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Lulu made a good pie. She could always tell, because she'd serve it to Uncle Cal and he would make a face like he was just about to start cussing and then smile halfway through. "You do have some of your mother's talent in you, little girl. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was witchcraft."
Lulu had been making pies for as long as she could remember, probably longer than that. She wasn't as good as her mama, but Mama said that since she hadn't even hit the double digits yet, that was okay. But Lulu was only a couple of months away from being double digits, so she had been practicing in secret. When she tried to make the same pies that Mama did, something ended up missing in them and they weren't as good. So Lulu had started inventing pies in her head when nobody was paying attention, and she would put them in her secret diary that she kept hidden under her bed. She used purple glitter pen for the ones that sounded like they'd be really good.
Aunt Dawn was the best secret-keeper and she let Lulu practice in her kitchen whenever Mama had to go and do other stuff. Her last pie had been pecan and pistachio with cream cheese, and that had come out fine. But Lulu knew that none of her pies would be the perfect pie that she could give to her Mama for her birthday. The perfect pie would make Mama cry happy tears and maybe it would be so good that Mama would put it on the menu in the diner.
(Lulu had a diner named after her, but it wasn't actually her diner and Mama got to choose everything that was on the menu and Lulu secretly thought that it was kind of unfair.)
Her Mama's diner was the best diner in the whole world. It always smelled like pie, like maybe it was secretly made out of it, and it smelled so good that sometimes the tourists would say that they should bottle and sell it. And the menu had 28 different kinds of pie every day, with a daily special that was planned out for each day of the month, and another pie that Mama would usually invent the night before or whatever she felt like baking.
Lulu invented her first pie when she was 6, the "Tuesday is the best day" pie. It was a strawberry blueberry apricot pie with vanilla whipped cream on top. The best pie that she had ever invented was the "I wish we lived somewhere where there was snow" pie, which was a tapioca and coconut custard with a graham cracker crust, marshmallows mixed with fluff on top and then a small drizzle of chocolate. Everybody who knew her Mama said that Lulu was gonna be another great pie maker.
Mama said she always knew that Lulu was gonna be the best pie inventor in the whole world, but that she would have to work hard and practice for it. Uncle Cal always talked about the hard work and practice part, but that was just because his outside was all crusty like a turnover.
Someday, Lulu was gonna take over her Mama's diner and make delicious pies for everyone. She just didn't like to talk about it too much, in case there was a jinx. Last year, Mama had let her meet her father for the weekend and Lulu had been so excited that she'd jinxed it and her father didn't like her any more. Mama said that it was okay and she didn't have to spend any more time with him ever again, but ever since then Lulu had been extra careful. Even though she knew that Uncle Cal would beat him up if he ever came around, and Aunt Becky would use her shoes in mean ways, and Mama would protect her no matter what. Nobody had to tell her, but Lulu knew that sometimes it was possible to want something too much and then you'd accidentally ruin it.
Aunt Dawn understood that best of all, so Lulu had decided to make her a pie. It was gonna have a chocolate cookie crust, with a layer of butterscotch chips unmelted at the very bottom, put on while the crust was still kind of warm. And then she would melt more butterscotch chips with caramels and a tiny bit of chocolate. She would mix that with marshmallow fluff so it got all fluffy, and then she'd put a tiny bit of maple syrup on top so that it got crispy. She was gonna name it, "Uncle Ogie's spontaneous poetry" pie. Lulu had been inventing it in her head for a long time. It might even be the pie that was so good that Mama had to put it on the menu.
Or it could be Lulu's next invention.
She made good pies.