For the residents of Treacle Town, spring spelled the scent of sweet pies in the air. With the Kellock's Honey Cone Crisps Annual Spring Carnival set to commence that first weekend, the town was, well, abuzz. The butchers, the bakers, the blueberry pie makers all embraced the festive atmosphere with their mouthwatering goods displayed in windows, on color and theme and smell. Piles of delicate, sweet treats, glazed and coated and sprinkled with that distinct springtime seasoning. This small little town, with its avenues of golden syrup yellow trees, so sleepy the rest of the year, was wide awake with color and fun and food and creatures. 

For Magic Loop, one such creature, it was the sweetest place to be at the sweetest time of the year. Sure, he'd skied the Sugar Mountain slopes and reveled till he was full at the Ice Cream Festival in winter; sand boarded the Dessert Desert and feasted until he was riper than a banana at Banana Split Beach—but being in Treacle Town, the only home he'd ever known, was something special indeed.

If you put your tongue to the air, as Loop did, you could taste the assorted chocolate, peanut butter, pecan, and treacle pies—all baked for the august and time-honored tradition of pie eating. Competitive face stuffers from all over the Galactose, as far as Sodaburgh and Cacao, and as near as Caster City, descended upon this little town to feast for fame and fortune. You had the local heroes, Bear Huggins and the Peanut Butter Pelican, as well as outside favorites, Tommy Tucker and Moon Pie. The sight of them out and about in Treacle Town sparked such a stir that it wasn't uncommon to see them towing a vast number about like gulls on a fried potato wielding individual. 

Leaving his two-story marshmallow house on the eve of the Spring Carnival, Magic Loop flittered in the air; his tiny rapid flapping wings in tempo with his heart that beat against his little pink chest. Not even the cotton candy clouds in the sky could spoil his excitement. Just as Loop passed the threshold of his home, Mayor Duncan came bolting around the corner as if he were being chased by dogs. 

'Loop! Loop! Down here,' he said, pulling up in front of Magic Loop's house and sucking in air.

'What is it, Mayor?' Magic Loop said, lowering himself.

'Oh, it's terrible. It's tragic. It's incomprehensible.' He was panting like a dog now, his jelly belly wobbling. 'The Peanut Butter Pelican has a problem, he said and he won't compete tomorrow.'

'That is tragic. What's the problem?'

'He won't tell me. He said it's too embarrassing. Too embarrassing to tell the Mayor of Treacle Town, you believe it?'

'Yes,' Magic Loop said.

'Yes, well…you've got to help, Loop. You've got to do something. Anything to get him back in the competition. The competition is especially fierce this year and Treacle Town wants its own to pull out a victory.'

'I'll fly over right away,' Magic Loop said. He fluttered a few feet higher. 'Don't worry a thing, Mayor. The Peanut Butter Pelican will be pie eating tomorrow, or may I never watch Colonel Custard's Crusades again.'

'But you love that show?

'Yeah, you're right. Is it too late to take that back?'

Mayor Duncan opened his mouth then nodded.

'Well then, Peter Butter will compete tomorrow, even if I have to chew the pies for him,' said Loop, shuddering at the prospect of going without his daily fix of Colonel Custard then full of beans at imagining all the pies he could get to eat.

'Thank you, Loop. Hey, if it's not too much trouble, could you…?'

'Oh, sure.'

 From out of nowhere in particular Magic Loop revealed a piccolo, which he blew into, emitting a most precious of sounds. What looked like powdered sugar dropped from the end of the instrument and dusted the top of the Mayor's unflavored head. In an instant he was invigorated and ran back the way he came with a spring to his step.

Above, and chewing through the clouds, Magic Loop did soar, pulling off a few loop de loops for the inquisitive eyes set to the sky. Magic Loop got lost a few times along the way, carried away with the thrill of his flight, but in due time found the home of The Peanut Butter Pelican. His was a house by the bay; the only access through the roof, which resembled the lid of a jar of jam—or peanut butter. Loop only now making the connection. He tapped on the lid and waited. Gulls were swooping and squawking around a bed of rocks. Many more dotted the pier. 

'Come on, Pelly,' Magic Loop said. 'I know you're inside. Open up. It's Magic Loop.'

There was a muffled response. 

'I can't hear you. Unscrew the lid so I can come in.'

Another muffled answer.

'Did you say it's open? I can drop in anytime? Why that's so kind. I'm dropping in.'

'No, don't drop in!' The Peanut Butter Pelican had unscrewed the top and peeked his head out so he could be heard. Magic Loop didn't miss a beat and was inside before the lid was sealed tight.

'I didn't say you could drop in,' Pelly said.

'I didn't,' Magic Loop said, somersaulting and sticking the landing. 'I dove in. What score would you give me?'

'Zero. I don't want to see anyone.'

'Okay,' Magic Loop said, shooting back into the air and hiding in a trophy cup. 'Now you can't see me.'

'Loop, get out of my bed.'

'Okay.'

Magic Loop started sliding in the cup like it was a vert ramp. He pulled off a few tricks in the air before gravity took him down and he emerged on the other side, grabbing the coping. 

'Stop that,' Pelly said.

Magic Loop toppled over and bounced and stumbled his way down the tiered cupcake. He fell beside the engraving that said 'First place in the Top Tier Cake Eating Championship.' 

Pelly stood over Loop with a grave expression on his face. All of a sudden, the top tier of the cake collapsed and fell on top of Pelly. It looked as if he were wearing an oversized war helmet. He shrugged it off and shot Loop a chastising look. Loop countered with a smile.  

'I'm so glad you're okay, Pelly,' Magic Loop said, slumping against the trophy. 'I was worried you were hurt all shut up here in your house.'

Pelly held the same look as Loop maintained his goofy grin.

'What are you doing here, Loop?' Pelly said. 'And stop calling me Pelly! You know my name!'

'You got any peanut butter, Peter Butter?' Magic Loop searched this way and that, high and low, for peanut butter. 

'I don't have any,' Peter Butter said. 'Would you stop that?'

Magic Loop had fitted into the cushion of the couch, sniffing the air like a dog caught on a scent. 

'I don't have any peanut butter. It's peanut butter fragrance. It's sprayed throughout the house.'

'How delicious,' Magic Loop said, plopping on the sofa and gnawing at the air. 

'Magic Loop, I don't really want company. So, if you wouldn't mind—'

'I'll take a pie, if you're serving one.'

'I'm not serving anything!'

'Side of whipped cream would be lovely.'

'Do you ever listen?' The Peanut Butter Pelican resigned to a seat on the sofa. His stern expression gone, replaced with a resigned look. 

'Sure I listen,' Magic Loop said, finished with eating the flavored air. 'Mayor Duncan wanted me to check up on you. It's not true you aren't competing tomorrow, is it?'

Peter Butter tilted his head back so that his bill was pointed high.

'Believe me, if I could compete I would, but I can't so I won't.'

'Why not?'

'I don't want to say.'

'Why not?'

'I don't want anyone to know,' Peter Butter said, hugging himself with his broad wing like he was pulling a blanket tighter.

'Why not?'

'Loop, you're infuriating.'

'Why not?'

'That doesn't even make sense.'

'Why not?'

'I have a toothache, okay,' Peter Butter said, shaking his bill. 

'Oh,' Magic Loop said, starting up his wings. 'Want me to take a look?'

'No, no. I don't want your bliss. Don't you dare draw that piccolo.'

'Come on, Peter. You can't go around in pain like this. You're being a real pain in the butt. Let me get a looksy.'

'Stay away, Loop.' The Peanut Butter Pelican and Magic Loop flew frantic about the house as if they were a couple of birds that flew in through a window and didn't know their way out. Magic Loop kept on his tail but Peter held him off at every twist and turn. They fell to the floor, unable to speak or move for a while, save for their bodies pumping air back into their lungs at a furious rate. 

'I could really go for that pie with cream now,' Magic Loop said, sitting upright. 'Wow, we really made a mess.'

'You're still not getting a look inside my bill,' Peter said, shaking out the askew feathers on the top of his head.

'I know, why don't you go to a doctor?'

'I can't.'

'Why not?'

'We're not playing this game again.'

'Why—'

'I'm scared of the doctor, okay.' Peter had the same resigned look as before, as he stared at the mayhem their little chase had caused in his house. 

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

'How about I go with you?' Magic Loop said, just noticing the trophy cup bed in pieces, all the tiers strewn about the room. 'It'll be a piece of cake.'

The Peanut Butter Pelican's stomach rumbled. 'Don't talk to me about cake, please. I haven't been able to eat anything in days.'

'Wow, no wonder your tooth is aching,' Magic Loop said.

'That's not how it works,' Peter said. 'But fine, okay, I'll agree to go if you come with me. And agree to never come inside my house ever again.'

'Then how will I ever get that piece of pie you promised?'

'I never promised you any pie! Let's get going before I go cuckoo.'

The sun peaked out from behind the cotton candy cloud filled sky but was too shy to reveal itself fully. The gulls followed them as they made their way over to Dr. Bean's clinic. As usual Magic Loop got them lost and they had to descend on someone and ask them the way. The person just about had a heart attack at their aerial arrival. Loop did too when the person almost dropped the pies she was carrying. The lady was so kind to point them in the right direction. 

'Thank you, I'd be happy to eat your pies as a way of showing our appreciation,' Magic Loop said, affecting a bow.

'How is that thanking her?' Peter Butter said.

'Well, they look heavy and I'm lightening the load.' He flashed the lady a smile as she backed up and clutched her pies closer to her chest. 

'Come on,' Peter Butter said, dragging Loop, drooling after those pies.

Loop's sense of direction hadn't been too wildly inaccurate. It was just a few short blocks away from where they accosted the lady on the street. The neighborhood looked residential with choc a bloc houses and nature strips of spearmint and peppermint. Dr. Bean's clinic appeared distinct in a cottage house with a gummy neon sign of a red cross. A line of people waited in the winding entrance path to the door.

'Oh, it's busy,' Peter said. 'We should come back tomorrow.'

'Are you kidding? We are here.' Magic Loop floated over the heads. 'I'm sure he's looking at people based on the seriousness of the condition, so we should probably just go to the front.'

'You've never been to a clinic before, have you?' Peter said, trailing behind but still following Loop. 

'Everyone over there is sucking on a lollipop,' Loop said, his eyes wide like he'd spotted a source of water in the dessert.

'The doctor always hands out lollipops,' Peter said, casting his own eyes over the antsy people in line. 'Usually after, but I did hear Dr. Bean was eccentric like that. It makes sense cause what better way to calm a person down before a visit.'

'I want my lollipop, I want my lollipop,' Loop said, rushing through the open door and to the reception desk.

'How can I help you?' the young girl behind the desk said, startled.

'I want my lollipop, I want my lollipop,' Loop said, his tongue out like a thirsty pup.

'Are you here to see the doctor?'

'No, lollipop, lollipop.'

'Yes, we are,' Peter said, nodding an apology to the people in line that Loop had just bypassed. 'I need to see him.'

'Okay, please fill out this form,' the girl said, pushing a form across the desk.

'Umm, I'd rather not, you see, it's rather sensitive,' Peter said in a low whisper, craning his head slightly to check that others weren't eavesdropping. Loop was head first in the jar of lollipops. 'Besides, I can't write. I don't have hands.'

'What are those?' She gestured with her head at him.

'Those are wings,' he said.

'Your friend can write it down for you,' she said, again signaling with her head, this time at Magic Loop; his whole body now in the jar.

'He's busy,' Peter said. He caught a glance at the line of people behind perpetrating hard looks at him for having made his way before them. They didn't have their lollipops yet but their mouths were taut as if sucking on something sour.

'Mina, hon, do you have my reading glasses?' An old man in a doctor's getup came out of a side door. He was as shriveled as a vanilla bean but as shapely as a cacao bean. 

'Dr. Bean, they're in your front pocket.' She fetched them out for him.

'Oh, so they are. How did they get there?'

'Uh, Dr. Bean—'

'Dr. Bean!' Magic Loop said, cutting off Peter. 'The Mayor wants you to look at Peter Butter here. It's very serious, you see, and we don't have a moment to lose.'

'Loop, my boy, is that you? You haven't been round since you chipped your tooth when you ate your house. How's the new one?'

'Scrumptious,' Loop said, looking as if he were holding himself back from flying home to nibble on a bit of wall. 'I do need a new dinner table though. But Doctor we have a more pressing issue.'

'Ah, yes. Peter Butter, the Peanut Butter Pelican. What's the pro—'

'No,' Magic Loop said, 'I can't find any strawberries and cream lollipops.'

'I thought we didn't have a moment to lose,' said Peter Butter.

The Doctor laughed. 'Come in, quick. I'm sure I can manage to procure some.' 

The doctor's office was a sterile room with four white chocolate-colored walls, some pie charts, some gummy skeletons, dessert books and a flan bed, along with a table and desk that wouldn't taste any good. Everything about it was just so, not a thing out of place or askew. The Doctor checked himself in the mirror to make sure he was symmetrical. He even tugged at a fold of skin under his jowl to pair with the one on the other side. Satisfied with his work, he then opened a drawer that contained all sorts of sweets and candy, all labelled and prescribed.

'Please give me just a moment here, Mr. Butter,' Doctor Bean said. 'I'll attend to you in a moment. Just after I scrounge up a lollipop for our dear friend, Magic Loop here. Take a seat on the bed there.'

'I understand, doctor,' the Peanut Butter Pelican said. 'The well-being of Mr. Loop is most important.'

Before long the doctor checked in the bill of Peter Butter.

'Oh my,' Dr. Bean said. 'This is no good at all. Not good at all.'

'What? What is it?' 

'You're sweating too much! You're gonna dehydrate.'

'I'm sorry, I'm just nervous.'

'You should be.'

'I should be?' Peter Butter said. 'What does that mean? What's wrong? Is it over? Is this the end?'

Dr. Bean took off the magnifying glasses and set them down on his tray of tools. He kept clattering the equipment with his shaking hands, and on account of his obsessive-compulsive disorder, set about rearranging them again. It took an age. Meanwhile Peter soaked. Magic Loop sat content with the lollipop in his mouth.

'Doctor Bean, please,' Peter Butter said, watching the old man try to arrange the tray for the fourth time. 'I'm dying here.'

'Alright, alright, hold your feathers,' he said. 'No, seriously. They're falling out and dirtying up my floor.' 

He folded his arms, and noticing a crinkle in the arm of his coat, tried to smooth it. 

'Doctor!'

'Okay, well it's not good,' Dr. Bean said. 

'What's not?'

'My coat, I just had this thing—'

'DOCTOR!'

Even Magic Loop looked up, the lollipop dropping out of his mouth. He fumbled around for it, his eyes still fixed on the stressed-out Peter.

'Well, there's some good and some bad,' Dr. Bean said. 'The good is you haven't got a toothache. The bad is you haven't got any teeth at all.'

'None at all? What happened to them?'

'You tell me,' Doctor Bean said. 

'Now that I think about it, I don't remember having them.'

Magic Loop was sucking on his lollipop like it were a pacifier. 

'I've never treated a pelican before so I wouldn't know.' The Doctor appeared to be nodding off in the chair, his eyes flicking open and shut. 

'Then what's this pain? Doctor? Doctor, are you sleeping?'

'I don't know, let's just say stress,' Doctor Bean said, snapping himself awake and unwrapping a lollipop he unearthed from his pocket.

'What do you have to be stressed about?' Magic Loop said. 

He and the doctor looked at Peter Butter, their sucking in sync.

'How about the competition? The pie eating? Eating as many pies in front of everyone? You know what it is I do, stop looking at me like that.'

'Oh, the pie eating competition has got you stressed?' Loop said.

'Yes, but now I'm stressed because I have to deal with you?' Peter loosened a long breath.

'Do you have any pain at the moment?' Doctor Bean said with the lollipop in his mouth.

'No, I can't feel anything. Wow, in fact since that pink perturbance entered my house uninvited I have been too busy with getting him out and leaving me alone that I haven't worried about the pain in my mouth.'

'You're cured,' Magic Loop said, jumping up and down. 'I'll just live with you until the competition.'

Peter Butter the Peanut Butter Pelican finished fourth in the pie eating competition. When asked by reporters what he thought of his performance, he credited Magic Loop with the result. The reporters reported to each other that he looked in a sour mood like he'd been sucking on a tangy lollipop.