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Once upon a time, there were a dozen eggs in Martí’s refrigerator.
Martí is a curious 7-year-old boy, eager to learn.
These eggs never left the refrigerator; they were always bored of not being able to get out and see the world.
One day, Martí was preparing the materials for an experiment, as he wanted to participate in a science fair organized by his school.
He prepared a beaker full of vinegar, but realized he was missing some ingredients and went out to buy them.
Martí left the beaker in the refrigerator, and Pip, a brave egg who wanted to accompany Martí to see the world, inevitably fell in—but landed right in the beaker!
“Glug, glug… what’s this?” Pip said, frightened.
The vinegar was starting to tickle his shell. Pip was scared.
“I can’t get out! I don’t have legs! I don’t have hands!” he exclaimed.
Two days passed. The kitchen was silent; only the bubbles could be heard… glug, glug, glug.
It didn’t hurt; it was like a bubble bath!
Pip felt alone. He thought about the other eggs, his friends.
Little by little, he noticed something strange. His shell was no longer hard. It was soft, like rubber.
“What’s happening to me?” he wondered.
When Martí arrived, he saw the beaker.
“Oh! An egg inside the vinegar!” he said, surprised.
Very carefully, he took it out and washed it with water.
Pip no longer had a hard shell. It was transparent. You could see a little bit of what was inside!
Martí put him back in the egg carton with the other eggs.
“Look at him! He’s strange!”
“He doesn’t have a shell!”
“He looks like plastic!” whispered one of the eggs.
Pip was sad; he wanted to go back to how he was before.
But suddenly, as he tried to move… he accidentally gave a little bounce.
And…
Boing! Boing…
All the eggs fell silent and stared in amazement.
Boing! Boing!
He could jump!
The other eggs couldn’t, but he could.
In that story, Pip made little bounces without breaking; even so, his membrane was delicate.
The acetic acid in the vinegar had reacted with the calcium carbonate in the shell and dissolved it. The flexible, delicate inner membrane remained: that was why Pip looked different.
Now the eggs weren’t laughing anymore.
“How did you do it?” they asked.
Pip explained everything that had happened to him inside the beaker. The bubbles, the fear, the hours alone, the vinegar that had removed his hard shell…
“I want to go into the vinegar too!” said one egg.
“Me too!” said others.
Pip thought for a moment.
“It hasn’t all been fun,” he said softly. “I’ve been scared. I’ve felt alone, and I’ve changed without meaning to.”
The eggs stopped talking.
Pip continued.
“Being different isn’t bad. But you don’t have to change to be like someone else.”
The eggs realized they had laughed without thinking.
“Sorry, Pip,” they said.
From that day on, no one made fun of anyone anymore. Every egg was different: some bigger, some smaller, some white, some brown…
And Pip, the transparent egg who could jump, learned that sometimes the things that make us different also make us special.
And if you ever hear a little “boing” in the kitchen, maybe it’s Pip taking a happy leap!
Written by:
Nerea Rosell, Carla Moriche, Samuel Román, and Judit Rovira
Vic Institute
Chemistry Department
Academic Year 2025-2026
QUD0 Laboratory of Analysis and Quality Control
Acknowledgments:
Dibuixem Manlleu artistic group and Glòria Llobet and Assumpta Torrents.
