Pound and Pumpkin walked into the kitchen where Applejack was washing dishes as Tex did some yard work outside.
“Hey, Applejack, you got a minute?” Pound asked, flying in next to her.
“Sure, Pound. What’s up?” Applejack responded.
“Well, would it be too much if we made one of Granny Smith’s delicious apple pies for later tonight?”
“Granny Smith’s pies? Sure thing! What’s the occasion?”
“Well, see Annie’s not feeling so great.”
“She’s still really sad about her great grandmother,” Pumpkin added.
“Oh. She’s still got Granny on her mind, does she? Poor thing. Maybe I should go up and talk with her.”
Applejack dried her hooves off and set her rag down on the counter. She began to walk towards the stairs until Pumpkin zoomed in front of her, blocking her path.
“WAIT! We, uh…we don’t want her knowing about this yet!” Pumpkin said, frantically.
“Yeah, we want this to be a surprise if that’s okay,” added Pound.
“Uh, well okay, if ya’ll say so. But are ya sure you know what you’re doin’?”
“Don’t worry. Flurry’s got the whole thing under control,” Pound said.
“It was her idea. We’re going to make a Granny Smith pie and get a photo collage around. That’ll cheer her up,” Pumpkin added.
“Aw, well that’s mighty sweet of ya. Just don’t be surprised if she gets pretty emotional when she sees it. Annie’s a sensitive little soul,” Applejack warned. “Well the recipe to her pies is in that there red notebook in the cupboard above the dishes. We wrote down tons of homemade recipes we came up with ourselves and hers should be in the apple pie section. I’ll go get a few apples for it while you prepare the dough.”
“You got it, boss!” Pumpkin said as she saluted and then rushed over to the counter to get everything she needed. “We’ll need some sugar, eggs, flour, cinnamon, butter, salt, lemon juice…Pound, what else does the recipe say?”
Pound took the cookbook and flipped through the pages until he saw a page that said “Granny Smith’s special family recipe.”
“Let’s see…uh…got it! Looks like Granny added some nutmeg and ginger as well. This is gonna be one heck of an apple pie!”
As they began to gather around all the ingredients, Applejack walked out the door with a small bucket to go fetch some apples from a special tree not far away. She kept a smile on her face until she shut the door behind her. She sighed deeply and walked on. A few yards in front of the house, she stopped and set the bucket down to look into Chip and Annie’s bedroom window at the top of the front of the house. She couldn’t see Annie in there, but she wondered if her daughter was crying bitterly or just resting. It didn’t make her happy to know she was still in pain after what happened to her great grandmother.
“Hang in there, Annie,” she said as she picked up the bucket and continued walking. A few moments later, she made it to the tree and placed the bucket under a branch with plenty of apples. She walked up to the tree, turned around and bucked the trunk firmly until the branches shook and some apples fell off. Most of them landed in the bucket while a few others fell around it. She walked over to pick them up and add them to the load.
“Hey, Honey. We making a pie or something tonight?” Tex asked as he appeared a few yards away.
“Hey Tex. Yeah, I guess the kids want to cheer up Annie. She’s still kinda depressed.” Applejack said, gloomily.
“Still?”
“Yeah. And here I thought having Flurry over would brighten things up.”
“Well if they’re trying to cheer her up, that should do the trick.”
“I dunno, Tex. I’m worried about our daughter. Ever since Granny left us, she just hasn’t been the same. It’s a lot harder gettin’ her to smile and she’s way more melancholy than I’ve ever seen. I know it’s been hard on her and I miss Granny too, it’s just…”
Applejack ran out of words to say. She hung her head and sighed as Tex put his hoof around her.
“She’ll come around, AJ. She’s only eight years old. Kids can get pretty emotional about these things.”
“Yeah. Then again, I guess it was no different for me back when Mom and Dad…”
A tear started to form in Applejack’s eye. She wiped it away with the tip of her hoof as Tex held her close to her. Tex looked back at the house, wondering if Annie would be all right. If it was true the others were trying to cheer her up, he could only hope it would work.
“Hey Spike, check these ones out!” Stormy called as he brought over a small stash of photographs with Granny Smith.
“Aw, those are great! Annie’s gonna especially love this one,” Spike said as he held up a small picture of Annie hugging Granny.
“I tried finding some of Granny when she was a filly, but I can’t tell which one she is cuz she doesn’t have her cutie mark yet.”
“Yeah, plus it doesn’t help that she wore her hair differently back then. We won’t worry about those too much. Right now, just look for any recent ones that Annie will recognize.”
“Got it.”
“Hey guys, how’s it going?” Flurry asked, flying in to the living room.
“Hey Flurry. We found a lot, but we don’t need all of them so we’ll pick the best ones later.” Stormy said.
“Oh boy, that is quite a lot.”
Flurry looked carefully at the pictures. She used her magic to float them all in front of her. A warm smiled appeared on her face and she put her hoof up to her heart as she went.
“You…um…you don’t think we’re overdoing it, do you Spike?”
“Overdoing it?” Spike asked.
“Well, you think maybe some of these might make Annie…cry? I mean, she’s probably going to cry anyway, but we don’t want to overwhelm her.”
“Oh. Good point. We could just pick all the ones we like and then Chip’ll decide on a few of them.”
“Yeah, if anyone knows Annie, it’s Chip,” Stormy added, confidently.
“You’re right. Chip will take care of it.”
“How’s the note going in there?” Spike asked Flurry.
“We’re almost done. I’m just doing a little proofreading for Chip. We aren’t going to write anything long, just a quick little letter, we just want to make it sound good.”
“Alright, let us know if you guys need help. Stormy and I should be done with these pictures pretty soon.”
Flurry set the photos down between them and then walked back into the dining room where Chip had just finished writing on a small piece of paper.
“Dear Annie,” he said out loud. “We know you miss Granny Smith, but don’t forget, she’s in a better place. Let’s take this time to remember Granny for all the great things she did. Here are some pictures of her and an apple pie made from her original recipe. Flurry, do you like it so far?”
“I think it sounds great, Chip!” Flurry replied, smiling. “Maybe at the end, you can have it say “Sincerely,” and then we can all write our names below.
“Great idea! Alright, could you check with Pound and Pumpkin about the pie real quick? I’m just going to copy this right over to a bigger piece of paper and then we can all write our names down. Are Spike and Stormy almost done with the pictures?”
“Yup! They’ll be in here in a few. I’ll go check on the pie.”
Flurry trotted into the kitchen as Chip took out a bigger sheet of paper. He carefully placed it on the table and started writing his note down in a more presentable, cursive format. He then finished with his signature at the bottom and drew a red apple next to it and left some room around his name for the others to sign it. He picked it up in his hooves and stared at it for a few seconds.
“She’s gonna love this,” he said to himself.
He set the paper down and started to think about everything that had happened in the past month. It was about three weeks ago when he and Annie were pulled out of class to see Applejack who gave thme the unfortunate news that Granny had passed away in the hospital. Chip knew it was going to happen for a while now so his crying didn’t last quite as long as Annie’s. About a year prior, his parents told him that Granny would not be around much longer, so he began to prepare for that day. The last time he saw Granny was a few days before her death in the hospital. He went over with his parents to speak with her and remembered how Granny started to complain that her food had not arrived yet even though it tasted awful to begin with. Thankfully she had calmed down since her time in the ICU.
Chip began to realize it had never occurred to him that he didn’t seem as moved about this as Annie. He wondered if it made him look insensitive. With a family member so close, how could he not be so struck with grief? Thinking about this only made him feel worse, and then it hit him: he actually missed his last chance to see Granny! The night before she died, he had a lot of studying to do for a final test in school right before summer break began so he decided to stay home with Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle while his parents took Annie to speak with Granny. He thought he would just visit her the next night, but that was his last chance and he blew it. It was almost like he didn’t give Granny a proper farewell. A slightly painful lump started to form in the back of his throat, but thankfully it was interrupted by Spike and Stormy entering the room with a basket.
“Chip, how’s the letter going?” Spike asked.
“Oh, hey guys. It’s looking great, now I just need you to sign right down here.” he said as he pushed the paper over towards them with a box of markers next to it.
“Got it. Here’s the pictures,” Stormy said, putting the basket down in front of Chip so he could look through them.
“Thanks Stormy,” Chip replied as he dumped the photos onto the table.
Spike and Stormy both signed their names and then walked into the kitchen to have everyone else do the same. Chip began to look at the photos.
“Let’s see, what did they give me. Aw, these are great!” he said happily as he used his hooves to move them around on the table. The first picture he saw was the one of Annie hugging Granny while smiling for the camera. Next there was one of Granny holding a big picture that he had drawn of the two of them with crayons. After that was a picture of him and Annie next to Granny as they posed outside by a big apple tree in the orchard. His favorite was the one of all of them in the living room right in front of their Hearth’s Warming tree; ready to open presents that morning. There were a few photos of Granny when she was little, some of which Chip didn’t even know existed. As Chip leafed through the pictures of older Granny Smith, he started to see flashbacks of the times he had with her throughout his life. His best memories of her were playing in his head like an old family video. The lump in his throat came back. His smile started to turn into a frown and his lip began to quiver. He felt as though he was back in time when Granny was still around. He remembered Annie saying how she kept waking up, expecting their great grandmother to be waiting downstairs for them, and now he felt the same way. Remembering how he blew his last chance to see Granny before she died, it all came crashing down on him. His throat swelled up and he began to feel hot. His eyes got misty and then he began crying. He pushed the photos away from him so his tears would not fall on any and buried his face in his arms. He was so overwrought that he didn’t hear everyone else come into the room.
“Chip, the pie’s almost done!” Flurry called before noticing that he didn’t look good. “We just have to let it bake for a while and then…” “Uh, Chip?”
Everyone else came in after her. Pound and Pumpkin were wearing chef’s hats and had some flour smeared on their hooves and faces. They were breathing heavily like they had just completed a race.
“Gosh, I haven’t baked like that in forever! Granny Smith knew what she was doing!” Pound said before Flurry signaled to everyone to hush.
They stopped talking and heard Chip whimper under his arms. There was a brief moment of silence before Spike finally spoke up.
“Chip, you alright?” he asked, cautiously.
Chip lifted his head from his arms. His face was red and had tears streaming down his cheeks. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the inside of his arm. Everyone looked very concerned. Flurry was especially troubled. She didn’t expect things to get this bad.
“You know what guys… maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Chip said as he continued to cry and sniffle.
“What?!” Pumpkin said.
“But…but Chip, we finished the pie. We even have the pictures ready!” Stormy said.
“I KNOW!” Chip hollered as everyone inched back.
He looked at them and stopped for a moment as if to say sorry. He then jumped down from his chair and walked towards the stairs.
“Just forget about it, okay? It’s making me sad now. I can’t do this anymore. I gotta go.”
He rushed up the stairs. His crying grew faint until the sound of a closing door could be heard.
“Aw. Poor Chip,” Pumpkin said, sitting down as Pound put his arm around her. “And here we wasted all that time making that pie.”
“Well that didn’t go so well.” Stormy said, flatly. “So does this mean no more Operation Cheer-up Annie?”
“I’m afraid so,” Spike replied.
Flurry hovered over the table and noticed all the pictures. There were even more than the ones she looked at earlier. They were such great pictures, but that must have been the problem. Remembering Granny caused emotions to run too high. In her effort to cheer up Annie, she only made Chip feel worse. Her chance to make an impression on the Apple Twins did not go as she expected today.
“This is all my fault,” she said, miserably.