“People have to bet money,” Josie explained, “on whether you get the pie in the face, or if a teenage girl can actually hit you in the face with it from several yards away.”
“So it’s gambling.”
“It’s for charity.”
“Also, several of my sisters are the pie throwers,” Meg told me, “so you might want to wear a smock.”
“He can wash off in the dunk tank right after!” Josie said with a giggle.
* * *
The pieto the face contest wasn’t happening until later in the day, so I spent the morning chasing after my little brothers and making sure they didn’t eat their weight in funnel cake.
“It’s amazing!” Johnny shouted, his mouth covered in powdered sugar.
“Dude,” Archer said, coming up with a bouquet of corn dogs. “I think they need something that’s not straight sugar.”
“None of this is healthy,” Mace fretted.
“Corn dog!” Justin reached for it.
“Ask like a civilized person, please,” I reminded him.
“Corn dog, Deputy Mayor?” Archer called out.
Meg headed over to us. She had changed out of her T-shirt and was wearing cutoff shorts, a cropped red-checkered shirt that was tied in front just under her tits, and flip-flops.
Her sister Hazel was with her and laughed when she saw me. “His eyes just rolled out of his head.”
Meg looked me up and down critically. “I’m dressed for the dunk tank. You’re going to be sorry if you wear all of that,” she said, jerking her chin to my slacks and crisp white shirt.
“It’s whoever loses the dunk tank,” I reminded her. I gestured to the leaderboard over the two dunk tanks set up near the pavilion. “I think with all my brothers’ donations, you’re going to come out with the least amount of money.”
“She has fans!” Hazel said primly and took the offered corn dog from Archer.
The afternoon grew hotter. I loosened the collar of my shirt and slipped on my sunglasses as I chatted with several people from town who were asking about my positions on various items—including the compost pile.
“I just think it’s dangerous to have all of those goats running around,” one man was telling me, his wife nodding along besides him. “What if they get hit by the train?”
“Please make sure you have your bets in,” Josie’s voice blared over the loudspeaker. “We are now going to have the pie-throwing contest, so this is your last chance.”
I made my way over to the temporary stage near the pavilion. There were a number of young teenage girls lined up with pies.
Josie shoved me down on a stool. “First up,” she said, “Rose Loring.” The people who had bet money on her cheered.
She was such a little girl; there was no way the dessert was even going to make it halfway across the expanse of grass that separated us, let alone hit me in the face.
Rose picked up the pie, cocked her arm back, and threw it.
It didn’t hit me in the face, but it did spatter all over my feet and on my pants.
I growled under my breath. “What are you feeding her?” I asked Meg.
She grinned and gave her sister a thumbs-up.
“Next up is her sister, Minnie Loring.”
Minnie was older than Rose, and I braced myself. These girls could throw.
