I was beginning to think that getting over three hundred pies baked by Friday morning just might be the easier task facing me.
Chapter Eight
My clock radio went off with a violent fit of static, which sent poor Vilhelm into a screaming fit. Thanksgiving morning. Too soon, my mind whimpered. Too soon. I tried to bury my head under the pillow. That’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It was stifling, and my neck bent at the wrong angle. With a sigh, I threw the pillow aside and sat up with a cavernous yawn.
My mind jumbled with lists and tasks-completed, coming up today, and those still in the not-distant-enough future. I’d set the alarm for five-thirty, which didn’t leave me much time to spare-or much sleep, for that matter. We hadn’t gotten to bed until at least one a.m. I couldn’t be sure of the exact time, by then, my eyes were too bleary to see a clock. Suppressing a groan, I climbed out from under my warm comforter into the chill of the room, pulled the cover off the parakeet’s cage, and found him glaring at me with his beady eyes.
“I’m a pest,” he yelled at me.
“I think the entire SCOURGE elite have replaced you, there,” I muttered and turned to find my jeans.
Pies, I still needed to find people to bake pies. And how could I talk them into doing that when I already had them scrambling eggs or flipping pancakes? But I’d have most of the rest of the town coming to eat, and if I could escape the kitchen, I could corner the unenlisted before they left and hand out tubs of pumpkin. Feeling much better, I exited my room to the tinny cries of “Yummy bird, here kitty, kitty.”
I found Aunt Gerda, already dressed for the day in a denim skirt and a sweater she’d knitted back when I was in high school, slumped over a cup of tea at the kitchen table. Siamese Olaf overflowed her lap, while calico Birgit and orange Mischief rubbed against her ankles, and the tiger-striped manx Hefty sprawled on her feet. The aroma of peppermint filled the room.
“That’s not going to do it, this morning,” I warned her. I scooped up Dagmar, who was doing her best to trip me, and cradled the fluffy ball of gray and white fur and claws in one arm. “Nothing like good old caffeine to get you going.”
Aunt Gerda yawned. I’ll swear she didn’t even notice when black Clumsy leapt onto the table and hunkered down beside the teapot. “Can’t drink caffeine. Not even decaf.”
Which only went to show how worn-out the poor dear was. She always lectured me, in that healthier-than-thou manner of hers, that caffeine could kill you. Apparently, in her case, that might be the literal truth. I joined her in her herbal brew.
I’d barely sat down, settled Dagmar in my lap, and taken my first sip, when Gerda dragged herself to her feet, scattering cats in all directions. “We’d better get going.” She drained her own mug. “Bring your tea with you, dear. We’ve got the key, remember?”
We did, thanks entirely to a nine p.m. phone call from Owen Sarkisian. He surprised me even more by meeting us at the school’s kitchen, for which he’d also obtained the keys. He would have endeared himself to me forever if he’d stuck around and helped, but he claimed pressing business to do with the murder-which I took the opportunity to scoff at loudly-to leave us to it. Aunt Gerda and I had spent the next hour and more lugging pancake mix, sausage, bacon, eggs and oranges into the hall’s kitchen. But we’d done it, and all the breakfast makings, even that damned giant coffeepot, awaited us there.
“I wish the turkey company had called back,” Gerda fretted as we climbed into Freya for the trip to the Grange.
That was beginning to sound like a broken record from both of us. I’d left several frantic messages for the company supplying the smoked breast for the raffle, but so far hadn’t received any answers.
“At least you made up a gift certificate,” I said. She had-at about midnight. Not exactly a professional job, since she didn’t have any certificate-making software for her computer. But we’d cobbled one together, then had to print it out on plain paper, with Gerda protesting that I should have warned her so she could have sent me out to buy something embossed and fancy.
Peggy, bless her brightly colored socks, sat in her old Pontiac in the Grange lot. She waved gaily to us, as if getting up before dawn on a holiday morning was her idea of a great time. As a group, we ran through the light drizzle, Gerda unlocked the door, and we piled inside. I headed straight for the heater, and in a few minutes warm air began to mingle with the icy chill. We might even be able to shed our coats and wooly hats before it was time to go home again.
Shoving up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, I strode into the kitchen. It was a large room, as kitchens go, with three stoves and ovens, two refrigerators, and two sinks. Cupboards and countertops lined the walls, with two preparation tables evenly spaced in the center of the floor. You could just walk between them, if you weren’t too large. What it would be like with a whole crew working in here defied my imagination. Of course, with my luck, I wouldn’t have the chance to find out.
Not much to my surprise, no good fairies or brownies or whatever had come during the night to magically squeeze oranges or mix batter. Which at the moment left it up to me, since Gerda and Peggy were arguing over whether or not to try to find the Grange’s harvest decorations.
The front door opened, and feet shuffled in the hall. “Damn, it’s cold in here. Why didn’t someone get here early to turn on the heat?” Art Graham demanded.
“You could have volunteered,” I shouted back.
“How’d I know someone hadn’t already?” came his prompt reply. I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Well,” put in his wife Ida, “we’re the decorating committee. I suppose heat might come under that category.”
“Nope. Decorating’s a luxury,” Art told her. “Heat’s an essential.”
“Do you know where everything’s stored?” Peggy asked, and any hope I had of getting help vanished as all four of them started opening cupboards and closets and exclaiming for the others to come and see the treasures-none of which pertained to Thanksgiving-they unearthed.
I, too, opened cupboards in a search for mixing bowls and utensils. “Batter up,” I muttered, and dumped half a bag of mix into a stainless steel container with a handle.
“Need help?” came a gentle, tired voice from the door.
I looked up to see Nancy Fairfield leaning against the jamb, looking fragile and quite pretty in a corduroy skirt and bulky sweater-apparently her favorite outfit. She had dragged back her fair hair and fastened it behind her neck, and wore only lipstick in a shade of dusty pink that set off the blue of her eyes.
“Up to it?” I asked. I might be desperate for assistance, but I didn’t want to be responsible for her suffering a relapse.
“If I can sit down,” she admitted with a wry face for her enfeebled condition.
I fetched a chair, and with relief saw Sue Hinkel had arrived and commandeered Art, and they now carried the first of the tables-the long, foldable variety that seats at least ten-from their storage place leaning against a wall.
“You don’t know Simon Lowell, do you?” she asked as I set her up at the stove to watch a pan of bacon and another of sausages.
“Met him yesterday.” I flicked a few drops of water onto the skillet, but they sat there instead of dancing away. Not hot enough, yet.
“Isn’t he great? So intense.”
So hairy, I thought, but I managed to keep from saying that aloud.
“I’ve never met anyone like him, before,” she added.
“He’s one of a kind,” I agreed with perfect honesty.
“He makes politics come alive for me. I mean, I never really thought about the government’s role in society until I met him. And I go to Stanford!”
“Should have gone to Berkeley.” I tested the skillet, and this time the drops of water sizzled away in a satisfactory manner. I poured the first batch of pancakes. “Is he coming to help today?” I added, forever hopeful.
