Kathryn Littlewood - Sweet

“This whole thing, it’s too much pressure,” she said.

Ty tousled her stringy black hair. “Don’t worry, Rose. You’re the best there is. And you’ve got me right here, all the way.”

Ty had been so nice to Rose in the previous nine months that she almost couldn’t believe it. But nice wasn’t going to help her get the Booke back. She needed expert assistance. Still, it was comforting to have her older brother beside her.

“Thanks, Ty,” she said.

Rose peered round her kitchen once more. On one side of the oven was a red refrigerator, and on the other was a wooden bookcase that served as a pantry. There were clear mason jars of flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and cocoa powder, plus a brightly coloured cardboard box hidden in the back.

“What’s this?” Ty asked Rose, picking up the box.

Rose took the box from Ty and recognised it immediately as a box of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. “No!” said Rose. “What’s this doing here?”

Rose marched across the aisle of black and white tiles and stopped short in front of Lily’s wooden chopping block.

“Why is this in my kitchen?” she demanded.

“It’s in everyone’s kitchen!” Lily replied, brushing a strand of black hair from her cheek. “I donated it, so it’s part of everyone’s allowable pantry items. Anyone can add a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient – I think it’ll really improve their results.”

“It’ll improve your results, you mean!” Rose cried. “Anyone who eats this stuff waxes poetic about you! The judge will just start talking about how amazing you are!”

“Can I help it if it has that particular side effect?” Lily winked.

The expo centre suddenly went dark, and Rose hurried back to her own kitchen. A set of roving purple spotlights focused on the centre of the ceiling, where a giant cupcake with a hollow centre hovered like a hot-air balloon.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed an announcer, “please welcome the inventor of crêpes suzette, the champion pastry chef of France, and the founder of the Gala des Gâteaux Grands: Chef Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre!”

Orchestra music soared as the giant cupcake sank slowly to the ground. Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre stepped out of it, dressed in his coat of red velvet, his hands clasped atop his wide belly. His beady eyes peered from behind his glasses as he stared out over the crowd.

He raised a microphone to his lips and said, “Remember, after I announce the theme, you’ll have precisely one hour to plan and to gather your one special ingredient, one that is not found in the pantry.”

“So now Lily can combine her Magic Ingredient with any of the magical recipes in the Booke, which will make it infinitely more powerful!” whispered Rose. “Can you believe this, Ty?”

But Ty was too busy staring across the black-and-white-tiled aisle. Miriam and Muriel Desjardins were looking casually at Ty. Ty was pretending not to notice, staring into the distance with his eyes wide and his mouth pursed, as if he were writing the lyrics to a painful love song in his head.

The twins had perfect faces, with sparkling eyes and pouting lips, chic haircuts, and expensive-looking clothes. They looked a year or two older than Ty, and an inch or two taller. They were definitely out of his league, but he would be the last one to admit it.

“And now. . . ,” Jean-Pierre said over the thunder of a drumroll, “the theme of the day is. . . SWEET! You may interpret the theme however you wish. The cooking will commence in one hour. Go. Now!”

The lights snapped back to full in the room and the spectators in the opera boxes clapped as all of the bakers and their assistants began to confer in heated whispers.

SWEET. Rose could bake a hundred versions of the common cupcake, but today she was competing not only against the best bakers in the world, but also against her Aunt Lily, who could make any magical recipe in the Cookery Booke, plus add a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. To make it through this first round, she would need something from the Bliss Cookery Booke, and for that she needed Purdy and Balthazar.

As she waited for her mother and great-great-great-grandfather to join her on the expo floor, Rose glanced over at Lily. Lily was conferring with an impossibly small man wearing a calico jumpsuit of purple, white, and gold satin, the kind you’d find on a medieval clown. He was little, but he wasn’t proportioned like a dwarf – it was as if he was a typically sized man who had been shrunken down. The top of his head barely reached Lily’s hip. He had tanned skin, a bald head, thick black eyebrows, and a long, black moustache.

Lily’s assistant? Rose wondered.

Balthazar and Purdy hurried up, with Albert, Sage, and Leigh trailing behind.

“Look at this,” said Rose, holding up the box of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. “She donated this to the Gala. Everyone’s pantry is stocked with it.”

“That wicked cheater!” Purdy yelled.

“I have just the thing to beat her,” Balthazar said, handing her one of his perfectly handwritten sheets. “I translated this one a few months ago. It’s aces.”

With Ty looking over her shoulder, Rose read the recipe:

The Sweetest Cookie, for the Relief of Human Sourness

It was in 1456, in the French city of Paris, that young Philippe Canard did confess to Sir Falstaffe Bliss that his sole wish on the occasion of his fifth birthday was that his notoriously sour, crabby, ill-tempered, and otherwise foul Grandmother might grant him a smile. Sir Bliss did feed these sweet cookies to the Countess Fifi Canard, who, at the occasion of Philippe’s birthday party, did hoist Philippe into her arms, kiss his cheek, and smile so sweetly that young Philippe himself did smile for the remainder of his life.

Sir Bliss did place four fists of WHITE FLOUR in the centre of the wooden bowl. Into the flour he cracked one of the CHICKEN’S EGGS, then poured an acorn of VANILLA and one staff of melted COW’S BUTTER. Afterward, he did add the LOVER’S SWEET WHISPERS, congealed in almond butter.

“So that’s our one special ingredient,” Ty said. “‘Lovers’ sweet whispers in almond butter.’ That should be easy enough to get. I’ll just whisper into a jar.”

Balthazar rolled his eyes. “No, kid. You’ll need the sweet whispers of two people who are in love, not one person who wishes he was in love.”

“Burn, Abuelo,” Ty replied. “Burn.”

There were a few more instructions, and then the recipe ended with:

He did rest the cake in the oven HOT as SEVEN FLAMES for the TIME of SIX SONGS and then fed the cookies to the sour Countess, who remained sweet thereafter.

Just then Lily walked up, arm in arm with Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre. The short man she’d been talking with earlier was nowhere to be seen.

“Look!” Lily said, pointing at the scrap of paper with the recipe. “They’re cheating!”

Purdy stepped between Lily and the recipe. “Lily, if you sunk any lower, they’d have to dredge you up from the bottom of the Seine.”

Lily smiled at Jean-Pierre. “I really hate to have to tattle on children,” she said. “I’m just trying to protect the integrity of the Gala.”

Albert stepped in with a toothy grin. “No rule violations here, sir! The rules prohibit using a cookbook while baking. The kids have merely planned out their recipe. The paper will be gone come competition time.”

Gus, still in the baby sling on Balthazar’s chest, swatted Rose’s ear till she leaned close, his whiskers tickling her cheek. “If I were you, I’d go now and get those sweet whispers. An hour goes by faster than you think.”

“But where are we going to get lovers’ sweet whispers?” Rose asked.

Gus squinted a minute, thinking. “In my first marriage, my dear Hilarie and I often exchanged sweet nothings while catching mice along the River Thames in London.”