Betty, Ollie, and Ava realized that once Pa Peachey arrived home from work each day, there would be no access to the kitchen. So they hastily grabbed food, plates, and cutlery before their father appeared.
Meanwhile, the kitchen was quiet.
There was no smell of burning.
There were no cries for help.
The smoke alarm did not go off.
It was very quiet.
Too quiet.
“Has Pa given up the baking competition?” Ollie asked.
“Perhaps he is quietly waiting for inspiration,” Ma Peachey said.
Ava said nothing. She was reading Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (a famous French philosopher) but said the title had nothing to do with Pa Peachey’s baking.
On the fourth evening of silence, Ma Peachey knocked cautiously on the kitchen door.
“Yes?” Pa Peachey said.
“May we come in?” Ma Peachey asked.
“Interruptions, interruptions. Am I never to have a moment’s peace?” Pa Peachey complained.
Ollie, Ava, Betty, and McTavish crowded into the kitchen behind Ma Peachey. They all stared at Pa Peachey.
He was hard at work on a great pile of drawings.
Betty was puzzled. “Have you given up baking, Pa?”
“Given up? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Pa Peachey. “I am preparing the plans for my Grand Masterpiece.”
“Grand Masterpiece?” Betty asked, eyes wide.
“Grand Masterpiece?” Ollie asked, mouth open.
“What sort of Grand Masterpiece did you have in mind?” Ma Peachey asked, sounding a bit nervous.
“Why, the Grand Masterpiece that will win the town baking competition, of course!” Pa Peachey pulled out a notebook full of sketches. The sketches looked like plans for a house. A very large and complicated house.
“What are these drawings?” Ava asked.
“If you must know,” Pa Peachey said, “they are drawings of the Palace of Versailles. It is the finest building in France. Two thousand three hundred rooms, formal gardens, home to King Louis XIV, the Sun King . . . oh, the glory!” Pa Peachey’s face shone with joy.
The rest of the Peacheys looked puzzled.
“And?” Ma Peachey asked. “What will you do with these sketches of the Palace of Versailles?”
“I plan to construct the entire Palace of Versailles, detail for detail, stone for stone”—Pa Peachey paused for dramatic effect—“in gingerbread.”
Betty gasped, Ollie guffawed, Ava sat down hard on a chair, and McTavish made a strange choking noise.
“Gingerbread?” Ma Peachey had turned pale.
“Why?” asked Ava.
“It sounds quite . . . challenging,” Betty said.
“It is!” Pa Peachey exclaimed.
Ma Peachey was silent for a moment. “Excuse me, children, but I would like to talk with your father alone,” she said at last.
Ava, Ollie, Betty, and McTavish left the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, Ma Peachey emerged.
“Pa Peachey and I have spoken,” she said. “We have come to an agreement. Pa Peachey will pursue his dream of constructing the Palace of Versailles in gingerbread, and we will turn over the kitchen to him until the day the competition is judged. This is Pa Peachey’s dream, and we must help him achieve it.”
“Must we?” asked Ollie. “What if his dream is the dream of a madman?”
Ma Peachey gave Ollie a warning look. “We will all encourage and help him as much as possible toward the fulfillment of his dream.”
“Even if he’s the world’s worst baker?” Ollie asked.
“Nothing he has ever baked has come out right,” Ava added. “Ever.”
“The Palace of Versailles with two thousand three hundred rooms and formal gardens may prove somewhat challenging for a man of Pa’s skills,” Betty said.
In his bed under the stairs, McTavish dreamed that Pa Peachey had taken up a nice sensible hobby like table tennis.
Ma Peachey looked at her children and sighed. “There is no accounting for dreams,” she said.
Pa Peachey sketched and sketched. At last he emerged from the kitchen, waving a sheaf of papers.
“I’ve done it,” he said. “I have planned every element for construction of the Palace of Versailles in gingerbread. It is a feat never before attempted in the entire history of baking.”
“I wonder why,” Ollie said.
Ma Peachey shot him a stern look.
“I made a gingerbread house once,” Ava said. “It fell down.”
“But it tasted good,” Ollie said.
Pa Peachey ignored them. “This is not an easy task,” he said. “But I am confident that once the necessary three thousand seven hundred eighty-four separate pieces have been baked and glued together, my palace will come together in a blaze of glory.”
“Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-four pieces?” asked Ma Peachey.
McTavish looked worried.
“Exactly,” Pa Peachey said. “Each small piece carefully shaped, measured, cut, and baked from gingerbread, glued with sugar glue, and decorated with icing. It’s going to be magnificent.”
Nobody spoke.
Betty had found Ma Peachey’s phone and was staring at it. “Wikipedia says that the famous hall of mirrors at Versailles contains more than three hundred mirrors. And was lit by three thousand candles.”
“I don’t think your father is interested in mirrors and candles,” Ma Peachey said quickly. “There’s plenty to think about with all those windows and balconies . . .”
“And arches and fountains and marble columns,” Ollie added, looking over Betty’s shoulder at the palace.
“And curly gold gates,” Ava said.
“Of course, I can’t speak for your father,” Ma Peachey said, “but I don’t believe it will be necessary to construct every single detail. Many elements could merely be suggested in a creative way.”
Pa Peachey nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “Now I am afraid you must all leave me in peace. You may enjoy standing around goggling, but I have a great deal of gingerbread to roll out and cut and shape and bake and glue together and then decorate.”
“And only two weeks to do it,” Ollie said, eyes wide.
The minute Pa Peachey began to bake his 3,784 gingerbread cookies for the Palace of Versailles, McTavish’s bowl began to fill once more with rejections.
McTavish did not like gingerbread that was burned to charcoal. He did not like gingerbread that was tougher to chew than a bone. To be honest, he was not the world’s number-one fan of gingerbread even when it was cooked perfectly.
After just a few days, Betty was also thoroughly sick of gingerbread.
McTavish stood up and waddled back to his bed, tail between his legs. He was no longer
