The demon archivist snapped his talons, and an underling stepped forth immediately. "I want you," he told the underling severely, "to go forth and steal in infant that is newly born. This one could be trouble."
"As you command." The red eyes rose from the floor to look his master square in the eye. "And what is the name of this infant?"
The archivist adjusted his glasses and stared at the chicken-scratch on the paper of the huge tome. "Egon Spengler."
The underling scratched his horns with his dirty claws.
"Egon...Egon...what kind of name is that for a child? Is it a boy or a girl?" the last was addressed to his master.
The old demon shrugged his shoulders, his leather wings rustling softly.
"I don't know. We're listing the child as, 'ambiguous', pending identification. Now, go!"
The underling vanished in a puff of sulfurous smoke, to appear in a small bedroom, darkened by the night. He crept quietly over to the crib, his toeclaws making tiny, clicking sounds on the bare wood floor. He looked over the crib rail at the babe who slept within, his claws indenting the blue bumper pads surrounding the inside. He stopped, abruptly, and stared.
The child was swaddled in pink!
The demon paced the room, confused. "The room is decorated in blue," he mumbled to himself, "but the babe wears pink! I don't get it! Don't they even know what they have?" He risked another look at the child. "It looks like a boy," he breathed deeply, nostrils flaring, "it smells like a boy, but it is wrapped in pink!"
He tore his eyes away, the pink was beginning to give him a headache. "The parents must have expected a boy, but got a girl, instead. That, or it's malformed, and is a little of each." He shuddered. "Regardless, my master will not want a girl, so I will report my findings here, and hope my master will not be too angry with me."
The demon underling disappeared in another puff of foul-smelling smoke. A few minutes later, Marie Spengler, Egon's doting mother, came in to check on her son. She smelled the sulfur, and ran to the crib, sighing with relief when she saw her son untouched.
"It's a good thing I remembered that pink is an anathema to demons," she smiled to herself, "or my son would be gone, now."
She tenderly caressed his cheek with the back of her fingers. "Just promise me that you will wear something pink for the rest of your life, for a small bit of protection? Mother knows best, after all."
Egon sighed in his sleep, his chubby fist gripping the pink blanket tightly to him. And sure enough, as Egon got older, he always wore some kind of pink, whether it was his favorite pink shirts, or the combination blue/pink Ghostbusters uniform.
Mother did know best, after all.
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