Jack and Poppy were hurrying and scurrying along their street but Jack said, “Faster, Poppy. Faster!” Up above them, dark lumpy clouds were also hurrying. Bumping and scudding and jostling along. The air was wet. The kids pulled their jackets tighter.
They came to the last corner and … stopped. Up ahead, someone was banging. It was dad. He was hunched up at the gate into their house. “What’s he building?” Poppy said. He was building something. His wheelbarrow was parked on the footpath full of saws and a hammer and a level and two shovels and boxes of nails and a small pot of blue paint and building stuff.
Dad heard them coming and looked up. He said, “Hello, you both. School’s over?”
Jack said it sure was. “Classes seemed to take a long, long time to finish today!” And Poppy said there rain was coming and they’d only just made it back home in time.
Dad looked up at the grumbling, angry, hurrying clouds and he said, “Oh, dear. You’re right. And that means I’ve got a problem. What am I going to do with this?” And he pointed to the letterbox.
“Dad!” Jack said, with his eyes big and shining. “You’ve made a new letter box!”
“Well not exactly ‘made’ a letter box,” Dad said. “See. It still needs something to cover it. A lid. A top.” And he was right. It was open!
Dad had made the bottom and put the sides on and nailed it onto the post by the garden gate. He’d painted it bright blue with a big white number 9 on the front where the postman could see. Now all that it needed was a top.
Poppy said it was beautiful even though it wasn’t finished. Dad said, “Right” and stroked it like it was a new baby. They were all smiling and grinning and Jack and Poppy were thinking dad was the cleverest dad.
Then something cold and tiny popped against Jack’s face. “Oh!” He looked up. Another one landed. “Here comes the rain,” he said. And Poppy said he was right and Dad’s brow crinkled in big worry lines. He said, OK. They’d better get their act together and find a cover for the top as quick as they could. “You can’t have a letter box that lets the rain in,” Jack announced. They all agreed.
“But where am I going to find a cover?” dad asked. He paused. Then he said, “I know. The shed! There’ll be some wood there. Come with me,” and he set off for the little shed at the bottom of the garden.
Jack and Poppy hurried towards the house and flung their school bags towards the kitchen door and scooted after Dad. But suddenly Mum called out. “Hey!” she said. “Have you got servants around here?” Poppy stopped. “Oops,” she said, smiling. “Sorry mum.” She gathered up the bags and put them inside the kitchen and raced away after Jack, down to the little wooden shed at the other end of the garden.
Jack and Dad were standing in the doorway. Jack asked, “Is there a bit of wood in here, Dad?” Dad said he hoped so because the rain was getting closer and closer.
But ‘where’ was the question. Because the whole shed was stuffed full of junk. Steel drums and old oily rags and a bicycle with only one wheel. (The back wheel). There were rakes and trowels and a very long, twisted green hose. On a shelf there was dad’s pliers and screwdrivers and snips and bottles of nails. There was stuff everywhere! It completely covered the floor and was stacked up high to nearly touching the roof. Half of the window had been blocked with a heap of old cardboard boxes. And the little shed smelled of musty spider’s webs and oil.
Poppy said, “We’ll never find any wood in this big heap, Dad. And that rain’s almost here.”
Dad nodded and said she might be right, but then he started to look and push and rummage around in the mountain of ‘things’. “There must be some wood here somewhere,” he said. “I can remember seeing some once.” Jack laughed and asked, “Once long, long ago, Dad?” Poppy chuckled and even Dad joined in and smiled his special Dad grin.
Now all three of them were looking seriously. They pushed behind stacks of clattering tins … only dust and cobwebs. Poppy lifted the edge of a pile of old purple curtains … nothing. (And just as well because the heap of material was so disgusting!)
Jack poked and peered along the workbench. It was completely covered in rubbish and stuff dad would never use. A stiff, horrible, red sock. Someone’s old phone that had buttons but no screen. “It’s a feature phone,” Poppy told Jack when he held it up. “Useless.” There was a box of old Lego covered in dust and some dead insects. And parts of a broken lawnmower.
Poppy was on her knees now, scrummaging under the workbench through a pile of mouldy old books and magazines. She opened one. Dad said, “Keep going, girl. The rain’s getting really close.” ” He chuckled. “No time for reading old books.”
And then Jack saw something. “Dad!” Everyone looked up. Jack was in the corner of the shed now and he reached behind a couple of shovels and pulled out a piece of wood. And then another piece! Short, flat and about the size of the letterbox. Although Jack thought one was a little longer.
Dad said, “Wow. One of them might work!”
They all hurried and bundled outside. It was colder and more damp. The rain was very very close. They scuttled to the letter box and dad put the first piece of wood on top. “There!”
They stepped back. The first drop of rain landed right in the middle of the piece of wood. Poppy cried, “That wood’s too small!” Dad nodded. It was the right width, so it sat neatly on top of the letter box. But it was too short. There was a gap. The rain would get inside!
“Here’s the other one, dad,” Jack said. Dad quickly lifted off the short piece and put the second piece on top. And it fitted exactly right!
Jack and Poppy did a little “We-did-it!” dance. Dad grinned and reached into the wheelbarrow for his drill. Two more drops of rain splashed onto the letter box. Jack said, “Hurry, Dad. Hurry!” Poppy said it was a race against time. Jack looked around … he couldn’t see any racing but he didn’t say anything.
Dad was laughing now. He buzzed screws all around the edge of the new piece of wood and stepped back. “Done!” he said. And just in time. Another big sloppy drop crashed onto the new letter box.
Poppy pulled her hoodie up. Dad plonked the drill into the wheelbarrow and grabbed the handles. He wobbled and skidded it through the gate and said. “Come on, kids!” The three of them raced into the garden and panted down to the shed. They crashed through the door and slithered to a stop inside.
“Phew,” said Jack. “Just in time!” That was true. They turned and now outside the rain was falling in long, wet splodges. Faster and harder and thicker. Poppy said, “That was close.” Dad nodded. He said, “And the letterbox’ll also be dry. Well done, kids!”
The three of them stood staring at the rain. It was hammering down now, which caused Jack to have a thought. “How are we going to get inside the house without getting wet?” Dad was grinning and reaching for his phone. He said, “I know exactly who to ask!”
He called Mum. In no time she came smiling and swooshing through puddles and the rain with a big, gigantic umbrella and all four of them jostled and jiggled with her up to the warm dry kitchen and Jack and Poppy told her all about the two pieces of wood and the letterbox.
“Well,” Mum said, “those two pieces of wood remind me of the story Jesus told. About two men.” Dad was in the doorway shaking the wet umbrella and he asked, “What two men?” Mum said the two men who were praying and looked pretty much exactly the same. “But,” she said, “their prayers were not the same. Only one man was praying right.” Poppy nodded. She remembered that story. Mum had read it to her and Jack the other night.
Mum nodded. Then she wondered if Jack and Poppy could remember how tasty her muffins were. And Dad laughed and laughed and wrapped his arms around Mum and gave her the biggest hug. And Jack and Poppy opened the pantry door and found a big plate of fresh, warm muffins waiting to be eaten!