“Stacey Peach Sweet Pea Spinach, what are you up to now?” her mother called from the hammock on the front porch.
“Mom, I’m picking peaches to make a pie before dinner,” glowed 11-year-old Stacey Peach in the Sunshine Garden in her backyard on a rainy day. The garden was full of every kind of flower, but especially purple, white, and pink sweet peas.
She breathed in the luscious aroma from the peach trees, looking forward to the delicious pies the fruit would make.
“Of course, we can have a spinach salad, but I wanted to make pies tonight all by myself,” Stacey Peach flushed.
From the time Mrs. Spinach was pregnant with Stacey Peach, Mrs. Spinach ate one too many peaches, smelled one too many sweet peas in her Sunshine Garden, and definitely overate spinach salads. This was because Stacey’s dad had skipped town after he got Mrs. Spinach pregnant, and she didn’t quite take care of herself the way she should. When her daughter was born, she came out with a peachy orange head of hair, smelling like sweet peas, and craving leafy spinach.
As Stacey Peach stood on a ladder plucking ripe peaches from the trees, she counted the fruit as she put them in her basket. One raindrop fell after the other, catching themselves on Stacey Peach’s extra-long eyelashes that she batted.
“One peach, two peach, three peach, four, five peach, six peach, seven peach galore!” she bloomed, eating every odd peach. “Whoops!” she cried, tumbling down the ladder with the peaches rolling everywhere. “My peaches! My peaches!”
Hopping to her feet, she gathered the peaches and put them back in her basket, marching into the kitchen all rainy-wet. “I was thinking that if I made a peach pie tonight with extra love that dad would finally come home,” Stacey Peach radiated.
“Sweet Pea, I told you before, your mom loves you very much, but your dad might not ever come home,” her mom blurted.
“I just don’t believe that’s true, Mom,” flushed Stacey Peach. “I’m going to leave a pie on the front doorstep for him tonight.”
“Well, if he doesn’t eat it, someone else might,” Mrs. Spinach snapped, considering that a peach pie couldn’t hurt anything.
After a lovely dinner of spinach salad and tasty peach pie with sweet peas on the table, Stacey set a second pie on the front steps with a fork, saying: “I’m sure Dad will like my pie so much that he’ll be standing at the doorstep by morning.”
“Well, Sweet Pea, I hope so, but if he’s not at the front door, I want you to know that I love your pies!” her mom insisted.
When Stacey Peach swung open the front door at the crack of dawn, an empty pie plate with a dirty fork sat on the porch. “Dad must have eaten the pie!” she said afresh. “Where are you, Dad? Please, come home. Mom and I miss you.”
Although Stacey Peach stood there for a few moments, her father—or whoever ate the pie—didn’t make an appearance.
For the next seven nights, Stacey Peach picked peaches from the fruit trees, peeled, and sliced them, and put them in the oven with cinnamon pie dough made from her great-great grandmother’s special recipe. She even made peach jam.
The fragrance in the kitchen was so delightful that she wanted to do nothing other than bake peach pies and jam all day.
Then she left the fresh peach pies on the doorstep, and by morning, all that was left was the empty pie plate and dirty fork.
“I’m starting to think it might be a burglar who’s taking the pies,” Mrs. Spinach worried. “I don’t think it’s your dad.”
“A burglar? No! It’s definitely Dad,” Stacey Peach blossomed, handing a bunch of sweet pea flowers to her mom.
“Well, I think you should only try this test one more night,” her mom warned. “We might be feeding bears or wolves.”
“If it’s not Dad, who else would be eating the pies?” Stacey Peach sprouted. “There is no such thing as a pie thief.”
As she pulled up her bedcovers that night, she kicked her light green sheets and punched her sweet pea embroidered pillow. Although she was distraught, she admired the moonlight shining on the blossoms of her namesake in the window’s flower boxes. She tossed and turned until she decided she couldn’t possibly sleep while her father ate pie on the doorstep.
“I’m hiding in the bushes until I get to speak to the pie thief,” she quipped, sneaking out the back door in her coral pajamas with a can of peach jam. She placed the peach jam next to the pie as extra incentive for her dad to come out of hiding.
Every few minutes, she shined the flashlight at the pie and announced: “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” After several hours of sitting in the bushes, a young boy wearing glasses snuck onto the front porch in his pajamas.
“Gerald the Plum Gershwin, don’t you dare touch that pie!” Stacey Peach budded, shining the flashlight in his face. “The pie is for my father. Did you by any chance see him around here? He’ll be here any minute . . .”
“What?” Gerald asked, scrunching his nose with a blank look of confusion. Then he glanced at the pie on the porch.
“If you want a pie, I can bake one and drop it by your house later in the week. Neighbors are not supposed to be pie thieves, especially when you are only 12 years old. Don’t touch the jam either,” Stacey Peach flowered.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been eating your pies every night,” Gerald the Plum apologized with a guilty expression on his face. “I can smell them through my bedroom window. I’ve always wanted to be friends with you, but I was just too shy.”
“Well, you don’t seem shy at all, eating my pies,” Stacey Peach burned, reddening like an orange peach.
“Every day, I see you picking peaches and keep thinking how pretty you are,” Gerald whispered with a smile. “Peaches and plums have to stick together! I was thinking of how to tell you, but wasn’t sure,” he mumbled.
“Oh, you ruined my whole plan to make my dad come home,” Stacey Peach tinged. “Why didn’t you leave my pies alone?”
“But they might have gone bad, and I couldn’t let that happen!” Gerald the Plum argued. “Someone had to eat them.”
“Do you think I’ll ever meet my dad?” Stacey Peach sobbed, crying her eyes out on the front porch with Gerald the Plum.
“Did you ever try to make plum pies?” he asked, letting her blow her nose on his shirt corner. “I’m sure they’re good.”
“No, I only make peach pies, not plum pies,” Stacey Peach sweetened. “Peach pies and plum pies are different.”
“Really?” Gerald the Plum thought, pausing for a second. “If you really miss your dad, you can share mine. I miss my mom.”
“What happened to your mom?” Stacey Peach rosied. “I have a mom. She loves me, and we have a Sunshine Garden. The sun shines there even on rainy days. If you really wanted to, I guess you could share my mom, too.”
“My mom died, and so I know she’s definitely not coming back. She was really sick,” Gerald the Plum soured. “Since I live next door, sharing parents might work out well. I hope Dad understands. He’s sort of picky about certain things.”
“I’ll have to talk to my mom,” Stacey Peach blushed, fluffing her peach orange hair in Gerald’s direction. “I think I’ll tell her you’re my boyfriend if that’s all right with you. Mom might say that I’m too young for a boyfriend, but that’s too bad.”
“It’s all right with me,” Gerald agreed, whisking Stacey Peach’s hand into his palm, and holding it tight.
Stacey Peach kissed Gerald the Plum on the cheek, and they ate scrumptious peach pie together and talked as the sun rose.
The peach jam was even sweeter as Stacey Peach ate it straight from the jar and shared it with Gerald, an unlikely plum of a hero. Even in the midst of hard times, beauty blossomed everywhere with a lovely scent and life could still be delicious.
Copyright 2019 Jennifer Waters
https://soundcloud.com/jen-waters/stacey-peach-sweet-pea-spinach-narrated-by-jen-waters
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