Growing up in a small Zululand village I did not have access to TV, but had ready access to anything in nature. That's why it didn't seem unusual to me that I would collect all kinds of interesting objects.
One day I found what looked like a really soft, but whole large egg in the compost pile at the foot of the garden. I hadn't seen anything like it before, but it looked interesting. It also seemed to have something inside it that was moving slightly. I found a small box for it, and took it with me to school.
I carried it around to each class. Something was definitely happening inside it, so I'd place it where I could see it on my desk, while obviously not attending to the lesson.
All of a sudden, during Geography, the egg finally split open.
A little, but fully functioning, baby black mamba snake writhed out and immediately flew off the desk, onto the floor, round the classroom, and through the side door, amid screams of horror and amazement from my fellow students. It was chaotic. Baby mambas have just as much deadly poison as their parents. Two drops of their venom kill.
I don't remember too much after that except I found myself in the principal's office, severely chastised, and having to write out lines after school. Can you imagine having to write out, "I promise I will never bring a snake to school again" one hundred times?
At home, my parents scolded me, and started making a more active inventory of my collections. But they didn't keep that up for too long. Their curiosity was just like mine.
