A Spoonful Of Sugar: A Novella. Kerry Barrett

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.’

       Five

      Of course both my mum and Suky were thrilled to bits to let the bake-off contestants use their huge walk-in fridge, and so within minutes the competition was back on. Much to my disappointment.

      ‘So, the ovens are all working and there’s one fridge in here,’ Portia explained as we all gathered behind our benches once more. ‘That’s pretty much full now though, so if you need more space just nip out to the cafe where you can put things in their walk-in fridge.’

      ‘I’ll probably need that,’ Ronald said. ‘I’m moulding babies out of chocolate.’

      Babies made from chocolate? That took the edge off my piped question marks a bit. Never mind, I grudgingly accepted I had to give it a go. I was, after all, a goody-goody at heart and I always tried my best. Almost always.

      I started throwing together my cake mix and carefully divided it into two so I could dye one half pink and one half blue.

      As I watched the colour swirl into the batter, I rubbed my bump thoughtfully and the baby squirmed beneath my hand. I didn’t know what this baby was going to be and I didn’t really mind. Another girl like my lovely Clemmie would be great, but a little boy would be fab too. I adored Harry’s son Finn, and my husband Jamie already had a son – Parker – but he lived in America so we didn’t see much of him. I knew Jamie missed him like mad, as did I, so a baby boy would be a welcome addition to our brood.

      I wondered if Harry knew what my baby was. I suspected she did – she was a very good witch and she could pick up on all sorts of things. If she did, she was keeping it very quiet though and I appreciated that.

      I dolloped my pink mix into cupcake cases and put the tray in the oven, then started dripping blue colouring into the remaining mix. It didn’t look very nice.

      ‘I was going to do blue cakes,’ Amelia said, as I peered into my mixer in dismay. ‘But I’m not sure about blue food generally.’

      I gave her a withering look, which she blithely ignored.

      ‘I’m doing ducks instead,’ she said, even though I hadn’t asked. ‘Little rubber ducks made from pale-yellow fondant, perched on a swirl of blue buttercream.’

      Sure enough, I could see twenty-four tiny iced ducks lined up on her bench. They were really very good.

      ‘They’re lovely,’ I admitted, resisting the temptation to point out that blue icing was, strictly speaking, also blue food. Then I lowered my voice.

      ‘What’s everyone else doing?’

      Amelia moved closer to me.

      ‘June’s doing bootees,’ she said. ‘Wilf’s making baby faces out of icing – he’s really clever.’

      I grimaced, more sure than ever that my question marks would be overly simple.

      ‘Harry’s doing little peapods, I think,’ I said.

      Amelia made a face.

      ‘Pea pods?’ she said. ‘That doesn’t sound like a baby thing.’

      I