Eggs

David and Primrose wear jugs around their waists to collect their worms. At 10 p.m., they depart John’s place, armed with red flashlights and gloves. It is very dark with no streetlights or moonlight. David has become more comfortable in the dark since he started sneaking out with Primrose, but the pitch blackness still scares him. David recalls a night when the electricity went out, and all he had was his mother’s hand to hold.

David asks if they are breaking the law by hunting worms. Primrose says that they are breaking the law because it’s not worm-hunting season and they don’t have a license. She adds that the worm warden will be looking for poachers, but they probably won’t be worried about a couple of kids. Growing upset, David refuses to break any rules or laws and demands that they go back. Primrose begins laughing, and he realizes that she has tricked him again. David kicks her leg, but she just laughs and mocks him. He tries to go back, but she drags him onward.

Primrose and David crawl along the ground in parallel paths, gathering several small worms each. David mistakes his first nightcrawler for a snake, leading to an exchange of threats between the kids, and Primrose almost leaves David alone in the dark. Soon, they spot another nightcrawler, so David holds still while Primrose catches it.

David loses his grip on his second nightcrawler, but he manages to catch his third. After that, they come more easily. Side by side, David and Primrose crawl along, grabbing nightcrawlers as they go. Eventually, they grab the same worm at the same time and fight over it until it tears in half. Angry, Primrose smacks David with her half of the worm. David throws his half at her, then grabs her jug and dumps out all her worms.

Primrose is furious and almost attacks David, but instead, she changes her mind and turns off her flashlight, then wishes him a nice night and abandons him in the dark. David panics and tears the red filter off his flashlight, but his beam disappears in the grass. Primrose is gone.

Refrigerator John hears David screaming and runs as fast as his leg will allow until he finds David alone in the field. John grabs David, who fights him and struggles against him until John pins the boy’s arms. John hugs David tightly until David’s screams turn to sobs. David calls for “Mommy” a few times and clings to John.

When David has relaxed, John calls out for Primrose, who emerges from the darkness, looking petrified at what she has done. John can tell that she has learned her lesson. On the way back to John’s, David explains what happened. John wishes that he had told them sooner that a split worm just becomes two worms. At John’s house, the kids sip hot chocolate and return to their familiar bickering. David braids Primrose’s hair.

David joins Primrose and Refrigerator John at the flea market. John rents a table and allows Primrose to use one-third of it to sell her salvaged items. She is in a bad mood because John has decided not to start a bait business, and she still needs money to buy paint.

Earlier in the summer, Primrose was eager to greet each potential customer at the flea market and would stand up each time someone approached the table. Now, her attitude is so severe that she ends up scaring away customers, and she only becomes more antagonistic as the day goes on. John wishes that she would stop.

Meanwhile, David wanders around the market and finds a table full of picture frames. All the frames have the same picture of Primrose’s father. David asks if he can have one of the pictures, and the vendor gives it to him for free. Wondering why the vendor has so many pictures of Primrose’s father, he hides the picture and decides not to tell Primrose what he saw.

Primrose excitedly finds David and tells him that she has earned the last of the money she needs by selling a ceramic bowl. She and David go straight to the store to buy paint.

David is upset that Primrose wants him to paint over the windows on her van. He thinks that Primrose should keep at least one window. Primrose doesn’t want the egg-throwers to be able to see her through any windows, but David thinks she needs to be able to look out. After they finish painting, all that’s left is the windshield. Primrose slaps some paint on it so that David will have no choice but to finish the job. The last thing he sees through the windshield is the photo of Primrose’s dad on her dresser.

He had asked his grandmother about the photo the previous night, and she was quietly ecstatic that he willingly chose to interact with her. David learned that the man in the photo is Clark Gable, an old movie star who is now long dead. David realizes that the photo is not of Primrose’s father, even though she believes that it is.

David spends the whole day helping Primrose paint. When a wealthy client arrives with her dog to see Madam Dufee, Primrose takes David to see her mother perform a psychic reading on the dog. However, Primrose leaves when she cannot endure the scene any longer.

Primrose laments to David that she doesn’t have a normal mother who will cook dinner, take her to different places, and buy her things. Instead, Madam Dufee tends to steal from Primrose; her toe rings, clothes, and teddy bear are all items that Primrose scavenged to sell. Primrose rants that her mother makes the same prediction to every customer—that they’ll have a “long and happy life” (123), but she clearly does not care about the life she’s giving her daughter. Primrose paces and continues to rant. She confesses that she was at the library because she wanted to fall asleep to a story; her mother never read her to sleep, and she wanted to know what that was like. However, she has never really fallen asleep at the library, despite her best efforts.

David thinks about his own favorite book, which his mother used to read to him. He knows the words by heart. He wishes that he could comfort Primrose and feels guilty for remembering good times while she is suffering. When Primrose calms down, she grabs the photo of her father and looks at it for a long time, subdued. David realizes that he can never tell her what he knows about her “father.”

David’s grandmother, Margaret, wants to ask David to join her at the Midsummer Night’s Scream event at the library. It is usually meant for children and their parents. Margaret has tried to step into the role of David’s guardian, but she understands that she cannot be a replacement for his mother.

When her son and David moved in, Margaret saw David as another son, but David made sure to reject her attempts to mother him. He has been cold and sometimes even mean to her, and he refuses to let her call him Davey. Margaret has tried to give him as much space as he needs, but she wants to take care of him, especially since he is hurting so much.

Each day, when Margaret makes lunch for David, she leaves a carrot with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She wants him to eat it because it’s good for him, but she doesn’t pester him about it. And each day, he ignores it.

One day, she laments to David that they used to be closer. David ignores her, but days later, he says that she used to be Nana. Margaret argues that she’s still Nana, but David disagrees. She doesn’t tell her son about these latest issues with David because her son is already overwhelmed.

Margaret clings to moments of hope with David, like the night she heard him laughing at the television and the time he asked her questions about Clark Gable. These interludes give her hope that David might agree to come to the Midsummer Night’s Scream, but he refuses.

Like her mother, Primrose enjoys pretending, so when she sees that the Midsummer Night’s Dream event is a parent-child event, she comes up with the idea of posing as David’s mother. David doesn’t immediately oppose the idea, but Primrose knows not to push it.

However, as days go by, she makes plans, buying an outfit at the thrift store and completing her look with jewelry, makeup, and her mother’s large blonde “Madam Dufee” wig. She also practices feigning the voice of a grown woman, and she successfully tests the disguise at the local 7-Eleven.

Primrose shows the outfit to David when he comes over to finish painting the van, but he has no opinion on it. Primrose suggests nonchalantly that she’ll wear the outfit to the event by herself, since she already has it. She tells David what time she’ll pass his house on the way to the library, and when the time comes, she finds David waiting for her.

Primrose feels that her outfit is perfect, especially with David as her “son” to complete the look. Primrose finds that it is easy to act like a mother. She holds David’s hand and gives him stern warnings about behaving himself as they approach the library, and to his annoyance, she continues to pick at and dote on him.

The library is full of kids and parents. Primrose is upset that the other mothers are dressed much more casually than she is. David complains about the event, so Primrose scolds him again in her best motherly voice. When Primrose sees him growing angry, she tells him to calm down because they’re just pretending.

David goes to the snack table for cookies. Primrose demands that he put the cookies down, and when he refuses, she smacks them out of his hands. They become so angry at each other that they begin to fight. David cries that Primrose isn’t his mother, rips off her wig, and flees the library.

Primrose returns home to find her mother sleeping in her van, so she chases her mother out. Later, Primrose notices that her mother left her teddy bear behind, so she throws it into the street.