocked over her hutch, damaging her knicknacks inside of it." He turns mournful eyes to me. "I think maybe I should pack a bag and get the hell outta here, preferably fleeing to somewhere that she can't get to me in order to kill me, like Antartica." He leans hard on the sink, bowing his head and closing his eyes. "I mean, I couldn't even manage to do the simple task she asked me to do without turning it into a veritable catastrophe. I'm probably the most horrible husband on the face of the Earth right now, and what's even worse, I haven't even gotten the job done of hiding the eggs for Jimmy, which makes me a terrible father, too."

"Hey now," I chide gently, a wave of compassion sweeping over me and mixing with the sharp guilt I feel for my own dastardly hand at helping to cause this whole disaster. "You're not a bad husband, nor are you a terrible father, Jim. This was just one of those…things, ya know? And I sure as hell didn't help matters any, either." I drop my eyes down at the floor, hanging my head in abject shame.

"Yeah, I suppose," he says tonelessly, staring out the window at his back yard. "Why don't you go ahead and take off, Pete? I'll try to clean this up on my own."

"Like hell you will," I tell him, raising my head. "I helped cause a lot of this mess, so I'll help you clean it up. And if Jean wants to kill you, she might as well kill me, too, for my part in the whole stinking disaster."

"Stink being the operative word," he replies, crinkling his nose in disgust. He turns to me. "Okay, I'll tell you what. If you'll try to go catch the farm critters, I'll start cleaning up in here. Then when you get 'em caught, you can come in here and help me, okay?"

"Sounds good," I say, nodding. Then I return to the living room with the intention of rounding up the animals before Jean gets home and sees them running amok in her house. I get down on my hands and knees, peering under the coffee table for the stray ducklings and chicks that are still silently huddled beneath it, cowering and shivering in fear as they eye me miserably, probably wondering what kind of torture I'm gonna inflict upon them next. I start to gently grab them, just as Jean Reed walks in the front door, little Jimmy in her arms. Her unexpected arrival startles me, heralded by the screen door slamming shut behind her, and I rear back in surprise, banging my head on the underside of the coffee table, cracking my skull in nearly the same spot I beaned myself before, when I tried to escape the fleeing chicks.

Jean stops dead in her tracks, eyeing me curiously as I rub the back of my head with my palm, wincing with pain. "Pete, what are you doing here?" she asks. "Is everything okay?"

"UNCA PETE!" Jimmy shrieks with delight at seeing me, dropping the blue stuffed bunny that he's holding onto the floor and throwing his arms out for me to take him from his mother.

"Um…yeah, everything's fine!" I tell her in a falsely cheerful tone of voice as I slowly get to my feet. "Just dandy, Jean! It couldn't be better!" I give Jimmy a grin and shake my head at him. "I'll pick ya up later, kiddo. Uncle Pete is kinda icky right now."

She sniffs the air. "Oh, PHEW!" she says, grimacing and fanning her hand in front of her face. "What smells like burnt poop in here?"

"Stinky pee-yoo!" Jimmy agrees, mimicking his mother's actions like a little monkey.

"It's…ah…" I begin, trying frantically to come up with a viable explanation for the horrific odor permeating the house.

Jean cocks her head, looking around, her eyes sweeping the dishevled living room in surprise. "What happened to my hutch?" she asks, pointing to the hutch that is sitting askew against the wall. "And the things inside of it?" She frowns, looking hard at the scattered, shattered knicknacks on the floor. "Is that my great-grandmother's San Fransisco World's Fair plate that got broken?" she asks with dismay.

"Um…yeah, sorry about that," I stammer. "It kinda got bumped and we…"

"Oh no, boo-boo!" Jimmy says, pointing to the disarray of china and porcelain. "Big boo-boo!"

She looks up at the ceiling, her eyes going a bit wide as she listens intently to something. "And what is that I hear peeping and chirping? It sounds like there's…there's birds in here or something." She turns her frown onto me, eyeing me with puzzlement.

I rub the back of my neck nervously, feeling myself break out in a sweat under Jean's intense scrutiny. "Um…I think it's birds outside that you're hearing, Jean," I assure her hastily. I give a small snort, shrugging. "I mean, why in the world would there be BIRDS in here? This isn't a farm, after all." I shake my head and give her a solemn look. "No ma'am, there would not be birds in here, trust me."

And at that moment, the ducklings and the chicks that are hiding under the couch choose to step out from beneath it, and they march peeping and chirping across the carpeting in precise military single file, joining their brethren that are huddled beneath the coffee table. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the rabbit hopping lazily into the living room from the hallway, his pink nose twitching as he bumps along rather leisurely, his ears bobbing atop his head. Jean's ever-widening eyes have slowly tracked the marching progress of the yellow-brown ducklings and the fuzzy chicks, and they now land on the rabbit, who is sniffing her potted rubber plant with apparent hunger in his eyes.

Jean's gaze swings up to me and her mouth drops open in astonishment. "Pete, why did I just see ducklings and baby chicks marching across my living room floor?" She leans forward, peering around me. "And why is there a gigantic rabbit over there that looks like he's about to devour my rubber plant?"

"Birdies!" Jimmy shrieks with delight as he spies the tiny fowl and large rabbit, clapping his hands together. "Bunny!" He wiggles frantically in Jean's arms, trying to get down, but she holds fast to him, shifting him to her other hip, much to his toddler dismay.

I give her my best innocent altar boy look, shrugging. "What chicks? What ducks? What rabbit? I think you're seeing things, Jean." I glance around the living room, studiously avoiding looking at the curious rabbit, nor do I drop my gaze to the coffe table that has started cheeping once more. "I don't see anything, honest." I turn back to her, giving her a charmingly boyish Pete Malloy grin, guaranteed to win the heart of any female, single or married. One look at that smile, and women just melt, becoming putty in my hot little hands.

Unfortunately, Jean is not swayed by my charm nor my smile. She fixes me with a sharp frown. "Tell me, Pete. Where is my husband at? I'd like to talk to him."

"Uh…you mean Jim?" I ask in a coy manner. I swear to God, if I thought it would help save my ass, I'd bat my eyelashes at her. So I do, fluttering them madly like a male version of Scarlett O'Hara.

"Of course I mean Jim," she snaps. "Who else am I married to, Pete?"

"Well," I purr, turning on the patented Pete Malloy seductive charm. "Play your cards right and maybe…" I waggle my eyebrows at her suggestively.

She is clearly having none of it, narrowing her eyes at me. "Where is my husband, Pete?" she asks in a dangerously low tone.

"Uh-oh, Unca Pete," Jimmy says, regarding me with wide eyes. "Mommy mad!" He buries his face in her shoulder.

Jim saves me from answering her, striding into the living room with the wooden bowl of undamaged dyed eggs in his hands, staring down at them rather raptly. "Well, as long as nobody actually EATS them, I think the eggs will be okay," he says, holding the bowl of drippy-dyed eggs out for my inspection. "Don'tcha think?" Apparently he is not aware of Jean's presence in the house, so I clear my throat loudly. He looks up and sees her, his eyes widening and his face paling a bit under the streaks of dye he's wearing. "Hi honey!" he chirps brightly. "You're home!" He turns to me with panic in his eyes. "She's home!" he hisses at me, as if I am not already aware of that little fact myself.

"Jim, honey," Jean begins in a light, breezy tone that clearly belies her growing irritation as she takes in Jim in his pink-frilled glory, her eyes raking across her torn apron that is tied around his lanky frame. "Please tell me why you're wearing the apron my mother hand-made for me and gave to me on my sixteenth birthday?" she asks. "And pray tell, what exactly have you done to it?"

"Eh…um…" Jim stammers, throwing me a desperate glance. "I didn't think you'd want me to get Easter egg dye on my clothes," he offers. "So I put an apron on to protect them."

"Okay, I can understand that," she says, nodding cheerfully. "Then can you also tell me why you and Pete look like you've been using your faces to bob for the eggs in the dye? I must say, the two of you are rather…colorful."

"Daddy and Unca Pete berry pretty!" Jimmy exclaims happily. "Berry pretty Daddy and Unca Pete!"

"And," Jean continues. "Why does Pete smell like my White Shoulders dusting powder? And I could be very wrong, but it appears that the two of you have bits of egg white and shell in your hair and on your faces."

"Oh, that's a…uh…new face mask and hair conditioner for men that Pete and I are trying out!" he offers, catching the wincing grimace that crosses my face at his utterly lame lie. However, under the same circumstances, I seriously doubt that I could come up with anything better myself.

Jean wrinkles her nose at Jim rather pertly. "And really honey, something in here stinks terribly! Were some of the eggs you colored perhaps rotten? And what exactly do you mean that as long as nobody eats them, they'll be fine?" She gives Jim a giggle. "I'm just curious, you know. I mean, when I left a few hours ago, my house was stink-free and still pretty much in the same shape as it was this morning, and now I return to find…this." She points to the skewed hutch and damaged knicknacks on the floor. "What happened here?"

"Uh…minor earthquake?" Jim offers hopefully.

"Yeah," I add. "It was so super-minor, it was basically contained to that one small area."

"Alrighty," Jean says, smiling brightly at the two of us and still nodding. "Then tell me why Pete is here in the first place, Jim, sweetie. I thought I told you to dye the eggs yourself."

"Um…that was my fault," I step in, hastily concocting a lie in order to cover for Jim. "I dropped by and interrupted him while he was coloring the eggs. Then I felt bad for distracting him, so I offered to help."

Jean turns her beatific smile on me, her voice turning syrupy sweet. "Well, wasn't that just sweet of you, Pete? To drop by on a day that you have off, and so unexpectedly like that? And then you offered to stay and help color eggs with Jim? My my, what a lovely and thoughtful gesture on your part, Pete." She points to the hole in my shirt. "What happened to your nice shirt?" she asks.

"Uh…I caught it on something," I tell her, not informing her it was Jim's grabby fingers that I caught it on. "I can fix it, though."

"Oh, nonsense!" she chirps. "I'll fix it for you on the sewing machine. You just leave it with me before you go home, and I'll have it patched good as new for you by tomorrow." She turns back to Jim, smiling like a deranged chipmunk at him. "Jim, darling, I could have SWORN I saw a couple of adorable little ducklings and baby chicks wander out from underneath the couch and march underneath the coffee table. And I could be very wrong, but behind Pete, there appears to be a rather large and rather hungry white rabbit that is trying to snack on my rubber plant."

"Um…yeah," Jim says, tossing me another desperate glance for help. "That would be the Easter surprise I had planned for you and Jimmy." He throws his hands out wide, still gripping the wooden bowl full of eggs. "Surprise!" he says in a jolly tone, as two of the eggs in the bowl fly out with his gesture, shattering and splattering wetly and vividly against the wall next to the tv set. They run down the wall, dripping goopily onto the floor. "Uh…whoops," Jim says with a nervous laugh. "Sorry about that, honey. I'll clean it up, I swear."

"Daddy make ooopsie," Jimmy informs us, pointing to the splattered eggs.

"Jiiimmm," Jean says, drawing his name out in a tone that raises my hackles, for it's clearly indicative of an imminent explosion. "What exactly has happened here this afternoon?" she asks, her eyes flickering back and forth between Jim and I. "I mean, the house is a mess…my hutch has been knocked over and the stuff inside has been thrown to the floor and damaged, and it smells like somebody has burned poopy diapers in here, while the two of you look like you've been mugged by all sixty-four colors in the Crayola box. The eggs that you've colored are apparently uncooked, especially given the fact that two of them just shattered all over the wall we just painted last year; and in addition there ALSO happens to be some barnyard fowl hiding underneath my coffee table, not to mention a large white rabbit eating my plant." She cocks her head, fixing us with a piercing glare. "Now then, tell me what happened, and I want the truth, if it means I have to beat it out of the two of you."

"Um…" Jim begins, setting the bowl of eggs down on the coffee table and shuffling his feet nervously against the carpeting. "There kinda sorta maybe mighta been a slight accident," he says in a rush. "Or two."

"Or three," I add. "Or four dozen."

Jim holds his hands up in an appeasing gesture. "But I swear honey, I will clean all of it up. I'll scrub the kitchen from top to bottom, I promise. You won't hafta do any of it, I assure you."

Jean's brown eyes narrow with suspicion, her explosion drawing closer with everything that Jim says. "The kitchen? Why? What exactly happened in the kitchen?"

"Well hey, look at the time!" I exclaim cheerfully, clearing my throat and glancing down at my wristwatch. "It sure does fly, doesn't it?" I give Jean and Jim a wide easy grin. "And as much fun as I've had helping you out with coloring your eggs, Jim, I've definitely gotta get going now. I've got something involving Sophia Loren and my nightstick that I've really gotta get back to." I start to edge towards the front door and relative freedom. I give them all a jaunty wave, my hand on the knob of the screen door. "Catch ya later!" I chirp merrily, preparing to make my escape.

"FREEZE, MISTER!" Jean commands me sharply, pointing at me with her index finger. "Set one foot out that door and you are a dead man, Peter Joseph Malloy!" She turns back to Jim with a glare. "Okay, spill it, buster. What did the two of you do to my house?"

"Eh…well it's not really your house, honey," Jim says with a nervous chuckle. "It's yours and mine equally."

"We'll see about THAT in a minute," she snaps at him. "When I find out what in the world you two have done in here. I may just ask for it in our divorce settlement, you know."

"D-d-divorce?" Jim stammers fearfully. "Why would you want a divorce, sweetie? What we've done isn't THAT bad to call for a divorce." He gives me a hopeful look. "Right, Pete?"

"Uh…right," I say uneasily, nodding assent. "Look, are you sure you two want me here if you're gonna…you know…argue?" I ask. "I mean, this whole thing, it's really between the two of you, not me."

"You stay right where you are, Peter Joseph Malloy," Jean warns, using all three of my names to indicate just how deep of shit I'm in right now. I swear to God, her scolding tone is eerily similar to the one my own mother would use whenever I got my ass into trouble, making me guess that it must be a mom thing. As I sag against the frame of the door, Jean marches past Jim and heads towards the kitchen, Jimmy still in her arms.

He regards us with childlike amusement over her shoulder, giving us a wave. "Bye-bye, Unca Pete!" he says, grinning at me. "Bye-bye, Daddy!"

"Yeah, bye-bye is right, kid," I mutter, turning to Jim. "Look, are you SURE you want her to go into the kitchen right now? She's got access to knives and other sharp stabby instruments in there, ya know."

Jim gives me a weary look. "We might as well face the music, pal. The jig is rather firmly up."

"JAMES ALOYSIUS REED, WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU DO IN HERE!" Jean shrieks as she enters the kitchen and catches sight of the awful mess within, her shrill alarm causing Jim and I to wince with pain as her voice begins to rise steadily to an octave that only dogs can hear. "My…my good china! My cooking pot! My ceiling and walls! My countertops! MY STOVE! JAMES ALOYSIUS REED AND PETER JOSEPH MALLOY, GET YOUR BUTTS IN HERE, YOU TWO HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!"

I exchange a fearful look with Jim, as we slowly head shamefaced and dejected into the kitchen to receive our comeuppance, both of us dye-stained and utterly filthy, our clothing torn, smelling of eggs and White Shoulders. We fairly cower and skulk along like whipped puppies in the onslaught of Jean's firey rage, the chicks and ducklings cheeping hysterically from beneath the coffee table, their chirps joining Jimmy's wails of fright, while the rabbit gnaws on the edge of their cabinet stereo.

"I hope she kills YOU first," I mutter to Jim. "Since you're her husband."

"Oh no," he replies, shaking his head. "You're the guest in our home, so I insist that she kill you first, Pete."

I cast one last longing glance at the front door over my shoulder as I follow him into the kitchen and Jean's rabid sputterings. Yep…that freedom sure do look mighty nice to me right about now…