Ginny Gold - Early Bird Café 03 - Dead and Berried Read Free Page A

from out of town without the right clothes. She saves all the hats she gets all year for the week leading up to this weekend.”
    The Strawberry Festival’s first event on opening morning was a crazy hat contest. Some visitors were die hards and came prepared with a hat they’d worked on for months. Others arrived in Hermit Cove, saw the schedule of events and quickly searched for anything out of the ordinary that they could wear on their head. It got pretty wild.
    “Glad to hear it. I’m surprised she didn’t keep you around to help with the extra customers.”
    Jackie chuckled. “I had to talk her out of it. And it was a hard sell. I hardly ever get to spend any time here and I really wanted to come this year. What can I help you with?”
    Kori suspected Jackie wanted to be at the festival because she was interested in a certain boy and her mother maybe didn’t know. “The trunk is packe d,” Kori said, pulling the lever by her front seat to open it. “Grab whatever you can carry. I’m in booth four. You can just set it all on the tables there. Don’t worry about organizing anything, I’ll take care of that.”
    Jackie got to work and three other teens flocked to the trunk and the back seat like moths to a light. Kori was always impressed with how the community really came together to pull off the town’s biggest event of the year.
    Kori opened the back door and grabbed Ibis’ leash in one hand, a box of supplies in the other, and followed the kids to her booth.
    Kori’d had to work hard petitioning the organizing committee to get such a prime location. She was located just to the right of the entrance next to booth two, one and three opposite them. Last year she’d been placed way in the back and her business had suffered. Now, every attendee who entered would see The Early Bird Café’s crepes, pies and waffles and be tempted with breakfast. There were others serving food as well, but she knew all the locals at least would give her their business.
    Her tables quickly got crowded with everything she’d need and Kori set to work getting things organized. She tied Ibis to one of the tent’s poles and placed a bowl of water next to her. Ibis sat and observed the chaos around her, never making a sound or interfering with the action.
    The four volunteers continued unloading Kori’s car and she soon had everything she needed—coolers of pies, batters, fillings and toppings, two waffle presses, a table top stove and pans for making crepes and plenty of compostable plates, forks and napkins. She loved that the entire festival was nearly trash free, requiring vendors to use compostable dining ware.
    There were only fifteen minutes left before opening when Kori finally had everything right where she wanted them, the pans and waffle presses preheated and ready for business. She decided to use the last few minutes of freedom to browse the other booths and see who had returned from last year and how many new vendors there were.
    Next to Kori was an out of town farm, Strawberry Fields. They had acres of strawberries and provided many of the berries that were used in dishes and for sale this weekend. Nora had of course stocked Kori, but almost everyone else bought from Strawberry Fields. They were selling chocolate dipped strawberries, strawberry shortcake and pints of fresh strawberries, picked earlier in the week.
    Across from Kori, the Hermit Cove Museum had painti ngs and photographs on display as well as for sale. Kori didn’t think they sold many at these events, but they also tried to recruit new members.
    The second booth directly across from her was Red Clover Farm’s empty booth. Kori hadn’t really been paying attention to what had been going on around her but she suddenly realized that Nora hadn’t yet arrived. And with only fifteen minutes left, she was almost certainly going to be late.
    Kori picked her phone up off her table and called her best friend, hoping everything was okay and she was on her