Herb nodded solemnly. “Definitely worth it.”
For a long moment, Lucy said nothing. She was still skeptical, but Freddy had made a good point. “Okay.”
Freddy pumped his fist and whooped, which elicited a little yip and nervous barking from the pup at his feet. “Let’s make a promise to go all-in—for Mom—okay?” He glanced at Lucy. “And for us.” He held out his hand, palm down, in front of his two siblings. “Pile up, Peaches,” he ordered. Herb slapped his hand on top of Freddy’s. Lucy wrapped her hand around both Freddy’s and Herb’s and squeezed. With a big smile, Freddy said, “We’re in this together.”
“Together,” Lucy and Herb agreed.
Freddy grinned. “Peach power!”
Dear Great Aunt Lucinda,
We made it to Minneapolis. My tent leaks, Freddy’s scared of Herb’s mice (he thinks they’re going to turn into vampire mice and eat him in the night—ha!), and we burned all our pies. So things are going really well! I’m trying to have fun, I promise. It’s nice spending time with my brothers and Dad doing stuff together. But I’m nervous this experiment is going to end like all of Dad’s other promises. (Remember when he borrowed all that camping stuff from you, so we could go to the Boundary Waters for a week last summer? We’re finally using the tents for the first time on this trip.) The second things go bad, he’s going to give up and I’ll have to figure out an escape plan. I don’t WANT that to happen, but it will. And Herb and Freddy will be crushed.
Love,
Lucy
PS: Herb met a couple dogs at our campground that would fit in perfectly with your pack!
11
PEACH SHORTAGE
On Wednesday morning, with Freddy overseeing every step of the process, the family managed to make six decent-looking pies—two apple, two slightly runny French silk, and two lopsided lemon meringue. Dad offered to be in charge of monitoring the peach pies while they baked and the kids all showered—but he got distracted reading a science article he’d pulled up on his phone, and all four of the family’s signature pies burned.
But six pies were better than none, so the family set off to a busy downtown Minneapolis street for their first day in business.
When they arrived, a dozen other food trucks had already set up shop for the day. It was still raining—a weak but constant drizzle—so no one was really out and about looking for food. Freddy decided the slow, rainy morning was a good opportunity to do a little research on some of the other food trucks and maybe check out their business plans. He let the rest of the family get things set up while he grabbed an umbrella and headed out to charm his way into some useful information. Taking inspiration from other artists always helped Freddy with his own art projects, and hopefully this approach would help him in business, too.
The food truck parked directly next to theirs was called Hola Arepa, and it sold a bunch of delicious-looking meats and veggies served in soft little masa corn cake pockets. It was the only truck that had a line of customers, and Freddy decided the staff of that truck probably wouldn’t be willing to chat with him unless he was standing in line to buy something. Maybe he’d come back for lunch, but he wasn’t hungry yet.
Next to Hola Arepa was a truck selling fancy juices—for nine dollars apiece! “That’s insane,” Freddy muttered. “Who buys juice for nine bucks?” Just as he said it, a group of middle-aged ladies ran through the rain and ducked under the juice truck’s canopy. They all ordered not one, but two juices each! “Some people are crazy,” Freddy announced.
He passed a tiny pizza truck, a fancy-looking taco truck, and a huge blue-and-black food truck that had a whole variety of items made with tater tots. He jotted them all down and drew a picture of each truck in his sketchbook. He decided it would be fun to design his dream food truck later, when they got back to their campsite.
Toward the end of the food truck lineup, Freddy came upon a truck selling crepes. Their menu boasted ham-and-Swiss-cheese crepes, mushroom crepes, and two sweet crepes: chocolate banana and sugar butter. Sweet crepes were similar enough to pie that Freddy felt this was the best place to do a little investigating. Time for more research! He would do whatever he could to make himself useful to the family business. Even if he wasn’t good at math and money stuff, he knew he could figure out ways to help their experiment succeed.
The girl staffing the crepe truck looked like she was somewhere between high school and parent age, and she seemed bored out of her mind. Freddy sauntered over and said hello. “We’re new here,” he explained, in his best take-me-seriously voice. “Actually, we’re new to the food truck business. Do you happen to have any tips for us? Business owner to business owner?”
“Are you for real?” The girl laughed, then stood up and rubbed her hands on her apron. “Do you want a crepe, hon?”
Freddy pulled his eyebrows together. “No, I don’t want a crepe. I’m with the Peach Pie Truck.” He gestured with his thumb, pointing toward the end of the line of colorful trucks. “And I was hoping to ask you a few questions about how you run your business. Successes, failures, best practices. Fun facts, tips, what have you.”
“You’re adorable,” the girl said.
Freddy scowled. Adorable described a puppy, or a fluffy baby panda, or three-year-old Herb in the bath with a sudsy bubble beard. Adorable did not get taken seriously. “How often do you buy supplies for your truck?” Freddy asked, ignoring the girl’s unintentional dig. “Daily, weekly, or on an as-needed basis?”
“Me?” the girl said, frowning. “I don’t buy anything. I just show up and work here. Summer job.”
Freddy rolled his eyes. This interview was a waste of time. The Internet had been a better source of facts than crepe girl. With a winning smile, Freddy saluted her, and said, “Good to know. Thanks for all your helpful tips. Have a nice afternoon.” Then he sauntered back to the Peach Pie Truck, hoping to see people queued up for pie. But all he saw was Herb, drawing curlicues on the corner of the chalkboard menu they’d affixed to the side of the truck. Their three pies were listed on the board:
Apple Crumb Pie . . . $5
Lemon Meringue Pie . . . $5
French Silk Pie . . . $5
They hadn’t yet bought ice cream, so they couldn’t offer the apple pie à la mode. But it wasn’t that hot today, so who wanted ice cream anyway?
As Freddy approached, Herb wrote:
Herb’s Cinnaballs . . . $2
on the bottom of the menu. Freddy was tempted to walk over and smudge it out with his fist. But he decided it couldn’t hurt to let Herb try to sell his weird little crust balls. Any sale was better than no sale at all.
Freddy scanned the sidewalk, wondering where all the customers were. It was after noon, and they should have had some business by now! He’d noticed that crowds tended to draw people’s attention, so he decided he’d try to figure out some way to look busy so people would think their truck was popular.
“Herb,” he whispered, “pretend you’re in line.”
“Why?” Herb asked. “I don’t want pie. Pie is the pits.”
“We’re creating demand,” he explained to his brother. “Trust me.” Then he went inside the truck and told Dad to come outside to stand in line, too. Once Herb, Freddy, and Dad were all in line, Freddy said, “Lucy, you pretend to serve us.”
“This is craz—” Lucy began, laughing. But she quieted down when she saw a group of guys making their way toward the Peach Pie Truck’s fake line.
Freddy shot her a look that said, See?
The three guys chatted with one another as they stood at the back of the “line.” Freddy turned to them, and said, “I’m still deciding what I want. You can cut in front of me. All these pies look top-notch, so it’s hard to choose!”
“Yes, um, same here,” Dad said, looking uncomfortable as he stepped aside. He clearly wasn’t good at pretending, but the fake line strategy had wo
rked. Dad mumbled, “You can, uh, hop ahead of me, too.”
“I don’t like pie,” Herb announced, which made the guys laugh.
“Okay,” one of them said, scanning the menu. Then he rubbed his hands together and told Lucy, “I’ll get a slice of peach pie, please.”
“Make that two,” his friend said.
“I’ll go with apple,” the third chimed in.
“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said, flustered. She glanced at Freddy, for once looking desperate for help. “We don’t have peach today, we, uh—”
Freddy spoke up, trying to cover for his sister. “Yeah, I read in the paper that there was a—um—a peach shortage this week. The whole Midwest had trouble with their shipment from, uh, bluh bluh bluh.” He mumbled something no one could understand, and then trailed off.
“Weird,” one of the peach pie fans said, turning around to look at Lucy again. “Okay, then, I guess I’ll get apple, too.”
“I’ll go with lemon meringue,” the third said. “Too bad about the peach thing, since that’s the name of your truck. Must be rough.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, glancing at Freddy with a helpless shrug. She handed the guys their slices of pie, then passed each a fork. “That’s five dollars apiece.”
They all paid, and Freddy felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of his belly. Their first sales! It felt great. “Enjoy!” Freddy cried out, waving as the guys walked away. “The Peach Pie Truck will be here tomorrow, too, so tell all your friends to stop by.”
As soon as their customers were out of hearing range, the Peaches whooped and hugged.
“Three slices sold,” Freddy cheered. “We’re on a roll here, people. A roll!”
From the Sketchbook of Freddy Peach:
CHERRY IN A SPOON
Today we saw Spoonbridge and Cherry, a really cool sculpture in Minneapolis that’s made out of aluminum and stainless steel. Fun fact: it weighs 7,000 pounds! Maybe one of my art installations will be on display at this sculpture garden someday.
MINNEAPOLIS MONEY:
(BY HERB)
∗ Cost of Pie Supplies: $632
∗ Sales: $70
∗ Total Profit: -$562
12
MOVING ON
After a couple long, wet days in Minneapolis—and only two where they’d actually had pies to sell—Dad decided it was time to move on to drier, pie-friendlier pastures. “I’d say it’s time to hit the road,” he announced after they closed up the truck on Thursday afternoon. “It’s important to know when to cut your losses, and I’d say the Minneapolis leg of our journey has been a total bust.”
Holding a half-empty cup of coffee in one hand, Dad led Herb and his siblings toward the nearby coffee shop that had let the Peaches use their restroom all day (as long as Dad kept buying fresh cups of coffee). “Seems like Minneapolis is not our lucky spot. We’ve had a crummy go of it here, but maybe we’ll fare better in Chicago.”
Herb didn’t think Minneapolis had been even a little bit crummy. It had been a rough start, and they hadn’t sold a lot of pie, but they’d had some fun adventures. And to tell the truth, Herb didn’t care where they went next—as long as he was with his family, he got to sleep in a tent again, his mice were happy and healthy, and there was water to swim in.
So far, Herb had managed to meet his personal summer goal of swimming every day. The big, crowded campground just outside Minneapolis wasn’t anything special, but Herb had made a couple of wonderful dog friends that he was going to miss a lot after they left!
He’d also started a new collection on the road—he’d begun gathering empty toilet paper rolls from the campground bathroom (there were a lot of them!) and storing them under his seat in the truck. He was pretty sure they would come in handy for something, someday.
Their Minneapolis campground had been close to both the Mississippi River and the St. Croix River. Each morning, Dad had stopped the food truck so Herb could wade in a different river each day. The water had been too chilly for him to duck his head under, but he’d splashed around near shore and kicked water at his siblings, and Dad had finally taught him how to skip a flat, round stone across the surface of the swollen, rain-flooded river (Herb had been trying to master that for years back home, on Lake Superior).
Then, that morning, after they’d finished baking their pies and loaded up the truck, Lucy had begged Dad to stop at a big, beautiful flower garden she’d heard about from her best friend, Maren. There was a short break in the rain, and it felt good to play outside. While Freddy sketched bugs and Dad fretted over some of the work he’d brought along on the trip, Lucy and Herb set off on a walk together. They found a rocky waterfall fountain that Herb was allowed to splash around in. He wasn’t sure the fountain officially counted as swimming, but it had been fun nonetheless.
Minneapolis was big and exciting and full of neat stuff. They had even found a huge sculpture of a giant cherry sitting on a spoon. Dad had pulled the food truck over to the side of a busy road and idled in a loading zone so Freddy could hop out quick to sketch it.
Now, after several full days of fun adventures (but crummy pie sales), Herb skipped along beside Dad as they made their way toward the coffee shop toilet. Dad wrapped his arm around Herb’s shoulder. Herb nuzzled in close, letting his dad squeeze him tighter than felt comfortable. Dad didn’t pull him close like this very often, and it felt good to walk down a strange street in an unfamiliar city under his father’s arm. Herb’s siblings traipsed along behind them, and Freddy was chatting his sister’s ear off, which meant Herb and his dad could enjoy a few special, one-on-one minutes. He gazed up at Dad, and said, “I love you, Dad. Thanks for taking us on this trip and letting me collect all these fun new memories. And for letting me swim every day.”
His dad blinked, then a huge smile took over his face. “I love you, too, Herbie.”
“Dad?” Herb asked a few moments later, when he noticed Dad had tears on his cheeks. “Are you crying because we didn’t sell very many pies in Minneapolis? We still have lots of time to make more money before the Ohio Food Truck Festival.”
His dad laughed. “I’m not too worried about that yet. I’m actually feeling happy. I don’t know why I’m crying. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
“Lucy says you’re allowed to cry for lots of reasons,” Herb told him. “Sometimes I cry when I’m scared at night, but then she gives me her duck to sleep with and that helps. And one time I saw a dead squirrel mashed up in the road—that made me cry, especially when the crows started pecking at it and then there were brains and guts and stuff smeared all over. And last week, Andrew said we couldn’t be friends when third grade starts because I decided to play tag with Ruby and Zubair during recess, instead of four square with him. But Lucy told me he would get over it, and she was right, because now we’re friends again.”
His dad nodded. “Lucy is a very good sister, isn’t she?”
“She’s the best,” Herb agreed. “Don’t tell anyone else, but she’s my favorite family.”
* * *
The Peaches drove out of downtown Minneapolis in the middle of rush hour traffic. The rain made it impossible for them to open windows, which meant it felt like an oven inside the cab. But Herb didn’t care. His dad had given each of the kids fifty dollars to spend on souvenirs during the trip, and Herb had already spent five of his on a little handheld fan he’d spotted at a gas station (and immediately knew he needed). After relaxing in the fan’s breeze for a few moments, he turned it on his mice, knowing they would probably appreciate a little fresh air, too. But when the blast from the fan hit the little critters, all three of them dove for cover under their T-shirt bed, so Herb turned the fan back on himself. He smirked at Freddy, then kicked up his feet and luxuriated in the cool air. Herb knew his brother was probably jealous of his very smart purchase.
At every gas station they stopped at (and t
hey had to stop often!), Herb shopped around for more treasures like the fan. There were so many things he’d seen that he desperately wanted to add to his collection. But he was trying to save some of his money, feeling certain he’d feel it when he spotted the exact right thing to buy.
Every time they stopped for gas, he also begged his dad to buy one of those scratch-off lottery tickets. But no matter how many times he asked, Dad firmly refused. “A waste of money,” he said. “No one ever wins those things. You’d be better off throwing a bunch of coins from a bridge and wishing for a million bucks to land in your lap.”
Herb pointed out that they definitely wouldn’t ever win the lottery if they didn’t ever buy a scratch-off card, but this logic never changed Dad’s mind. Lucy grumbled that it was insane that Dad believed opening a food truck (without any experience running a business like that) was a sensible use of money, but he thought buying lottery tickets was wasteful. “From what I can tell, both the lottery and this food truck require a huge amount of luck,” she muttered, just loud enough for Herb to hear. Then even more quietly, she added, “And luck is something this family definitely doesn’t have a lot of.”
Shortly after they got out of the worst of the Minneapolis traffic, the food truck rumbled over a long bridge out of Minnesota and into Wisconsin, then headed north. They were taking the long route to Chicago, because Freddy had begged to stop and see some sort of giant fish he’d read about. Freddy was convincing enough that Dad had reluctantly agreed to the detour.
They were in the truck for a little more than two hours before it was time to stop at the fish statue for dinner. Lucy had gone to a grocery store that afternoon and packed a picnic of BLT sandwiches and chopped salad. Herb was relieved to discover there was no pie in her dinner basket. Pie still made him feel icky, and just looking at it and smelling it every day was enough for him.
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