The Pie War That Saved Our Fair

Then came the adult division. Miss Fenwick read the second place score first, which is tradition, and it was Vernon’s, ninety eight points, one point off the top score, same as it had been for twelve straight years, except this time, for the first time in my whole life, the top score was mine. Ninety nine. One point, finally, the other direction.

I did not gloat. I want that on the record. I stood there with the blue ribbon in my hand and I looked over at Vernon, half expecting the wounded, private look I’d have given him a decade ago in his place, and instead the man was grinning at me, actually grinning, wide and unguarded, like a boy.

“One point,” he said. “Twelve years. I was starting to think the scoring table was rigged in my favor out of pity.”

“It was rigged in your favor out of Miss Fenwick liking your nutmeg,” I said. “I finally figured out your nutmeg.”

“I’ll never tell you how much,” he said, and I said, “You won’t have to, Vernon, I stole it fair and square, same as your granddaughter stole my lattice,” and that set us both off laughing right there in front of the whole tent, in front of Delphine Ott, who stood at the edge of it all with her clipboard against her chest, watching two grudge holding old fools laugh themselves half sick over one point on a pie, and for once not writing a single thing down.