by Kathi Appelt
Both of their tummies growled. The sticky air was so thick with the smell of those pies that it seemed like they could practically bite it.
J’miah gave Bingo a nudge. “Don’t forget our mission.”
“Mission?” asked Bingo. The pie smell had erased all memory.
“Operation Rumble-Rumble-Rumble,” J’miah reminded him.
For a second Bingo drooled a little more. Then J’miah gave him a whack on the back.
“Mission, mission, mission,” J’miah said.
At last Bingo snapped out of his pie aroma coma.
“Right,” he said. “Mission.” All at once the urgency of the task in front of him gave him a power surge. He was a Sugar Man Swamp Scout after all. Their mission was to wake up the Sugar Man so that he could deal with the advancing hogs.
Everything depended upon waking up the Sugar Man.
A pie wasn’t the same as the actual canebrake sugar, but it had canebrake sugar in it, and since the canebrake sugar was guarded by a whole phalanx of snipping-snapping-zipping-zapping, the pie would have to do.
So, here they were, advancing on the café so that they could steal pies, and wouldn’t you know it, the side window was barely cracked open. Barely, but enough. By scampering along the thick limb of a japonica bush that leaned against the house and led right to the window, all they had to do was pop off the screen, and thump, first Bingo was in, then thump, J’miah was in, then thump, thump, they were both on the counter.
Victory!
It took a minute to reconnoiter, but once their eyes adjusted to their surroundings, they looked around and saw . . . mountains of pies.
Paradise. That’s where they were. Paradise.
In fact, they were in Paradise Pies Café.
But they weren’t alone.
61
SOMETIME DEEP IN THE DEEPEST middle of his midnight nap, Sweetums heard a thump. What was that? He cocked his ears. Nothing.
Then he heard it again. Thump. There was someone in the café. Was it a rat? He could not believe that a rat would try to enter his domain. No self-respecting rat would dare cross the threshold of Paradise Pies Café, not while Sweetums was in charge of pest control.
Thump.
Big rat, thought Sweetums. He slid off the bed, careful not to make any noise, tiptoed around the corner and over to the door. He crouched down as low as he could, making himself as thin as a shadow. The door between the back of the cabin and the café kitchen was only cracked a tiny bit, just enough for him to poke his nose through.
His whiskers twitched. There was definitely something there, but with his superior sense of smell, he could tell that it was not a rat. It also wasn’t a human. Sweetums had smelled plenty of them.
For sure it wasn’t a dog. He’d smelled them, too. Disgusting creatures. Plus, dogs were so loud. Whatever was creeping around in the kitchen was being very quiet, and very stealthy.
Thump, thump.
Two. There were two somethings in the kitchen. Sweetums twitched his tail. He crouched a little lower. And then, in the light cast off by the clock radio, he saw two stripy figures walk along the edge of the kitchen counter, one behind the other. As the cat watched, one of the figures paused and sniffed the air. Then they both looked right in his direction. Their terrible black eyes glowered from behind their terrible black masks.
Wait a minute. Black masks? Now Sweetums knew exactly what he was seeing: robbers!
Paradise Pies was being robbed!
“Thieves!” Sweetums’ ginger coat suddenly doubled in size. (Even though cats are not in the same family as raccoons, they are equally poofable.) As soon as Sweetums’ paws gathered some traction on the wood floor, he darted beneath Chap’s bed. There he bunched himself up and let out a low furious growl. In addition, he managed to hiss several times.
“People! Where are you?” he finally cried, in his loudest meow. Weren’t the humanoids supposed to protect him from this sort of thing? Shouldn’t they take some sort of defensive action? Why would they not wake up?
As it turns out, the people were so tired from cooking pies all day that they were pooped, kaput, sacked out. Some might say “dead to the world.” In other words, completely, thoroughly, utterly, sound asleep, with “sound” being the primary descriptor.
62
MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE KITCHEN, Bingo and J’miah knew they had been discovered. They grabbed as many pies as they could. They shoveled pawsful of them out the crack in the kitchen window.
Finally, Bingo whispered to J’miah, “That’s good. Let’s go!” They had all that they could safely carry, and thump, thump, out they slid, and away they went as fast as their stripy little legs could carry them.
Pip pip, young pie thieves!
63
IT TOOK FOREVER FOR SWEETUMS’ nerves to settle. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see those sinister black masks. His normally sleek ginger fur stayed poofed out for hours.
First the rumble-rumble-rumble-rumbles. Now a home invasion. What next?
He also realized that he needed to use his box, but that was two rooms over, next to the washing machine. He curled into a ball. He could wait.
No way was he getting out from under this bed, not until the sun came up. No way. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen.
64
IT WAS A LONG NIGHT for Coyoteman Jim, too. As soon as he ran the commercial for Paradise Pies, he started getting one call after another. Folks rang in with all sorts of questions:
• Which direction should I take to get there?
That depends on where you’re coming from.
• Where do I turn?
Follow the signs.
• How much does a pie cost?
One pie for two dollars. Three pies for five dollars.
• Do they use real muscovado sugar?
Right out of the canebrake.
• Is the sugar fresh-squeezed?
Right there in the kitchen.
• Do they have French roast coffee?
Nope. Community Coffee, roasted in Baton Rouge.
• How many pies can one person eat?
As many as one person wants.
• Do they have takeout?
Only if you can get out the door without eating them.
Coyoteman Jim just finished answering one phone call, when it rang again. He could barely even squeeze out time for the weather report amidst all those questions. Sometime after midnight the calls finally slowed down and he was able to catch his breath. He smiled from ear to ear. If that night had been any indication, there was going to be a very large crowd at Paradise Pies Café in the morning. He just hoped there would be a pie left for him!
And then the phone rang again.
Sonny Boy Beaucoup. Coyoteman Jim felt a chill run through the air. But Sonny Boy wasn’t calling about pies. Nope. He was calling to let Coyoteman Jim know about the groundbreaking ceremony that he and Jaeger Stitch were planning to hold for the Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park.
“Day after tomorrow,” he said. “Be sure to let your listeners know.”
Coyoteman Jim crossed his fingers behind his back and said, “Sure thing, Mr. Beaucoup. Sure thing.” Then he wrote down all the information, including the guest list. When he got to the mayor’s name, his pen mysteriously ran out of ink.
Like we said before, there is some news that is meant to be repeated, and there is some that is not. The news about the groundbreaking ceremony fell into the latter category.
Of course, Coyoteman Jim knew that eventually, word would get out despite his efforts. But in the meantime he’d keep it under his hat as long as he could.
65
RACCOONS ARE FAIRLY DEXTEROUS. THEY can walk on either four legs or two legs. When they’re in a hurry, four legs is best. But right then their front paws were full of fried sugar pies, which meant that their only alternative was to run as fast as they could on their back legs.
Which they did.
All the way back to the DeSoto.
Whew!
They scurried in through the entryway on the passenger side and plopped onto the front seat. Since raccoons aren’t all that great at counting, we’ll just say that they had in their collective paws more than four fried pies and fewer than a dozen. And let us also say that carrying those fried pies right underneath their noses was a kind of delicious torture.
Bingo looked at the pile of pies scattered on the front seat. “I think we took more than we needed,” he said.
J’miah nodded. Then he said exactly what Bingo was thinking. “Since we have so many, I think we could taste at least one of these, don’t you?”
Since they were both in agreement, they each picked up a Paradise Pie, and—sit down, brothers and sisters—they did not think they had ever tasted anything so rapturous in their entire lives. Not crawdads. Not blackberries. Not crickets. Not slugs. Not minnows. Nothing could compare.
Those pies kicked their stripy booties!
They ate one pie each. Then just one more. Then really just one more. Okay, this was it, absolutely only one more.
Bingo and J’miah were in Paradise Pie delectation. But then a tiny voice in Bingo’s head sang out, “Stop!”
His belly pooched out like a balloon.
“Oh, my!” said J’miah. He looked down at his own belly. It was covered in crumbs, and it also pooched out. He had never felt so full.
But it wasn’t really the bellies that were the problem. In a panic Bingo patted the seat. He looked underneath it. He jumped into the backseat. He patted the floorboard. He checked the dashboard. He even stood on the rear dash. At last he had to force himself to look back at the front seat, to the spot where all the stolen pies were supposed to be, the pies that they needed to lure the Sugar Man out of his sleeping lair, the pies that were supposed to substitute for the canebrake sugar. The pies that he and J’miah had gobbled up. Those pies. They were gone.
Almost.
There, all by its little lonesome, was the last fried pie.
One.
Fried.
Pie.
All.
Alone.
On.
The.
Front.
Seat.
And if that wasn’t bad enough . . . rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble . . . rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
In their pie-eating frenzy, our Scouts had momentarily forgotten about the Farrow Gang! Bingo slapped his forehead. Here they were, trying to be good little Scouts, and they had acted like . . . well, like hogs! And not only that, but now they only had one pie for the Sugar Man. One tiny little sugar pie.
What to do?
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble.
J’miah brushed his paws together to get the sugar off them.
Bingo looked through the DeSoto’s now-shiny windows. Through the vines, he could tell the sun was on the rise. There was no going back to Paradise Pies Café in the daylight.
He sat back on the seat. Beside him J’miah squinted. His invisible cap pressed down on his eyebrows. Then he busied himself by combing the remaining crumbs off the leather-covered bench. Every so often he paused and admired the art on the dashboard. The armadillo made him feel just a little better, but not much.
It could have been a total doomsday scenario, except that Bingo opened his mouth and . . . BURP! A sugary belch floated through the air. Followed by another burpburpburp.
Before they knew it, the air was filled with the smell of sugar. It was small comfort, because soon enough the seriousness of their situation settled in.
The facts were these: (1) they were supposed to gather up some raw cane sugar to wake up the Sugar Man; (2) they were blocked by the canebrake rattlers; (3) the Voice had told them that the Paradise Pies would kick booty; (4) surely a Paradise Pie would wake up the Sugar Man; (5) we’ll put the emphasis on a pie, as in one pie.
The two brothers looked at the single fried pie. Would one pie be enough? Enough for a creature whose hands were as big as palmettos, whose feet were the size of canoes? Enough for a guy who kept Crotalus horridus GIGANTICUS as a pet? Bingo’s tuft stood straight up between his ears. J’miah squinted.
One pie would have to do it.
And with the sun in the corner of the sky, Bingo gathered up that single pie, and together he and J’miah crossed their fingers and toes. Then they headed back out, back to the deepest, darkest part of the forest.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble . . .
The Third Day
66
CHAP PADDED INTO THE KITCHEN. He could hear his mother pushing chairs under tables, getting the café ready for the day. He looked at the clock—4:30 a.m. The numbers glowed in the dim light. The sun would be up soon. He switched on the radio.
Into the quiet air of the kitchen, Coyoteman Jim’s resonant voice slipped out. He was just signing off, “Have a good day and a good idea.”
Chap reached for a bag of coffee beans and poured them into the grinder. As he poured the water into the coffeemaker, he saw something odd, something unusual, something he’d never seen before in the kitchen . . . muddy paw prints. He looked closer at the prints and followed them to the windowsill. The radio was there. Steve’s cell phone was there. The window screen was missing. He looked back at the counters. Pies. Lots of pies. All stacked up.
But . . . not as many as there were when he went to bed.
“Thieves,” he cried. “We’ve been robbed!”
And in that same instant Coyoteman Jim cut loose with his final, “Arroooooo!”
67
WHAT WOULD GRANDPA AUDIE DO? That was the question that rang through Chap’s head as he looked at the muddy paw prints on the counter. Chap knew that Audie had always liked the local raccoons. But at the moment “like” was not the word he would associate with them.
He might have considered shooting at them if he’d had a gun. Or at least shooting over their heads to scare them. But he didn’t have a gun. All he had was his grandfather’s old machete, and it was strictly used for chopping sugarcane, not for dispatching wildlife.
“We live on their land,” Grandpa Audie had always told Chap. “Not the other way around.” And Chap respected that. Thinking about his grandpa made him calm down a little. If Audie were still alive, he would likely have turned the robbery into a funny story. Chap thought about his grandpa’s drawing of the raccoon with the harmonica.
But Grandpa Audie did not have to raise a boatload of cash in order to keep Jaeger Stitch and Sonny Boy Beaucoup from transforming the swamp into a freak show.
Grandpa Audie was not the man of the household now. Chap was. Or at least he was supposed to be. While Grandpa Audie was busy meeting his Maker, raccoons had been busy stealing pies. And Chap had not prevented either of those events from occurring. He wanted to kick something. Throw something. Hit something. And all those somethings looked like . . . raccoons!
But he also knew that his grandfather would never have kicked, thrown, or hit anything, including pie thieves.
As Chap looked around, he realized what he needed right then was . . . coffee! He filled the GBH mug to the very rim. His hands shook as he raised it to his lips.
Hot hot hot.
Bitter bitter bitter.
The jet-black brew was not getting any better. He swallowed, then took another sip. Then, without waiting for his mother, he cleaned the counter, wiping away all the evidence. He looked at the mountain of pies they had baked. Dozens and dozens. The result of hours spent chopping the cane, squeezing the thick stalks in the juicer, rolling the dough, mixing up the filling, and then frying everything in deep, deep oil, at a very high temperature. It had been a lot of work. And now, there were stacks of fresh fried pies, sitting on their counter. He counted them.
Result: The raccoons had taken more than four, he figured, but fewer than a dozen. Chap could see that there were plenty of pies left. More than enough. Boo-coos of pies. Pies to the sky.
Nevertheless, “A man’s house is his castle,” said Chap, and even though no great harm
had been done, the castle had been breached. Measures would have to be taken to be sure that the raccoons did not cross the moat again. And he knew exactly what those measures would be.
“Traps!” A few years back, a young bobcat had set up housekeeping under the porch, and Grandpa Audie had caught it in his Havahart trap, then carried it far down the bayou, where he set it free. They had never seen that bobcat again.
Chap could do the same with the raccoons. No guns needed. He puffed out his chest. No hairs needed either.
He took another sip of the dark coffee. It burned his tongue. How did anyone ever come to like this stuff? He started to ask that question out loud, but before he could, his mother’s voice interrupted him. “Chap?” she said. “Would you come here, please?” He turned toward her as she opened the door.
There, on the front porch, stood a very long line of people, hungry-for-sugar-pie people. Chap had never seen such a long line. It started at the door and snaked all the way past the parking lot and out to the Beaten Track Road. Mom turned the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN and said, “Y’all come in.” And they did. In droves.
As fast as he could, Chap served up pies. He had never seen so many chops being licked or heard so many compliments.
They’d take a bite and say, “Mmmmm . . . these pies sure enough kick booty!”
One-dollar bills. Five-dollar bills. Ten-dollar bills. Even a couple of two-dollar bills. One by one, the customers walked through the door and ordered pies. And bill by bill, the boat began to fill up too. It wasn’t long before the bottom was covered in cash. And Paradise Pies Café was completely out of fried sugar pies.
68
LET ME TELL YOU, THERE are many kinds of sugar. There is the sugar that comes from beets. There is the sugar that comes from corn. But the wild sugarcane that grows along the banks of the Bayou Tourterelle produces the finest sugar of all.
