Jack and Poppy weren’t usually late. But today school had finished quite a long time ago and they still weren’t home. Mum was just beginning to wonder what had happened when they came bursting through the door.
“Mum! You’ll never guess,” Poppy said. “Today we had a new friend at school. And just now he’s told us where to find … a secret.”
Mum stopped what she was doing and said, “A secret? That might be fun. What’s the secret, kids?” Poppy and Jack looked at each other. “If we told you the secret,” Jack said, “it wouldn’t be a secret, mum.”
“Hmm,” mum said. “Well I hope it’s a good secret. Sometimes kids say things that aren’t nice.” And she looked at them with a mum look. “It’s a good secret, mum,” Poppy said. “And it’s up our hill,” Jack said. “We want to go up there and find it.”
“What?” mum said, smiling. “You want to go up there right now? Immediately?” And Jack and Poppy laughed. “Not exactly,” said Jack. “A snack first would be good.’Mum smiled and reached for the snack tin. “It just happens that I can help you with that,” she said, and they all chuckled.
As soon as they’d had their snack they put their school bags on the sofa and got their jackets. “We’re going to find out if our new friend’s a good friend,” Jack said with a grin. “That’s right,” said mum. “Off you go. And be careful.”
“Mum!” said Poppy. She rolled her eyes and said, “You know us.” “Exactly!” mum said. “I know you. That’s why I’m reminding you to be careful.” And they all laughed.
Out the gate they went, around the corner and onto the hill. Poppy pointed. She said, “That big rock up there. Do you think that’s the rock our friend told us about?” Jack said it looked like it was, so they began to climb up.
The hill was scratchy and matchy on their legs but they kept going. Up and up. And then they reached the rock. “Phew,” Jack said. “That’s a long way.” Poppy nodded but she was going around to the other side of the big rock and looking for something. “There should be a little path,” she said. “Our friend said there’s a path.”
Now Jack was with her and they looked around. “Here’s a path,” Jack said. And sure enough there was a tiny track almost hidden in the grass and the scrathy matchy plants. “Do you think it’s the one?” Poppy thought it probably was. “It’s a little path made by a rabbit or something,” Jack said. “I’ve seen pictures of rabbit paths in our school book.”
“Let’s follow it,” Poppy said. “Then we’ll know about our friend.” So off they went, jumping and bumping up the little curving twisting spiralling track. Up and up. After a while Jack said, “This is hard work.” “Yes,” Poppy said. She was panting. “But it’s going to be worth it. There’s going to be a secret at the end.”
“I hope so,” said Jack. Then he asked, “Is it leading us to a dead tree? Our friend said there’s a dead tree. I don’t see one.” But just then the path led them around a corner and Poppy stopped. She said, “Jack, look!” And up ahead was a dead tree. “Great! Maybe there really is a secret,” Jack said.
They got to the old dead tree and Poppy said, “He said the secret was close to here. Let’s look.” So they slowly slowly went through the matchy scratchy grass and stuff peering and looking. Carefully, carefully they looked. “I don’t see it yet,” Jack said. “Well, just keep looking,” Poppy told him. “He said it was close.”
They moved around the dead tree, bending over and lifting up things and trying and trying to find the secret. But they couldn’t. “It’s not here, Poppy,” Jack said. “I feel a little bit sad.” “Well, he did seem like a good friend,” Poppy said, “so let’s keep looking a little bit more.”
So they looked and they cooked and they booked and they walked around and around. And then Jack saw something! “Poppy!” he yelled. “What’s this?” And Poppy raced over and there it was. A little tin box, just like their friend had said.
“He was right,” Jack said with a smile. And Poppy picked up the tin and said Jack could open it first. He looked at her and carefully, slowly, gently he lifted the lid.
Poppy saw inside. “There’s two,” she whispered. And he eyes were getting bigger and her smile was spreading over he face. “One pencil for you and one for me,” Jack said. “These are nice presents!” And he picked one out and held it in his hand. “Soon I’ll be writing with this pencil. So good!”
He slipped the present into his pocket and looked down the hill. “Time to go back?” he asked. Poppy nodded. She put her pencil away too and they set off, back down the little twisting rabbit path, around the big rock and down, down the hill jumping and twisting and glisting through all the scratchy stuff.
They ran through the gate and slid into the house and Jack called out, “Mum it was true.” Poppy charged after him and said, “We found the secret present, mum! It’s ended in a eucatastrophe [eu-cata-strophe] after all.” And mum smiled a big smile and said she was very happy about that.
She said, “It’s good when you find out your friends are good people and good to you.” And then she said, “That’s like Joseph in the Bible. Mary’s husband. At first he wasn’t sure if Mary really was a good girl, and then he found out she was and they got married.”
Poppy smiled. She knew that story because she and Jack listened to Bible stories at bedtime. She snuggled into mum and said, “It’s good to know where the good friends are. But, mum,” she looked up at mum with a grin, “it’s good to know where the good snacks are.” And mum chuckled and gave Poppy a little squeeze. She said, “Yes. Let’s all sit down and have a snack together. I’m just about to make myself a coffee.”
So Jack and Poppy sat down at the table and showed mum their new pencils from their friend, and they pulled open the snacks and they were still there smiling and munching and holding their pencils when dad came home from work.