He’s back!
Poppy!
Forever!
It started with our parents fooling us. At breakfast this morning Dad said, “We’re taking you to the house.” He meant the house they’ve been working on since spring. “We want to see if you like what we did to it.”
“Okay,” we said. We were impressed. They never asked our opinion before. Must mean we’re practically grown-up.
So we get in the car and drive to the house and pull into the driveway. It’s a little white stucco cottage with red trim and a gray roof and a porch big enough for two chairs. Jake and I are looking it over and saying stuff like, “Good work” and “Nice paint job.”
Mom says, “We have one big problem. You know Dad and me. We’re not musical. We don’t know if we got the door chimes right. Would you mind going up and ringing the doorbell and see what you think of the sound?”
We bolted from the car, and of course I was first to the door. I pressed the button. We could hear the chimes inside. We both called back, “Sounds good.”
Then the door opened.
It was Poppy! Jake and I were in a howling laughter sandwich—Poppy in front of us, parents behind. Everybody piled into the house, and pretty quick we got the story.
Poppy didn’t just come for a visit last winter. He and Mom and Dad planned the whole thing. Poppy bought the old handyman special with money he’d been saving, and Mom and Dad did the work for nothing. I glared at Poppy. “You tricked us. You knew all along you were coming back.” I punched him for making me cry back then, and he just laughed and swallowed Jake and me in a bear hug.