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Sweet
Kathryn Littlewood
Take a pinch of charm and magic and lashings of laughter and you have the perfect recipe for the delicious second novel in the BLISS BAKERY trilogy. Indulge in the magical adventure…The Bliss family cook book filled with magical recipes has been stolen by renegade Aunt Lily. It falls to eleven-year-old Rose Bliss and her three siblings to try and win back the book and avert disaster.Another treat of a story to curl up with
For my beloved Grampy, a craftsman of the highest order
Contents
Title Page (#u71376bcb-eac9-5b13-ba62-caa09d722c8e)
Dedication (#u7f50e11a-8890-5606-ac1f-ac87b2a3d728)
Prologue Prepackaged Magic (#ulink_3924a4ff-6442-5195-830c-c34e96475dc2)
Chapter 1 The Challenge Will Be Televised (#ulink_7b00c498-45ae-51c9-abb5-6fb0f3ad61b2)
Chapter 2 A Cat of Many Words (#ulink_6e51680e-e7c4-5c0d-a437-c3d8d69fe06b)
Chapter 3 Enter the Master of Ceremonies (#ulink_ab35fb22-56d5-5ef9-8d83-cc015d7fc0a8)
Chapter 4 Sweet, Sweet Nothings (#ulink_58eaded6-1725-56a3-8ec8-758b5eaefba9)
Chapter 5 Quiet as a Mouse (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 The Seventeenth Floor (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 Picture Im-perfect (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 Making Whoopie (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 A Grave Birthday Celebration (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 Head in the Clouds (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 Bothered, Bewitched, and Beheaded (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 Romancing the Stones (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 Home, Sick Home (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 A (Tiny) Thief in the Night (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 An Unusual Challenge (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 Tears from a Rose (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 Caught on Tape (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 The Cat Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
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IT WAS NINE months after her Aunt Lily stole the Bliss Cookery Booke right out from under her nose that Rosemary Bliss discovered something horrible on the shelves of Ralph’s Supermarket in downtown Calamity Falls.
Rose’s sneakers squeaked on the floor as she stopped dead in her tracks.
Staring back at her from the front of each of dozens of cardboard boxes was the smiling face of her lying, conniving aunt. Each box bore a banner reading LILY’S MAGIC INGREDIENT! AS SEEN ON TV.
The economy-sized tub of mayonnaise Rose had been carrying slipped from her fingers and fell to its death on the floor. “Mum!” she cried.
Rose’s mother, Purdy, ran over. “Oh dear.”
“No, Mum, not the mayonnaise. Look!” Rose pointed at the boxes of Lily’s Magic Ingredient.
Since she’d disappeared with the Bliss family’s magical Cookery Booke, Aunt Lily had made good on her promise to use it to become famous. She had written a bestselling cookbook, Lily’s 30-Minute Magic, and had a cooking show on TV. Now there she was, smiling happily on the shelves of their very own supermarket, while the rest of Calamity Falls had fallen into a grim malaise.
Without the Booke, Purdy and Albert Bliss had no choice but to make ordinary pies and muffins and croissants from the pages of an ordinary Betty Crocker cookbook. The baked goods were still delicious, of course, and the residents of Calamity Falls still came by every morning as they always had; but the magic of the town had dried out, leaving everything and everyone in it feeling a bit like warm lettuce: sickly, grey, and wilted.
In the picture on the box, Lily looked as beautiful as ever. She had grown out her close-cropped hair, and now it fell to her shoulders in perfectly wavy heaps the colour of black chocolate. She was smiling seductively, her hands covered with orange oven mitts and planted on her hips. “Add a tablespoon to any of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic recipes,” the box read, “for a dash of magic!”
“Listen to this!” cried Purdy, reading from the box. “�Not a sufficient source of Iron or Vitamin C. Ingredients: Secret. FDA approval pending.’”
“Why would anyone eat anything that hadn’t been approved by the FDA?” Rose asked.
“Lily is a celebrity,” Purdy said, brushing her wild bangs from her eyes. “People see her face, and they plunk down a credit card. Plus, look at the size of this fine print.”
FDA APPROVAL PENDING.
“What do we do, Mum?” Rose whispered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing as straight as soldiers. Rose already felt guilty enough knowing that the biggest mistake of her young life – trusting her treacherous aunt Lily – had brought calamity to Calamity Falls. The thought that the calamity had spread to the rest of the world was just too much guilt to bear.
“What we do is figure out exactly what this �magic ingredient’ is,” Purdy said, rolling up the sleeves of her tattered blue coat. She swept box after box into her red plastic shopping cart until the shelf was empty.
* * *
Rose and her mother spent the rest of the weekend baking all of the recipes from Lily’s 30-Minute Magic and adding a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient to each one.
The Magic Ingredient was a blueish-grey powder that smelled like burned toast. When Rose threw a tablespoon of the Magic Ingredient into the batter for Lily’s Gooey Chocolate Pudding Cake, the batter sizzled like hot oil and whispered her aunt’s name with each pop: “Liiiilllllyyyyy!”
When Rose tossed a tablespoon into the crust of Lily’s Caramel Apple Tarte Tatin, the crust rattled on the table, giggling “Lily!”
The same happened with the Lily’s Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée, the Cherry Clafouti à la Lily, and the Just Peachy Peach Pie.
Rose’s brothers, Ty and Sage, walked through the kitchen on their way to play basketball in the driveway. “Did someone say �Lily’?” Ty asked. In the time since the Bliss Cookery Booke had been stolen, Ty had grown taller still. He gelled his red hair straight up in the front so that it looked like he was wearing a tiara two inches high, or a tiny, red-picket fence. He had treated himself to a bottle of cologne from the pharmacy for his sixteenth birthday, and he smelled like a walking European discotheque.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to say her name!” Sage cried into his portable tape recorder. Rose’s younger brother had read that some stand-up comedians recorded themselves in normal conversation in case anything funny came out, and so he’d started recording every comment he uttered in case he later needed the material for a stand-up routine. Sage had grown taller as well, and his cheeks had grown proportionally puffier, as had the red curls atop his head.
“No one said her name,” Purdy replied.
“I was just telling Mum about my new friend, Tilly,” Rose said. “And my other friends Billy and Gilly. . . who live in Philly.”
Ty and Sage squinted suspiciously at their sister and their mother, then scooted outside.
Rose and Purdy continued their dreadful experiment. Lily’s Low-Fat Pound-for-Pound Cake came out of the oven smelling like burned rubber, as did the Deep-Fried Cookie Dough Balls, the Luscious Lemon Squares, and Lily’s Bodacious Brioche Bread Pudding.
“Are we overcooking them?” Rose asked.
“No!” her mother exclaimed, confused. “If anything, we’re undercooking them!”
By the time Rose and Purdy were finished, every surface of the Follow Your Bliss Bakery kitchen was covered with plates of cakes, cookies, pies, and puddings, each containing a tablespoon of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. The kitchen itself was filled with a subtle, acrid, sinister smell.
“How do we find out if they’re dangerous?” Rose asked.
Purdy brushed flour from the wild curls of her hair. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Do we dare try them ourselves?”
As Rose pondered what to do with the potentially poisonous baked goods, Purdy clicked on the portable TV that the family kept atop the counter in case of emergencies.
Much to Rose’s dismay, Aunt Lily appeared on the screen, wearing a fitted black cocktail dress. They had happened to tune in to her cooking show. “Here it is, folks – the world’s best devil’s food cake!” Lily said. “And you know what that means: Time for the C-word!”
She raised her arms like a preacher while the live studio audience chanted wildly, “Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate!”
Rose changed the channel in disgust, then wiped the flour-ridden remote control on her jeans. A commercial popped on.
“Now for a limited time only, Lily’s Special Spatulas are only nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents! Order today and we’ll include a Bombastic Bundt Pan, absolutely free!”
Rose changed the channel again. “Jeez louise!”
Lily again. This time she was on the set of a talk show, wearing a different fitted black cocktail dress. “The secret to my success?” she said, coyly batting her eyelashes. “Why, my passion for baking, of course!”
“Turn on the news!” Purdy yelled, and Rose changed the channel yet again.
“In entertainment today,” said the newsreader, “a new record has been broken: Lily’s 30-Minute Magic has become the highest-rated daytime cooking show in the history of television broadcasting. Its ratings have actually exceeded the number of televisions in America, a statistic that continues to baffle authorities.”
Rose and Purdy were busy ogling the television screen when Leigh waddled into the kitchen. “I want lunch, Mummy.”
“Lunch is in half an hour, Leigh.” Without looking down, Purdy reached a hand to tousle Leigh’s head. “I see you’ve had a haircut.” Since she’d turned four, Leigh had insisted on cutting her own hair. This resulted in a mop of shaggy black chunks of every conceivable length. “Why don’t you go get your bow, and I’ll tie up your hair.”
“Okay!” Leigh said, and turned to go.
But she didn’t go far. Mesmerised by the Lily-a-thon on the TV, Rose and her mother didn’t notice as Leigh reached atop the counter and gobbled down the entirety of Lily’s foot-long Pound-for-Pound Cake.
Leigh sat on the ground for a minute, licked her fingers, then stood and cleared her throat.
“Wow, that’s tremendous!” she said in a voice far too deep and gravelly and sophisticated to be coming from such small lips. “That was just a tremendous pound cake. So sweet – but not cloyingly so; velvety, rich, moist. . . Who is responsible for this confectionary delight?”
Rose and Purdy spun around and stared at the little girl, who, a moment before, had hardly known what a pound cake was, let alone the meaning of the word cloyingly.
Oh no, Rose thought.
Leigh looked up at the TV and saw Lily sitting on the set of the news show, her long, tanned legs crossed. “Of course! It’s Lily, of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic, hostess of the most highly-rated television programme in American history! Lily, the doyenne of Danish, the priestess of parfait, the grande dame of graham crackers! It’s a shame that her charisma should be confined to the realm of baking – she should run for public office!” Leigh stopped a moment, savouring this new idea. “Yes! Lily should be the first female president of the United States! She’s the centaur of cinnamon buns! The sultan of—”
Purdy clapped a hand over Leigh’s mouth and looked at Rose in horror.
Leigh’s irises had widened so much that her pupils were an endless vortex of shimmering black.
Rose sank into the red-leather booth of the dining table, stunned. “If Lily gets people to eat this mix,” Rose said gravely, “she’ll have the country in the palm of her hand.” Rose pulled the worn fleece hood of her green sweatshirt over her eyes. Not only did Lily want fame, but now it seemed she wanted power, too.
Leigh broke loose from Purdy’s grip and marched towards the back door. “I’ll not be chained like chattel! I’m off to find Lily and tell her how magnificent she is in person!” She shut the back door behind her, leaving Rose and Purdy among the mess of pans and tainted baked goods, sweaty and covered with flour and splatters of yellow batter.
“Our first order of business,” said Purdy, “is to turn Leigh back to normal. Then we clean this kitchen. And then—”
But Rose didn’t need to be told what the third order of business was. The country was in serious danger, and it was all Rose’s fault. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she knew she would have to steal back the Bliss Cookery Booke.
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LILY BALANCED PRECARIOUSLY on a pair of high-heeled shoes as she pulled a tray of steaming pumpkin muffins from the convection oven in the wall of her studio kitchen. She turned to the audience and displayed the muffins, which looked slightly out of place in the hands of a woman wearing a short black cocktail dress and five-inch stilettos. “Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous in your life?”
Lily set the tray down on the countertop and raised both her arms. “Can you smell it, folks?”
Everyone in the audience hopped to their feet and chorused, “Cinnamon! Cinnamon! Cinnamon!”
Everyone, that is, except for Rose and Ty.
“Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!” Rose whispered to her older brother as they sank down into their back-row seats.
Lily’s studio kitchen had bright yellow walls, sunny orange cabinets, and an island in the centre covered with turquoise tiles. A window in the back of the kitchen opened on to a New York City skyline.
Fake, Rose thought, her fists clenched. Just like her. This studio’s in Connecticut!
Rose looked out at the rows and rows of giddy audience members, at the hundreds of bright lights hanging from a grid on the ceiling above, and at the cameras, five in total. Rose tried to imagine how important Lily must feel standing in front of all those doting eyes, and the millions more watching at home. So this was the glamour that Rose had turned down when she told Aunt Lily that she wouldn’t be going with her to New York.
Rose knew she’d made the right decision. If she’d gone with Lily, her family would right now be sitting around the kitchen table, sensing that something was missing but with no memory that Rose or the Booke had ever existed. Rose would never be able to see them again, not even in a photograph. No amount of fame or acclaim was worth losing the love of her family.
And yet, where had love gotten the Blisses? These days the streets of Calamity Falls felt cold and grey, even in the springtime. Mrs Havegood’s fibs had become far less inventive, the League of Lady Librarians had retired their tour bus, and Mr Bastable and Mrs Thistle-Bastable had lost their burning passion for each other. There was no laughter, no magic. The soul of Calamity Falls had shrivelled like a dead leaf, and it was all her fault.
Even Devin Stetson had lost his lustre. Since Lily had stolen the book, Rose had worked up the courage to speak to Devin Stetson on five separate occasions, about two things: twice in the hallway about the difficulty of algebra, twice at the counter of Stetson’s Doughnuts and Automotive Repair about the difficulty of algebra again, and once at the counter of the Bliss Bakery.
“How are you?” she’d said, her right eye twitching nervously, as it always did in his presence.
“Oh, fine, I guess.” Devin sighed. His floppy bangs, formerly the colour of spun gold, were now just pale, dull blond. “The Calamity Falls Community Chorus disbanded. No one felt like singing any more.”
“I’m sorry,” Rose had replied. She had wanted to reach out and touch his sullen cheek, but she was too afraid, and too guilty.
Rose sighed at the memory, and glared out at Lily. As much as Rose hated her aunt, the person she was most angry with was herself. If she had just been a little wiser, if she hadn’t trusted Aunt Lily and fallen for her flattery, everyone she loved in her town would be happy and healthy. But as it stood, every time Rose traipsed down the grey streets of Calamity Falls, she was reminded of the grim mess she’d caused.
“This beard itches,” Ty whined, tugging at the long, grey beard their father, Albert, had glued to his face hours before. “And the beard glue smells like a chemical-processing plant. I might pass out.” Ty shifted in his white linen robe. “Why did I have to wear the skirt?”
“It’ll be over soon,” Rose said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m pretty sure the Question-and-Answer portion is next.”
Rose spoke as calmly as she could, but her hands were shaking. Appearing on television for the first time was nerve-racking enough, but Rose was about to appear on television for the first time and do something crazy.
“OK, sit, sit!” Lily called. “Let’s move on to Question-and-Answer. And while we do, I’m going to dig into one of these Pump-Me-Up Pumpkin Muffins – if you all don’t mind. All this talk of cinnamon has me very hungry.”
She winked coyly as she unwrapped the accordion of aluminium foil from the bottom half of one of the hot muffins and sank her gleaming teeth in. She wiped the corner of her mouth. There was never a crumb on Lily’s lip, never a hair out of place. She was perfection.
Rose knew this was her chance to strike. She raised her hand high and waved it back and forth until Lily noticed her in the back row. “You, sweet thing in the back with the blonde curls!”
Ty wasn’t the only one wearing a disguise. Rose had pulled back her long, black hair and pinned it under a wig of blonde ringlets that Purdy had bought at the Halloween Haven in Calamity Falls. Rose was wearing a dress of pale-blue satin with poofy sleeves and an even poofier skirt that sat atop layer after layer of itchy blue crinoline.
“Are the disguises really necessary?” Rose had asked her mother before they’d left for the studio. “If I had a shepherd’s staff, I would look just like Little Bo Peep.”
“You’ll need the disguises to ask your question,” Purdy had warned her. “If Lily recognises you, she’ll never call on you.”
A bearded man with a headset handed Rose a microphone as Rose stood. It took all her strength not to collapse. This was the moment of truth.
Rose raised the microphone to her trembling lips and spoke in a whisper. “Testing? Testing?” The microphone squealed with feedback.
“The microphones work!” Lily said. She was chuckling, but her eyes were narrowed. It was the same look of impatience that Rose had seen on her aunt’s face those times in the Bliss Bakery kitchen, the same look that Rose had chosen to ignore.
Look where ignoring my instincts has gotten me, Rose thought. Wearing a wig on TV.
But Rose knew – and her family agreed – that this was the only way to right the wrong that had been done.
Rose cleared her throat. “I think your Pump-Me-Up Pumpkin Muffins are bland and dry,” Rose said, pushing the words past the arid bubble of fear that squatted in her throat. She took a deep breath. “I could make a better pumpkin muffin.”
Everyone in the audience gasped and turned to look at her.
Lily glared at Rose. Then, for just an instant, Lily’s eyes went wide, and Rose knew that Lily had recognised her.
“Ha! We have a comedian in the audience!” Lily said, giggling and clapping. “That’s so cute! Next question!”
Before the next person could stand, Ty bounded up from his seat and pointed a finger in the air. In his grey beard and red cloak, he looked like Santa Claus. “This young lady, whom I have never seen before and am not related to, deserves a chance to bake!”
The studio fell silent. Scattered applause fluttered up from the audience.
Rose raised the microphone once more. “I challenge you, Lily Le Fay, to compete against me in the Gala des Gâteaux Grands in Paris, France.”
Rose handed the microphone back to the young man with the headset and plopped into her seat, her arms folded across her chest.
The audience gasped once more, looking back and forth between their idol and the curly-haired little girl who had just challenged her to a duel at the world’s most prestigious televised pastry competition – back and forth, back and forth, like they were watching a tennis match.
Lily stood frozen in the centre of her studio kitchen, wobbling on the points of her high-heeled shoes. Lily had no choice but to accept the challenge. If she didn’t, it would look like she was afraid of being outdone by an adolescent.
Suddenly Lily’s face transformed, her glare replaced by a sweet smile. “I accept the challenge! I will compete against this brave young thing at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands!”
The audience went wild, clapping and hooting and hollering.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Lily asked.
Rose stood and pulled off the blonde wig, letting her long, black hair cascade down to her shoulders. “My name is Rosemary,” she said. “Rosemary Bliss.”
Beside her, Ty discreetly pumped his fist. “Yes!” he said.
“Well, Rosemary Bliss.” Lily spat out the name as if it were another term for a skin disease. “Just because you’re little doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. You know that, right?”
“Yup,” Rose said defiantly. And she curtsied to her Aunt Lily, who steadied herself by leaning up against the kitchen counter.
I can’t believe I just did that, thought Rose.
* * *
At the end of the show, while the rest of the audience was filing out, the bearded man in the headset plucked Rose and Ty from the line. “Lily wants to see both of you,” he said. “This is huge! She never wants to see anyone!
“I’m Bruno,” he went on, leading Rose and Ty down a back hallway of the studio. “But Lily still doesn’t know my name. She calls me Bill. But hey, she’s Lily! She could call me Armpit for all I care.”
Rose scowled. It seemed Lily had everyone in the country wrapped around her elegant pinkie finger.
At the end of the hall was a metal door painted blue, with a sign in the shape of a star that read MS LE FAY.
Bruno knocked quietly on the door. “I have the little girl and the old man here, Lily!”
“Oh, thanks, Bill!” she called. “Send them in!”
Bruno pulled the door open, and Rose and Ty walked into what could only be described as a palace. In the centre of the room gushed a stone fountain ringed by ornate cast-iron benches. A lush forest of orchids hung from the ceiling, and flowing swathes of blue silk draped the walls.
And there, sitting in a hammock, rocking gently from side to side, was Lily. She was wearing a plush white robe, like she’d just emerged from the shower; only her perfect black hair was dry. Even in a bathrobe, she looked ready for an awards show.
“Have a seat by the fountain, Rosemary. You, too, Thyme.”
Rose sat with her brother on one of the cast-iron benches and looked up at the massive fountain, which was a fifteen-foot marble statue of Lily stirring a spoon around an overflowing bowl, her neck long and elegant.
“It’s so nice to see both of you again! How do you like my little dressing room?” Lily stepped out of the hammock.
“I gotta say, it’s pretty sweet, Tia Lily,” Ty said, looking around.
Lily perched on the edge of the fountain, folding one tanned, silky leg over the other. “Let’s get down to business. Your little stunt today was reckless, to say the least. What exactly are you trying to do?”
Rose sat up straight and cleared her throat. “Losing the Gala des Gâteaux Grands would ruin you. But unlike you, I don’t have a reputation to worry about. I’m twelve. So we’re offering you a deal. I will lose the competition on purpose if you just give us back our Cookery Booke and stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”
Lily feigned surprise. “Right, the Booke! You want the Booke back. Of course. I’d forgotten all about it.”
“You already have a TV show, Tia Lily,” said Ty. “What do you still need the Booke for? Our town is in trouble!”
Lily plucked a bit of fuzz off her white robe and flicked it into the fountain. “See, this is the problem with the Bliss family. None of you has any ambition. You’re more concerned with your Podunk town than with succeeding. You think that just because I host the highest-rated daytime TV show in history and have a fifteen-foot marble statue of myself in my enchanted-forest-themed dressing room that I have �enough.’ There is never enough!”
Lily stood and sauntered towards the brilliantly lit mirror on her make-up table. “I could have real power. I could be running the country! But I can’t do it without the Booke. Or Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”
Ty itched under his beard. “Wow, Tia Lily. You’re scary. You’re like a devil-aunt. You’re like. . . a tia. . . but you’re also the Devil, El Diablo. You’re like. . . El Tiablo!”
“So, you see, I can’t give it back in exchange for you throwing the contest,” said Lily as she examined her flawless cheek in the mirror, hunting for clogged pores that weren’t there. “And I can’t stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”
“But—” Rose began to protest just as two men wearing suit jackets and polo shirts burst through the door.
“There you are, you geniuses!” said the shorter of the two. The taller one was studying the screen on his mobile phone.
“My name is Joel,” said the short one. “I’m one of the producers of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic. This is our other producer, Kyle.”
The taller man looked up from his mobile phone for a moment and nodded, then looked back down.
Joel shook Rose’s hand. “You were fabulous today,” he said enthusiastically. “I thought maybe Kyle had arranged your showdown with Lily as a birthday present to me, but he was as surprised as I was!”
Rose gave a confused half smile.
“Anyway, we can’t wait for this year’s Gala des Gâteaux Grands,” Joel said. “Could a twelve-year-old girl possibly beat Lily Le Fay, the world’s most famous baker? It’s genius! Everyone in the universe will be tuning in to watch! And that includes aliens!
“We’ll get all the contracts ironed out later,” Joel went on. “For now, just know that you’ve made us very happy producers. Kisses!” he said, kissing the air on either side of Rose’s cheek.
“Bye,” muttered Kyle.
After Joel and Kyle had closed the dressing room door behind them, Lily went back to examining her skin in the mirror. “As I was saying, I can’t just give the Booke back, or stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient. But I also can’t back down from your challenge, because I already accepted on TV. That would make me look like a chump. Am I a chump? I don’t think so. Do chumps wear plush cotton robes and smell like lilacs? No. The only way to settle this is to play it out at the Gala fair and square.”
“You mean,” Rose said, wincing, “actually compete?”
“Yes, actually compete! Did you think I would just roll over without a fight?” Lily swung around on her dressing stool to face Rose and Ty. “If you win, which you won’t, I’ll stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient, and I’ll give you back the Booke, and you can continue to lock it in a closet in your refrigerator and let its power go to waste. But if I win – and I will win – you’ll swear to me that not a single member of your scraggly, weird, classless family will ever come near me or the Booke again.”
Rose gulped. Now, if she lost the Gala des GГўteaux Grands to Lily, she would lose the Booke forever.
“Don’t worry, Tiablo. Rosita’s gonna bring it. Hard.” Ty patted Rose on the back. “But how do we know you’re not lying? What’s to stop you from holding on to the Booke or making more Magic Ingredient after you lose?”
Now Rose patted her brother on the back. She hadn’t even thought of that.
“Come with me,” said Lily.
Rose and Ty followed Lily out of her dressing palace and on to the set of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic.
Rose looked out at the rows and rows of empty seats, at the darkened grid of lights hanging from the ceiling. The studio was cold without all those giddy fans.
Lily set to work, tossing some pantry ingredients into a metal mixing bowl: flour, brown sugar, eggs, butter, milk.
“What are you making?” Rose asked.
“I am making a No-Renege Rugelach,” Lily said, twirling the spoon through the batter. “After eating one of these, neither of us will be capable of going back on our word.”
Lily unlocked a small drawer beneath the sink of her TV kitchen and pulled out a miniature blue mason jar filled with a clear, viscous liquid.
“And what is that goop you’re putting in?” Ty asked.
“Throughout the ages, the majestic ring fairies have been known for never going back on their word. This,” Lily said, pouring a few drops of the clear gloop over the rest of the ingredients, “is their saliva.”
“Great,” said Ty, rolling his eyes.
Thirty minutes later, Lily pulled the tray of No-Renege Rugelach from the oven and handed Rose and Ty two piping-hot pieces. “On three, we eat,” Lily said, lifting a piece herself. “One. . . two. . . three.”
Rose shifted the flaky, buttery roll of dough from one set of burned fingertips to the other, back and forth. She never imagined actually having to beat Lily at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands. She had no idea how – or even if – she could win.
“Well?” asked Lily, popping the rugelach in her mouth. “Are you going to eat it or not?”
At that moment, Rose hated her aunt so thoroughly that she felt her blood get hot. I can beat her, she thought. I have to.
She stuffed the rugelach into her mouth and swallowed.
Exhausted, Rose and Ty stumbled out the back door of the studio to find Purdy and Albert there to greet them. Sage and Leigh were seat-belted in the back of the Bliss family van.
“How did it go?” Purdy asked, kneeling on the sidewalk. She was wearing the same filthy, striped apron that she wore every day, which looked right at home in the Bliss kitchen but seemed very out of place next to a television studio.
“She accepted,” said Rose.
“She’ll do the contest?” asked Purdy.
Rose nodded.
“And you’ll lose on purpose, and she’ll give back the cookbook?” Purdy asked.
“No,” said Rose.
Albert paused nervously. “What do you mean, no? Wasn’t that the plan?” Since losing the Cookery Booke, he had stopped shaving, as well as exercising. His cheeks had filled out considerably, and a thick beard the texture of steel wool had enveloped the lower half of his face.
Rose gulped. “She said she’ll give back the Booke if we beat her fair and square. And if we lose, we have to promise never to go looking for it again. It’s lost forever.”
“Oh,” said Purdy quietly. “That’s another matter entirely, isn’t it.”
“Yup!” Albert shouted, beginning to hyperventilate. “Oh boy!”
Rose hung her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how it went wrong. I was sure she’d give the Booke back if I offered to throw the contest! But now I actually have to beat her! And we ate a No-Renege Rugelach, so there’s no backing down now.”
Purdy cupped Rose’s cheek in her hand. “Well, you know what this means.”
“What?”
“You’re going to have to win the Gala des Gâteaux Grands.”
Rose hung her head.
“Oh boy,” Albert repeated, pacing around the concrete sidewalk, scratching at his sweaty, round head.
“Albert, love, you’re not helping,” Purdy said. “Don’t worry, Rose. You don’t have to do it alone. We’re all going to beat Lily together. We’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Leigh called out to Rose from her car seat in the back of the van. “Foolish, simple Rose!” She chuckled. “Daring to duel with the mistress of muffins!”
“You have to win,” Purdy continued, “if only so that we can get our hands on the recipe for Turn-Back Trifle and fix our little Lily-loving monster here. I’m assuming the effects of Lily’s Magic Ingredient wear off shortly if you just eat a little bit of it, but Leigh ate a whole pound cake. She could be stuck like this forever if we don’t get the Booke back.”
Leigh folded her arms across her dirty 101 Dalmatians T-shirt. “Oh, Purdy!” she called. “My bladder is. . . replete. If we don’t get to a bathroom soon, we’re going to have a situation on our hands!”
Purdy rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, loading Rose and Ty into the van. “We only have five days before we have to fly to Paris for the competition.”
“Good,” said Sage. “I forgot my blue pyjama trousers at home. I have to get them.”
“Sorry, Sage, but we’re not going back to Calamity Falls,” said Purdy. “We are going to Mexico. We need to pick up your great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar Bliss.”
Albert settled in the driver’s seat and turned the key while the van sputtered into gear.
“We have a great-great-great-grandfather?” Sage asked, brandishing his tape recorder. “Is he a mummy?”
“No, not yet,” Purdy replied. “He’s very spry. We need to see him because he has a second copy of the Booke. Unfortunately, Balthazar’s copy is written in another language, and he’s the only one left in the world who speaks it. He’s been working on a translation, but he’s slow. When last we checked, he’d only managed to translate six of the seven hundred and thirty-two recipes.”
“We need him to hurry it up,” said Ty.
“No time for that. We’re going to need his help.” Purdy grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
“Why �unfortunately’?” Rose asked.
Purdy sighed. “You’ll see.”
(#ulink_2dca2d8e-921c-5c9c-b448-bf92c5c196ae)
THE DUSTY MAIN road of the village of Llano Grande cut through a lush green mountain. As the Bliss van rumbled over the dirt, Ty and Sage dozed in the backseat, while Leigh muttered long sentences to herself that no one but she understood.
They’d driven for two days straight, all to get a copy of the Booke. Suddenly an obvious solution occurred to Rose. “Mum,” she asked, “why didn’t you guys ever make a photocopy of the Booke? Just so you’d have an extra?”
“The Booke can’t be photocopied,” Albert replied, turning the wheel with one hand and fanning his face with the other. “You put it on a copy machine, the pages come out blank. It’s an odd trick of the Booke. Can’t be photographed, either. Remember that picture in the newspaper of your mum baking Love Muffins?”
When the photo was taken, the Booke had been sitting open on the chopping block, where it often sat. But in the picture, there was no Booke – only an empty countertop.
“The Booke knows how to protect itself. The only way to duplicate it is to copy it by hand,” he said. “And your mother and I were always too busy. Plus, that would have meant one more copy of the Booke floating around that we had to protect. Bad enough a copy fell into Lily’s hands.” Albert hushed his voice and turned to Purdy. “Imagine if another copy got to. . . you-know-who?”
“Who?” Rose cried.
“Let’s just say,” said Purdy, “that there are far worse bakers in the world than Lily Le Fay.”
“Anyway,” Albert went on, “you can’t even take the Booke apart. Once you remove a page, the recipe goes haywire. There is magic in the Cookery Booke binding that keeps everything in working order. That’s why there are only two copies in the world.”
A minute later, Albert pulled off the main road and rolled to a stop near a brick hut with an overhanging tin roof. Leather saddles and empty canteens dangled from the sides of the roof, and the front porch was littered with sacks of corn and stacks of firewood. A sign hung from the tin roof: LA PANADERГЌA BLISS.
“We’re here!” said Purdy, swallowing hard. “Everybody just be nice to him and we’ll all make it out alive.”
Rose touched her finger to the screen door of La PanaderГa Bliss, and it creaked open. Albert and Purdy stood behind her, with Sage and Ty and Leigh heading up the rear.
It was dusty and dark inside. An empty hostess stand sat next to the door.
Ty glanced back up at the sign. “What’s a panaderГa?” he whispered.
“A bakery,” Albert whispered back.
“This doesn’t look like a bakery,” Ty said.
He’s right, thought Rose. There were no tables, no chairs, no glass counter top, and no baked goods. It was a tiny, stuffy, windowless room with a damp floor and a toppled stack of chairs in the corner.
“Oh dear,” Purdy mumbled. “He’s probably gone off to a nursing home. I can’t blame him – I mean, he is one hundred and twenty-seven years old.”
Rose noticed a little silver bell sitting on top of the hostess stand. She reached out and pressed her palm against it.
Leigh balled her tiny hands into fists and crossed her arms. “And I suppose it would have killed you to call ahead? Lily, the empress of empanadas, would have called ahead.”
“Well, Lily isn’t your mother, now is she?” Purdy said.
Just then a tall man with a thick chest and shrivelled, spindly limbs hustled through a doorway in the back of the dingy room. His head was mostly bald except for two patches of grey above his ears. He wore spectacles and a sour frown.
“Hola,” he grumbled, grabbing six menus from the hostess stand. “Follow me.”
“Great-great-grandfather Balthazar?” Purdy ventured. “It’s me, Purdy.”
“Who?” Balthazar asked.
“Purdita Bliss, your great-great-granddaughter. We called about the translation of your copy of the Bliss Cookery Booke. Remember?”
“I wish you all could just drop all the �greats’ and call me Grandpa. Makes a fellow feel old.” Balthazar squinted at Purdy for a moment, then half-heartedly took Purdy’s hand and shook it. “Oh, now I remember,” he said. “The people with the son named after a spice.” Balthazar squinted at Ty’s crown of gelled red hair that stood two inches high. “What does he think he is, a hedgehog?”
“That’s Ty!” Albert stepped forward and shook Balthazar’s hand. “And these are the rest of our children, Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary.”
Balthazar nodded, still frowning. “More herbs. Huh.”
“Is this the bakery?” Rose ventured.
“Of course not.” Balthazar grunted. “This is the grand entrance. The bakery is this way.”
Balthazar led the Bliss clan through the back door on to a noisy, sunny patio crowded with picnic tables. Dozens of tanned Mexican farmers and their children were sitting at the tables, laughing as they gobbled slices of moist cake and brilliant red pie from paper plates.
“This is the bakery.”
Rose noticed a young woman and a young man sitting across from each other at a table, both eating some sort of goopy yellow mush from white bowls. Rose stared at it, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. What is that stuff doing in a bakery? she wondered.
“What?” said Balthazar crankily. “You don’t like the look of my polenta, Marjoram?”
“It’s Rosemary,” Rose mumbled.
“Whatever, Marjoram. Come to my office. All of you.”
Balthazar led the Blisses to a tin shed at the back of the patio. Inside was a shady room with an odd concrete structure in the centre. The structure was shaped like an Olympic podium, with two lower platforms flanking one high column. At the top of the column was a grate, and beneath it roared a wood fire.
“My stove,” the old man grumbled. “I know it’s not one of your high-tech American wall ovens, but it serves my purposes just fine. I don’t do fancy frosting on my cupcakes and all that useless, time-wasting ornamental junk. I bake to feed people.”
Rose looked round the room. Lining one wall were giant sacks of ground corn, and lining another were shelf after shelf of blue mason jars, all labelled in Spanish. Rose burned to know what was in each jar and how to use it.
Balthazar stepped into the room. “For ten years I’ve been inventing new recipes using ground cornmeal. The golden porridge you were thumbing your nose at out there, Marj,” he said, pointing to Rose, “happens to be called Polenta of Plenitude. And it’s very useful. Unlike your American cupcakes. All style and no substance, I think.”
As Balthazar launched into an oration on the various incarnations of ground corn, Sage and Leigh wandered off to investigate a rack of cooling strawberry pies, while Ty stepped back on to the patio to seek amigas. Purdy and Albert asked smart questions and settled into chairs to listen.
And so did Rose. After a while she noticed that some of the lines on her great-great-great-grandfather’s face had softened into something that approximated a smile, or at least a non-frown.
“See, the Polenta of Plenitude gets made,” Balthazar explained, “by stirring ground cornmeal in water and milk over an open flame.” He poured a cup full of golden corn dust into a pot with two cups of milk, then swirled the pot over the iron bars of the stove-top grid. “Then you add honey, a sprig of rosemary, and this.” Balthazar stepped over to the wall of blue jars and removed one labelled EL SAPO INFLADO.
Rose peered inside and saw a huge bullfrog leaning back against the side of the jar, his legs splayed out and both webbed forehands cradling his monstrous, swollen belly.
“The burp of a bloated bullfrog,” he said, lowering the unscrewed jar to the boiling pot. The frog punched his gut with a tiny amphibian fist, then let out a rumbling, rolling belch that smelled, not surprisingly, like garlic.
A bubble grew out of the cornmeal, filling the entire pot, then swelling until it reached the ceiling of the tin shed before bursting in a sigh and dropping back into the pot.
“There,” Balthazar huffed, stuffing the poor bloated bullfrog back on the shelf.
Balthazar dipped a spoon into the pot and handed it to Rose. The Polenta of Plenitude was some of the best stuff she’d ever tried: velvety, fresh, moist – the perfect balance of savoury and sweet.
“Mum and Dad!” Rose said. “You have to try this!”
Each tasted a spoonful of the masterful corn mixture.
“Wow!” said Purdy. “You’ve really made something special here, Balthazar!”
Balthazar swatted Purdy’s compliment away like a fly, grumbling inaudibly. “I don’t eat sweets any more,” he said. “You eat too many sweets, you get too big to run away when people come after you. When this masa works its magic, you can’t eat like most people do, stuffing themselves to the point where they’re bloated like a couch potato. Eat a little of this masa as an appetiser, and you’ll eat just enough of your main course to stay healthy. Unlike my cat over there, if you could call him that.”
“What else would they call me?” came a low voice from a dark corner of the room.
Rose couldn’t believe her eyes: a pudgy grey cat as wide around as a bowling ball lumbered out from behind a box and climbed up a ramp on to a rolling wooden chopping block. He sat upright on his haunches and licked under his front leg, which was quite thin compared to his thick face and rotund body. Most striking of all were his ears, which didn’t stand straight up like a regular cat’s but were pinched and rumpled into two folded lumps atop his wide face. “Balthazar, you should have told me we were having people over. I would have bathed. I’m in a shambles!”
“Whoa!” Sage exclaimed. “You have a talking cat?”
“Unfortunately,” Balthazar replied. “He wandered into my parents’ kitchen when I was fifteen, and he got his grubby claws on a batch of Chattering Cheddar Biscuits I made. He hasn’t shut up since.”
“Allow me to properly introduce myself since the old man can’t bring himself to do it for me,” the cat said. He sounded like a butler in a mansion outside of London. “My name is Asparagus the Green, but you should call me Gus.”
“But you’re not green,” Sage said. “You’re more of a dark grey.”
“Minor details.” The cat blinked. “I am a Scottish Fold, and—”
“Is that some kind of soldier or something?” asked Sage.
“It is the name of my breed. I am pure Scottish Fold, hence my exquisitely folded ears. I am not from Scotland, however. My dearly departed mother and father hailed from London. And who might you be?”
“This is my great-great-granddaughter Purdy Bliss; her husband, Albert; and her herbaceous children, Parsley, Sage, Marjoram, and Thyme.”
“Rosemary,” whispered Rose.
“Sure,” Balthazar continued. “And they are here because—” Balthazar stopped and turned to Purdy. “Why are you here?”
“We’re here for the translation of the Booke,” she replied nervously. “We need it, now.”
“Why?” he asked. “Can’t you just use your own?”
“Our copy is indisposed at the moment.”
“What do you mean, �indisposed’?”
Rose and the rest of the family gathered around one of Balthazar’s picnic tables, and Purdy recounted the tale of Aunt Lily. “So you see,” Purdy concluded, “we need a copy of the Booke if we’re to win.”
Balthazar had listened to the story with his arms folded over his cardigan, his face growing steadily redder and redder. As Purdy concluded, his bushy black eyebrows sloped furiously downward to where they met in the centre of his furrowed brow. He stood up, scowled, then disappeared into his kitchen hut.
He reappeared a moment later carrying a dusty tome at least a foot thick, bound in ancient, disintegrating leather. He laid the book gingerly on the table and blew softly on the cover. A puff of black dust flew in Leigh’s face.
“Is it customary in the land of Mexico to blow clumps of dust into the faces of small children?” Leigh coughed.
Gus bolted upright and dropped the shell of the cream puff he’d been licking back into his metal bowl. “I’m sorry; did the toddler just speak like a grown lady?”
“Of course I did!” Leigh answered indignantly. “This, from the talking cat!”
Rose peered at the book, which was thicker than her head. There were symbols printed on the cover, none of which she recognised.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“It means �Bliss Cookery Booke’ in Sassanian,” the old man said. “Sassanian’s a dead language that was spoken by a tribe of ancient shamans in the Fertile Crescent. They made their medicines of wheat and honey and other sweet ingredients – those were the first magical bakers.”
Balthazar pulled a short stack of parchment from the back of the Booke and slapped it down on the table. Recipes. They were written in English in perfect calligraphy, not a stroke out of place. “These,” he said, “are the translations I’ve done so far. Nine in all.”
“You’ve only translated nine recipes?” Albert asked, scratching at his beard and fanning out his armpits.
“Do you know how hard Sassanian is to decipher? I’m not about to do a rush job on something so important!”
“He’s a bit. . . fastidious,” Gus added.
“This, from a cat,” Balthazar countered.
“We need access to as many recipes as is humanly possible by the time the Gala begins,” said Purdy.
“And when’s that?” said Albert.
“Day after tomorrow,” said Purdy, pushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead. “We fly to Paris in just a few hours. Looks like we’re toast.”
Rose’s heart plummeted. It was over before it ever began. There was no way she’d be able to defeat Lily – not when Lily had the Cookery Booke, not when Rose had nothing but her skills as a baker. It might have been different if she were able to read Sassanian, but now. . .
Balthazar stared off into the sky for a moment, snarling one side of his lip.
“You’re just going to have to bring me along then,” he announced, coughing. “I’ll go pack my bags.”
(#ulink_294e9af2-0810-58a2-b803-a23f0c457bba)
ROSE SQUIRMED IN her seat aboard the 747 flying her and her family to Paris. The cabin lighting had been dimmed, and the muted roar of the jet engines was soothing; but Rose was having trouble falling asleep.
Her great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar was across the aisle from her, snoring. For the last hour, she’d watched a single droplet of spittle dangle from the corner of his mouth, then tuck itself up again, back and forth like a yo-yo, shivering with each massive snore, while Gus the cat, strapped into a baby sling against Balthazar’s heaving, snoring chest, looked out in fury.
On the other side of Balthazar, Ty fiddled with a video game. Sage had pulled his legs on to the seat and fallen asleep Indian style, his hands on his knees.
“Excuse me, sir,” said a voice from behind her. Rose craned her neck around the seat to check on her baby sister, who’d grabbed the sleeve of a passing flight attendant. “I am very sorry to bother you. This juice box is a little saccharine and, frankly, unappealing.”
The flight attendant gaped at the child, speechless.
From the next seat, Albert clapped a hand over Leigh’s mouth. “She’s fine with the juice box. Thank you.”
Rose flopped back into her seat, a hot ball of anxiety churning in her stomach like a hurricane. She’d never felt so awful.
Purdy was sitting beside her. She reached over and took Rose’s hand in hers. “I can practically hear your mind racing, Rosie.”
Rose buried her head into the crook of her mother’s arm. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mama,” she said. “What if I get the measurements wrong? What if I can’t beat the egg whites fast enough? What if I sweat into the cupcakes, or just crumble and start crying, right there on TV?”
Purdy laughed. “Listen. You’re a master already. You wanted more responsibilities in the kitchen; you got ’em. You’ve been an incredible sous-chef for the past nine months, even though the baked goods haven’t been as magical as we’d like them to be. Now it’s time for me to be your sous-chef; I’ll be right there beside you every minute. And remember, I competed at the Gala when I was fifteen and came in third, with no sous-chef! So just imagine how well we’ll do together!”
And it was then that the shaking in Rose’s hands and the gurgling in her stomach finally abated, and her racing thoughts slowed to a jog, then a stroll, then sat down in the middle of her head and went to sleep.
Rose jolted awake as the jet touched down and bumped along the runway. Wiping sleep from her eyes, she leaned over her mother and looked out the window. Before this, Rose’s whole world had been no bigger than Calamity Falls, with the occasional trip to her Aunt Gert Hogswaddle’s house in the neighbouring county of Humbleton. Now it had burst at the seams and expanded to include the entire Atlantic Ocean.
The Bliss family got off the plane and picked up their luggage. Rose ogled all the signs written in French and listened to the French announcements piped in over the loudspeaker, none of which she understood. It was a new feeling, being a foreigner.
Riding in his baby sling on Balthazar’s chest, Gus the Scottish Fold looked vaguely bored. Ty, on the other hand, swaggered through the long hall of the airport like he was having the time of his life. “Hola,” he said over and over again, in a near-whisper, to every long-legged woman they passed.
“We’re in France, Ty,” Rose reminded her brother. “Not Spain.”
“Maybe some of these ladies are here on vacation from Spain,” he retorted.
Sage was trying to imitate Ty’s confident swagger. “¡Hola!” he called to a girl in a pink dress, and received a glare in response.
At the end of the long corridor was a man in a black suit and white gloves. He was holding up a poster board with BLISS printed on it in block letters.
Albert shook his hand. “Hi, hi,” he said nervously, scratching the back of his head. “We’re the Blisses. Last time we checked!”
“Oui,” said the driver, the French word for yes, Rose knew.
The driver eyed Balthazar and Al cautiously. “Welcome to Paris,” he said. “I am Stefan. Your car is right this way.”
“To the Hôtel de Notre Dame, then?” Albert asked, fiddling with a few stapled papers on which he had printed their itinerary.
“No, no!” yelled Stefan. “The hotel will have to wait. You are late for the Gala orientation meeting with Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre, which means you are already treading on thin ice.”
They had only just arrived, and already Rose was in trouble.
Rose’s jaw dropped as Stefan stopped the car in front of the expo centre. It was a massive glass building with enormous banners on each side of the entrance. The banners were covered with pictures of giant cream puffs, tarts, and slices of gooey red velvet cake, with the words GALA DES GÂTEAUX GRANDS: 18–23 AVRIL printed in white letters.
Rose gulped. She knew the Gala des Gâteaux Grands was a big deal, but she wasn’t expecting banners the size of blimps.
Stefan held the back door open while Rose and Purdy and the rest of the family piled out of the car. As they pushed through the giant revolving glass door in the front of the centre, a nervous woman with short golden hair and extremely thin lips, which she’d painted fire-engine red, ran over.
“Rosemary Bliss?” she said, taking Purdy’s arm and pulling her towards a set of giant double doors. “You are late for the orientation! You must hurry!”
“No, no, I’m Purdy Bliss,” said Rose’s mother.
The woman stopped in her tracks and eyed the rest of the group suspiciously. “Then which one of you is Rosemary Bliss? Who is our chef?”
Rose hooked her thumb against the chest of her hooded sweatshirt. “Me?”
Confusion flashed across the red-lipped woman’s face. “Ah. I see. My name is Flaurabelle. I am chief assistant to Chef Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre. And you are late!” She ushered Rose through the double doors, with the rest of the Blisses following behind.
The room on the other side of the doors was immense. High ceilings arched overhead, with intricate hanging chandeliers. The floor was crowded with people sitting around large round tables. In the centre of each table was a giant crystal mixing bowl containing multi-coloured batter. All of the tables were filled except one.
Everyone turned to watch as the red-lipped woman led the Blisses to the empty table. Rose sat with Purdy and Ty on either side of her. “The batter is for decoration only,” the red-lipped woman warned in a whisper. “We already had an incident this morning. Please do not eat the batter.”
“OK,” Rose said quietly. She turned to the people glaring at them from a nearby table. “Sorry we’re late,” she said.
“Americans,” she heard someone sneer.
Just then the chandeliers went dark and a spotlight shone on a balcony on the back wall of the room. Pre-recorded orchestral music swelled as a man wearing a chef’s coat made entirely of red velvet appeared atop the balcony. The man was clearly old – not as old as Balthazar, but far older than Purdy and Albert – and completely hairless. His head was bald, his cheeks and chin were bald – he even lacked eyebrows. His bald head was small compared to his rotund belly, giving him the overall appearance of a turtle.
How do I get myself into these things? Rose wondered.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed an announcer, “please welcome the inventor of chocolate éclairs, the pre-eminent pastry chef of France, and most importantly, the founder of the Gala des Gâteaux Grands, Chef Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre!”
As the audience applauded, Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre reached up, took hold of a set of handlebars hanging above the balcony, and stepped over the railing. The spotlight followed him as he soared down a zip line from the balcony to a stage on the other side of the room.
Chef Jeanpierre landed on the stage in a rumpled pile of red velvet. He huffed and puffed his way to a standing position and approached a podium, his arms held up like he was the pope.
Rose’s stomach fluttered. She had read about Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre, of course. In a sense, he truly was the pope of baking. From her reading she knew that he took seven lumps of sugar in his morning coffee, that he’d had his hometown of St Aubergine renamed St Jeanpierre, and that he slept exclusively on pillows made of angel food cake, which he baked fresh every evening.
Whenever Rose thought that she’d become too obsessed with baking, she reminded herself about Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre.
Jean-Pierre’s eyes glimmered wide from behind his spectacles. He tapped the microphone, then said, “Bienvenue à la Gala des Gâteaux Grands.”
The room erupted into violent applause as everyone jumped to their feet and cheered.
“Please!” yelled Jean-Pierre. “Sit! Twenty of the world’s fiercest culinary competitors – and their assistants – are in this room,” said Jean-Pierre. “None of them as fierce as myself, of course, but this is why I exclude myself from competition.”
As Jean-Pierre was boasting, Rose glanced round the room. At one table sat a slight, bespectacled man with his arms folded, holding whisks like knives. In front of his plate was a name tag that read WEI WEN, CHINA.
At another table, a young man smirked behind a name tag labelled ROHIT MANSUKHANI, INDIA. At still another table sat a lithe blond man who looked to be eight feet tall: Dag Ferskjold, Norway. He peered at the ceiling with a thousand-yard stare. None of the other contestants looked particularly happy or excited.
“Each morning at 9am,” Jean-Pierre went on, “I will announce the surprise theme of the day. Past themes have included things like FLAKY. FLOURLESS. ROLLED. GREEN. Whatever crosses my mind as I wake. Where do the themes come from? Who knows!”
Rose turned round in her seat and glanced at the other side of the room. There was a tawny woman with short blonde hair gelled into spikes – Irina Klechevsky, Russia – and a tall bald man with exceedingly white teeth – Malik Hall, Senegal. There was a short man with sallow skin and big lips – Victor Cabeza, Mexico – and a handsome man with shoulder-length brown hair – Peter Gianopolous, Greece. There was Fritz Knapschildt from Germany, King Phokong from Thailand, Niccolo Puzzio from Italy, and many more, all grown-ups wearing stern, competitive looks. They were out for blood.
What am I doing here? thought Rose.
Rose was relieved to spot a table with two French girls who looked like they could be in high school. Their name tags read MIRIAM DESJARDINS, FRANCE and MURIEL DESJARDINS, FRANCE; and, upon closer examination, it seemed that they were identical twins, though one had long, brown hair and the other one had short, brown hair.
Ty had seen them, too. He was leaning as far back in his chair as he could, raising and lowering his eyebrows at them. The girls were too busy staring at Jean-Pierre to notice.
“After I announce the theme,” Jean-Pierre continued, “you will have one hour to collect a special ingredient of your own choosing. The rest of your ingredients must come from the Gala kitchen.”
It suddenly occurred to Rose that Aunt Lily was probably sitting somewhere in that room at that very moment. Rose looked around and finally spotted the producers of 30-Minute Magic, Ryan and Kyle, sitting at the table on the other side of the room. Both producers were typing on their phones; Lily herself was nowhere to be found.
Jean-Pierre paused for a minute to take a sip of tea. “At 10am, after you’ve collected your special ingredient, the competition will take place. There will be cameras filming you from every angle, capturing every turn of the spoon, every bead of sweat, every tear. You must love the cameras, and also ignore them.”
Rose prayed that she wouldn’t produce any tears for them to capture.
“After the baking you will face the judge’s table, where your desserts will be sampled by the judge, who is myself. After that, I will announce who will move on to the next day of competition and who will be sent back to their houses to cry and relive the painful memories of what they did wrong, over and over, for the rest of their lives.”
The audience tittered meanly.
“There will be five days of competition, with the final day being a face-off between the top two competitors.” Jean-Pierre paused to wipe his bare brow. “As always, competitors must work from memory. Anyone caught with a cookbook as they bake will be immediately tossed to the curb.”
The from memory part was what worried Rose the most. The recipes in the Bliss Cookery Booke relied on precision – any deviation could alter not only the taste and texture of whatever she was trying to bake, but its magical properties as well. She and her mother would have to memorise the magical recipes perfectly in the hour before the baking commenced – that is, if Balthazar could manage to translate them.
“And, as always, no one who has previously participated in the Gala des Gâteaux Grands may participate again. If your assistant has previously baked in this competition, you must find a new assistant!”
Rose stared at her mother. Her mother stared back. Don’t panic, she thought, trying to catch her breath. Grandpa Balthazar is a professional. He can be my assistant.
Balthazar was scratching Gus’s pinched, rumpled ears. Rose leaned over and whispered, “You can be my assistant, right, Grandpa Balthazar?”
Balthazar shook his head. “Nope. I competed in the first Gala des Gâteaux Grands in the nineteen fifties, when I was sixty-six. Lost flat-out. It was gruelling.”
Rose looked at her father. “I know you never competed, Dad,” said Rose.
Albert reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a brown paper bag, then held it to his mouth and began to hyperventilate. “Rose,” he managed in between puffs, “I can’t be in front of cameras. Or audiences. I’m too shy. I’ll get seasick. You’ll be better off with Ty. You two were a good team when your mum and I went off to Humbleton, right?”
“Thyme, my sweet,” said Purdy, “you’ll help Rosie, right?”
Ty perked up, staring joyfully at the table where Miriam and Muriel Desjardins sat. “Sure! I’ll get to be on TV, right?” Purdy nodded. “Anything for my beloved hermana.” Ty practically shouted when he said hermana, hoping the French girls would hear him.
They didn’t – but Jean-Pierre did.
“Shush your mouths!” he yelled. “You’ll have the rest of the day to sort out your pairings. I will see you all tomorrow morning at 9am for day one of the competition.”
With that, Jean-Pierre grabbed the handlebars, which hoisted him higher and higher until he disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.
Rose looked again at her brother Ty, who gave her a double thumbs-up sign.
We are going to lose, she thought.
(#ulink_a35d03dd-666f-5522-9e0a-f4700eb3743d)
THE NEXT DAY, Rose examined her little Gala kitchen in the expo centre. It was one of twenty that were connected by an aisle of black and white checkered tiles that led to a raised platform at the front of the room with a microphone and a long oak dining table.
Hanging above the row of kitchens were balconies draped in red velvet, like special box seats at an opera. In the balcony above her, Rose saw Balthazar and Gus sitting with her parents and Sage and Leigh.
Across the black-and-white-tiled aisle stood Lily’s kitchen. Lily was standing coolly behind a wooden chopping block, wearing, as usual, a black cocktail dress. She turned and winked at Rose as she tested the dials on her oven.
Rose sighed heavily, and Ty poked her in the shoulder. “What’s bugging you, mi hermana?”
“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.”
Gus was right – lovers did tend to congregate by water. The expo centre was only a few blocks from the Seine, the winding, snaky river that cut through Paris.
Rose reached up and scratched the soft grey fur under Gus’s chin.
If it’s possible for a cat to look bashful, at that moment, Gus did. “Thank you,” he said. “Now go.”
Though the riverbank was just a few minutes’ walk from the Hôtel de Ville expo centre, Sage complained the entire time.
“Why am I even here? You and Ty are gonna do all the baking, and I’m just supposed to watch?” he whined. “With all those cameras around? I should be in front of the cameras! I could launch my stand-up comedy career. But no, you two get to do everything important, as usual.”
Rose glanced over at Ty, then looked guiltily at the blue mason jar she was carrying, which she’d slathered on the inside with pale yellow almond butter. It was true. Sage rarely got the opportunity to do anything important. Of course, when he did, he usually made a mess of it.
“Why don’t you be in charge of collecting the sweet whispers?” said Rose. “In fact, you could collect all the special ingredients! We’ll do the baking, you’ll do the collecting, and then when we win, we’ll introduce you on camera and you can launch your stand-up comedy career.”
Ty looked at her like she was crazy, but Sage smiled and immediately stopped complaining. He took the blue mason jar from Rose and cradled it in his arms like it was an infant.
The morning light rippled across the Seine like a spilled canister of silver glitter. Rose thought that this may have been the most romantic place she’d ever seen, even more romantic than the overlook point on Sparrow Hill in Calamity Falls. She imagined building a hut on the stone riverbank and living there with Devin Stetson, baking croissants for passersby while he played guitar and collected change in a hat.
As she was plotting where on the river wall she’d build her hut, Rose spotted a man and a woman walking hand in hand. The man and the woman were staring at each other so lovingly and intently that the man tripped over a raised brick in the pavement and fell to his knees. The woman giggled as she hoisted him up again and kissed his cheek.
“Jackpot,” Rose said.
Sage nodded and scooted ahead, falling into step a few feet behind the couple. He opened the blue jar and held it up to the back of their heads, trailing behind as close as he could without running into them.
It worked for a few seconds, until Sage sneezed and the man whipped around. “What are you doing, kid?” he said.
Sage snapped the jar closed so as not to catch any less-than-sweet whispers in the almond butter. “Uhhh. . .”
Ty jogged over to Sage. “You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Ty said. “He’s collecting fireflies.”
“But it’s the daytime,” said the woman.
Ty covered Sage’s ears with his hands. “He thinks he’s collecting fireflies,” he whispered. “Poor kid hallucinates fireflies wherever he goes. Carries this jar everywhere and just keeps swiping it through the air. We don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.”
The man and woman nodded sympathetically as Ty removed his hands from Sage’s ears. “You keep chasing those fireflies, son!” the man said, rustling Sage’s curly red hair. The pair waved and headed off towards the Eiffel Tower.
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