The city of Lenoir, North Carolina hosts the Blackberry Festival every year in the month of July. Locally, it is noteworthy and draws large crowds in the thousands over the course of the two-day event.
One year, Sarah faced a real conundrum. She lived in Lenoir and looked forward to the festival every year, and every year she dreamed of participating in the blackberry eating contest. Sarah begged and begged to be allowed to enter, but her mother told her that competitive eating competitions were extremely unladylike.
“But the eating competition is after the pageant,”she pleaded with her mother. Sarah knew how much it meant to her mother for her to do well in the pageant. Her mother won nearly every age category in her youth and as an adult, she’d served as a judge.
“I’ll win the pageant and then run over and win the eating contest, too,” Sarah said confidently.
“Once they see you stuffing your face,” her mother said, “they never see you as good enough to win the pageant. I told you about Mary Ann…”
“Yeah, you did,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Prettiest girl your age, everybody thought she was a shoe in for the crown, but you and your friends put up pictures of her eating in the contest the year before all over the festival. She didn’t even place in the pageant. I get it mom, but I don’t have enemies as cruel as you and your friends..”
“That’s what you think,” her mother said. “you’re old enough now that you should understand that winners win, and losers are just jokes that winners laugh at. You won the pageant last year and you have a good shot this year. I promise, if you win this year, I won’t make you do the pageant ever again.”
“What if I can win both?”
“You can’t!” Sarah’s mother said. “Nobody wants a pageant winner who stuffs their face, and no one wants a eating contest winner who eats like a pageant winner.”
Sarah shook her head. Her mother was purposely going in circles with her logic, even though there was no real logic in her argument. She just knew that it was unladylike to take part in eating contests and she didn’t want her daughter stuffing her face in public.
So Sarah relented.
“Fine, if I win this year, I’m done with the pageant,” Sarah said.
On the first day of the festival, Sarah was at the opening concert with her brother. The stage was constructed in a large field and mot everyone sat on blankets enjoying the music, though there was a crowd on their feet in front of the stage. Sarah and her brother stood at the back of the stage crowd.
“You have to do the eating contest,” he pleaded with his sister.
Sarah looked at him sadly, “I tired, but mom won’t let me. If you want to beat Dudley, you have to do it yourself.”
“But you’re unbeatable!” her borther said. “If he wins again this year he’s never gonna shut up about it.”
Dudley was well known in town. He’d been a star baseball player before he’d graduated high school the year before, and since that time, he’d worked at the furniture business of his grandfather in town. Sarah’s brother was still in high school, but he’d had disagreements with Dudley since he went to work at Dudley’s family’s business.
“What is this really about?” Sarah asked. “It’s just an eating contest.”
Her brother looked down at his feat and Sarah pressed him for an answer.
“Fine,” her brother said. “I bet grandma’s blackberry syrup recipe…”
“The molasses?” Sarah asked. “How could you bet it?”
“I took a picture of the recipe card…”
Sarah slapped the back of her brother’s head.
“Ow,” he said. “So you’ll do it?”
“What about mom? If she sees me, she’s gonna be mad and I’ll have to tell her what you did. She’ll kill us both. What do you get if I win anyway?”
“The cobbler recipe…”
“The one his aunt wins with every year?” Sarah asked. “This is crazy. How are y’all even making this bet with other people’s recipes?”
“Just help me protect the molasses.”
She reluctantly agreed. The molasses recipe had been in her family for generations and it was a carefully guarded family secret, as was the cobbler recipe that Dudley’s family was known for. Sarah wouldn’t lose, she wouldn’t let his family get hold of such an important family heirloom.
On the second day of the festival, Sarah stunned the audience of the pageant in a dress that her mother had spent months making. Her brother was in the audience, but he wasn’t cheering her on; he mostly stared at her and then at his watch with frustration. The pageant ran long and Sarah worried that she wouldn’t make it in time to register for the eating competition. When she was named the winner of her pageant category, her brother was up on stage as her mother and other family members cheered loudly from the audience. He pulled Sarah away and they rushed to the registration table for the blackberry eating contest, Sarah still in her fancy dress.
“Mom’s gonna come looking for me,” she said as she noticed her family from the pageant audience gathering in the audience for the eating contest.
“She’s here,” Sarah said.
“I told her about the bet…”
“She’s gonna murder you, and everybody else in the family is gonna help.”
“Not once you win,” he said and before long Sarah was sitting on stage in a row of five other contestants including Dudley, shoving fistfuls of blackberries into her mouth.
Dudley seemed to be winning when time was called and as the judges tallied up the final count, he projectile-vomited all over Sarah. Her mother fainted as a gasp erupted from the audience; the fancy dress she had spent months making was completely ruined.
Sarah ate the second most blackberries that year, but took the first place prize because Dudley couldn’t keep the berries down.
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