Ms. Baker and the Pie Baking Contest

by Susie King

In the small city known as Career Town, there was a small bakery. The owner, Ms. Baker, loved to bake. She baked all kinds of goodies. Tasty cakes, sweet pies, and sticky buns.

One day she saw a sign that there would be a pie baking contest. She decided to enter the contest.

For her dish, Ms. Baker would make her famous apple pie. Everyone loved her apple pie.

On the morning of the contest, Ms. Baker went to the market to buy some fresh apples. She wanted the best apples to make her apple pie extra sweet.

But when she got to the market, all the apples were sold out!

Ms. Baker went to another store hoping it would have the apples she needed for her apple pie dessert. When she got to the other store, it was sold out of apples too!

Ms. Baker again tried a third shop, but it was sold out too. She was forced to leave without any apples.

What was she going to do? She couldn’t bake an apple pie without any apples!

She had no choice but to bring a pie without apples to the contest. She would make a cherry pie instead!

The market had plenty of cherries. When she got home, she rolled up her sleeves, put on her apron, and got busy.

She worked all morning. She cracked the eggs, mixed the flour, rolled the crust, and prepared the filling. By the afternoon, she was ready for the pie contest. Her pie was a golden brown color. It was perfect.

Ms. Baker arrived at the pie contest, cherry pie in hand. There were lots of people already. There were also lots of tables, filled with several pies.

They were all apple pies!

Suddenly Ms. Baker was worried. She was the only one without an apple pie. Would the judges frown on that? She would find out soon enough. The contest was about to start. Ms. Baker placed her cherry pie at the end of the last table, waiting nervously.

The judges walked down the aisles, trying a slice of pie one by one. After each bite, they nodded and wrote something on a piece of paper.

At last it was Ms. Baker’s turn. The judges gathered around her pie. Her cherry pie.

Each judge took a bite. They didn’t nod. Instead, they smiled!

“We think we found our winner!” they exclaimed. “Your pie is delicious! And it is the only pie today that wasn’t an apple pie. It was different, so that made it extra special!”

They gave Ms. Baker the winning blue ribbon. Everyone wanted to try the best pie, and soon Career Town found a new favorite pie.

Copyright Susie King, 2011

The author lives in Texas, USA.

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