The TENTH Kippernickker Adventure
THE SECRET OF THE EGGS Richard Charlton
Illustrated by Marijke Simons ___________________________
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The Kippernickker Series 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
The King of the Desert Professor Pigglepoggle Captain Cannonball Prince Rupert’s Birthday The Great Lion Hunt Great Uncle Oliver’s Code The Giant of Grumm The Kippernickker Kid Marmaduke’s Magic Show The Secret of the Eggs
----------------------------------------------------------Copyright 2019 Richard Charlton No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a retriever who may quote brief passages in review. Cover and interior illustrations by Marijke Simons Kippernickker Logo by Audrey Matheson Printed in 2019 by Halcraft Printers, Halifax, NS ISBN 978-1-987941-05-0
Little Fishes Publishing
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THE SECRET OF THE EGGS
The Kippernickkers (Jonathan, Nicolas, Sarah and Matthew)
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Baron Becklebaam was a large man, and filled the doorway.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
The Hard Boiled Eggs
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CHAPTER 2
The Jarping Contest
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CHAPTER 3
An Adventure Begins
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CHAPTER 4
Mrs Weaver Explains
31
CHAPTER 5
Baron Becklebaam
39
CHAPTER 6
Inside the Castle
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CHAPTER 7
The Four o’Clock Cannon
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CHAPTER 8
The Mystery is Solved
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CHAPTER 9
The Treasure at Last
75
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“Look,” he said, “It screws apart!”
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CHAPTER 1
The Hard Boiled Eggs
Jonathan Kippernickker looked at the hard boiled egg. He put down his black marker pen and inspected the work so far. He had drawn two black lines around the white shell near the middle of the egg. Then he picked his red marker from the box and began to fill in the space between the lines with red. When he had finished, the egg had a bright red band around it.
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Then, taking up his black pen again, he drew two wavy lines around the egg, one at either side of the red band. He thought he’d fill in these two new spaces with an orange color so he filled it in and looked at his work again. He drew two zigzag rings around the egg next, filling those in with a yellow marker, then finally two last straight lines which were like small circles because he’d reached both ends of the egg. He filled those in, one blue and one black. “I’m finished!” he shouted down from the tree house, which is where he’d gone for peace and quiet to paint his egg. “I’m nearly,” said Sarah Kippernickker sitting under the trees with a tray of her markers and an egg half-decorated with flowers. “I’m doing mine in pink and red flowers,” she said. “I’m going to do a face with a red cap,” said Nicolas Kippernickker from the patio wall where he was sitting. He had drawn a face on his egg and was marking in a ball cap. He thought he’d add a mustache like his granddad to make it look real. “I was going to do a football but I think 8
Dad is going to do that like last year,” he said. “That’s an easy one because the egg is shaped just like a football. Can I borrow your red Jonathan?” and Jonathan threw one of his red markers out of the tree house over to the grassy side of the patio wall where Nicolas was sitting. Matthew Kippernickker had gone into the house because when he was decorating his egg he’d dropped it. It had fallen on the concrete path and there were bits of hardboiled egg all over the place. He’d gone to get another one. Timothy Kippernickker was not asleep on this occasion. He had grown up enough to be coloring an egg himself, and had decided green would be a good color. He had borrowed a large green coloring marker and by now the egg was quite green, as was his nose, hands, tee-shirt and pants. Then Mommy Kippernickker came out with a blue china bowl and a brush to sweep up the remains of Matthew’s egg. She asked them to put their eggs in the bowl with the others already decorated. They would jarp some at their Easter lunch.
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Sarah had asked what ‘jarp’ was and Mommy Kippernickker had explained that it was bumping two eggs together. It was an Easter custom she said. She did it when she was little in England, and Granddad and Nana always had an egg-jarping contest with the family before their dinner at Easter. “You mean we bang the eggs together?” said Sarah. “Yes,“ said Nicolas. “You hold yours in your fist until only one end is showing and I hold mine in my fist so only one end is showing, then one of us bashes the other.” “And we see which one breaks,” said Jonathan climbing down from the tree house. “If you and I have a contest first, Sarah,“ said Jonathan, “and I win it, by smashing your egg to bits while mine is not broken then I go on to the next round. “We go in twos,” he added. “It’s like a play off,” explained Nicolas Kippernickker, “to see who wins.” “I’ve never heard of ‘jarp’,“ said Sarah Kippernickker. “When a baby chick pokes its way out of an egg,” said Nicolas, “it’s beak breaks the 10
egg shell from the inside, and that is called ‘jarping’. I think that’s it.” Nicolas Kippernickker seemed to know all sorts of things. He was always reading books. “And jarping eggs is an Easter tradition in some places,” he went on, “and Nana and Granddad do it.” “Have you got to eat the eggs after?” said Sarah Kippernickker. “Yes, we eat the eggs,” said Matthew who had no idea of whether you had to eat them or not and who was busy coloring his second egg all purple. They put their eggs in the bowl one by one. There were already some decorated eggs in the bowl, which their Mom and Dad had decorated. They were very well done. One was gray, and looked like an armor-plated egg, all metal and dotted with rivets. One looked like the front of an airliner, another was covered in words, like ‘wham’ and “bang’, one was brightly covered in a pattern of small connected circles and one was a football just as Nicolas had said. “I think we’ve got enough now,” said
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The Bowl full of eggs looked very exciting and attractive.
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Jonathan, looking into the bowl when they had each added their eggs. The bowl full of eggs looked very exciting and very attractive. “All right,” said Jonathan, “lets go in and get ready for the jarping contest and see who the Jarping Champion is going to be.” So they collected their markers and their cloths and their bits and pieces, and with Jonathan carrying the bowl of eggs they went towards the house.
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