Pie

After Charlie leaves, Alice sits on her porch, remembering Polly. She recalls, as a little girl, telling Polly she wanted to be a squirrel when she grew up. Polly responded that she would make sure to leave walnuts out for her in the winter so she would not starve. Caught up in a wave of grief, it takes Alice a moment to realize she hears someone’s voice. Charlie has returned, looking for his list of groceries to deliver to Miss Gurke. Alice apologizes for being mean to him and they make up. Not finding his list, Charlie rides away, hoping to remember everything the principal wanted. Alice sees the list between two boards on the porch. Reading it over, she realizes that it is the list of someone who has catnapped Lardo.

Alice pedals her bike to the grocery store, arriving just as Charlie emerges with Miss Gurke’s groceries. Alice goes over the list, pointing out that these are supplies someone would need to care for Lardo. She tells Charlie that she remembers the principal pausing over Polly’s casket, saying, “She reached into Aunt Polly's casket and then she jerked her hand back out real quick. I didn't realize it at the time, but she must have taken the key” (93). Alice explains that both she and her mother were right: Polly had the key around her neck when Ruth saw her, and Miss Gurke stole it by the time Alice saw her.

Alice persuades Charlie to ride with her to the principal’s house to see if they can find evidence that Lardo is there. In front of her house, they see her newly washed, large, green car. Getting on their hands and knees, they crawl to her picture window and look inside but do not see Lardo. They hear guttural sounds coming from the backyard behind a tall, wooden fence. Charlie has Alice put her foot in his hand, and he lifts her so she can peer over the fence. A horsefly bites Charlie and he jumps, tossing Alice over the fence into the backyard. Alice feels stunned to see an extremely muscular Miss Gurke in a red workout suit. When the principal demands to know why Alice vaulted into her backyard, the doorbell rings. Miss Gurke covers herself with a robe, telling Alice to stay put. Charlie is at the door, handing Miss Gurke her groceries. He speaks loudly, trying to distract the principal and give Alice a chance to escape. Instead, Alice steps through an aluminum lawn chair, trapping herself. When Miss Gurke rushes to the backyard, her robe catches on a door handle. Charlie sees her in her workout suit and faints.

When Charlie wakes up, he starts to comment on Miss Gurke’s appearance, but Alice cuts him off and says that she looks like Miss America. This insults the principal, who says, “Do you think I’ve put myself through hours of hard training to become some mindless beauty queen? […] Beauty pageants are insulting to women. […] Little girls need better role models” (104). She explains that she wants to become a new kind of example for young women, though she is not ready for the public to know it. Alice tells her they will keep her secret if she just hands over Lardo. Systematically, Alice reveals every clue she has about Miss Gurke stealing the cat, including Alice’s observation that Miss Gurke reached into Polly’s casket. The principal explains away all the seeming clues and reveals that she accidentally dropped her diamond ring into the casket and had to retrieve it. Alice realizes Miss Gurke is not the catnapper. Alice and Charlie strike a deal with Miss Gurke to keep her secret before leaving.

On the ride home, Charlie tells Alice that missing Polly will get easier. He reveals that he lost his grandmother three years before and knows what she feels. Charlie shares his secret for coping with loss: He keeps some of his grandmother’s perfume and lets himself smell it whenever he really misses her.

They see Chief Decker’s car at Alice’s house and find that the chief has brought Lardo back. A citizen saw the cat wandering in the village. When Alice lets Lardo out of his box, the cat stumbles in a stupor, causing Charlie to exclaim that he is drunk.

Chief Decker explains that someone drugged Lardo with sleeping powder. He guesses it was teenagers playing a prank. The chief says he believes it was also teens who trashed the pie shop. Ruth offers the chief and Charlie a piece of her chocolate cream pie, sending Alice into the kitchen to get it out of the refrigerator. The chief remarks that his wife is making multiple pies a day in hopes of winning the Blueberry Award. He says he does not have time to eat a slice of pie and offers to give Charlie a ride home, which Charlie accepts so he will not have to eat a slice of Ruth’s pie. After they leave, Ruth expresses dismay, saying that the chief’s wife is trying to steal her Blueberry. Alice calls her mother into the kitchen, saying she cannot find the pie. The three of them search but cannot find it.

Because her mother insists on taking him to the pound in the morning, Alice goes upstairs to spend the evening with Lardo. She reflects on her active imagination and her false accusations of Miss Gurke. Alice decides to turn over a new leaf, abandoning her spontaneous songs and attempts at solving mysteries. She decides to reconnect with her mother and to work at being the sort of girl her mother will truly appreciate.

The next morning, Alice suggests to her mother that they do some activities together, perhaps like buying hats. Her mother balks, asking why Alice wants to do this. Alice replies, “I just thought it might be nice for Mom and me to spend some time together. We don’t have to buy hats. We could just stay home and talk instead” (124). The conversation spurs Ruth’s suspicions. She decides that Alice’s behavior is a sign of the guilt she feels for disposing of Ruth’s pie. Alice protests that she just wants to get closer to her mom. Ruth accuses Alice of being like Polly and wanting Ruth to fail. She says that Alice never loved her the way she loved Polly. Just before running to her bike and pedaling away, Alice says that the difference between her mother and aunt was that Polly loved her back.

Desiring to get as far away from her home as possible, Alice finds herself riding up the tall hill leading to the Ipsy Inn. The chain comes off her bike just as she crests the hill. As Alice lies on her back, catching her breath, she sees Sylvia leaning out of a window at the Ipsy Inn. Sylvia looks around to see if anyone is watching, then drops Ruth’s chocolate pie out the window into the bushes below. Alice realizes that Charlie has arrived at the hilltop. He also saw Sylvia drop the pie. As they pretend to work on Alice’s bike, they watch Sylvia load up her green Chevrolet and drive toward Ipswitch.

Alice and Charlie follow Sylvia to the house of Mayor Needleman. Melanie has implied to Sylvia that Mayor Needleman might know something about the piecrust recipe in hopes that Sylvia will mention the mayor in her Look article. With Charlie as a lookout, Alice sneaks into Sylvia’s car and finds an earring that matches the one she located beneath her radiator. She notices that Sylvia’s suitcase has the initials J.Q.

Alice becomes convinced that Sylvia is the perpetrator of the crimes happening in Ipswitch after Polly’s death. Devising a plan to entrap her, Alice convinces Charlie to go to the Needleman’s front door and ask to speak to Nora on the porch. Sitting on the porch swing as Nora watches him in confusion, Charlie asks her in an extremely loud voice to accompany him to a movie. He says that Alice agreed to go but backed out after she found the piecrust recipe, which she keeps under her pillow. Alice gives Charlie the signal that he has accomplished what she wanted. Charlie tells Nora it was nice chatting with her and that she could not blame him for wanting to date a beautiful girl. Alice feels satisfied, thinking, “Charlie had done everything exactly the way she’d asked him to. All that was left to do now was wait for the rat to take the bait” (142).