Poppy Day

Cast: E Wein (Mummy); Sara (age 8); Sara's friend Rebecca (age 8); Mark (age 5); Rebecca's sister and Mark's friend Vicky (age 5)

E Wein: Rebecca, why have you got a towel on your head?
Rebecca: I'm a gypsy, and we have to steal things, and it's in World War Two so we have to hide from the Germans.
E Wein: Okaaaay. Mark, why are you wearing goggles?
Mark: I'm a builder. I'm a German builder, and I'm trying to knock down the gypsies' house.
Vicky: I'm a German too.

(In fact Vicky is half Scottish, half Nigerian, and what the heck, she's also a US passport holder. Notably absent from this conversation is Sara, who clearly engineered the whole thing—I happen to know she read Twenty and Ten by Clare Huchet Bishop two times last week.

All of this DOES explain why Sara and Rebecca had locked themselves in the bathroom for 20 minutes while Mark and Vicky tried to bash the door down.)

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Mark came home from school saying that they had to have a minute of silence to "think about their poppies" for Remembrance Day (the first graders have only got to do one minute because they can't sit still for two). I asked him what he thought about.

"Our next door neighbor," he said.

Sometimes he makes me cry.