After GG Hazel died, Grandma Mabel never gave up searching for that recipe, even when she retired and passed the pie shop along to Mom. No one in Bonnet knew where Hazel had hidden the recipe. But lots of people tried to re-create the pie without knowing what had gone into it. And the strange thing? Each attempt someone made ended in disaster.
Stories abounded of Heartstring knockoffs that smelled like skunk or putrid socks. One pie simply exploded, without any explanation, covering half the congregation of the Bonnet Baptist church in a purple stain that took weeks to wash off. Worst of all was the pie that Grandma Mabel made, which, when she sliced into it, produced a poor little mouse. Mabel never understood how that mouse got into the pie, and Mom swore she was still muttering about it with her very last breath.
Was it a true curse? I didn’t believe in that sort of nonsense. But that didn’t stop Bonnet folks from being superstitious about the Heartstring Pie, and lifting it onto a pedestal of magic. No one could duplicate that pie, and nothing else could ever compare to it in deliciousness or mysterious healing properties.
“I believe that recipe’s still hidden somewhere,” Mom liked to say with a smile. “Tucked into a cozy nook, waiting for the right Culpepper to discover it.”
I always rolled my eyes at this, but I wondered about the whereabouts of that recipe, too. Sometimes I almost felt tempted to look for it, but then caught myself. If GG Hazel’s spirit did still linger, she’d make sure that her recipe never fell into the hands of a failure of a pie baker like me.
Besides, the recipe had probably been destroyed decades ago, disintegrating in our Texas humidity in whatever ancient hole GG Hazel had stuck it in.
“Did Hazel finally give up the secret today?” a voice behind me said teasingly.
I whirled around to see my best friend, Zari, grinning at me. Her big eyes—the color of blackberries—glimmered from her heart-shaped face.
On the outside, Zari and I were opposites; while my hair was long and messy, hers was cropped short and cute. My skin was pale and freckled; hers was dark brown. I was tall; she was petite. But we’d been attached at the hip practically since birth.
“What a headline that would make,” Zari continued, peering at Hazel’s photo, “‘Famous Heartstring Pie Recipe Rediscovered At Last!’”
“Zari!” I laughed, exasperated. “It’s never going to happen. And would you please quit sneaking up on me like that?” The girl had a talent for slinking in and out of rooms.
“How else do you expect me to get decent scoops?” She shrugged, then snagged the slice of Lemon Zinger pie waiting for her on the sales counter. Zari stopped by the shop almost every day after school, and Mom always had a piece of her favorite pie waiting.
We sat down together at a table and Zari dug into her slice. “A skilled investigative journalist has to keep her eyes and ears open to everything,” my best friend went on. “It’s how Pulitzers are won and the best news written.”
“News?” I raised an eyebrow. Zari wrote a weekly “Buzz” column for The Beehive, the Bonnet Middle School paper, but whether its content qualified as news was debatable.
I ducked as she launched a napkin at my head.
“Hey!” Zari cried. “It’s not my fault our fishbowl of a town isn’t at the forefront of current affairs. But I report the truth. And if the truth is that Ms. Aberdine has fifty cats living in her basement, or that Mr. Victor’s pig got loose and ate every geranium in Mrs. Beaumont’s window boxes—”
“That pig did indeed!” Mrs. Beaumont interjected, looking up from her knitting. “Mark my words, that Tootsie will get her comeuppance someday …”
“Then,” persisted Zari, ignoring Mrs. Beaumont’s interruption, “it’s my duty to share it. The last decent story I had was when Mrs. Crenshaw declared she’d discovered the Heartstring Pie recipe buried in a sarsaparilla bottle under her front porch.”
“That was a doozy!” Ms. Jackson whistled, pausing over her typewriter. “That pie she baked gave her entire family hives for weeks!”
“The curse,” Mrs. Beaumont murmured with a shake of her head.
That brought a round of knowing chuckles from everyone in the room except for me and Zari. We exchanged an amused glance; we didn’t believe in the “curse.”
Zari slapped her messenger bag onto the table, jabbing a finger at the design printed on its label: a replica of a New York City street grid. “Right here. Forty-First and Eighth Avenue. That’s where my destiny lies.”
“The New York Times.” I grinned at her. “I know. You’re going to be the chief current affairs correspondent.”
“I hope so. My soul is a New Yorker’s. But”—Zari paused for dramatic effect—“I do have a real piece of news today. Something way bigger than cats and pigs. Only, I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.” She looked at me with conflicting flickers of excitement and hesitation.
My muscles clenched. I’d never seen Zari worried about spilling news before. “If this is about another store closing, I don’t want to know.”
Zari shook her head. “Just promise not to freak out, okay?”
I nodded impatiently.
She took a deep breath, then let the words fly in a furious tumble. “ChaytonFreedellisbackintown.”
I blinked. My heart tripped. “I didn’t hear you right. Chayton Freedell is … back?” I hadn’t said that name in two years, and it tasted bitter on my tongue.
“He is,” Zari squeaked.
“What?” I shrieked, and Mrs. Beaumont dropped her knitting to clutch her chest.
“Everything’s fine,” Zari reassured everyone, then lowered her voice at me. “Breathe. I know you said you never wanted to see him again, but don’t go Hulk on me.”
I pressed my palms into the table. “Don’t you remember what he did to me?” I hissed.
“The parade disaster?” Zari scoffed. “Of course I do. I was the one who spent hours helping you wash the pie out of your hair.”
I shuddered at the memory. When I was ten, Chayton Freedell and I had ridden our horses side by side in the Bonnet County Fair parade. Only Chayton started fooling around, like he always did, snagging people’s hats off their heads, lying across the back of his horse and pretending to slide off. I told him to quit, but did he listen? Nooooooo. Course not. Instead, he spooked my Ginger until she bucked me off. I flew through the air and crashed into the Pies N’ Prattle booth, right atop the fifty huckleberry pies stacked sky-high for the fair’s pie-eating contest.
“He did apologize,” Zari reminded me gently.
“It wasn’t a real apology!” I remembered the tightness in Chayton’s voice, like he was trying to keep from busting up laughing, which he’d been doing only a minute before, along with most of the population of Bonnet.
“Dacey, it was two years ago. You’ve changed a lot since then. He probably has, too.”
“Not enough.” It wasn’t just about the pie fiasco; it was everything else that had led up to it, too. Chayton sat next to me in every class from kindergarten on, whispering knock-knock jokes and drawing cartoons he thrust in my face, whether I asked to see them or not. We were neck and neck for our grades in every subject. Somehow, he always ended up doing book reports on the same book as me, studying the same battle for every social studies project, and even tying me for second place in the spelling bee. The epic horse/pie disaster had been the last straw. When he’d moved away, I told myself I’d never have to speak to him again.
I dropped my head to the table, my anger fizzling into dismay. “Why is he back?” I groaned.
“Um, did you forget his grandpa lives here?”
“No,” I said grudgingly. I just didn’t like to think about the fact that Mr. Jenkins was related to Chayton at all.
“And you like Mr. Jenkins.”
“Because Mr. Jenkins isn’t anything like Chayton!” I looked up at Zari and frowned. “Irritating, show-off, know-it-all—”
“Generosity of spirit, Dace,” Mom interjected, coming over. �
�What’s this about now?”
“Good news for Bonnet, actually, Miss Edie,” Zari chirped. “Do you remember Julip Freedell?” Mom nodded, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Chayton’s mom was now famous as the host of the über-popular cooking and lifestyle show Prairie Living. Julip traveled all over Texas scouting for obscure craft ideas, antiques, and recipes.
“I just saw Mrs. Freedell at the middle school,” Zari explained. “She was registering Chayton for classes. She’s come back to Bonnet to film a special ‘Homecoming’ episode of her show. It’s going to feature the Bonnet County Fair and pie-eating contest!”
“Well.” If it were possible for Mom to look even cheerier than usual (which was a tall order, believe me), she did. “I’d call that news better than good. Julip’s show might breathe some life back into Bonnet, and bring in some fresh customers.”
“And save us from boredom,” Zari put in. “Newcomers mean intrigue and scandals and—”
“Trouble,” I grumbled.
Zari shook her head at me. “It’ll be fine. You’ll hardly notice Chayton’s back at all.”
All I could picture was my ten-year-old self, covered head to toe in huckleberry pie. I cringed. Hardly notice the return of my archnemesis? Not a chance.
Suzanne Nelson has written several children’s books, including Cake Pop Crush, You’re Bacon Me Crazy, Macarons at Midnight, Hot Cocoa Hearts, Donut Go Breaking My Heart, Sundae My Prince Will Come, and I Only Have Pies For You. She lives with her family in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where she can also be found experimenting with all kinds of cooking. Learn more about Suzanne at suzannenelson.com, or follow her on Twitter at @snelsonbooks or on Instagram at @suzannenelsonbooks.
Also by Suzanne Nelson
Cake Pop Crush
You’re Bacon Me Crazy
Macarons at Midnight
Hot Cocoa Hearts
Donut Go Breaking My Heart
Sundae My Prince Will Come
I Only Have Pies for You
Serendipity’s Footsteps
A Tale Magnolious
When Sam discovers two mystery pugs left on her porch, she knows her parents won’t be happy … But she has to take in the abandoned pups. Only, she’s not quite prepared for how hard it is to hide the frisky duo. Thankfully, cute new boy in town, Jai, is down to help. But if the dogs’ original owner comes forward, will Sam have to give up the pugs she’s fallen in love with?
Copyright © 2019 by Suzanne Nelson
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing 2019
Cover photo © Inna Taran/Shutterstock
Cover design by Jennifer Rinaldi and Yaffa Jaskoll
e-ISBN 978-1-338-33930-7
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