The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device

by Eric Bower

  “Be quiet.”

  “This year’s official head of the Pitchfork Fair, and the man one who will announce the winners of the baking contest,” the announcer continued, “is a hero to everyone who lives here in town. He needs no introduction, but I’m going to give him one anyway because he told me that I had to. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and all the rest of you too, please give a warm round of applause to our local hero, Sheriff Hoyt Opie Graham!”

  Everyone broke into applause, cheering and whooping wildly for the man who they believed to be the greatest hero to ever come out of the town of Pitchfork.

  I applauded too, but not quite as enthusiastically as everyone else. Sure, I liked Sheriff Graham, and I had read all the books written about his adventures. But, unlike most people, I knew that the books written about him weren’t true. He wasn’t a hero. In fact, he was regularly outsmarted by skunks.

  But he was a very nice man who had given me my first medal, a brass medal that said “WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDMA” on it.

  I’m not actually the world’s greatest grandma. You see, Sheriff Graham never learned to read.

  The sheriff was rumored to be retiring soon, and, from the way he looked, I’d say he was about ten years too late. He needed to be helped to the podium by a tall and skinny young man with a wild mop of red hair. Sheriff Graham was tiny and wrinkled, bald as a cue ball, and looked more like a raisin wearing a badge than a famous lawmaker. He was the sort of person you felt the need to poke every hour or so just to make sure he’s still alive.

  As the fairgoers continued to cheer, Sheriff Graham slowly removed his cowboy hat and waved at the crowd, revealing a fountain pen that was stuck into the top of his head.

  Umm. That’s my fault. You see, several months ago, I dropped a fountain pen from a great height, and it happened to land on the sheriff’s head. The tip of the pen got stuck in there. A local surgeon offered to remove it, but Sheriff Graham said that he didn’t want to be a bother. So, he just decided to leave the pen in his head instead. It was pretty shocking to see at first, but after a while, you just got used to it.

  “Thank you,” Sheriff Graham said to the crowd. “Thank you all for that kind welcome. And everyone, please, stop poking me! I’ll tell you when I’m no longer alive! Anyway, I’d like to welcome you to the greatest fair in the greatest town in the greatest territory in the greatest country in the greatest world in the greatest universe of all time!”

  We all cheered for that. Why not? We didn’t often have things to cheer for in a town like Pitchfork, so why not cheer about our really fun fair? The skinny redheaded man who’d helped Sheriff Graham to the stage brought over a tray with three boxes on it. He held the tray up to the sheriff.

  “I’d like to start by announcing the winner of the best baked tart,” the sheriff continued. “But first, I need to say something to the practical joker who placed a pie tin full of goat plop on the judge’s table. You might think you’re funny and clever, but you’re not. There’s nothing funny about entering goat plop into a baking contest. For goodness’ sake, I almost took a bite of it! What’s funny about me ending up with a mouthful of fresh goat plop? Huh?”

  Several of my classmates snickered and whispered to each other. Mr. Silva and Dr. Pearson coughed into their fists and glanced at one another, trying their best to hide their smiles. Even I couldn’t help but smirk.

  I’ll be the first to admit that we aren’t a particularly mature town.

  The sheriff cleared his throat. “Anyway, I must say that the winner’s terrific and tasty tart was by far the tastiest tart I’ve ever tasted in all my years of tasting terrific and tasty tarts.”

  Aunt Dorcas smiled brightly and patted her hair, preparing for the moment when her name would be called.

  “And the winner for the best baked tart at the 1891 Annual Pitchfork Fair . . . is Miss Madge Tweetie!”

  He lifted one of the boxes on the tray, revealing Miss Madge’s tasty looking apple tart. Even though I was so full that I was genuinely worried I might burst, I still wouldn’t have minded tasting that tart, along with a bit of whipped cream, and maybe a tall glass of mil—oh goodness, never mind.

  BURP!

  “Oh, how marvelous!” Madge Tweetie cried as she rushed over to the judge’s table to collect her blue ribbon. “What a lovely surprise! I’m just happy that my gift of baking has finally been appreciated! I want to thank my fellow participants in the contest for giving me a good battle. And even though you’re all losers, and I’m a winner, I think it’s safe to say that we all had a wonderful time baking!”

  Aunt Dorcas’s jaw clenched so tightly that she looked in danger of crushing her teeth into powder. Madge Tweetie was Aunt Dorcas’s best friend, but she was also her worst enemy. They spent a lot of time together, and yet they seemed to hate one another with the sort of angry passion people usually directed towards poisonous spiders and deadly hurricanes. I don’t understand how their friendship works, but, then again, I don’t understand a lot of things about Aunt Dorcas. She didn’t seem to like any of her friends, and they didn’t really seem to like her either. Maybe she just doesn’t know what a friend is.

  I noticed that Madge had looked directly at Aunt Dorcas when she’d said the word “loser.”

  “If you like smooshy tarts that taste like rotten baby food, I suppose Madge’s tarts are the tarts for you,” Aunt Dorcas muttered to herself, before raising her voice and calling out to her best friend. “Congratulations, Madge! You absolutely deserve that! Your tart looks delicious!”

  The award for best cake went to Mr. Bessie, the strange old grocer who, for some reason, always called me “Julia.” He had baked what looked to be a remarkably delicious chocolate cake. He accepted the blue ribbon from Sheriff Graham and tied it around his neck like a bow tie before whooping like a loon and cakewalking out of the fairgrounds. Everyone applauded his odd exit before turning back to Sheriff Graham for the final presentation of the afternoon.

  “And now,” the sheriff said proudly, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I will be announcing the winner for best pie. But before I do, I’d like to thank my assistant here, who is not only my favorite employee, but also my favorite son. Ladies and gentlemen, give a big round of applause for Deputy Budford ‘Buddy’ Graham. Take a bow, Buddy!”

  The gangly redheaded man holding the tray turned his head shyly to the crowd and blushed. The crowd politely applauded the sheriff’s son, who looked more awkward than a six-thumbed grandma knitting a white sweater in a snowstorm. Someone in the crowd whistled loudly for Buddy, which made his face turn ten shades redder than his hair.

  “The winner of the pie contest,” Sheriff Graham continued, “has baked what I consider to be the greatest pie I’ve ever laid my teeth into.”

  I could see both Aunt Dorcas and Madge Tweetie fuss with their hair and smooth their blouses, convinced that the sheriff was about to call their name. I held in another particularly painful burp and wished that people would stop talking about pies and sweets. Didn’t they realize how full I was?

  “It was a delicious pear pie,” Sheriff Graham said, and I could see Aunt Dorcas’s face crumble. “Baked by none other than . . . Miss Rose Blackwood!”

  For a moment, the crowd was deadly silent. Thanks to Aunt Dorcas, stories of Rose’s disgusting desserts had spread throughout Pitchfork like a rash, and absolutely no one had been expecting to hear her named the winner. But after they recovered from the shock, they broke into a very polite applause and waited for Rose to take the stage.

  And then Sheriff Graham lifted the third and final box on the tray, to reveal Rose’s prize winning pear pie. The moment he did, there was a tremendous explosion.

  I would describe to you what happened next, but we were all blinded by a spray of hot pear filling.

  MERRrrrgggg . . .

  Luckily, no one was seriously harmed from the explosion. She
riff Graham and his son suffered a few minor injuries, but they had miraculously survived. The explosion had blown the pen right out of the top of Sheriff Graham’s head, and he seemed pretty upset about that. I guess he’d just gotten used to it. It must’ve been pretty handy to always have a pen when he needed one. Personally, I’d prefer just to carry one in my pocket but to each his own.

  Once I had scraped the sugar and pear slices from my eyeballs, I checked myself over and saw that I was alright too. But everyone in town was terribly frightened. The fair was immediately shut down, though we were told that we couldn’t leave. The deputies in attendance all pulled out their guns as they began to investigate. The mayor of Pitchfork, Abraham Thornberry (a perfectly round man, who had been born without a neck or a sense of humor), told everyone not to worry, and to calm down, and that everything would be alright.

  “But what if everything isn’t alright?” Miss Katherine asked the mayor.

  The mayor thought about that for a moment. “Good point. Forget what I said. Everyone panic. Panic!”

  “Not so fast!” Madge Tweetie snapped. She still had a bee in her bonnet over her pie losing to Rose Blackwood’s. “I think we all know what we should do next. We need to find Rose Blackwood! She’s the one responsible for this! She needs to pay!”

  “That’s right!” Mrs. Pyramus cried. “It was her rotten pie that exploded! We should lock her up and throw away the key!”

  Soon, all the townspeople of Pitchfork were angrily agreeing. They began to yell for Rose’s immediate arrest, with Madge Tweetie’s yell being the loudest of them all, until she discovered that there literally was a bee in her bonnet—one of Mr. Dadant’s bees had escaped the hive and had flown into Madge’s curls. Madge screamed like a sheep on fire, and dunked her head in a pig trough, while the rest of the town continued to shout about what should be done with Rose.

  “Her brother is Benedict Blackwood! How can you trust someone who’s related to the evilest villain in the world?”

  “Evil runs in her blood!”

  “Never trust a Blackwood! They’re all no good!”

  “Hey, that rhymes!”

  “Take her to the jail!”

  “Boot her out of town!”

  “I got here late, what’s going on?”

  “We’re turning into an angry mob!”

  “Okay!”

  “Arrest Rose Blackwood before she kills someone!”

  “Put her in a catapult and fire her into New Mexico Territory!”

  “Ban her from the country!”

  “Ban her from the planet!”

  “Is anyone going to eat that leftover pie?”

  Alright, that last one was me. I can’t help it. I get hungry when I’m upset.

  “Rose Blackwood needs to be stopped for good!”

  “Who knows what she’s planning on doing next? Any one of us could end up being her next victim!”

  “She’ll put all of your children in danger!”

  “She’ll steal the gold fillings from your great grandma’s teeth!”

  “But my great grandma doesn’t have any teeth.”

  “That’s not the point, Karen!”

  “Rose Blackwood is the foulest criminal in the west!”

  “Rose Blackwood is public enemy number one!”

  “Rose Blackwood is to blame!”

  “Excuse me? Did someone call my name?”

  Every townsperson shut their mouth sharply at the same time, creating a very loud and very weird “CLOP!” sound, which echoed throughout the suddenly silent fairground. They slowly backed away, giving plenty of room to a woman whom they believed to be nothing short of deadly. Rose Blackwood stepped forward, looking uneasily at the residents of Pitchfork who trembled at the sight of her. Apparently, they were only comfortable saying terrible things about her when she wasn’t there to hear them.

  Now, here’s something funny.

  Well, it’s not “ha ha” funny. I mean, you’re not going to laugh out loud, unless of course you have a really strange sense of humor. Which you might. You might be the sort of person who sees a goat sneeze or watches an old man eat an onion, and then laughs like it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. I don’t know. You could be very weird.

  Anyway, the “funny” thing that I noticed was that Rose had changed her clothes again. She was once again dressed in the fancy outfit she’d been wearing back at the Baron Estate, with her face painted all sorts of unnaturally bright colors. Her hair was straightened, and she was carrying a little umbrella to shield her face from the sun.

  She looked like, well, like a lady. It was very strange. I didn’t like it. I liked Rose better when she dressed like Rose, in her black shirt, black pants, leather vest, cowboy hat, and red boots with her initials printed on them. Aunt Dorcas had once asked Rose why she didn’t wear dresses. “For the same reason you don’t wear a cactus on your head. It’s uncomfortable and silly,” Rose had answered.

  “Rose,” M said slowly, “I want you to answer me truthfully. Did you enter a pie in the baking contest?”

  Rose looked around and saw that the townspeople were all quietly awaiting her answer.

  “Yes,” she finally said, standing up straight and holding her chin up high. “I snuck in earlier and entered my pie without anyone noticing. So what if I did? It’s not a crime to enter a pie in a contest.”

  “Is that true?” P whispered to M.

  “Yes, dear, it’s not a crime,” M whispered back.

  “But it is a crime to enter an exploding pie in the contest!” Madge Tweetie declared, her sopping wet hair plastered to the sides of her face. “Those flaming hot pears could have given me permanent scars on my beautiful face! I say that Rose Blackwood should be disqualified, arrested, tarred and feathered, and then forced to clean up this mess!”

  She gestured towards the remains of pie and cake that had spattered the fairgrounds. It really was an awful and delicious mess.

  “Shouldn’t Rose be forced to clean the fairgrounds before she’s tarred and feathered?” a townsperson suggested. “Otherwise she’ll just make a big, sticky mess.”

  “Fine,” Madge Tweetie said. “But we’ll tar and feather her afterwards.”

  “Can we use something other than feathers?” Mr. Silva the blacksmith asked. “We’ve recently had a shortage of feathers because of all the pillows that the town has been making at the Pitchfork Pillow Factory. We wouldn’t want to waste them. Maybe she can be tarred and sanded instead? We’ve got plenty of sand.”

  “Actually,” another townsperson interrupted, “we’re pretty short on tar too. We’ve started paving some new roads, and the tar that we have should really only be used for that. Maybe she can be watered and sanded instead?”

  “We’re in the middle of a drought!” yet another townsperson yelled. “We can’t waste water on a criminal. She’ll just have to be sanded and sanded.”

  Miss Danielle looked at Rose and frowned.

  “She already has a bit of sand on her dress and in her hair,” my teacher said. “It’s been pretty windy today.”

  “Oh,” said Madge Tweetie in a disappointed tone, before turning back to Rose. “Well . . . let that be a lesson to you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rose said as she walked over to my parents, ignoring the ugly looks that she was being given by the people of Pitchfork. “My pie actually exploded?”

  “Not only did it explode,” Aunt Dorcas said with a pout, “it destroyed all of the other pies that were entered in the contest too! Now no one can judge who the real winner should have been, even though we all know that it clearly should have been me.”

  My father went over to the remains of the tray that Rose Blackwood’s explosive pie had been resting on, and he began to study it. He dipped his finger into the ash left behind, and then licked it.

  “Hmmm,” he murm
ured to himself. “Very interesting.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “Did you find a clue?”

  “No. I just realized that I forgot to wash my hands this morning.”

  “Rose, dear,” M said, “I’m afraid the people here believe that you might have sabotaged your pie. They think you rigged it to explode on purpose.”

  Rose’s mouth dropped open in shock.

  “What?” she gasped. “That’s ridiculous! Who could think such a terrible thing?”

  “Everyone!” Madge Tweetie said with a sneer. “If you hadn’t blown up the competition, my pie would have been named the best pie in the fair. I would have been the first person in twenty years to have a winning tart and a winning pie in the same contest.”

  “I call shenanigans on that!” Aunt Dorcas bellowed. “Madge, your sloppy tarts might have fooled the judges, but there’s no way that your pie would beat mine in a fair contest!”

  Madge took her blue ribbon and shook it at my aunt.

  “No need to be a sore loser, Dorcas,” Madge taunted. “Everyone knows that your pies and tarts taste like sawdust and cow chips!”

  “You shut your big bazoo, Madge!”

  “No, you shut your big bazoo, Dorcas!”

  As my aunt and her best friend continued to insult each other, I noticed that Rose was getting angrier and angrier by the moment. But strangely enough, the anger appeared to be directed at the only two adults in town who hadn’t called for her to be locked away in jail forever: my mother and father.

  “Mrs. Baron,” Rose said to my mother in a voice that shook with emotion, “you can’t possibly believe that I would ever try to hurt anyone.”

  “Well, dear,” M said, looking very uncomfortable, “your pies and cakes have been rather . . . unpredictable lately. I still haven’t been able to get the stink of your last cake out of the kitchen curtains. And you might have permanently stained the oven a strange shade of green with your last pie as well.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Rose cried, looking madder than an old wet hen. “It’s one thing to burn a dessert or stink up some curtains, and it’s another thing entirely to bake a pie that’s meant to explode. I’m not a villain!”