Chapter 18: The Balls of Fire

ONCE UPON A TIME, when the world was all in balance, there lived a clever juggler named Nico. He had begun juggling on his mother Mika’s farm where he was set to gather the eggs each morning. Nico thought it very clever that he could toss eggs into the air and then catch them without dropping or breaking a single one.

Nico had begun by simply tossing a single egg into the air over and over. One egg might not be missed if he dropped it, so he learned to toss it only so high and to catch it gently. He learned to catch it behind his back and to throw it under his leg and to still snatch it out of the air at exactly the right moment. When Nico had practiced for many days, and had gone a week without dropping an egg, he added a second egg. And so it went until he was able to juggle five eggs without dropping them and to place them all in the basket without an accident.

Nico thought he was very clever and that no one was the wiser for his little entertainments. But the people of the village, to whom Mika sold the eggs, began to notice something strange. Mika’s hens, they said, laid scrambled eggs. The eggs became very popular. People began to pass up other egg vendors in the market to take a chance that they would get a scrambled egg from Mika.

Only Nico understood where the scrambled eggs came from, and he had great fun deciding each day if he would scramble three by juggling them, or spend longer fetching the eggs and scramble ten.

Nico’s great talent was not destined to stay secret long. One day, Mika sent Nico to the market to trade eggs for peaches so she could make a pie. Nico took a basket of eggs to trade and spoke to the orchard owner about getting peaches.

“Well,” said the orchardist, “I have windfall peaches that I would trade for normal eggs, but if I were guaranteed scrambled eggs, I could give you the finest peaches picked from the highest branches of the trees.”

The orchardist thought that Nico could not guarantee such a thing, but Nico quickly agreed. He took six large white eggs from his basket and the orchardist selected six of the finest peaches. Then Nico began to juggle.

He had never put six eggs into the air at the same time before, but under the astonished gaze of the orchardist, Nico juggled all the eggs he had brought and kept them in the air until he was content that they could not be anything other than scrambled. Then he gave them to the orchardist, who immediately cracked the eggs one after another into a frying pan and verified that he had received six scrambled eggs. He gave the peaches to Nico, and Mika baked a fine peach pie.

But the secret was out. It was not Mika’s hens that laid scrambled eggs, but Nico’s juggling that scrambled them.

You might think people would simply want to enjoy the amazing feats of Nico the Juggler. But Nico lived in a very practical community. It was not long before the dairyman came to Nico with three skins of fresh cream to juggle. When Nico had juggled for some time, the dairyman opened the skins to find butter, and gave some to Nico for his labor. Now it became routine for Nico to scramble eggs and to make butter, and for his efforts his mother’s farm prospered.

The number of jobs that Nico could do because of his amazing juggling talent seemed limitless. He could knead five loaves of bread at the same time. He could make three pints of butter, and half a dozen scrambled eggs. He could blend the paint for the barn to a perfect hue and scrub four pots at once. Nico was in great demand.

Along with his hands, Nico discovered that his sense of balance was so keen that he could stand on one foot while he used the other to help in his tasks. He might, for example, be scrambling half a dozen eggs with his hands and stirring a cake batter with a spoon held in his toes.

When there was building to be done, Nico set nails for three carpenters at once by using his clever hands and feet. At the dock, Nico could separate a boatload of fish into neat piles of cod, trout, and snapper, then serve the customers by throwing them the fish with one hand and collecting their money with the other.

Perhaps one of Nico’s most spectacular feats was performed when the bell rope in the warning tower broke. While attempting to repair it, the watchman slipped through the trapdoor in the tower and fell through the ladder, breaking every rung on his way down.