Pixie Piper and the Matter of the Batter

by Annabelle Fisher

  “Don’t you think that one’s a teeny bit boring, Cousin?” asked Winnie. I glanced at her in surprise. She was usually so nice.

  Perrin’s forehead puckered up. “Boring? Let’s hear you do better.”

  “’I’d be happy to.” Winnie threw her braid over her shoulder as she took up the challenge.

  “Of all the flavors of cake I’ve tried

  The hope-filled kind is best

  It tastes like dreams and fantasies

  All sweeter than the rest

  Chocolate’s fine, vanilla’s nice

  Strawberry shortcake’s for me

  But a cake with hope beats all the rest

  Just make your wish and see!”

  Picturing those cakes made my mouth water. Winnie’s rhyme was delicious! But I couldn’t help noticing the disapproving way Nell shook her head.

  “It’s nice, Winnie dear,” she said, “but it’s a bit long, isn’t it?”

  “Who cares how long it is?” snapped Winnie.

  “I truly prefer a rhyme that gets right to the point. Like mine.” Nell opened her notebook and began reading:

  “If you need to pay the rent

  A car for mom, a camping tent

  Or hope for dad a new career

  Just make a wish, it will appear

  As long as your request’s not greedy

  You’ll get something that you needy.”

  Winnie rolled her eyes. “Something that you need-y?”

  “Yes, indeed-y!” Nell replied.

  Rain and I snorted back our laughter. Rhyme time was turning into a poetry slam.

  Suddenly Perrin seemed to remember I was there. “Pixie, do you want to read?” she asked. It wasn’t really a question.

  I looked at the two poems I’d written. I had to decide. My first poem was the kind you’d write for your teacher. But the second was the kind that could make your class crack up. That was the one I decided to read:

  “Do you have a dream so fierce

  It chews upon your gut

  Feeling like a tiny mouse

  Is nibbling on a nut?

  Then place your hopes upon this cake

  And send the mouse away

  Just close your eyes and make that wish

  Today’s your lucky day!”

  Rain and Pip giggled. All the other apprentices were smiling, except Perrin. “It’s ni-i-i-c-ce,” Perrin said, drawing out the word. “Though a mouse in the gut is an icky thought. I don’t know if your rhyme belongs inside a cake.”

  “Oh, icky-picky!” exclaimed Pip. “It was fun!”

  Perrin’s exasperated sigh lifted her bangs off her forehead. She tapped her pencil against the cover of her notebook. She reminded me of Ms. Tomassini when she was trying to be patient. “How about reading yours, Pip?”

  “Okey-dokey.” Pip smiled a monkey grin that showed every tooth.

  “This wishing cake is from the Aunties

  If you knew, you’d drop your panties

  But a secret it must stay

  Just hope you get your wish today!”

  “Pippi! You can’t put panties in a wishing rhyme!” Perrin exclaimed.

  “Why not? They’re not actually going to be in the cake,” Pip retorted. My mom would have called her sassy.

  Suddenly I was imagining old Cone Hat stirring her big baggy bloomers into the cake batter and I burst out laughing.

  “See? Pixie liked it,” Pip said.

  “I did, too,” announced Rain.

  Perrin eyed the three of us. I think she was having trouble deciding whether to act like a teacher or to have fun like the students. She settled for a smile and a shake of her head. “O-o-okay. Rainy, read yours,” she said.

  Rain tugged on her ponytail and began to recite:

  “Be kind and fair and you will get

  A wish that you will not forget

  But if you are a skunk or worse,

  I hope instead you’ll get a curse!”

  “Goose Ladies do not put curses into cakes!”

  We all turned to the doorway. “Do you think our mission is a joke, young lady?” Aunt Cone Hat said. “Do you even know what our mission is?”

  “To . . . to spread ho . . . hope,” Rain stammered.

  “Do you think your rhyme will do that?”

  “Yes? No?” Rain asked.

  Old Cone Hat looked at the grandfather clock. “I assume the rest of you have created verses that are more appropriate. You may all go except Rain, who will have to stay here and create a proper verse.”

  Rain swiped at her eyes and nodded. Our geese were waiting for us in the front yard. We were supposed to take them to the pond when we were done with rhyme time. But Rain’s rhyme hadn’t been the only silly one. It didn’t seem fair to leave her alone.

  “My rhyme was funny, too,” I volunteered, because I didn’t want Rain to have to stay alone. “We didn’t mean to be disrespectful. They were still about granting wishes.”

  “Well, I’m not at all surprised that you were the instigator, Pixie,” old Cone Hat snarled. “I told Doris you had a talent for trouble. And now you’ve proved me right.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ye Olde Sock Thief

  By the time Rain and I got outside, the other apprentices had disappeared. “They’re probably at the pond with the geese,” said Rain. “River and Gray must be down there with Drizzle and Destiny. Let’s go find them.”

  “I’ll meet you,” I said. “I’m going upstairs to get the eye—I don’t think I should keep it any longer. I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to show it to Aunt Doris.”

  “Okay.” Rain put a hand on my shoulder. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No, it’s my responsibility. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  Rain began to run down the grassy hill and stopped. “Pixie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for being my friend today.”

  “Sure.”

  Rain hesitated before she added, “I don’t have a friend like you at home. I mean someone close like a best friend.”

  I was super surprised. “Really? I think you’d make a perfect best friend.”

  Rain smiled. “Thanks. But if you have a twin, the kids think you’re already taken. I guess the other girls don’t think I need a best friend.”

  “Well, Gray’s always been my best friend boy. But you’re my best friend girl.”

  “Good.” She ran off smiling.

  When I got up to our room, I realized someone was already there. It was Pip. She was squatting in front of my chest, rummaging around in my bottom drawer.

  I cleared my throat. “What are you looking for?”

  “Pixie! I was just going to borrow a pair of socks. All of mine are in the laundry.” She held out a foot so I could see her bare ankle above her sneaker.

  “Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “I would’ve, but then Aunt Espy made you stay behind. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  I noticed that one of her hands was balled up tight. “What’s in your fist?

  For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she unfurled her fingers. She was holding my locket.

  I was so shocked all I could say was, “Why?”

  “I found it while I was looking for your socks. It made me wonder what it felt like to have a baby brother. I was going to wear it under my shirt and pretend. It’s just been sitting in your drawer, so I didn’t think you’d care. I wasn’t going to keep it.”

  It was weird, because instead of sounding sorry, she sounded angry.

  “You—you should have asked me.” My voice shook as if I were the guilty one.

  “Here.” Pip held out the locket.

  I let it swing on its chain while I thought. Pip had a brother. But Wyatt was a teenager. And he was the only family she had.

  “That’s okay, you can wear it,” I said, taking it and dropping it in
to her palm. “Just give it back to me tonight. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She fastened the locket around her neck and headed for the door. “Wait, I thought you wanted socks,” I called.

  “Never mind. I’ll do without them.”

  I refolded the things in my drawer while I waited for my breathing to return to normal. Something was bothering me besides catching Pip going through my things. I wondered why she hadn’t asked to borrow socks when she was getting dressed this morning.

  When I was sure she was gone, I pulled out my bottom drawer and found my blue-striped sock ball. Carefully, I put my thumb and forefinger into the center. To my relief, the eye was still there. I plucked it out and placed it on my palm. It glared back at me.

  “Stop staring!” I ordered, poking it with my thumb.

  I thought I saw it blink.

  Yeeeow! I shoved the eye down into the pocket of my shorts and headed back downstairs.

  To: Lucy Chang, Alexa Pinkston

  Subject: The Latest, Not the Greatest

  Destiny has been so bad

  Old Cone Hat had a fit

  This morning Des made her so mad

  That I might have to quit

  Later on, we all wrote poems

  Tomorrow we’ll write more

  I haven’t made a single cake

  This baking camp’s a bore!

  Love, Pixie

  P.S. Here’s a dumb goose joke that Wyatt told me:

  What birds do you find in Portugal?

  Dumb Answer: Portu-geese!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ye Olde Family Connections

  At breakfast I’d heard Aunt Doris tell Aunt Cone Hat that she wanted to check the tires and change the oil in her truck. I knew she kept it parked on the far side of the barn and I was hoping she’d still be there. The secret I’d been keeping was too dangerous. What if I’d put everyone at Chuckling Goose Farm in danger? I had to trust at least one of the Aunts.

  Just before I rounded the corner of the barn, I heard two voices, Aunt Doris’s and Old Cone Hat’s. Quickly, I hid behind a bale of hay and listened.

  “When I stopped by the grocery for cinnamon sticks yesterday, Garrie asked me a strange question,” said Aunt Doris. “She wanted to know if we’d found an eyepiece around here.”

  I’d heard Garrie mentioned before, though I’d never met her. She owned the grocery where the Aunts could get the things they didn’t grow themselves.

  “An eyepiece? You mean from someone’s eyeglasses?” asked Aunt Cone Hat.

  “No, an eye from a face. Garrie said she’d been fixing a broken sculpture and that she might have dropped it.”

  Right away, my heart began going ka-boing-ka-boing-ka-boing.

  “Here?” old Cone Hat barked.

  I heard Aunt Doris snap her gum. “She said it might’ve fallen out of her pocket during her last delivery.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” muttered Aunt Cone Hat.

  For once I agreed with her!

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Aunt Doris. “It sounds more like she’s describing something Pixie saw after Raveneece got shattered. The poor kid told me it gave her nightmares.”

  “Poor? She’s the one that shattered Raveneece!” old Cone Hat grumbled.

  “Not on purpose, Espy,” Aunt Doris answered calmly. “What I can’t figure out is why Garrie would want it. Unless—”

  “Unless what? Spit it out, Doris!”

  “Unless someone offered to pay her for it,” Aunt Doris said. “She’s been complaining business is slow.”

  Aunt Cone Hat’s voice became gentler. “Garrie would never have anything to do with Raveneece. We’ve been friends since the days we were apprentices together. She’s ditsy sometimes, but she’s not a bad old gal.”

  “You’re probably right,” Aunt Doris agreed. “But Pixie told me that after Raveneece cracked, there was a powerful wind that almost blew her back down that hole. She said it made a sweeping sound.”

  I grabbed onto the hay bale as I remembered the haunting whoosh of that wind. It was a whisking so powerful it might have swept up trees, boulders, graveyards—or me.

  “The Broom of Doom!” said Aunt Cone Hat. “I hope you’re wrong about that. It was conjured up long ago to put the shattered back together. But what they looked like afterward is less than human. We thought it had been lost.”

  “I’d heard of it as a girl, but I didn’t know it had really existed,” whispered Aunt Doris.

  Grrrahhh! Aunt Cone Hat let out an angry gargle. “I never should have allowed that little troublemaker to come here.”

  “But Espy, Pixie is a descendant.”

  “They’re all descendants!” thundered Aunt Cone Hat. “Third cousins twice removed . . . eighth cousins once removed. Pixie’s no different.”

  “You know that’s not true.” Aunt Doris’s voice was angry, too.

  “You think I could forget? That child’s eyes spark when she’s riled up, just like my granddaughter Fidelity’s did. And her chin’s the kind that’s always asking for a fight. That’s Fidelity’s, too.” Aunt Cone Hat’s voice was suddenly hoarse.

  “Yup, she’s got plenty of moxie,” said Aunt Doris. “I knew you’d love her.”

  “Love her? I can barely tolerate her!” Espy barked. “My heart was split in two when we lost Fidelity. I never recovered.”

  “But now you have Pixie, your great-great-great-granddaughter,” said Aunt Doris.

  “I DON’T WANT HER!”

  “Aw, give the kid a break,” Aunt Doris retorted.

  For a while the aunts were silent, like wind-up toys that had run down. I remembered the old saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But it wasn’t true. I felt my heart break a little.

  One thing was certain. I wasn’t giving the eye to either of them. Before they discovered me, I slipped away and ran for the meadow. In the distance there was a town, and behind it, a row of low, dark hills. They were a long way off, but if I could get there, I’d bury the eye where no one would ever find it. I decided to leave immediately.

  Then I crashed into Gray.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ye Olde Dumb Plant

  Gray was squatting in the grass, feeding Destiny a stalk of pennycress, when I knocked him over like a bowling pin. Destiny flapped out of the way, uninjured. But she scolded me with a few angry honks.

  “Gray!” I yelped. “Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t see you.” I scooped up Des and smoothed her ruffled feathers.

  He looked at me and burped. “I don’t know how you could have missed me. Where are you going?” he asked, rolling onto his knees.

  I took a quick look around, but everyone was either at the pond or in the farmhouse. “I’m taking a hike.”

  “What? Where?”

  I put Destiny down and pointed toward the shadowy hills. The clouds above them seemed to have gotten darker. “I don’t know exactly. Somewhere over there.”

  “But why, Pix?”

  “Because of this.” I pulled the evil eye out of my pocket.

  Gray took a step backward. “I thought you got rid of it.”

  “I wanted to, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I mean, it’s an eye! Anyway, I can’t leave it around here; it’s too dangerous. Raveneece might come back for it.”

  Gray gave the eye another glance. “Could you put that thing away? I feel like it’s watching me.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, slipping it back in my pocket. “But you haven’t heard all of the bad news yet, Gray. We’re not the only ones who know about it. I heard Aunt Doris tell Aunt Esperanza that someone named Garrie asked about the eye.”

  Gray sat up. “I’ve met Garrie! Wyatt, River, and I stopped at her grocery store for chips and ice cream pops. Wyatt told us she used to be an apprentice here. I guess she flunked out, or quit.”

  “I think I may flunk out,” I moaned. “Old Cone Hat hates me. She thinks I never should have come
here.” I didn’t feel like telling him she was my great-great-great-grandmother. It was too painful to admit she didn’t want me.

  “Huh! I thought old ladies were supposed to be kind and understanding.”

  “She’s not like the others.” I yanked up a handful of grass. “But I don’t want to keep the eye around here. I’m afraid the Aunts, the apprentices, and the geese could be in danger because of it.” I kissed Destiny on top of her sweet head. “I’m going to hide it far away from Chuckling Goose Farm. When I get back, I can send a message to Garrie about where it is. Maybe she’ll tell Raveneece. If either of them want it, they can go dig it up.”

  Gray raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if they’d believe you. And even if they do, they might try to make you come with them to find it.”

  Ugh! He could be so annoying sometimes. “I didn’t say it was the best plan,” I grumbled.

  “Look, whoever dropped the eye here might have wanted to scare you away, Pix. They probably think it would be easier to steal a wishing cake once you’re gone. Or a goose.”

  Okay, it was a terrible plan, but I was still annoyed. Gray was making me think logically and I didn’t want to. But it would be awful if anyone at Chuckling Goose Farm got hurt because of me. I had to stay and find out who’d dropped the eye in the barnyard.

  I punched Gray lightly on the arm. “You’re a pain, but you can be pretty smart sometimes.”

  Burp! “I know,” Gray answered. “Hey, do you want to come to the little barn with me? I’ve got to check on one of the hatchlings.”

  “Sure!” I agreed. He always knew how to cheer me up.

  I hadn’t had a chance to see the inside of the little barn yet. Compared to the big barn, it looked like a storage shed. But inside were two rooms—one for refrigerating our supply of eggs and the other for incubating and keeping our new hatchlings. I peeked inside the refrigerator. There were at least forty eggs. And they were huge!

  In the next room was the incubator where the chicks were hatched. It was built like a cupboard with a temperature gage and a window on the door. When I peered through, I saw shelves covered with straw where the fertilized eggs rested. A fan at the top spun gently. I knew it was for circulating air over and under the eggs.