Word: Pip

 

pip

\ pip \  , verb;

1. To peep or chirp.

2. (Of a young bird) to break out from the shell.

3. To crack or chip a hole through (the shell), as a young bird.

 **************************
   Small, fine cracks began to appear, slowly at first but with increasing speed.  The many onlookers pressed their faces against the bars, hoping to get a better look at what was happening.  There were others in back of them, who stood as tall as possible, peering over shoulders, and standing on toes or the odd chair for the more daring individuals.
    As more and more cracks appeared in the smooth, gray speckled surface, a tiny hole appeared, and an equally small object emerged from the hole.  The onlookers held their breath in anticipation, the room becoming eerily quiet.  Some of the more enthusiastic onlookers even tried to stick their fingers in through the bar, to help what was inside get out sooner.  All such attempts were quickly thwarted though.  
    The object inside continued to chip away at the exterior, widening the hole, until a tiny head emerged.  The little baby canary, forced its way out from its egg shell, the mother moving in to tend to its new child.  With that, the spell on the room seemed to dissipate, the hands, eyes, and voices of many second graders pushing and shoving in order to see the new addition to their class.  
    The teacher tried to get them all to back away, and give the birds some room, particularly since there were three other eggs in the nest that had not yet hatched, but were showing signs of readiness.  Her words went unheard by the excited students.  They wanted to see every minute of the birds hatching.  The teacher sighed, giving up on actually teaching anything for the rest of the day, as the students would no doubt be so obsessed over the baby birds that they would be unable to pay attention to anything else, even after all four had hatched.  The most she could hope to do was use the chicks to her advantage, and somehow sneak in a lesson or two.  It may not have been what she had planned for the day, but anything was better than nothing at this point.  
    The children continued to swarm around the birdcage, even trying to touch the baby birds by sticking their fingers in through the bars of them cage.  The mother bird chirped angrily at them, in a futile attempt to get the perceived threats away from the newborns.  The students, oblivious to the meaning of the birds calls, continued to swarm around, sticking their fingers in and wiggling them around, attempting to call one of the birds to them.  As the canary fluttered around its cage, and puffed out its feathers while continuing to chirp and trill at the students, the teacher continued to attempt to bring order to the class, before anything happened to the fingers the students were wiggling around inside the cage.  Some of the more obedient children did start to slowly back away from the cage, although it still held their attention more than anything else.  
    The teacher continued to raise her voice in an effort to coax her students away from the cage, with limited success.  Children started to slowly break away from the cage, one by one.  Every eye was still on it, but at least she could start to do something again.  That is, once the remaining few children finally stepped away and left the birds alone.  
    Suddenly, as she was about to make another attempt at getting the few remaining students away from the cage, it happened.  A piercing scream from one of the students who had stubbornly refused to take his finger out from the cage.  The mother bird had gone up to his finger, and gave it a quick, sharp nip.  The child attached to the finger started to wail and whine, holding the assaulted digit as if it was about to fall off. At least the attention of the room was no longer on the birds.  Now it was on the injured boy.  
    The teacher went over to him and inspected the finger.  It was mainly for show, since she knew that he wasn’t really injured.  Indeed, the skin hadn’t even been broken.  The boy was probably crying more out of shock that pain.  Nevertheless, she moved him over the the small sink at the far side of the room, and wrapped his finger in a cold, wet paper towel.  He sniffled a bit, but seemed satisfied with the remedy.  

Now that the room had been rendered much less interested in the baby canaries, the teacher was able to resume her normal classroom duties.  Her first lesson was why one should never ignore the warnings of a mother animal.