Free Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

should cull might have disastrous results on the healthy ones.”
    “Why? Wouldn't it just not hatch?”
    He went back to lighting up the egg. “It might explode and contaminate the other eggs with bacteria.”
    Explode! Between mushy chick disease, exploding eggs, and culling, this project was turning out to be the worst! Then my father said, “Look here, Julianna. You can see the embryo.” He held the flashlight and egg out so I could see.
    I looked inside and he said, “See the dark spot there? In the middle? With all the veins leading to it?”
    “The thing that looks like a bean?”
    “That's it!”
    Suddenly it felt real. This egg was
alive
. I quickly checked the rest of the group. There were little bean babies in all of them! Surely they had to live. Surely they would all make it!
    “Dad? Can I take the incubator inside? It might get too cold out here at night, don't you think?”
    “I was going to suggest the same thing. Why don't you prop open the door? I'll carry it for you.”
    For the next two weeks I was completely consumed with the growing of chicks. I labeled the eggs A, B, C, D, E, and F, but before long they had names, too: Abby, Bonnie, Clyde, Dexter, Eunice, and Florence. Every day I weighed them, candled them, and turned them. I even thought it might be good for them to hear some clucking, so for a while I did that, too, but clucking is tiring! It was much easier to hum around my quiet little flock, so I did that, instead. Soon I was humming without even thinking about it, because when I was around my eggs, I was happy.
    I read
The Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens
cover to cover twice. For my project I drew diagrams of the various stages of an embryo's development, I made a giant chicken poster, I graphed the daily fluctuations in temperature and humidity, and I made a line chart documenting the weight loss of each egg. On the outside eggs were boring, but I knew what was happening on the inside!
    Then two days before the science fair I was candling Bonnie when I noticed something. I called my dad into my room and said, “Look, Dad! Look at this! Is that the heart beating?”
    He studied it for a moment, then smiled and said, “Let me get your mother.”
    So the three of us crowded around and watched Bonnie's heart beat, and even my mother had to admit that it was absolutely amazing.
    Clyde was the first to pip. And of course he did it right before I had to leave for school. His little beak crackedthrough, and while I held my breath and waited, he rested. And rested. Finally his beak poked through again, but almost right away, he rested again. How could I go to school and just leave him this way? What if he needed my help? Surely this was a valid reason to stay home, at least for a little while!
    My father tried to assure me that hatching out could take all day and that there'd be plenty of action left after school, but I'd have none of that. Oh, no-no-no! I wanted to see Abby and Bonnie and Clyde and Dexter and Eunice and Florence come into the world. Every single one of them. “I can't miss the hatch!” I told him. “Not even a second of it!”
    “So take it to school with you,” my mother said. “Mrs. Brubeck shouldn't mind. After all, this was
her
idea.”
    Sometimes it pays to have a sensible mother. I'd just set up for the science fair early, that's what I'd do! I packed up my entire operation, posters, charts, and all, and got a ride to school from my mom.
    Mrs. Brubeck didn't mind a bit. She was so busy helping kids with their projects that I got to spend nearly the entire day watching the hatch.
    Clyde and Bonnie were the first ones out. It was disappointing at first because they just lay there all wet and matted, looking exhausted and ugly. But by the time Abby and Dexter broke out, Bonnie and Clyde were fluffing up, looking for action.
    The last two took forever, but Mrs. Brubeck insisted that I leave them alone, and that worked out pretty great because they hatched out