Brawk-Brawk-Brawk! (Bryce)
- Bryce has a confession: chickens and eggs scare the pants off him. Apparently it all started in sixth grade and we can blame the Baker brothers, Mike and Matt, for this little ole fear.
- You see Mike and Matt have a band with this dude named Skyler. And Bryce's big sis Lynetta has a huge crush on Skyler, so she's always hanging out with the band.
- When Lynetta hangs out too late with the band, Mrs. L sends Bryce to fetch her home—and it's on one of these trips to Skyler's garage that the Baker brothers feed their boa constrictor some eggs.
- The boa constrictor swallows the eggs whole, and then Bryce has to watch as the snake winds itself around the piano to crush the eggs and digest them.
- Ever since then, Bryce has nightmares about eggs. And about getting eaten by a snake.
- So when Juli shows up one day to give Bryce a few eggs, you can bet he's not super excited to see her. She reminds Bryce about some chicks she has and announces they've started laying eggs.
- Bryce gives us the backstory on these chickens. In fifth grade Juli did her science fair project on eggs. She made a bunch of charts about how they grow and change, and then her chicks hatched on the very same night as the fair. Since Bryce is always annoyed at Juli, he thought Juli's eggs project was boring as all get-out—in fact he downright hated it, which seems a little extreme to us since baby chicks are adorable.
- So now it's one year later and Bryce is definitely not going to eat Juli's eggs for breakfast. When Mrs. Loski finds out that Juli's chickens hatched the eggs, she's not too keen on eating them either. She's scared that there will actually be a dead chick inside, instead of an egg.
- Mr. Loski tells Bryce to stop being scared and just ask Juli if she has a rooster.
- Later that day Bryce tells his friend Garrett about the eggs dilemma. Garrett says they just need to peek in the Baker's backyard and see if there's a rooster there. Problem solved.
- After school Bryce and Garrett take a look over the Baker fence… but now there's a new problem: Bryce doesn't know what the difference is between a chicken, a hen, and a rooster. So he's super confused about what to look for.
- As Garrett and Bryce watch, Juli comes out to collect eggs from her six hens.
- At dinner that night, Bryce gives his report: they're chickens. But soon the truth comes out that Bryce got his info from spying instead of asking Juli himself; plus he tells his family that the Baker yard is really gross because it's covered in chicken droppings.
- Bryce's spying makes Mr. Loski seriously mad, and he calls Bryce a coward and tells him that shouldn't be afraid of a girl. During this heated convo, Bryce also finally realizes how the whole chickens-roosters-hens thing works out.
- So Mrs. Loski is afraid the eggs will make the family sick, Mr. Loski is mad at his son, Lynetta is grossed out by the talk of chicken droppings, and Bryce is too embarrassed to talk to Juli about the eggs… So they decide to just throw the eggs out and forget about the whole thing.
- Not so fast there, buddy—Juli comes back to give Bryce more eggs. So he secretly throws them out… And then she gives him more eggs… And he secretly throws those out too. And how long does he do this for? Two years, folks. Yep—that's a long time to keep this mean little secret.
- Then one day, after two years of throwing away eggs, Juli catches Bryce in the act—so he tells her that his family is afraid of getting sick from the eggs because her yard is so dirty. That's pretty harsh, right?
- Juli is seriously hurt. She says the other neighbors have been buying her eggs—in other words, she's been giving up on some money by giving the eggs to Bryce for free.
- Juli cries, and this is the first time Bryce has seen her do so.
- And with that, Bryce feels like a big jerk.