The Great Peach Experiment 1 Erin Downing (spicy books to read .TXT) 📖

said nothing about State Street, or anywhere else in Madison, for that matter. Nevertheless, Dad passed the paper to the officer, who shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This was only good at the blues festival this weekend. Doesn’t work here in town.” Then she reached into her fanny pack and pulled out a little machine to type up a ticket.

As the officer tapped away on her machine, Freddy passed the policewoman a massive slab of apple pie. “This is thanks for all you do,” he said in a friendly, carefree voice. “If we can’t sell it, this yummy pie ought to go to a good cause.”

Lucy watched, impressed, as her brother and the police officer shared a smile. Over the past week, she had begun to notice that Freddy had a special way with people. She’d always thought of herself as the fixer, but on this trip, Freddy had swept in to solve most of their problems. Something deep inside her chest loosened when she realized she didn’t need to manage this one; Freddy had it covered. She could just sit back and watch while someone else took charge for a change.

“The pie’s not a bribe,” Freddy told the police officer, holding his hands up like he was under arrest. “I just wanna make that clear.”

The officer laughed. “Good to know.” Then she took a big bite, heaved a contented sigh, and nodded happily. “That’s good stuff.” Then she printed a ticket and passed it across the counter to Dad. “I really am sorry. I kept the fine as low as I possibly could. But law is law, and if we let people run their food trucks wherever they wanted, well…we just can’t. Have a nice day now.”

As soon as the officer biked away, Lucy took the ticket from her dad’s shaking hands. She read it aloud, her eyes widening at the size of the fine. “Guess Madison’s not so lucky anymore. This weekend’s profits?” she said, closing her eyes. “To pay this ticket, we’re about to spend every last penny we just made.”

Freddy plucked the ticket out of her hand and hid it behind his back. “It’s just a hiccup.”

“That’s one expensive hiccup,” Lucy muttered.

Dad rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “What was I thinking?” he groaned quietly. “We’re out of our league. I don’t know why I thought this was—” he stammered. “If your mother were here—”

Lucy waited for him to say more. To say that it was time to quit. When the going got tough, Walter Peach got going.

“It’s a tiny, itty-bitty hiccup,” Freddy said again. Lucy spun to face her brother, who was grinning from ear to ear. “Our first ticket. We’ll make the money back tomorrow, if we do things right. We just have to learn from this and move on.”

“Move on? How?” Lucy whispered, so quietly she wasn’t even sure anyone heard her. But then Herb wrapped his spindly little arms around her waist, and she had a feeling she’d said it louder than she’d meant to. She turned to face their dad, to see what he would say.

“Freddy’s right. We have to learn from this and move on,” Dad said with a resigned shrug. “That’s exactly what your mother would want us to do. It’s what we need to do.”

“No experiment runs smoothly at every stage, right?” Freddy said. “Sometimes stuff fails miserably. But we just gotta move forward and do things differently next time.”

“Do things differently…,” Dad muttered.

“To Chicago?” Herb asked hopefully.

Freddy glanced over at Lucy. She shrugged. Why not? Their experiment was a mess, but maybe Freddy was right: it didn’t mean they had to give up and back away. Maybe they could turn this mess into something?

Lucy nodded. “Let’s head to Chicago.”

Dad didn’t say anything; he was blinking like he had something in his eye.

“To Chicago,” Freddy agreed.

MADISON MONEY:

(BY HERB)

∗ Cost of Pie Supplies: $743

∗ Sales: $1,945!

∗ Total Profit: $1,202

∗ Ticket Cost: $1,200

∗ Total Profit AFTER ticket: $2

Dear Great Aunt Lucinda,

Big news from the Peach Pie Truck: We finally made a profit! But THEN…we had to use all that money to pay off a ticket we got for selling pie without a permit in downtown Madison. You know what’s crazy, though? Even though things haven’t been going perfectly, I’m actually having a pretty good time. Dad even let us stop at a mini-golf course yesterday! I really, really hope we make enough money so Dad will decide that this summer was worth it. I don’t think I can go back to the way things were before, not now that I’ve seen what life is like when our family is kind of a family again….

Miss you and the pups SO MUCH!

Love,

Lucy

From the Sketchbook of Freddy Peach:

HOW TO SPEND A MILLION DOLLARS

When I have a million bucks, I’m going to golf 18 holes at every single PGA golf course, and use the snack cart as my cart so I can get soda and candy whenever I want. With a million bucks, there’d probably be enough money left over to pay all the guys with green Masters jackets to come out and cheer for me.

16

  RESTLESS HERB

Herb was hot, sticky, and sad. His dad had promised him that he would get to go swimming every day during their trip. But he hadn’t even gotten to pop his toes in a lake, river, or pool the whole time they were in Madison.

The previous day, he’d splashed and waded for a few seconds in a little fountain in the middle of hole thirteen at a mini-golf course. But before he’d even begun to cool off and enjoy himself, Lucy had yelled at him to “GET OUT! THERE ARE PROBABLY DISGUSTING, GERMY THINGS GROWING IN THERE!” (As if he hadn’t checked first!) So he’d only gotten his sandals and knees wet, which meant it really didn’t count as swimming. Then, Lucy had forced him to take a shower and scrub