The peach pit, p.14
The Peach Pit, page 14
Maren shook her head. “That’s so weird. What’s with your dad and all these random jobs he keeps making you guys do—first baking pies and selling them out of a food truck all summer? Now, being construction people and working in your own house that’s also kind of a hotel?”
“It’s not that weird,” Lucy said, bristling a bit. She knew it was hard for her friends to understand her family and their strange quirks, but the thing was, in some bizarre way, running a B&B totally fit their family. It would have been a better fit if their mom were still alive, since she was the one who most loved meeting new people and loved taking the seed of an idea and growing it into something exciting and new. But Lucy and Freddy and Herb had all inherited important pieces of their mom that made them a perfect combo to take on a challenge like this in her absence. “Okay, so maybe not all families would want to run a food truck or a bed-and-breakfast, but our family seems to do really well with these kinds of challenges. It’s something interesting for us to do together and honestly, Mar? It’s fun. And I’m learning a lot.”
“Yeah,” Maren said. “My family would probably kill each other if we had to camp out together all summer or live through this construction mess. But I guess your family is one of those special types that can handle it.”
Yeah, Lucy thought to herself. The Peaches are special. The way her family’s lives had shaken out over the past few years wasn’t normal or boring or easy by most people’s standards. But what was normal when it came to families? Every family was built differently, and each type of family needed to figure out how they worked best. The Peaches had proven that they were capable of surviving—even thriving—through chaos and challenges. Like a piece of build-it-yourself furniture, theirs was a special collection of lots of different kinds of parts (made up of Lucy-Freddy-Herb-Dad) that had begun to click and lock into the exact right spot. “So, do you want to help me figure out how to follow this treasure map to hidden riches, or what?” Lucy said, shifting back to the main reason she and Maren had come up to the attic.
“Absolutely,” Maren said. She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and held it up. “This is the scan of the original map, with the contrast set really high. So the lines are as dark as we can get them now. It’s still not super clear, but on this copy the numbers are easier to read than they were on the original.”
Lucy and Maren sat together on the rug on the floor of the attic and pored over the treasure map. Now that the lines were darker, thanks to Maren’s mom’s scanner and some clever fiddling with the file, Lucy was a little embarrassed she hadn’t immediately realized it was a map of the Peach Pit. It was so obviously a map of this house—but what did the map and the random little boxes and numbers mean?
“I can’t figure out if the map is telling me something about where to look for the hidden riches, or if it’s just a map and I’m missing something that would explain what all the lines and numbers mean?” She pointed. “I wish there was just an X that told me where to dig.”
“If there was an X to mark the spot, that wouldn’t make this hunt for hidden riches very fun,” Maren pointed out. She wiggled her eyebrows. “What if the map leads you to some kind of actual treasure? I mean, what if there’s a chest full of jewels, or cash, or stolen vases and paintings or something?”
“Let’s hope we don’t find stolen vases and paintings,” Lucy said, cringing. “That would make the Peach Pit the scene of a crime, and Great Aunt Lucinda a criminal, and that’s not going to help convince her son that we should keep the house in the family.” She sighed. “I hope whatever we find at the end of this treasure map is worth something, at least. If we find some sort of treasure, Dad’s cousin David might get off our case. We could hand over something of value, and then he wouldn’t have to sell the house. And we’d definitely get to stay here. Everyone wins.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Maren handed Lucy the map and closed her eyes. “Do you think we just need to follow the map from the first number to the last and see what we find?”
“Maybe?” Lucy shrugged. “But we don’t have any idea what we’re looking for along the way. Are there clues, or arrows, or some other reason that we’re supposed to follow the numbers?”
Maren flopped onto her back and stared up at the attic eaves. “Is there a safe anywhere in the house?” she asked. “Maybe the numbers are a code for a safe that’s hidden in room number twelve?”
“No safe,” Lucy said. “I’ve explored every corner of this house, and unless it’s super well-hidden, there’s no safe. I’ve looked extra carefully in the attic, and also in the living room, since that’s where the number twelve seems to be on the map.”
“Isn’t the point of a safe to be super well-hidden?” Maren asked, lifting her eyebrows. “Don’t people usually hide them in the wall behind old paintings or bookshelves or something? This house was made for a safe. Think about all the art that’s hanging on the walls.”
“I mean…” Lucy said, cocking her head. “I guess it’s possible. Wanna look some more?”
For the next hour, she and Maren scoured every inch of the house. They went in the order the numbers on the map told them to. All the guest bedrooms were immediately deemed unlikely, since they’d all been pulled apart and put back together and no one had found any hidden safes during that process. They snuck into Dad’s, Freddy’s, and Herb’s bedrooms and peeked behind all the shelves and in the closets, and moved aside Great Aunt Lucinda’s ugly painting of a giant bowl of pears that Dad had kept hanging in his room. Lucy felt a little bad about snooping, but if it led them to hidden riches that would help convince Dad’s cousin David to let them keep the Peach Pit, it was worth the invasion of privacy.
They looked in the kitchen, inside the servant staircases, opened every closet door, and even pushed and tapped at the walls in the bathrooms. When they finally gave up their hunt and stopped in the kitchen for one of Freddy’s fresh-baked cookies, the girls spread the map out in front of them and studied it again.
“We have a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper we’re pretty sure is a house map, and nothing else to go on,” Maren said softly, making sure neither of the boys overheard her. They were both in their bedrooms, but Lucy didn’t want to risk them listening in.
Lucy sighed. “We have a garage out back, and there’s a ton of stuff crammed in there. It’s gross, but maybe there’s something hiding a clue? According to Herb, the garage probably used to be an old horse stall, back in the early twentieth century. Now it’s a leaky building that we can’t park in because the door is blocked off by the dumpster.”
Maren grinned. “It’s worth looking.”
Together, they raced to the garage. Inside, Lucy scanned the shelves for something, anything. Most of the contents in the garage were tools and garden supplies, but on the topmost shelf in the farthest corner were a bunch of board games. And on the very bottom of the stack, there was a very old, very dusty Monopoly box. “Mar!” Lucy called out. “Monopoly is all about making money, right? And this is the Hunt for Hidden Riches, so…”
Maren shrieked when she saw Lucy reach for it and pull it off the shelf. The box was almost falling apart, but inside, the game and all the pieces and the piles of paper money were still intact. Lucy felt a bubble of excitement in her stomach. Maybe they were on the right track…
“Do you see a note or anything?” Maren asked as Lucy pawed through the game pieces and all the paper money. “Is there any real cash inside the box?”
She and Maren pulled the whole game apart, digging and searching through everything in the box, eager to find a clue or a prize or a note or something.
“Nothing,” Lucy said finally, tossing a whole fistful of Monopoly money into the air, watching as it floated to the ground around her. “This is a dead end.”
“Ugh!” Maren groaned. “We’re no closer to finding hidden riches than we were three hours ago. What now?”
“Now I keep searching,” Lucy said with a shrug. “Peaches don’t quit.”
FREDDY’S PEACH PIT “WELCOME” COOKIES
1. Beat together until super pale (like 2–3 minutes):
о 2 sticks of butter
о 1 C brown sugar
о 1/2 C white sugar
2. Then mix in:
о 2 eggs
о 1 t vanilla (or more if you want)
3. When that’s all yummy looking and smooth, add:
о 2 1/4–2 1/2 C flour
о 1 t salt
о 1 t baking soda
о 1 C oats
о 1 bag of chocolate chips/chocolate chunks or M&Ms
If you use an electric mixer, be careful not to turn it on too fast or your flour will fly everywhere!
4. Once the batter is ready, stir in (by hand) 1 bag of chocolate chips/chocolate chunks or M&Ms!
5. Bake them at 375° F for about 6–10 minutes, depending on how big your cookie balls are.
VARIATIONS:
* Swap chocolate hazelnut spread or peanut butter for some of the butter.
* Add broken-up pretzel pieces for extra crunch!
* Toss in some nuts (not my fave).
* Sprinkle salt on the top of each cookie right after they come out of the oven!
* Use butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips.
20
DOGS’ DAY OUT
The weekend before Thanksgiving, with less than a week to go before their grand opening, all four Peaches and a pair of dogs (Vix and Dasher—the only two willing to wear a collar and leash) made a trek to the Birch Pond retirement community to visit Great Aunt Lucinda and her friends. Though they had a million things to do back at the Peach Pit, they’d agreed to spend the evening playing Hearts with Aunt Lucinda—a continuation of their years’-long tournament of the Two Lucindas versus the Peach Boys. But first, they would all get to enjoy Birch Pond’s Fall Feast, a special Saturday when each of the residents got to nominate snacks and desserts for the center’s cooks to whip up, and everyone who lived at the center was allowed to invite family to come for an afternoon social. Herb was excited to give his family the grand tour of his place of business and introduce them to some of the people he’d begun to think of as family. But he was even more excited to debut Vix and Dasher’s improved behavior and tricks for Great Aunt Lucinda and her friends.
When they pulled into the Birch Pond parking lot, Herb fastened a leash to each dog’s collar and told them both to sit. Vix awkwardly sat on Freddy’s lap, and Dash half-sat half-hovered on the bump in the center of the back seat. “Now, I want you both on your best behavior,” Herb told them, using his most commanding voice. “No peeing on shoes, no chewing, and no monkey business.”
“Think they understand you?” Freddy asked, looking very much like he thought not. “Did you know that most dogs understand somewhere between one hundred and two hundred words, which is about the same as a human two- or three-year-old?” He laughed. “But I’d argue that these guys are definitely not as smart as your average human toddler.”
Herb shushed him. “That’s not helping. We need to boost their confidence before their big visit, not hurt their feelings.”
Dad popped open the trunk and grabbed the box full of fresh-baked pies he’d brought to serve during the Fall Feast. “I miss doing something as simple as baking pies,” Dad had explained when he’d called Great Aunt Lucinda to tell her he was bringing dessert to share. “This B and B project is so big and feels never-ending, so the simple act of baking a pie is actually really satisfying. There’s a clear beginning, middle, and end. The Peach Pit renovation feels like one long middle, and it’s deeply unsettling.” Dad had been a ball of nerves the past few weeks, especially with his cousin David breathing down their necks. He’d burned the first two pies, but his later efforts all turned out pretty well.
Herb knew his dad liked to follow a process when he did things. Herb did, too; it’s one of the reasons he enjoyed math so much. There was a natural path to follow that eventually led to a clear solution. But unlike math, the mansion renovation was definitely not following a clear path. There were endless random tasks, each of which led to more projects and problems, and whenever it seemed like they were close to solving something, a new variable popped into the equation that messed everything up.
The chaos and constant craziness were making everyone in the Peach family a little nutso, for different reasons. Even though his bedroom was never tidy and didn’t always look clean, Herb actually loved order and organization. This was one of the reasons he’d been enjoying setting up both the dollhouse and his new secret cellar space so much. Ever since the day when he’d discovered the magical space hiding under the Peach Pit, Herb had taken the time to sweep a lot of the dirt and cobwebs and dead bugs to the farthest corners, in order to begin the slow process of moving his collections out of his bedroom and into their new spots in his hidden treasure chest.
He had a shelf for pine cones and other magnificent things he’d found in nature.
There was a shelf for lost-and-now-found stuffies and old, mismatched socks.
One whole wall was filled with the various “tips” he’d received for his work at Birch Pond—hundreds of buttons, nearly a dozen Beanie Babies, a glass jar with a collection of hard candy Herb didn’t particularly like, and a wide variety of activity books and toys and trinkets that had obviously meant something to someone once (and now meant a whole lot to Herb!).
He’d also created a space dedicated to memories of his mom. Here he lined up some of her old shampoo bottles; a few favorite pictures he’d slid out of family albums; Post-it notes with her handwriting that he’d found in a desk drawer after she’d died that no one ever cleaned out; and the old plastic food truck he and his mom used to play with together when Herb was little. Herb had turned it into a Peach Pie Truck, to help him remember their family’s fun adventure the previous summer.
Over the past week, Herb had begun to convert part of the cellar floor and some of the bottom shelves into a fun playland for some of the house mice. He’d set up tunnels and ramps made out of toilet paper tubes and cardboard—just like he’d done for his mouse babies that summer on their family road trip—and set out tasty snacks like peanut butter and cheese so the little critters who lived down there would know Herb was a friend. He didn’t want them to think he was trying to steal their space and kick them out!
Even Dasher had begun to get used to the little mice bustling around them in the cellar. In fact, as they headed from the car to the Birch Pond front entrance that chilly Saturday morning for the Fall Feast, Dash was only mildly distracted by all the small squirrels skittering to and fro on the center’s lawn; Vix, on the other hand, went absolutely nuts for them. She strained at her leash and harness, desperately trying to chase every squirrel she saw off the property. Herb was tugged this way and that, and soon he was entirely tangled up in the two leashes. As Vix scampered and barked, she wrapped her leash around and through Herb’s legs until Herb went toppling to the frost-covered ground.
“Oof!” Herb moaned as he hit the frozen grass. Unwilling to let go of the leashes, lest Vix or Dash took off across the center’s sprawling lawn, Herb was quickly tangled up in something that resembled a spider’s web made out of lengths of leash. “A little help here?” he squeaked.
Lucy raced over to untangle her brother, but as soon as Vix had some slack on her leash, she lunged for a squirrel racing up a tree trunk, taking Lucy down in the process. As she hit the ground, she dropped the leash and Vix made a run for it.
Freddy dove, grabbing the pup’s harness before Vix could make it very far. Flustered, Dad set down his box of pies to try to help control the chaos. But as soon as he stepped away from his baked goods, Dasher—who’d probably been waiting quietly for this exact opportunity—perched his front paws on the rim of the box and greedily nosed into an apple pie.
By the time the Peaches got inside Birch Pond’s lobby, they were all cold, a little muddy, and covered in mushed-up apple pie. “The dogs’ big day out is going really well so far,” Freddy said cheerfully.
Herb glared at him. This was not how it was supposed to go! He’d had such big plans, and nothing was going the way it should. It’s okay, Herb told himself. Now that they were inside, in a squirrel-free zone, the dogs would surely be better behaved. They had been working so hard at their training, and he just knew they could handle their big Birch Pond debut.
“My babies!” Great Aunt Lucinda came hustling through the lobby, bending down to greet the two dogs with kisses and ear scratches. “Oh, how I’ve missed my little darlings!”
Aunt Lucinda let the dogs jump and squirm all over her. She was wearing a huge smile and an even huger Dolly Parton wig atop her head. Herb had seen her wear this long, poufy blond wig a few times before, but it was always fun to see her in it. He wondered if the wig was heavy, and if her neck got sore holding so much hair on top of her head. Some wigs, he’d learned from Freddy, were made with real hair and some were fake hair—the big difference between the two kinds was price.
“How much did that wig cost?” Freddy blurted out as Great Aunt Lucinda wrapped him into a side-arm hug.
“Wig?” Great Aunt Lucinda said with a wink. “What wig? This is my own natural God-given hair, Fred.”
Freddy laughed. “Did you know the artist Andy Warhol’s wig sold for more than ten thousand dollars? It was made out of real hair, and I guess it was pretty famous.”
“What a stupid way to spend that much money,” Lucy announced. “Think of how far ten thousand bucks would go in the Peach Pit!”
“Not far,” Walter Peach muttered.
“It’s not that weird,” Lucy said, bristling a bit. She knew it was hard for her friends to understand her family and their strange quirks, but the thing was, in some bizarre way, running a B&B totally fit their family. It would have been a better fit if their mom were still alive, since she was the one who most loved meeting new people and loved taking the seed of an idea and growing it into something exciting and new. But Lucy and Freddy and Herb had all inherited important pieces of their mom that made them a perfect combo to take on a challenge like this in her absence. “Okay, so maybe not all families would want to run a food truck or a bed-and-breakfast, but our family seems to do really well with these kinds of challenges. It’s something interesting for us to do together and honestly, Mar? It’s fun. And I’m learning a lot.”
“Yeah,” Maren said. “My family would probably kill each other if we had to camp out together all summer or live through this construction mess. But I guess your family is one of those special types that can handle it.”
Yeah, Lucy thought to herself. The Peaches are special. The way her family’s lives had shaken out over the past few years wasn’t normal or boring or easy by most people’s standards. But what was normal when it came to families? Every family was built differently, and each type of family needed to figure out how they worked best. The Peaches had proven that they were capable of surviving—even thriving—through chaos and challenges. Like a piece of build-it-yourself furniture, theirs was a special collection of lots of different kinds of parts (made up of Lucy-Freddy-Herb-Dad) that had begun to click and lock into the exact right spot. “So, do you want to help me figure out how to follow this treasure map to hidden riches, or what?” Lucy said, shifting back to the main reason she and Maren had come up to the attic.
“Absolutely,” Maren said. She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and held it up. “This is the scan of the original map, with the contrast set really high. So the lines are as dark as we can get them now. It’s still not super clear, but on this copy the numbers are easier to read than they were on the original.”
Lucy and Maren sat together on the rug on the floor of the attic and pored over the treasure map. Now that the lines were darker, thanks to Maren’s mom’s scanner and some clever fiddling with the file, Lucy was a little embarrassed she hadn’t immediately realized it was a map of the Peach Pit. It was so obviously a map of this house—but what did the map and the random little boxes and numbers mean?
“I can’t figure out if the map is telling me something about where to look for the hidden riches, or if it’s just a map and I’m missing something that would explain what all the lines and numbers mean?” She pointed. “I wish there was just an X that told me where to dig.”
“If there was an X to mark the spot, that wouldn’t make this hunt for hidden riches very fun,” Maren pointed out. She wiggled her eyebrows. “What if the map leads you to some kind of actual treasure? I mean, what if there’s a chest full of jewels, or cash, or stolen vases and paintings or something?”
“Let’s hope we don’t find stolen vases and paintings,” Lucy said, cringing. “That would make the Peach Pit the scene of a crime, and Great Aunt Lucinda a criminal, and that’s not going to help convince her son that we should keep the house in the family.” She sighed. “I hope whatever we find at the end of this treasure map is worth something, at least. If we find some sort of treasure, Dad’s cousin David might get off our case. We could hand over something of value, and then he wouldn’t have to sell the house. And we’d definitely get to stay here. Everyone wins.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Maren handed Lucy the map and closed her eyes. “Do you think we just need to follow the map from the first number to the last and see what we find?”
“Maybe?” Lucy shrugged. “But we don’t have any idea what we’re looking for along the way. Are there clues, or arrows, or some other reason that we’re supposed to follow the numbers?”
Maren flopped onto her back and stared up at the attic eaves. “Is there a safe anywhere in the house?” she asked. “Maybe the numbers are a code for a safe that’s hidden in room number twelve?”
“No safe,” Lucy said. “I’ve explored every corner of this house, and unless it’s super well-hidden, there’s no safe. I’ve looked extra carefully in the attic, and also in the living room, since that’s where the number twelve seems to be on the map.”
“Isn’t the point of a safe to be super well-hidden?” Maren asked, lifting her eyebrows. “Don’t people usually hide them in the wall behind old paintings or bookshelves or something? This house was made for a safe. Think about all the art that’s hanging on the walls.”
“I mean…” Lucy said, cocking her head. “I guess it’s possible. Wanna look some more?”
For the next hour, she and Maren scoured every inch of the house. They went in the order the numbers on the map told them to. All the guest bedrooms were immediately deemed unlikely, since they’d all been pulled apart and put back together and no one had found any hidden safes during that process. They snuck into Dad’s, Freddy’s, and Herb’s bedrooms and peeked behind all the shelves and in the closets, and moved aside Great Aunt Lucinda’s ugly painting of a giant bowl of pears that Dad had kept hanging in his room. Lucy felt a little bad about snooping, but if it led them to hidden riches that would help convince Dad’s cousin David to let them keep the Peach Pit, it was worth the invasion of privacy.
They looked in the kitchen, inside the servant staircases, opened every closet door, and even pushed and tapped at the walls in the bathrooms. When they finally gave up their hunt and stopped in the kitchen for one of Freddy’s fresh-baked cookies, the girls spread the map out in front of them and studied it again.
“We have a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper we’re pretty sure is a house map, and nothing else to go on,” Maren said softly, making sure neither of the boys overheard her. They were both in their bedrooms, but Lucy didn’t want to risk them listening in.
Lucy sighed. “We have a garage out back, and there’s a ton of stuff crammed in there. It’s gross, but maybe there’s something hiding a clue? According to Herb, the garage probably used to be an old horse stall, back in the early twentieth century. Now it’s a leaky building that we can’t park in because the door is blocked off by the dumpster.”
Maren grinned. “It’s worth looking.”
Together, they raced to the garage. Inside, Lucy scanned the shelves for something, anything. Most of the contents in the garage were tools and garden supplies, but on the topmost shelf in the farthest corner were a bunch of board games. And on the very bottom of the stack, there was a very old, very dusty Monopoly box. “Mar!” Lucy called out. “Monopoly is all about making money, right? And this is the Hunt for Hidden Riches, so…”
Maren shrieked when she saw Lucy reach for it and pull it off the shelf. The box was almost falling apart, but inside, the game and all the pieces and the piles of paper money were still intact. Lucy felt a bubble of excitement in her stomach. Maybe they were on the right track…
“Do you see a note or anything?” Maren asked as Lucy pawed through the game pieces and all the paper money. “Is there any real cash inside the box?”
She and Maren pulled the whole game apart, digging and searching through everything in the box, eager to find a clue or a prize or a note or something.
“Nothing,” Lucy said finally, tossing a whole fistful of Monopoly money into the air, watching as it floated to the ground around her. “This is a dead end.”
“Ugh!” Maren groaned. “We’re no closer to finding hidden riches than we were three hours ago. What now?”
“Now I keep searching,” Lucy said with a shrug. “Peaches don’t quit.”
FREDDY’S PEACH PIT “WELCOME” COOKIES
1. Beat together until super pale (like 2–3 minutes):
о 2 sticks of butter
о 1 C brown sugar
о 1/2 C white sugar
2. Then mix in:
о 2 eggs
о 1 t vanilla (or more if you want)
3. When that’s all yummy looking and smooth, add:
о 2 1/4–2 1/2 C flour
о 1 t salt
о 1 t baking soda
о 1 C oats
о 1 bag of chocolate chips/chocolate chunks or M&Ms
If you use an electric mixer, be careful not to turn it on too fast or your flour will fly everywhere!
4. Once the batter is ready, stir in (by hand) 1 bag of chocolate chips/chocolate chunks or M&Ms!
5. Bake them at 375° F for about 6–10 minutes, depending on how big your cookie balls are.
VARIATIONS:
* Swap chocolate hazelnut spread or peanut butter for some of the butter.
* Add broken-up pretzel pieces for extra crunch!
* Toss in some nuts (not my fave).
* Sprinkle salt on the top of each cookie right after they come out of the oven!
* Use butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips.
20
DOGS’ DAY OUT
The weekend before Thanksgiving, with less than a week to go before their grand opening, all four Peaches and a pair of dogs (Vix and Dasher—the only two willing to wear a collar and leash) made a trek to the Birch Pond retirement community to visit Great Aunt Lucinda and her friends. Though they had a million things to do back at the Peach Pit, they’d agreed to spend the evening playing Hearts with Aunt Lucinda—a continuation of their years’-long tournament of the Two Lucindas versus the Peach Boys. But first, they would all get to enjoy Birch Pond’s Fall Feast, a special Saturday when each of the residents got to nominate snacks and desserts for the center’s cooks to whip up, and everyone who lived at the center was allowed to invite family to come for an afternoon social. Herb was excited to give his family the grand tour of his place of business and introduce them to some of the people he’d begun to think of as family. But he was even more excited to debut Vix and Dasher’s improved behavior and tricks for Great Aunt Lucinda and her friends.
When they pulled into the Birch Pond parking lot, Herb fastened a leash to each dog’s collar and told them both to sit. Vix awkwardly sat on Freddy’s lap, and Dash half-sat half-hovered on the bump in the center of the back seat. “Now, I want you both on your best behavior,” Herb told them, using his most commanding voice. “No peeing on shoes, no chewing, and no monkey business.”
“Think they understand you?” Freddy asked, looking very much like he thought not. “Did you know that most dogs understand somewhere between one hundred and two hundred words, which is about the same as a human two- or three-year-old?” He laughed. “But I’d argue that these guys are definitely not as smart as your average human toddler.”
Herb shushed him. “That’s not helping. We need to boost their confidence before their big visit, not hurt their feelings.”
Dad popped open the trunk and grabbed the box full of fresh-baked pies he’d brought to serve during the Fall Feast. “I miss doing something as simple as baking pies,” Dad had explained when he’d called Great Aunt Lucinda to tell her he was bringing dessert to share. “This B and B project is so big and feels never-ending, so the simple act of baking a pie is actually really satisfying. There’s a clear beginning, middle, and end. The Peach Pit renovation feels like one long middle, and it’s deeply unsettling.” Dad had been a ball of nerves the past few weeks, especially with his cousin David breathing down their necks. He’d burned the first two pies, but his later efforts all turned out pretty well.
Herb knew his dad liked to follow a process when he did things. Herb did, too; it’s one of the reasons he enjoyed math so much. There was a natural path to follow that eventually led to a clear solution. But unlike math, the mansion renovation was definitely not following a clear path. There were endless random tasks, each of which led to more projects and problems, and whenever it seemed like they were close to solving something, a new variable popped into the equation that messed everything up.
The chaos and constant craziness were making everyone in the Peach family a little nutso, for different reasons. Even though his bedroom was never tidy and didn’t always look clean, Herb actually loved order and organization. This was one of the reasons he’d been enjoying setting up both the dollhouse and his new secret cellar space so much. Ever since the day when he’d discovered the magical space hiding under the Peach Pit, Herb had taken the time to sweep a lot of the dirt and cobwebs and dead bugs to the farthest corners, in order to begin the slow process of moving his collections out of his bedroom and into their new spots in his hidden treasure chest.
He had a shelf for pine cones and other magnificent things he’d found in nature.
There was a shelf for lost-and-now-found stuffies and old, mismatched socks.
One whole wall was filled with the various “tips” he’d received for his work at Birch Pond—hundreds of buttons, nearly a dozen Beanie Babies, a glass jar with a collection of hard candy Herb didn’t particularly like, and a wide variety of activity books and toys and trinkets that had obviously meant something to someone once (and now meant a whole lot to Herb!).
He’d also created a space dedicated to memories of his mom. Here he lined up some of her old shampoo bottles; a few favorite pictures he’d slid out of family albums; Post-it notes with her handwriting that he’d found in a desk drawer after she’d died that no one ever cleaned out; and the old plastic food truck he and his mom used to play with together when Herb was little. Herb had turned it into a Peach Pie Truck, to help him remember their family’s fun adventure the previous summer.
Over the past week, Herb had begun to convert part of the cellar floor and some of the bottom shelves into a fun playland for some of the house mice. He’d set up tunnels and ramps made out of toilet paper tubes and cardboard—just like he’d done for his mouse babies that summer on their family road trip—and set out tasty snacks like peanut butter and cheese so the little critters who lived down there would know Herb was a friend. He didn’t want them to think he was trying to steal their space and kick them out!
Even Dasher had begun to get used to the little mice bustling around them in the cellar. In fact, as they headed from the car to the Birch Pond front entrance that chilly Saturday morning for the Fall Feast, Dash was only mildly distracted by all the small squirrels skittering to and fro on the center’s lawn; Vix, on the other hand, went absolutely nuts for them. She strained at her leash and harness, desperately trying to chase every squirrel she saw off the property. Herb was tugged this way and that, and soon he was entirely tangled up in the two leashes. As Vix scampered and barked, she wrapped her leash around and through Herb’s legs until Herb went toppling to the frost-covered ground.
“Oof!” Herb moaned as he hit the frozen grass. Unwilling to let go of the leashes, lest Vix or Dash took off across the center’s sprawling lawn, Herb was quickly tangled up in something that resembled a spider’s web made out of lengths of leash. “A little help here?” he squeaked.
Lucy raced over to untangle her brother, but as soon as Vix had some slack on her leash, she lunged for a squirrel racing up a tree trunk, taking Lucy down in the process. As she hit the ground, she dropped the leash and Vix made a run for it.
Freddy dove, grabbing the pup’s harness before Vix could make it very far. Flustered, Dad set down his box of pies to try to help control the chaos. But as soon as he stepped away from his baked goods, Dasher—who’d probably been waiting quietly for this exact opportunity—perched his front paws on the rim of the box and greedily nosed into an apple pie.
By the time the Peaches got inside Birch Pond’s lobby, they were all cold, a little muddy, and covered in mushed-up apple pie. “The dogs’ big day out is going really well so far,” Freddy said cheerfully.
Herb glared at him. This was not how it was supposed to go! He’d had such big plans, and nothing was going the way it should. It’s okay, Herb told himself. Now that they were inside, in a squirrel-free zone, the dogs would surely be better behaved. They had been working so hard at their training, and he just knew they could handle their big Birch Pond debut.
“My babies!” Great Aunt Lucinda came hustling through the lobby, bending down to greet the two dogs with kisses and ear scratches. “Oh, how I’ve missed my little darlings!”
Aunt Lucinda let the dogs jump and squirm all over her. She was wearing a huge smile and an even huger Dolly Parton wig atop her head. Herb had seen her wear this long, poufy blond wig a few times before, but it was always fun to see her in it. He wondered if the wig was heavy, and if her neck got sore holding so much hair on top of her head. Some wigs, he’d learned from Freddy, were made with real hair and some were fake hair—the big difference between the two kinds was price.
“How much did that wig cost?” Freddy blurted out as Great Aunt Lucinda wrapped him into a side-arm hug.
“Wig?” Great Aunt Lucinda said with a wink. “What wig? This is my own natural God-given hair, Fred.”
Freddy laughed. “Did you know the artist Andy Warhol’s wig sold for more than ten thousand dollars? It was made out of real hair, and I guess it was pretty famous.”
“What a stupid way to spend that much money,” Lucy announced. “Think of how far ten thousand bucks would go in the Peach Pit!”
“Not far,” Walter Peach muttered.
