Pixie Piper and the Matter of the Batter

by Annabelle Fisher

  “No! Look at what happened to Aunt Espy! I’m afraid they’ll get hurt!” I took a deep breath. “But I do know someone who might be willing to help us—another relative of ours. But first we’ll have to find her.”

  The apprentices waited for me to go on. It was hard, because I hadn’t forgotten Grandie’s words. What happens between you and the batter must remain private! But I also remembered what she’d told me when I’d first arrived at Chuckling Goose. You have to be able to recognize what’s most important. That was the best advice I’d ever heard.

  The thing is, I knew I would sound ridiculous, but sometimes you just have to be ridiculous!

  “We’re going to talk to Mother Goose,” I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Ye Olde Fly in the Batter

  The kitchen seemed like a completely different place at night—spooky and maybe dangerous. The yellowy lights of the giant oven were like eyes, and its door was a mouth waiting to be fed. The long-necked nozzle in the sink was a wily serpent about to strike. Even Stumpy’s shadow made my dear old spoon into a fat-bellied gremlin.

  “I can’t believe I’m getting to see this,” whispered Wyatt as we gathered ingredients and utensils. “I mean, River, Gray, and I have been helping with the everyday cakes since Aunt Espy got injured. But wishing cakes—everything about them has always been kept secret from us.”

  “I think it started because of an old-timey king,” I explained while I measured flour, sugar, and cinnamon into a bowl. “He threatened to put Mother Goose in jail if she didn’t bake her wishing cakes only for him. That’s why she had to go into hiding.” I added two teaspoons of baking powder before I continued the story.

  “After that Mother Goose must have felt she could only trust her own family, which was all girls at the time. Her secret kept getting passed down through her daughters and granddaughters. But just because it’s always been done that way doesn’t mean we can’t change. You guys are family, too.”

  “I’m not,” Gray said, looking miserable.

  “We’re making you official right now,” said Wyatt, clapping an arm around Gray’s shoulders.

  “I agree!” Perrin tapped him on the head with her beautiful mixing spoon. “Welcome to the family, Gray Goose-Westerly!” We all clapped.

  Gray turned the pinkest pink. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  Although I’d already baked wishing cakes on my own, I was nervous. What if Mother Goose didn’t appear in the bowl? I was certain she’d want to help us get back Aunt Espy’s cone hat. After all, it used to be hers. But I didn’t know if she’d want to be seen by everyone.

  I cracked the eggs carefully. I wanted the batter to be perfect for Mother Goose. After I’d mixed in the butter, the milk, and the vanilla, I took Stumpy off the spoon rack.

  “Sorry to wake you, Stump,” I murmured, dipping my spoon into the batter.

  I put my hand over my heart and got ready to recite. All afternoon I’d been so nervous I hadn’t known how to start my rhyme. Finally I’d borrowed an old one—“Pat a Cake, Pat a Cake”—that Mom and I used to say when I was really young. I’d worked on it line by line, until it was different, but still familiar:

  “Batter imp, batter imp

  Call the one

  Who’ll grant my wish

  So our battle’s won

  “Stir it, bake it,

  Mark it with M G

  Take back your hat and help us save

  Your leg-a-cy!”

  I held my breath as I hoped for something to happen. It took longer than usual, but the batter imp finally appeared. First the flat lines for eyes. Then the dimpled cheeks and the curvy little mouth.

  “Too wate! Come back tomowwo,” whined the imp.

  “I’m sorry, but this is an emergency,” I said in a soothing voice. “Can you please get Mother Goose?”

  “Need a funny wyme!”

  “But I’m not feeling very funny.”

  “Make funny!” the imp insisted.

  The truth was, I had a funny rhyme already prepared, because I knew the imp liked to argue before it gave in. “Well, okay,” I said. “Here goes:

  “You don’t have to worry

  If a fly lands in your batter

  She’s really very clean

  And she will not make you fatter

  Her little legs will kick until

  They break up every lump

  And your batter will be perfect

  Without a single bump

  Then make a wish

  That says you hope

  The fly has a nice day

  Now dry her off, say good-bye

  And fly will fly away!”

  “Night-night!” With a giggle and a splash, the imp disappeared.

  “Your imp is adorable!” cooed Nell.

  “It’s annoying,” grumbled Pip.

  “I guess each imp is different,” said Perrin, being what my mom would call “diplomatic.”

  “Shush, everyone. I think Pixie needs quiet for the next part,” said Winnie. I sent her a grateful smile.

  In my head I chanted, “Please come, please come,” staring into the bowl until the batter rippled again and a different face began to appear—crinkly eyes . . . a bumpy nose . . . a smile like half an orange . . . and a pointy hat with a round brim.

  “It’s her!” squealed Nell.

  “Holy goose!” Pip exclaimed.

  “Shh,” said Winnie quietly. “Be respectful.”

  “My, how many people I see,” murmured Mother Goose’s warm voice.

  “They’re your family, too,” I said.

  Tiny bubbles rose from the batter. “Really? How glad I am to meet you all! Tell me your names.”

  We went around in a circle until everyone was introduced. Although I was super happy that Mother Goose was pleased, I was also impatient to get to the important part.

  “We’re here because we need your help,” I said. “Aunt Esperanza’s cone hat, the one that was yours, has been stolen. Raveneece Greed is holding it for ransom. She wants a wishing cake, so she can get back her rhyming ability.”

  “She must never have one!” Mother Goose’s mouth became a frown.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not giving it to her!” declared Rain.

  “But we need your help,” I whispered. “I know you spent much of your life trying to keep your cakes safe from people who were greedy and dishonest. I’ve been wondering if you have any trick recipes to share. Is there a cake that could help us get back the hat without giving away a wish?”

  The batter began to swirl—slowly at first, but then faster and faster. Mother Goose’s face vanished, but in the next moment, her voice drifted up out of the bowl:

  “The recipes are in my book

  But you must choose the one

  To help you bake a wishing cake

  That gets what you want done

  “Oh there’s magic in the baking

  But if the hat you want to win

  You must use your clever noodle

  To make Raveneece give in!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Ye Olde Riddling Recipe

  While the others cleaned up the kitchen, I asked Rain and Pip to help me search Grandie’s office. We needed to find the fat cookbook she’d brought to our first baking lesson. There were enough cookbooks in her office to fill the Library of Congress. They were shelved in double rows, one behind the other. Others were stacked on the floor, the windowsills, the top of the desk, and under the desk. We looked and looked but couldn’t find the one with Mother Goose’s handwritten recipes in it anywhere.

  “You know, if it were mine, I wouldn’t keep it where anyone could find it easily,” said Pip after a while. “I would’ve hidden it. I’ll bet that’s what the sneaky old cone hat did.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I said quickly.

  Pip looked at me, surprised. “Really? I thought you detested her.”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  I began opening and closing G
randie’s private drawers, which made me really uncomfortable. Pip didn’t seem to mind. But then, she was used to poking around in other people’s things.

  Suddenly I realized something. “You know, I haven’t seen any nursery rhyme books on these shelves,” I said. “Where do you think she keeps those?”

  Pip shrugged. “You could check that closet.” She pointed to a narrow door in a corner of the room.

  I swung it open, expecting to find a baggy sweater and maybe some black rubber gardening boots or a watering can. Instead, the closet was lined with shelves full of nursery rhyme books. There was even a shelf on the inside of the door.

  “Look!” I exclaimed in a hushed voice.

  For a moment the three of us just stood there and stared as if we’d found a cave full of gold.

  The brightly colored book jackets made it easy to spot the one we were searching for. Its old linen cover stuck out like a sore thumb. I grabbed the heavy volume and hugged it.

  With Rain and Pip gathered around me, I set the book on the desk and opened it. The paper felt so thin I was worried that even a sneeze could tear a hole in it. There wasn’t a table of contents to lead us to the recipe Mother Goose had mentioned. We were going to have to search one page at a time—which could take hours. Even worse, Mother Goose’s handwriting looked like spider legs. She used the kind of old-fashioned alphabet that made the letter s look like an f and the letter w look like two u’s. The hand-written recipes were really hard to read.

  We flipped through the chocolate cakes first: chocolate layer, chocolate pound, devil’s food, molten chocolate, chocolate decadence, flourless chocolate, chocolate cheesecake, chocolate fudge, chocolate caramel, chocolate chocolate chip, chocolate pudding, chocolate chili, chocolate ice cream, chocolate peppermint, and chocolate dirt cake. (The dirt was crushed cookies, not dirt-dirt.) We didn’t even get to the end of the chocolates before we gave up.

  “Maybe there’s an index,” Rain suggested.

  Pip rolled her eyes. “What are we going to look under—t for trick cakes?”

  I ignored her and turned to the back. But Mother Goose didn’t seem to believe in indexes, either. Even the last page was a recipe.

  “Let’s go back to where we left off.” I sighed. “We’ll have to keep reading all night.”

  “Pixie, wait!” Rain pointed to the last recipe. “Look at the name of this one.”

  “Reversing Cake,” I said, leaning closer. I read the list of ingredients aloud: “Sugar, salt, flour, egg whites, warm water, orange juice, cream of tartar, and a mirror.”

  Pip snorted. “A mirror? How do you put a mirror in a cake?”

  “Maybe we’d have to break it first,” said Rain. “A cake like that could bring a lot of bad luck and crack a lot of teeth.”

  “You know what Aunt Fancy says, ‘Always read a recipe through twice.’ Then maybe we’ll understand,” I said.

  The first part of the recipe was the usual, like sifting the flour, sugar, and salt together, beating the egg whites, and combining it all. But the second part was written in rhyming verse and there was nothing ordinary about it at all.

  When the batter’s in the bowl

  Over it a mirror hold

  Chant your rhyme into the cake

  Stir it up and let it bake

  Once the batter you reflect

  A wish will have reverse effect

  (Though first there’ll be a short delay

  While wisher thinks she has her way).

  “Whoa! It is a trick cake!” Pip exclaimed. “It makes the opposite of what a person wishes for come true.”

  “But what do you think the last part means?” asked Rain.

  I was wondering about that, too. “It sounds like at first it does grant the wish,” I said. “But after a little while, the reverse thing happens.”

  Rain wrinkled up her freckled nose. “Why can’t it work in reverse right away?”

  I thought for a moment. “Aunt Doris once told me that when Mother Goose decided she would only give her wishing cakes away randomly, there was trouble,” I said. “A lot of greedy people tried to get them. They threatened her with all kinds of harm. She must have invented the reversing cake to fool them. A ‘short delay’ would give her time to get away before the baddies realized they’d been tricked.”

  “Smart!” Rain’s eyes shone like candle flames.

  “Yup.” I closed the book and tucked it under my arm. “Let’s go show this to the others. We’ve got to bake a reversing cake now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Ye Olde Reversing Cake

  If someone had peeked through the kitchen window, they might have thought we were a coven of witches. Winnie, Nell, Rain, and Pip gathered ingredients and poured them into a bowl. Barefooted and wearing a white nightgown, Perrin climbed a stool and held her little silver mirror above the batter while I stirred and recited the chant that was written below the recipe.

  “Batter, batter, see yourself

  Before you’re sent to bake

  You’re wet as soup and runny now

  Though soon you’ll be a cake

  “When the wisher’s wish is spoken

  I trust you won’t obey

  But turn the meaning inside out

  And send it on its way.”

  I washed and dried Stumpy, wondering if it were the last time I’d see my mixing spoon. I had to clear a lump in my throat before I asked, “Will someone watch the oven while I go up and change my clothes?”

  “Why? Where are you going?” said Nell in her high, shaky voice.

  “I’m going to bring this reversing cake to Garrie’s store and get back the hat. Gray and Pip are coming with me.”

  “I’ll come too,” exclaimed Perrin.

  I put my hand on her arm to stop her. “No, Perrin, I’ve thought this out. Winnie is our best nurse. She needs to stay and take care of Aunt Espy. Rain and River can care for Thomas, the cows, and the geese. Wyatt needs to tend the garden and the farm equipment. And you and Nell have to keep on baking wishing cakes. I have no idea how long we’ll be away. You have to keep the Goose Ladies’ mission going no matter what.”

  Perrin twisted her golden hair in her fingers. “But the Aunts can do the baking—Doris, Fancy, and Bernie can manage without me.”

  I shook my head. “They can’t know where we went! They’d follow me!”

  “They’ll find out anyway, Pixie.”

  “I know. Pip, Gray, and I are leaving now, so we get a good head start before they wake up.” I hugged Perrin. “You’ve got to keep Chuckling Goose safe until we get back,” I whispered. “Please.”

  Her eyes met mine and she nodded.

  “Get whatever you need and meet me on the porch,” I told Gray and Pip. “There are a couple of things I have to do.”

  After I’d pulled on jeans and a shirt, I went to Grandie’s room. The moment I entered, I sensed something was different. I didn’t even have to use my goose flashlight to see that her eyes were open.

  “Hi, Grandmother,” I whispered. “How are you feeling?”

  She was staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t tell if she’d heard me.

  “I wanted to tell you I’m going away for, um, well, I don’t know how long. But don’t worry, I’ll be back.” I smiled at her in a reassuring way.

  She was breathing hard, as if it were a struggle. When I leaned over to kiss her, I caught the lemony scent of the lotion Winnie used to massage her arms and hands. “Don’t worry, the others will take good care of you,” I promised. When I stood back up, I saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  “I love you,” I said, “and I think you love me.”

  I went to the computer room next. It had been a while since I’d sent an e-mail to Lucy and Alexa. I thought I’d better write in case they didn’t hear from me for a really long time.

  To: Lucy Chang, Alexa Pinkston

  Subject: Baking Camp Can Be Dangerous

  I’m off on a delivery

  But first I need
to share

  There are some folks who’d kill for cake

  It’s giving me a scare!

  For cake can be more coveted

  Than barrels full of gold

  And some friends become enemies

  When riches they behold

  So keep your fingers crossed

  While on this mission I embark

  And I’ll try to be my bravest

  Against danger in the dark.

  Love, Pix

  My last stop was the barn. As soon as she saw me, Destiny honked and came running on her wide orange feet. “Hello, little cowgirl,” I said, scooping her up in my arms. She nestled her head under my neck the way she’d been doing since she’d hatched.

  La Blanca stood up and waddled over. I sat on the floor and let her climb into my lap. Snuggling with the two of them was almost too cozy to bear. But soon the sound of a barn owl hooting Who-WHO, Who-WHO got me moving again. It was Gray’s secret call, letting me know it was time to leave. I gave the geese a last hug and set them on the floor. “You two take care of each other,” I whispered.

  Back in the quiet kitchen, the cake was waiting in a box on the counter. I suppose it was too hard for the others to say good-bye. But they’d left a pile of good-luck charms on the counter: a sparkly hairpin from Perrin, a pretty handkerchief from Nell, a message on a small white card from Winnie that said, “Kindness is the best weapon,” and from Rain, the silky cloud-thread I’d given her when she’d left.

  I wrapped it around my finger and tucked the rest in my pocket.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Ye Olde Birthday Party

  The moon was an icy gray sliver, but even in the dark Pip led the way through the woods with confidence. We took turns carrying the cake. Amazingly, no one dropped it, even though there were plenty of roots and rocks to trip us. Pip said it was usually a twenty-minute walk between Chuckling Goose Farm and Garrie’s, but the night was like an extra obstacle, slowing us down. The truth was, a part of me wished we’d never get there.