Bompie’s yard looks so pretty: roses and lavender and delphiniums and petunias and pansies. In the backyard is an apple tree, full of nearly ripe apples. On our third day here, Uncle Mo went out and picked some of the ripest, and later that day he walked into Bompie’s bedroom and said, “Bompie? Look what I brought you—”
Bompie sat up and said, “Apple pie!” and he laughed and then he cried and then he laughed again, and Uncle Mo was laughing and crying, too, and then everyone came in the room and we were all laughing and crying over that apple pie.
“How’d you know how to make that?” Uncle Stew said.
“Found Grandma’s cookbook! Followed the recipe!” Uncle Mo was very proud of himself. “I’m not a complete doofus!”
That afternoon, when Cody and I were sitting with Bompie, watching him sleep, Bompie took a short, quick breath, and then another, and then there was a long pause before another breath, and then it was quiet.
Cody and I stared at each other. Then Bompie spluttered and took another breath and went on breathing.
“Were you thinking what I was thinking?” Cody asked. “Were you thinking, Giddy-up, Bompie?”
“Yes, I was,” I said.
You would think that at a time like that, with Bompie frail in his bed, everyone would be extra kind and quiet and considerate, but Uncle Stew and Uncle Mo got into one of their big arguments. It was over whether or not they should take Bompie back to America.
“How can he stay here?” Uncle Stew demanded. “He can’t take care of himself—who will look after him? I say he comes back to America.”
“I say he stays here,” Uncle Mo said. “And besides, if he comes to America, where will he live? Will you take him?”
Uncle Stew spluttered. “Me? We don’t have room—we aren’t set up for—why don’t you take him?”
Uncle Dock intervened. “Maybe you should ask Bompie what he wants to do.”
And so they asked Bompie, and he said, “I’m home! I’m staying put!” Uncle Dock said that Bompie had made his choice. He had come home, and it was a beautiful place, and we ought to let him stay in his England, with the roses and the lavender growing all around.
“So who’s going to take care of him?” Uncle Stew asked.
“I could,” I said. “For the summer. Couldn’t I?”
“Too young,” Uncle Stew said. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, the way Brian does sometimes, and said, “You know what? I am not going to worry about this. You all worry about it. I’m going to take a nap.”
About that time, Rosalie arrived, and so we all stood around gawking at Dock and Rosalie. They must’ve gotten tired of us staring at them, though, because pretty soon they said they were going out for a walk.
In the kitchen, Brian was copying the apple pie recipe. “I’ve been thinking about that pie all the way across the ocean,” he said. “I’m going to learn how to make it, too.”
“Hey,” Cody said. “Look out there—”
Out in the backyard, Uncle Mo was juggling apples. He kept on juggling even when we went out to watch. “Look at this,” he said. “I can do four at a time! This is pretty cool, this juggling. What do you think, Sierra-Oscar-November?”
“Pretty cool, Delta-Alpha-Delta,” Cody said, “pretty cool.”
So the rest of us started picking apples and we went over to Bompie’s window, where he was propped up on pillows watching us, and we all started juggling, and we were clunking each other over the head a lot with flying apples, and that’s where Uncle Dock found us when he came back from his walk.