Kerry Barrett - A Spoonful Of Sugar - A Novella

‘I had to do it twice,’ I said. ‘But there wasn’t enough time for it to set.’

Peter nodded grimly.

‘Watch your timekeeping,’ he said.

I shot June a frosty glance but she wasn’t looking at me.

And that was it. Round One done. As soon as the cameras stopped, I raced to the loo and then I joined Harry outside the marquee where she was waiting with a cup of tea for me.

‘This is a nightmare,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you’d not found those strawberries.’

‘You’d have found some,’ she said calmly. ‘It would have been fine.’

I sipped my tea and looked out over the loch, turning my face up to the sun.

‘It’s really warm,’ I said. ‘What a beautiful day.’

‘It’ll be roasting in the tent after lunch,’ Harry said. ‘It was pretty warm this morning.’

I nodded.

‘I don’t remember it ever being so hot up here,’ I said. ‘Not since we were kids anyway. Can’t say I’m happy about it.’

Harry looked sympathetic, which was unusual for her.

‘Must be uncomfortable,’ she said. ‘Being so fat.’

I gave her a thump on her lean arm, which she was showing off to perfection in a black vest top.

‘Shut up,’ I said, affectionately. I carefully lowered myself onto the wall outside the cafe and closed my eyes.

‘This is nice,’ I said.

‘So are you ready for the next round?’ Harry asked.

‘Don’t spoil it,’ I said. ‘I was just beginning to relax.’

Harry chuckled.

‘No time for relaxing this weekend,’ she said.

‘Oh well, this time tomorrow it’ll all be over,’ I said. ‘I can go home and forget about stupid cakes and you can carry the flag for the McLeod family in Britain Bakes .’

‘You might get through,’ Harry pointed out. ‘Don’t write yourself off yet.’

‘My cake fell apart,’ I said, not caring too much. ‘I hardly think I’m a contender.’

‘You never know,’ said Harry. ‘It’s all still to play for.’

The next round was cupcakes. We’d been given a few days to come up with ideas.

‘We’d like you to make twenty-four cupcakes suitable for a baby shower,’ said Peter when we all filed back into the tent after lunch.

He winked at me and the camera closest to me swooped round to capture my reaction. Dutifully I smiled in a Mother Earth fashion and rubbed my bump.

I’d planned to make twelve blue cupcakes and twelve pink cupcakes with a question mark piped on top. Hardly ground-breaking stuff, but I thought I should show willing.

I began gathering my ingredients, but just as I opened the fridge, the generator – which had been buzzing away in the background all day – made a strange choking sound and shut off. Everyone went quiet and we all looked at each other.

‘Oh goodness,’ said Amelia. ‘No electricity means no fridges and no ovens.’

There was a hubbub of noise as we all contemplated the consequences of having no electricity.

Did that mean the bake-off was over for today? I crossed my fingers behind my back. Maybe that would be it.

A flustered Portia appeared in the door of the marquee.

‘Don’t panic,’ she cried.

‘We’re not,’ I said under my breath.

‘We’ve had a bit of an issue with overheating,’ Portia said. ‘We can get things going again, but we can’t overload the generator. We’re going to hook up the ovens but turn the fridges off – we think that’s the best way to do it.’

‘Ooh I’m not sure,’ said Lizzie. ‘They might need to keep some of their ingredients in the fridge.’

I grinned. Surely we were out of there?

‘There’s a walk-in fridge,‘ Harry said. ‘In the cafe. I’m sure we can use that if we need to.’

Shut up, Harry, I thought directly at her. She glowered at me as she picked up on what I was telling her.

Portia looked like she might kiss my grumpy cousin.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘That’s brilliant.’

‘I’ll go and have a chat with Mum,’ Harry said. ‘But I can’t imagine it will be a problem.’

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