The Fellowship of the Egg.

I should have realised this would happen. Click found an egg. Not a chocolate one, a real one.

I can hardly castigate him since I didn't actually specify 'chocolate' when I sent him out with Senga and Caligula. What with all the hysterics, I forgot about that part. Apparently his species lays eggs and he thought I was sending him on a child-stealing mission. It took some time to convince him that we don't work that way here. I had to show him Certain (Ahem) Websites and also explain that we have special child-catchers called 'social workers' who take care of that sort of thing so the rest of us don't have to.

Besides, I already have to keep a constant watch on the murderous tendencies of my own offspring. I really don't have time to watch anyone else's.

Anyway, home he came, dragging this egg. Oh, I recognised it at once. It's nesting season for the Rarely-Glimpsed Slimy Swamp Things and they aren't the friendliest of creatures at the best of times. It is indeed fortunate that they are so rarely glimpsed although the rarity of the sightings might owe more to the fact that few who see them survive.

A Slimy Swamp Thing egg is an extraordinarily dangerous thing to have in the house. There is the possibility of its parents tracking it by its pungent odour and worse, there is the possibility it might hatch.

Fortunately, Caligula has eaten it.