2017 Inklings Book Contest finalist: Callum Yeaman
Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2017 finalist, Callum Yeaman! Callum has just finished 7th grade this past school year. His story is called “The Prefect Apple Pie”. Callum tells us that this short story is based on the family story of how his grandmother learned to cook her apple pie. Now we want some apple pie… We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did! Leave a comment below on what you thought!
The Perfect Apple Pie
by Callum Yeaman
It was three thirty-two on a sunny afternoon in 1965, and Julie was starting to panic. Her new husband, Henry, would be back from work at the military base at six, and she wanted to have a wonderful dinner on the table for him.
Back in California Julie had cherished the apple pie that her mother used to bake. The apples were always perfectly coated in ginger, not too sweet, but juicy and seasoned with just a little bit of salt. The butter crust was cooked till the edges were a rich golden brown, and when you bit into it you were treated to a moist, scrumptious surprise, still warm from the oven. The pie seemed to smell of fall, the dough crispy like the weather, and the apples fragrant with cinnamon.
Now, in the new house on the military base in Germany, Julie’s mouth watered. She was going to make an apple pie just like that. She started pacing up and down the small, plain, unfamiliar kitchen. To go along with the pie, Julie would prepare a chicken stuffed with carrots, zucchini and onions, just like her mom had done with the turkeys on Thanksgiving, her favorite meal of the year. Just like the turkey, Julie was going to make her chicken juicy, rich and succulent, with the aroma of freshly picked vegetables. She bounced around the room, visualizing how perfect it would look, imagining the look on Henry’s face when he would say, “Oh Julie. This is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.” He had already bragged to everybody on the base that his new wife was the best cook there was.
The only problem was that Julie didn’t know how to cook. In California, her mom had been so eager to help that that she’d cooked delicious meals for Henry every night, and Julie had pretended that she’d baked them by herself.
But now she was a married woman, nineteen years old, living in a strange country, with no mom or sisters to call. Julie examined the house with its plain green walls and the solemn painting of George Washington, which hung about three feet from where she was standing in the kitchen. It was so quiet in Germany, so different from her family’s house in California. So different than the walls covered with family pictures and the shelves cluttered with ornaments and filled to the brim with joy. At home, the rugs had been passed down for generations and the paintings all had meaning. In Germany there were no birds chirping outside, no friends stopping by, and nobody was ever on the streets. Just a line of houses: green and gray. Wherever you looked, green walls with a gray trim. Every house was the same. It was an eerie kind of order. A couple of hundred yards away, the big arched gate stood towering over the entry to the base. She could see the dirt pathway where Henry would return at the end of the day.
But first, she had to make this meal. Earlier today Julie had gone to the store and bought every food and spice she could think of, filling the cabinets and making the cabin a little less austere.
She cut a hole in the middle of the chicken, stuffed it with vegetables and herbs, and covered it with salt and pepper, just like her mother had done with the turkey. Unsure of what to do next, she preheated the oven to 500 degrees, which had to be hot enough, and threw the chicken in.
Next up was the apple pie. Her mom had always bragged about making a perfect butter crust, but had never explained how to do it. Julie supposed she needed flour, apples (the green kind) ginger, water, sugar, nutmeg, and maybe cinnamon? She would probably need to throw some butter in there, too. Just as she poured the flour into the round silver bowl, she realized she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.
Then the question came to her: What would happen if it all went drastically wrong? Everybody on the military base was probably already judging her already, watching for every mistake. To impress them, and most importantly, Henry, she had to make the perfect pie. With more purpose, she mixed the water, butter, flour, and shortening in the bowl. To her surprise, this made a sort of sticky, doughy thing, resembling an uncooked pie crust. She picked it up. The pastry was dripping wet in her hands. She figured that it would be fine if she just let it dry.
“Ugh,” she grunted. Now she was irritated with her mom, who she had always admired so much. Why couldn’t she have taught her to cook sooner instead of covering up for her? Why hadn’t Julie told her mom to let her learn to do it by herself?
Julie rolled out the gluey mixture, and curled it up at the sides. Next she would prepare the apples. She started to cook them with some ginger and nutmeg. She left them in the pan on full heat for five minutes, and soon they were burnt to a crisp. Now, what was she going to do?
She the timer for half an hour and went back to the crust, mixing another batch of dough, and then another, until she’d used the whole bag of flour. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it right. Flour spattered everywhere, all over the counter, on the floor and the oven––even in her hair! After the timer went off, she trudged over to the oven. As she opened it up, heat and smoke surged through the doors. It smelled like fall––if a fire had struck and all of the trees were burning down. When the smoke cleared, inside she saw what had once resembled a chicken. It was charred as a burnt piece of wood, and when she stabbed it with a fork it felt as solid as a rock. A tear stroked down Julie’s cheek, which was still scorching hot from the oven. Her nightmare was coming true!
When she looked over at the clock the time was 5:15. She had to get her act together. Without thinking, she turned up the oven to 550 degrees, set the timer for 45 minutes, threw the apples into the crust, and shoved the whole thing in the oven.
The next 45 minutes were the longest of her life. She thought about how everything had gone wrong and how Henry was going to hate her, and the whole town would be talking about her behind her back. She was never going to have a family or a husband who loved her.
When the time came to take the pie out she placed her hand on the metal bar of the oven, scared about what was coming next. The sweet scent of apples wafted through the air but the room was as hot as coals on a grill. Without second thought, Julie threw the bar down, pulling open the oven. Soggy pieces of pie burst out into the kitchen, and what was left of the apples exploded from a pile of mush that must have once been the crust. She took step backward, slipped on one of the apple slices on the ground, and fell on the floor. She got up, infuriated, and bashed her elbow on the counter.
“Ow! ” she yelled, hopping around in pain as the chicken fell to the floor, and the vegetables that she was about to remove spilled into the sink with all of the dirty dishes. She was kneeling on the floor, covered in flour, surrounded by a soggy, blackened heap when Henry walked in.
“Julie! Are you okay? What happened!?” Henry stood over her. His expression was bewildered, his eyes swiveling between her and the demolished dinner.
“Um, I think I burnt the pie,” she said, brushing a crumb off her shirt.
“Well I can see that!” Henry said, “but how? Tell me the whole story.”
Then it became clear that this was Julie’s time to apologize.
“Henry, there is something have to tell you. When I met you, I knew how much you loved to eat. I thought you’d never marry me if you knew what a terrible cook I was. My mom felt bad for me, so every day before you got home, she would prepare a dinner, and I would pretend that it was actually me who made it. Today, my mom wasn’t there to help.”
“Oh, Julie.” Henry wiped a bit of flour off her cheek. “You know I love you twice as much as any food I’ve ever tasted.” Crouching down on the floor beside her, he picked up one of the bits of crust that had exploded from the oven. “But, you know, this pie looks quite delicious.” He popped a bit of charred crust into his mouth, and nodded. “In fact, it might be the perfect pie.”
As the two of them sat on the floor, laughing and picking at ruined bits of crust and fruit, Julie had to admit that Henry was right.
It was the perfect apple pie.
