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faint thunk as the ball hit one of Daisy’s horns, was punctured,
and stuck there.
“What happened to the egg?” she asked. She couldn’t see it.
“Egg? What egg?” Purdy asked.
“The one you threw. Has it hatched already?”

Purdy looked in dismay at the deflated ball on Daisy’s horn. Do you dare?
Of course he couldn’t say anything.
“What about the milk?” Purdy asked desperately.
“First I’m going to look for the egg.” Daisy wandered away
over the field.
“I guess it was a tie,” Barker concluded as they trudged back
home.

“But I got closer,” Purdy boasted.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be at all close when Daisy Barker believed that hard work pays off. He also
figures out where her egg ended up.” believed that all’s well that ends well; a bird in the
And there they were, arguing again about whether a dog is hand is worth two in the bush; if you set a trap
smarter than a cat or vice versa. They never did manage to settle for others, you’ll fall into it yourself; the early
the matter. bird catches the worm; and a hidden bone is the
best bone. He’d come up with that last proverb himself.
Purdy believed that if you wish for something hard enough, it
will come true. Purdy wished he could fly. Every morning when

he woke, he lay there a moment, checking whether wings had
grown overnight or if that was just a corner of the quilt against
his back. Then he would creep up to the mirror, slowly turn and
look over his shoulder—if cats have shoulders—to see if there
was any kind of bulge where a wing would soon sprout, like a
wisdom tooth.

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