All We Need

Are we looking for frogs or having a tour of the museum? ask the eggs.

Both, says Gaius. Keep your eyes peeled.

The eggs like that expression.

Gaius passes the fossilised bone of a diprotodon optatum. And a whale's lower jawbone.

These will not interest the eggs.

Nor do they interest Terence.

Aha! But these will! 

Look here, Terence, says Gaius. And you eggs look, too.

Yuck, says Terence. What are they?

Bezoars, says Gaius. Otherwise known as hairballs. These were found in the stomachs of cows.

Gross, say the eggs. Let's keep going.

No, wait, says Terence. Do cows eat hair?

Not normally, says Gaius. A bezoar can be made up of any partly digested material.

Have I got one? asks Terence.

You only drink red drinks, says Gaius. I hardly think so.

I ate that apple once, says Terence.

But it all came out, says Gaius.

What about the eggs? asks Terence. 

What about us? ask the eggs. We never eat anything. We're empty.

How do you know? asks Terence.

Of course they're empty, says Gaius. Come here. Take a look in this hole.

He shows Terence a tiny hole in one of the eggs where the contents were long ago sucked out by Frederick Murray.

Unless he got someone else to do it.

Can you see a hairball? asks the egg anxiously.

YES! says Terence.

The egg trembles. How disgusting.

So does the other one. 

Ha ha! says Terence. Only joking.

Can we go and look for the frogs now? ask the eggs. We hate this museum.

I'm sorry to hear that, says Gaius. I shouldn't have stopped at the hairballs. You might enjoy this though. It's Dr Iain Sutherland's rock and mineral collection.

He enters the room. As luck would have it the frogs are there, perusing the collection.

Hey! says Terence. What are you looking at?

A thunder egg, says Quiet-Tartus. 

It's got a face, says Shorty-Tartus.

Maybe it's the eggs' grandpa, says Terence

That's all we need, thinks Gaius.