Read Online Hippomobile! by Jeff Tapia - Free Book Online

think that might’ve been it, Homer. Gundelinde . . . Yup, I think maybe. No forgettin’ a doozy like that, that’s for darn sure.”
    â€œHow about Kunigunde, boys?” asked Grandma Henrietta. “You think maybe that—”
    But she didn’t have time to even finish her sentence because Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Virgil both shouted, “Kunigunde! That’s her!”
    â€œNever forget a doozy like that, that’s for darn sure, Homer,” said Grandpa Virgil.
    Then Grandma Henrietta asked, “So is you two sayin’ that Gottfried Schuh left Wymore to go to his
Schwester
’s —I mean, his sister’s—wedding and then ain’t never returned back to Wymore because he hitched his wagon to a pretty little star named Kunigunde? Is that what you two is sayin’?”
    Grandpa Virgil looked at Grandpa Homer. “Is that what we’re saying, Homer?”
    â€œWe wasn’t but little kids at the time, but that’s what I always heard. Ain’t it, Virgil?”
    â€œI reckon so, Homer.”
    â€œThank you, boys. You’ve been a great help,” said Grandma Henrietta. “For a change.”
    â€œAlways a pleasure doin’ business with you, Henrietta,” said Grandpa Homer. “But tell me, what are you interested in Gottfried Schuh for all of a sudden?”
    â€œLater, Homer,” Grandma Henrietta said, and turned to us. “You kids get it, don’tcha?”
    The looks on our faces must’ve told her we didn’t.
    â€œThen listen close,” she said. “Because accordin’ to this letter you found, before Gottfried traveled back to witness the marriage of Magda Schuh and Heinrich Sonnenschein, he was gonna take somethin’ he called a dingsbums out of his hippomobile. That way ain’t no one could drive it while he was gone. And now accordin’ to these two old fogies, Gottfried really did go to that wedding just like he wrote he was gonna. But it seems he got married himself to one Kunigunde Sonnenschein, and for reasons ain’t no one knows, Gottfried never returned back to Wymore. You followin’?”
    We were.
    â€œGood,” said Grandma Henrietta. “Now hold on to your britches. Because if he really did take that dingsbums out of the hippomobile and left it at his house like he said he was gonna, that means it could very well still be there.”
    Well, that was the most dramatic and sensational news we’d heard all summer. Because it meant if we could just find that dingsbums, we could make the hippomobile run again. And if we could make that happen, people from all over would wanna come and look at it. And if people came from all over to look at it—well, you get the idea.
    Just then Grandpa Milton returned. He sat himself down into a chair and placed a book on the table called
How to Win at Checkers
. It had more dog-ears in it than a kennel. And he said, “Did I hear you talking about Gottfried Schuh’s old house?” And once again the checkers began doing a dance.
    And Grandma Henrietta said, “That’s correct, Milt. You know where it is?” Because if anybody was gonna know, it was gonna be him on account of that he used to be the Wymore mailman.
    â€œI do,” Grandpa Milton said, “But it ain’t nothing but big bluestem now.” 5
    We knew what he meant by that. “Gone?” we asked.
    â€œWith the wind,” Grandpa Milton replied. And he puffed his cheeks out and made like wind was blowing, and the sound that came out was like a long, low train whistle, and our hair even blew back some.
    What Grandpa Milton was getting at was that Gottfried Schuh’s house had since broken down, fallen apart, and got taken back over by nature. It was happening all the time to the houses off the square on account of how they were just made out of wood. Some of the brick buildings on the square were going that way too, if a