Pi(e)

I was paranoid.

I was summoned to the dean’s office. It is a rare sight for the students, the interiors were decked with souvenirs, medals, and trophies that stood majestically in the corners.

The wooden furniture, the smell of books and carpeted floor. The ambience would win over the respect of any visitor.

“Good afternoon Steve”

“Good afternoon, Mr Peck”

“Steve Stone, you are an exceptional and competent student in several fields. The points you had explained during the debate last week were very insightful and relevant, and that is why I have decided to appoint you as the editor of the jubilee yearbook”, said Mr Peck.

“Thank you, sir”, I replied.

“If you have any ideas, please pass them along quickly, we don′t have much time. The yearbook must be completed soon”, he said.

“I′m well aware, sir, and I′m already considering an idea,” I said.

“Brilliant, all resources are at your disposal”, he joked.

I headed to the archives in the basement. The old yearbooks were neatly and chronologically stored, but were covered with dust and cobwebs.

I picked out the 1986 album (when my parents were my age). I was flipping through the pages looking at layouts and images when I saw a picture that covered an entire page.

It had the heading “most likely to succeed”. I saw my parents beside two other people. The names were written at the bottom of the page (L-R Richard Stone, Patrica Higgins, David Harper and Lauren Svenson). Smaller text (photography by Derek Johnson). Something very particular about the photograph.

The photograph has haunted me all day. I didn’t have the headspace to play soccer training. After a clumsy game and a hot shower, I sprinted to the parking lot towards my red and black Ducati Panigale V4r.

I had the yearbook in my backpack. I zipped out of Montagne Blava High, towards the house of Derek Johnson, my dad’s business partner. He’s like a second father to me.

He stayed with me while my dad was busy doing his job. They had a fall out a few months back, but it never affected my relationship with Uncle Derek.

Uncle Derek lived by himself at the end of a closed community in a futuristic, contemporary, white and boxy condo. His Bentley was parked outside, so I instantly knew he was in the house. My fingerprints were saved in the home security system, so I got in easily. “Yo unc,” I called out.

“Hello kid, you’re here to play Fortnite or something,” screamed a voice out of the bathroom.

“No, serious stuff”

He got out of the toilet wearing shorts and a shirt.

“What’s the matter?”

“That,” I said, waving the yearbook in the air.

His face hardened and his jaw clenched.

“Who are the harpers and what happened to them”

He made it clear to me.

“What happened to the harpers?”

“David and Lauren got married. David started mini pies. Your father and I were in business together.”

“What happened to them?”

“Dead, car crash. Some truck crashed into their SUV. Both died on the scene, but their 1-year-old son, Andy, survived. Neither the truck driver nor Andy was found”, he said.

“Christ, that’s a sad story.”

“Yup, they were my closest friends. Andy was my godson”

“Your parents were living in Romania when this happened, they came back soon after the accident with you and that is when I decided to treat you the same way I would have treated Andy”, he added.

Uncle Derek fell apart and so did I. I was in deep thought.

“Kid, hurry back home, I don’t want Richard and Patricia to know you’re here”.

“Bye unc”

I could sense the baked apple pie in the driveway. I parked my motorbike and walked into the kitchen.

“Hello, darling, where have you been,” greeted Mom.

“Hanging out with Chase and Ashley, is that pie?”

My mom smiled warmly at me. My mom is simply the best. Raised me all alone. She attended all my degrees and football games when my dad had a meeting on the other side of the world.

And her apple pies were the most heavenly inmate objects in the world. She used to give them to me at least three times a week, but I was never bored. It was supper time when my mom and I talked about school. After dinner, I had a whole pie for dessert.

“How come your recipes aren’t used for mini pies?”

“Dad started the company to replicate my pies, but I guess only these hands can make the magic work,” replied my mom waving her hands up.

According to Uncle Derek, Andrew Harper started mini pies, but Mom says dad started. In addition to the impact the photograph had on me, I doubted the identity of my own parents. I cleared the dishes and went to bed.

“Good night, Steve!”

“Night mom”

I sat on my bed pondering about the deceiving reality. How come Mommy never mentioned the Harpers? I decided to distract myself by working on the yearbook. But every second, my curiosity went up.

I snuck into my father’s workplace. It was a spacious bedroom with wooden floors and white walls. There was a sleek wooden desk in the centre. My father’s iMac was on the table.

I logged in and started looking at business documents. A graph implied that the company was earning 75% more profits as compared to 2002.

The conclusion under the graph summed up that cheaper ingredients bring more profits.

I clicked on another document named payments. Strangely 55% of all the earnings and profits were forwarded to a bank account named “Andy’s Fund”. Funds can usually only be opened when the kid turns 18.

But Andy was missing, that’s when something crazy popped in my head. What if my parents are searching for Andy. It was an insane thought, but the fund was receiving a lot of cash.

Suddenly a bright yellow light sneaked in through the window. I could see a black Range Rover pull up in the driveway. I stealthily ran back into my room.

My alarm blared at 7:00 am, lazily I got out of bed, cleaned myself up and headed down the stairs. I had made up my mind. I didn’t want to poke my nose into my dad’s business.

I wanted to carry on with my life. I saw dad sitting by the oak table, reading the news. He had his jogging outfit on. Dad is wide-shouldered and muscular with a square-shaped face and close-cropped hair.

“You’re here”, I asked resentfully.

“Can’t afford to miss your 18th birthday”, he said shyly.

I did not like dad much, he never spent time with me. It seemed to me that he loved money more than me. That’s when I remembered my 18th birthday was only ten days away, and the jubilee alumni ball was only eleven days away.

I put all my distractions away and worked on the yearbook. It had to be distributed on the ball. All alumni were invited to Montagne Blava. I sat for hours and had sleepless nights while I was designing the books.

A few mornings, I even found myself sleeping and drooling on the Mac keyboard. After 8 days I managed to finish it and send it for printing. Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday, I invited the whole school over for a party.

I was woken in the middle of a good dream. “Happy Birthday, little man”, I heard my mom say. I half opened my eyes, and I saw my mom standing with a confetti can.

I was surprised to see dad standing next to her. “Thank you”, I mumbled as I dozed off. I could barely hear the confetti pop.

The party was a full scale galore. Thankfully my parents had left for dinner and not disturb the party. It was crazy, there were high school students everywhere doing all kinds of stuff.

My Bang and Olufsen Beo Lab 50 managed to blast the music all around the mansion. When the party cleared off, the whole house was in a mess, as expected. It was 1:30 am.

My parents came back home, they said they didn’t want to ruin the party so they watched a movie after dinner. “We got you a gift”, surprised mom. “Hope you like it”, added dad.

They blindfolded me and took me to the garage. I could hear the tarpaulin being pulled away from something. I was excited already. The fold was open. I saw a gleaming red Dodge Demon SRT parked.

I hugged my parents and cried with happiness. We went back to the kitchen. Mom had made an unusually huge apple pie with more seeds than ever. My parents refused to even eat a bit of it.

I was hungry and had finished most of it. I tried to offer my parents, but they still refused. We chatted for a while and joked around. After a while, my eyelids felt heavy.

“I am going to sleep”

“Okay, Goodnight”

“Night, night”

I walked up the stairs. Suddenly everything blacked out. I woke up to the sound of liquid dropping. I could also hear muffled voices and eventually I blacked out again.

I woke up to find uncle Derek sitting by the bedside. I was in a hospital. There were tubes with yellow liquid flowing through me.

“What happened?”

“You blacked out last night, the report says that you were dehydrated. Then I saw your dad giving a chunk of cash to the doctor”

“I suspected that the report might have been forged so I offered him more money. The real report said that you had cyanide content in your blood”, he added

“What?”

“I know that it is too much to process”, he said.

“Why do I resemble the harpers more than my parents?”

“You are a pretty dumb kid. I didn’t expect you to take so long to figure this out”

“So I am Andy”, he added.

“Yup”

“Isn’t the ball tonight? I have to give a talk about the making of the yearbook”

“Yeah, I know, but apparently your parents asked the doctors to give you an extra dosage of painkillers so that you sleep through the ball”

“I have to go to Montagne Blava”

“I’ll cover for you, doctors love cash”, he said patting his pocket.

Derek dropped me off at home, I grabbed my tux and the Dodge’s keys. I sped to school. I rushed backstage. All the students were hurriedly running around, froze and stared at me.

I told them to stay silent. I finished changing and improvising my speech script. I peeped through behind the curtains I saw them. Richard was smiling and talking to other people.

Patricia was looking pretty dull. I guessed that she had acquired affection for me. The show started, some of the Montagne Blava’s finest talents were boasted off. And finally, the yearbooks were distributed.

“We would like to invite Montagne Blava’s school captain and the editor of the yearbooks in your hand, Andy Harper!!!” yelled the comparer.

The whole school was whooping and applauding. I smiled shyly as I walked from behind the curtains. They were awestruck. Their faces were pale. I gave Richard a smile that he would never forget.

“A very good evening to you all. You, adults, know better than us that this world has many faces. And that our perspective or the way we look at things matter a lot”

“I want the alumni to look at Montagne Blava the same way they did when they were kids. I wanted to overload them with nostalgia, and that is why I made the yearbook the way it is”, I added.

“The world may be distorted and deceiving, you may have millions of problems, and people everywhere might try to destroy you. But tonight let loose and relive your childhood, for today no one can stop you, I hope you have an awesome night, thank you”, I ended.

The whole room was silent. Richard stood up and started applauding, and the crowd started roaring.

“Sorry for keeping you hungry, you can go dig into the food now”

Richard and Pat were having a serious conversation while sipping wine.

“Sir, Ma’am, how is the night treating you?”

“What has gotten into you, Steve?” asked Pat.

“Why are you acting like this”.

“Who the hell is Steve, I am Andy!”

“Okay, enough with this pretending, come with me”, Richard dragged me into an empty room. Pat mouthed the words, “Sorry, honey”.

I frowned at her as Richard shut the door. He broke a leg of a wooden table and started hitting me. Blood was trickling down my forehead.

“Your dad was dumb like you, he wanted to make quality pies, I told him we could make more money with cheaper ingredients. He was very picky. That is why I sent tuckers to kill your family. Fortunately, I found out about your fund and the tuckers said that the kid wasn’t dead, so I raised you”, he said.

Richard dropped the stick and started strangling me. With all my strength I kicked him as hard as I could. He stumbled back and hit his head on the table.

Derek entered the room at the right time with Patricia. Derek called 911. Patricia came to me. “I always love you, I never agreed with Richard. But he threatened to kill me. I am sorry”.

I hugged her and started crying. Richard had been arrested, but the money had already been transferred to the account. But the bank managed to forward it to Pat.

Weeks had passed, I was at school going through the Biology class. I was daydreaming for a while when the teacher snapped.

“Steve come back”

“Sorry Mr Wilson”

“Like I was telling you, fruits sometimes have poisonous substances in them. For example, apple seeds contain tiny traces of cyanide, consuming many seeds might even be fatal”

I wished I had skipped my morning pie.