Jonathan, the cat, and his sister stared at the egg on the top rung of the refrigerator. The smell was almost supernatural.

The cat sat between the two children swishing its tail. Normally the cat would have nothing to do with the children but the obnoxious odor had bewitched it and it sat on the kitchen tile, drunk on hate.

Jonathan’s sister sensed it. She wanted to pet the cat (she had never been this close to it before) but she doubted she would get her hand back if she reached for it. The animal desperately wanted to destroy something.

Jonathan regarded the egg with spirited curiosity. “That egg is addled,” he said.

“Should somebody throw it out?” Jonathan’s sister asked.

“Yes,” said Jonathan. His little brain worked feverishly trying to understand what their parents had meant by keeping the egg in the refrigerator for so long. Surely his mother or his father would dispatch the thing if it did not belong amongst the comestibles. Throwing things out of the refrigerator had always been their parents’ explicit province. But this egg defied all previous authority. Something had to be done.

“I think,” he said, “we should do it.”

“What about the cat?”

“We’ll have to distract it. Sister, you do it. I’ll take the egg and throw it over the fence.”

“Jonathan, I’m scared.”

“So am I. But we have no choice.”

Neither Jonathan nor his sister remembers that fateful day. They were both far too young and have since grown up to lead perfectly ordinary lives full of families and domestic animals of their own. But for one brief moment, thanks to a laser pointer and an overhand toss, they were heroes.