Sadly, Pa Peachey was not very good at baking.
Most of what he made came out wrong. Not just a little bit wrong, but spectacularly, outstandingly wrong.
His sourdough bread was so heavy it could be used as a ship’s anchor.
He tried baking cakes instead.
Instead of being light and delicate, his cakes were as heavy and flat as manhole covers. Instead of rising, they fell.
He tried other recipes.
Instead of tasting sweet, his cupcakes tasted strangely like liver. His fudge never hardened. His cookies turned to charcoal.
This was good news for McTavish, who was always willing to dispose of Pa Peachey’s mistakes. Misshapen pies, wobbly tarts, burned cookies—McTavish selflessly devoured them all. He particularly liked the cupcakes that tasted like liver.
McTavish had cakes for breakfast, tarts for snacks, and cookies for supper. This was not a healthy diet for a dog, but McTavish felt that he owed it to the Peachey family to rescue them from the terrible baking. Which often did not taste as bad as it looked.
Weeks passed. Much to everyone’s surprise, Pa Peachey’s baking did not improve with practice.
“This is perfectly awful,” Ollie said, spitting out an apricot tart that tasted like sand.
“I’d definitely eat this if I were starving to death,” Ava said of salted toffee torte that could only be broken with a hammer.
“I wonder how he did this,” Ma Peachey said, staring at a chocolate cake that looked like a deflated football.
“Practice makes perfect,” Pa Peachey said cheerfully. “Now please give me space. I have work to do.”
Practice did not make perfect for Pa Peachey.
He taught himself decorative icing and made piped roses that looked like toads.
His raspberry-and-lemon cheesecake weighed as much as an anvil.
His meringues pulled everyone’s fillings out.
His brownies were black.
His sponge cake tasted exactly like a sponge.
McTavish continued to chomp his way through every failed dessert with courage and stamina. He was a very brave and steadfast dog.
Day after day, he dined on cake. Day after day, his waistline expanded. He became stocky, plump, and finally, he became almost fat. He was slow to leap out of bed in the morning, and most of the time he felt quite unwell.
“Do you mean to say you don’t like my toffee cream tart?” Pa Peachey asked McTavish one night as he dumped his latest failed experiment into McTavish’s bowl.
McTavish lay on his bed and groaned. He couldn’t eat another thing.
“Well, doesn’t it just figure?” Pa Peachey muttered. “I toil and toil over a hot stove only to be met by rejection and contempt. Not merely from my family but from man’s best friend as well! There’s gratitude for you.”
“Poor McTavish,” Betty said, patting him gently. “This diet cannot be good for you. I shall have to help you.”
From then on, Betty helped McTavish by eating half the ruined cakes, half the ruined puddings, half the ruined cupcakes, and half the ruined cookies. Some tasted very good, and some tasted as bad as they looked. The ones that tasted like liver always went to McTavish.
But as much as Betty and McTavish liked eating cake, and as much as they were willing to make sacrifices for their family, it soon became clear that this could not go on. McTavish no longer felt healthy. He and Betty could no longer run and play ball without feeling out of breath.
As the Peacheys’ official rescue dog, McTavish felt obliged to save them from Pa Peachey’s terrible desserts. And from a future of idleness and obesity.
Which he was willing to do, as soon as his stomach stopped hurting.
One fine day, Pa Peachey arrived home from work in a state of high excitement.
“Look what I found in the newspaper!” he called as he opened the front door.
The Peachey children ran to greet him.
“A bake-off competition will be held,” Betty read from the front page, “to discover the town’s best and most ambitious baker. Judging will take place on the first Sunday of the month at the town hall—”
“By the mayor herself!” Pa Peachey interrupted. “And look here!” He pointed to the bottom of the poster. “First prize: five hundred dollars, donated by the Fame and Fortune Flour Company.”
“Wow,” said Betty. “Five hundred dollars could pay for cooking lessons for the entire family!”
“Wow,” said Ollie. “With five hundred dollars we could buy all our cakes from the very excellent bakery in town.”
Pa Peachey glared at him. “That will not be necessary, Oliver. Not when you have a top-notch baker such as myself right here at home.”
Nobody said a word.
“Are you planning to enter the competition, Pa?” Betty asked.
“Of course I am planning to enter the competition,” Pa Peachey said. “Not only am I planning to enter, I am planning to design and build a creation so difficult, so surprising, so impressive, that I will certainly win first prize.”
Pa Peachey punched his fist in the air and did a little victory dance, which caused Ollie to roll his eyes and Ava to creep out of the kitchen.
“I will need the support of my loving family in this difficult and challenging task,” Pa Peachey said, “in the form of perfect solitude and quiet. A talented chef such as myself needs space to think and create. Without the intruding rabble of family life.”
“Intruding?” said Betty.
“Rabble?” said Ollie.
Talented? thought McTavish.
“I’m afraid you will now have to leave me in peace, for I have a great deal of thinking to do before I will be able to collect my five hundred dollars,” Pa Peachey said, shooing his family out of the kitchen.
They were not reluctant to go.
Pa Peachey’s mind was not on his job. It was not on his family. It was not on world events. He lived only for the moments he could resume his preparations for the
