*** The egg ***

* In some boxes, the biggest ones, you can find an egg made of wood or stone (this is more difficult) for darning the sock heels. No, it's not a chocolate egg. A new disappointment. *

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The next day there wasn't a meeting either, so the penguins went on with their task of listening to files during all day, until Manfredi and Johnson left again. The condition was not to escape from the building again.

The cell phone rang and Skipper woke up startled. Who could be calling at that time? That couldn't be...

"Madeleine?"

Skipper imagined that the call had nothing to do with the mission. A sobbing proved him right.

"Madeleine... are you crying?"

"Skipper..."

"Madeleine... is something wrong?"

"Yes, Skipper..." Madeleine breathed deeply. "I... I've laid an egg."

The news were like cold water thrown over Skipper and it was obvious that she hadn't taken it well either. Skipper didn't want to seem insensitive, but he knew that both had got into big trouble.

"Euh... are you sure?"

"What do you think? I have it at my feet now."

"And... is it mine?"

Madeleine was very outraged with the question. "Of course it is! Whose would it be otherwise?!"

Skipper got frightened with Madeleine's voice tone. "Schhhhh... Wait, calm -"

"After what you have implied... and you ask me to calm down?"

"No... yes... well... ehm... well, we only did it once... It can't be that -"

"It has been, Skipper. You have good aim, and what's more: for worse."

Shit, shit, shit... Skipper sat down with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was dead. Everybody was going to know it!

"What are you going to do?" he finally asked.

"What do you want me to do? I cannot get rid of it!" Madeleine's tears sprouted again. "Do you think I hadn't thought about it?"

"Do you really have thought -"

"So I don't have the right to think what I want?!" Madeleine was really furious with Skipper.

"Well, I've just said that -"

"Listen... I don't care what you have said! The hatchling inside this egg is yours, so you will have to take charge of it. In our species the father takes charge, remember?"

"But I'm on a mission." Skipper hoped to end the conversation with an excuse.

"How long will you stay there?"

"I don't know."

"Come as soon as possible. If you have to leave ahead of time, I'll make it happen myself."

"But people would know what we did," Skipper said.

"Yes, people will know what we did. And?"

"That can't be... you are my superior, Madeleine."

"Well, as you have realized, biology doesn't care about that at all."

"But it's..." Skipper didn't know what to say, "you cannot do that with your superior."

"Well, you did it."

"Yes... and I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry, Madeleine... Listen, it was great, I had a great time with you... I don't want you to get me wrong, okay? But now I regret it."

"I regret it more," Madeleine replied in a very serious tone.

"I'll be fired from the agency," Skipper said.

"That's your problem."

Skipper was in a catch-22. If he accepted the egg, they all would know that he had broken one of the most important rules in the agency and he would be given the boot. If he didn't accept it, Madeleine could conceal who the father was from everybody... but she would hate him forever.

"I have to think about it," he finally said.

"Think what?"

"If I accept the eggs' responsibility."

"You have time until the mission is over. And you'd better go back before the hatchling breaks the egg." And she hung up.

Skipper was in colossal-sized trouble. Any thing that could happen to him at the mission would be nothing compared to what was awaiting him when he went back to the United States.

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As soon as Madeleine hung up the phone, her room's door opened. Madeleine got frightened and quickly hid the egg under her bed.

"Who were you talking with at this time?"

"No-one," she lied.

"You know you mustn't lie to your father, do you?" he said sitting on the bed next to her.

"I never lie, father," she said, scared to dead.

For a moment, none of them said anything. Madeleine was staring at the floor, frightened and ashamed, and hoping her father left as soon as possible. He was staring at her disdainfully: he hated if his daughter lied to him, and besides he had seen the egg when she hid it. He was really furious with her.

"Do you take me for a fool?" he asked, in a dry and curt voice.

Madeleine closed her eyes waiting for anything, as always.

"Come on, say it!" he bellowed.

"No... no, father."

"Then... what is this?" he asked putting his flipper under the bed and taking the egg out.

Instinctively, Madeleine covered her face with her flippers waiting for a blow. It was always the same. At the agency she had supporters with different reasons to oppose him, but in her private life he had almost absolute power. He controlled her movements, her schedules, her conversations. From time to time, he left for a while and Madeleine could breathe, and behind his back she did all what her father didn't allow her to do. But this time her rebelliousness had had consequences and the only hope for her would have been that her father had been late going back. But no, the very same night that she had laid the egg he had appeared without announcement.

"I repeat: what is this?" he said placing the egg right in front of her face and frightening her even more.

Madeleine didn't answer. Her father gave her a stare full of hatred and grabbed her by the feathers at the back of her head, making her look at the egg he had in the other flipper. Madeleine shrieked with pain.

"TELL ME WHO THE FATHER IS!"

Her father's thunderous voce made Madeleine burst into tears. But she went on saying nothing. He looked around and saw the cell phone on the bed. He would discover it, of course. His daughter couldn't hide any secret while both were in the agency. Before she could react, he took the cell phone and revised the callings list. The last one had an icon: the head of a flat-headed penguin. Madeleine looked at her father, frightened to death.

"Him," he said, resigned. If there was someone he hated in the agency, that was Skipper. Now he had more reasons for hating him. When he went back from Denmark, he would kill him.

He stood up ready for taking the egg. Madeleine tried to take it from his flippers. He made a ball with his flipper's end and punched his daughter with all his strength. Madeleine fell backwards, hitting her head against the floor and being left unconscious next to the bed. A trickle of blood started to flow from her beak. He left the room slamming the door and with the egg in his flipper.

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His intention was to get rid of the egg. He would go to the workshop and smash it with a hammer. It wasn't very far and the corridor was clear, bur he couldn't risk anyone seeing the egg. So he hid it behind his back.

"Is that an egg?" he heard say behind him.

He hadn't thought that someone could appear there. He turned around trying to hide it. But the one who had made the question wasn't an average penguin: he was general Flint, the highest rank in the agency. Among all the penguins... it had to be him. A simple error and he would end out of the agency and disqualified. Although he seemed the friendiest of all, he controlled the agency with an iron flipper. And for a long time he had been waiting for the perfect opportunity for firing him.

"Can I see it?"

Madeleine's father extended his flippers offering him the egg. He was a real coward. He treated with brutality those he considered weaker than him, taking it out especially with his daughter... but he was unable to refuse an order or going against someone above him.

"Where did it come from?"

"From my daughter," he answered not thinking about the consequences.

"Oh, well... congratulations, grandpa," Flint said with a friendly smile. "Who's the father?"

There was the opportunity to punish the little soldier. "Skipper."

For Flint it didn't go unnoticed that the egg was the result of a relationship which was forbidden in the agency, but he didn't care. He stared at the egg with illusion... he wished the grandpa was himself, but his children refused emphatically to give him grandchildren. He patted the grandpa-to-be's back.

"You don't know how lucky you are! Right now I'd love to be in your skin!"

Yeah, sure, Madeleine's father thought. He frowned, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed for Flint.

"Anything wrong?"

It seemed that Flint had lowered his guard, so he did what he thought he would never do: to lie to him.

"Madeleine doesn't want it."

Flint showed a surprised face. "And Skipper?"

"Skipper is on a mission and we don't know when he'll be back." He hoped so, him never returning.

"Then I think the best option will be to give it up for adoption as soon as possible," he said placing the egg between his feet for preventing it from losing warmth. "I'd love to keep it, but I'm too old to be a good father and my children would refuse. We always end up arguing when the topic is named."

Flint got away waddling slowly, with all the care in the world for not dropping the egg, while Madeleine's father was cursing himself for having given it to him instead of having made an omelette with it. On the other hand, of course, one day he could use it against Skipper if he reached high enough in the agency's hierarchy. He would just need to ask for a paternity test to make clear that Skipper hadn't been promoted due to his own achievements. He would give that conceited penguin what he deserved, and he would wait all that was needed.

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Flint, still with the egg between his feet, got into his office and closed the door. Carefully he sat on his coach and reached the telephone and a crimson book: his contacts in the United States. He turned the pages looking for an intermediary: he wasn't stupid and knew that there was something weird in all the story he had just heard. The best option was to move the chick far away from any agency or military association.

There was the number. He dialed and waited. A feminine voice that he already knew greeted him from the other side.

"Hi, I'm Flint. Look... I need a list of zoos that only have civilian penguins."

"Any particular reason, general Flint?"

"I want to send an egg."

"That's a bit weird request."

Flint wasn't bothered by his interlocutor seeming to go against him. He really had a good nature with the ones he thought they deserved it.

"I know," he said. "I cannot tell you why, because it's just a gut feeling, but I think that this egg is in danger here. I want it as far from military penguins as possible."

"In that case, I think I have a destination at the East Coast. There's a zoo where all the penguins that have ever been since its inauguration have been civilian penguins. I'll take charge of calling and telling them. Logistics is borne by you, as always. Take note."

Flint took note of the zoo coordinates and thanked the help. Not wasting time, he wrapped the egg in a seal's skin and went out of his office running directly to the agency hangars. On his way he invented a story, bizarre but acceptable. Some minutes later, a helicopter took off with the egg inside. Flint felt a lot of uncertainty, but it was the best thing he could do.

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Once the egg was far from his manic grandfather's flippers, Flint decided to visit Madeleine. He didn't believe her father had lied to him (nobody lied to Flint), but he smelt something fishy and wanted to know what it was. He arrived at her room and found it locked. He knocked, but there was no reply. He shoved strongly with his shoulder and managed to open the door.

Madeleine was unmoving, lying on the floor. Flint saw the blood stain next to her head. He approached her and took her pulse: she was alive, but he would have believed she wasn't. He sat her up carefully and placed her head over his shoulder.

"Madeleine... come on, wake up," he whispered to her.

He pinched her flipper. Madeleine shook. Little by little she opened her eyes. Her eyesight was blurry. She said nothing. Then she noticed a strong pain in her beak. She touched it with her flipper: it was broken. She noticed the taste of blood. She remembered everything: the moment when she had laid her egg, calling Skipper and her father's visit. She looked around. She wanted to ask about her egg, but she couldn't even open her beak. She touched it with her trembling flippers.

Flint caressed her head and rocked her against him. "Don't worry, your egg is safe out of here," she heard while a new drowsiness overpowered her again.