Kit had promised Grandpa the pointiest piece of pie.
It was Thanksgiving at Aunt Bea's house in Ontario. October leaves pressed their yellow faces against the kitchen window, and every chair seemed to have a cardigan hanging on it.
Grandpa had arrived with an enormous bag of apples.
"For next time," he said.
"We've already got pie," Kit told him. "I helped with the top."
She had pressed little pastry leaves around the edge before Aunt Bea put it in the oven. One leaf looked like a mitten.
Kit hoped Grandpa would get that one.
Now dinner was over. Dad was clearing plates. Aunt Bea fetched the apple pie from the kitchen, where it had been cooling.
It smelled of cinnamon.
Its middle had sunk.
Not a little. It had sunk as if a very small elephant had sat on it and then politely gone away.
Kit leaned closer.
The pastry leaves still stood around the edge. They looked surprised.
"Oh," said Aunt Bea.
"It has a valley," said Kit.
"Quite a deep one."
Aunt Bea put the pie dish on its mat. She tried lifting a slice with the serving spoon.
The apples slid off.
The crust broke into three pieces.
One piece had the mitten leaf on it.
Kit watched Aunt Bea catch everything in a bowl.
"That wasn't a slice," she whispered.
"No," said Aunt Bea. "It was more of a tumble."
From the dining room, Grandpa called, "Is there anything I can bring?"
"A mountain rescue team," muttered Kit.
Aunt Bea heard. She laughed so suddenly that Kit almost did too.
Almost.
"I said he could have the pointiest piece."
"I remember."
Kit studied the bowl. There were apples at the bottom and broken pastry on top. It looked nothing like the neat triangles in Aunt Bea's cookbook.
"Could we put it back together?"
Aunt Bea nudged two pieces with the spoon. The apple filling squeezed between them.
"Not for very long."
"What about turning the whole pie over?"
"Then we'd have apples on the table. I'd rather keep them in dishes."
Kit sat on her kitchen stool. She could hear Dad telling Grandpa about a squirrel that had buried a walnut in his boot.
Everyone sounded ready for pie.
She looked at the mitten leaf in the bowl.
It hadn't broken.
"Could that go on top?"
"Certainly."
Aunt Bea lifted it carefully onto the mound of apples and crust.
Kit turned the bowl a little.
The leaf looked less like a mitten now. It looked like a tiny hand waving from a hill.
"That one's Grandpa's," she said.
Dad came in for dessert plates.
Kit stopped him.
"Bowls," she said. "And spoons. This pie needs spoons."
While Aunt Bea served the cooled pie, Kit counted out the spoons and put them beside the bowls Dad carried to the table.
There was a small tumble for Kit, a broad tumble for Dad and one with two pastry leaves for Aunt Bea.
Grandpa's had the little waving hand.
Kit sat beside him.
"It fell apart," she said before he could ask. "I couldn't get you a point."
Grandpa looked at his bowl.
Then he looked at the pastry leaf.
"You found me the mitten."
"I thought it was a leaf."
"A very useful leaf. It's cold in October."
He took a spoonful.
Kit took one too.
The apples were soft and sharp and sweet. A bit of crust gave a small crackle between her teeth.
Grandpa ate around the mitten. He saved it until last.
Afterwards, when Dad came to collect the bowls, Grandpa held on to his bowl.
"May I have a little more of the bit that fell down?"
Kit grinned.
"There's quite a lot of that."
Aunt Bea brought the dish over. Grandpa thanked her, and Kit moved his spoon out of the way.
The bag of apples waited by the door for next time.
Kit found one last crumb on her spoon.
It had a point.
The End.