A Spoonful Of Sugar: A Novella

She’d found this baking competition – it was an annual thing apparently and very popular – and somehow convinced the organisers to hold it on the shores of the loch next to the cafe. She said the publicity would be worth thousands of pounds, and if we were to enter the competition, it would be even better.

I picked up the flyer and sighed. I supposed she had a point – it was a great opportunity. I just didn’t really want to be involved.

Britain Bakes! the paper said. Do you have what it takes to bake your way to the top? Then enter our tasty competition and prove it!

I shook my head. There were so many things wrong with this whole situation that I didn’t know where to begin.

For a start, like I said, I was pregnant. And grumpy. Sweating over an oven as I fended off midges on the shores of the loch was not how I planned to spend the last few weekends before my baby arrived. And there was the tiny problem that I was useless at baking. Mum was brilliant, my Auntie Suky was brilliant, Harry – I had to grudgingly admit – had recently discovered a talent for whipping up the most amazing cakes. But I was hopeless. I had no business entering a baking competition.

I peered at the flyer again. At the bottom was a logo. It was a large H with swirly writing around it. Highland Television it said. WHAT?!

Harry came back into the office, her phone in her hand.

‘It’s on bloody TV,’ I said. ‘It’s on Highland Television.’

‘Is it?’ Harry said. She didn’t sound very surprised.

‘You knew?’

‘Well, yes,’ she admitted, sitting down opposite me and thumbing through some papers on my desk. ‘But that’s why it’s so great. The cafe will get so much publicity. Claddach will look amazing. Tourists will flock there and takings will go through the roof.’

‘I don’t want to be on TV,’ I said. ‘What if someone I know sees it?’

‘They’re not likely to watch Highland Television, are they?’ Harry pointed out. ‘I think it’s got something like ten viewers.’

She didn’t quite meet my eye, though, so I suspected HTV got a lot more viewers than that.

‘Anyway, it’s too late,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s all sorted. There are six contestants, including us, two judges and loads of crew. Milicent’s beside herself with joy because they’re all staying at her B&B.’

I grinned. Milicent was the local hotelier. She was a real character with a heart of gold, and she would love all the extra people descending on Claddach.

‘We start filming next weekend.’

‘Next weekend!’ I practically shouted. ‘Aren’t there like auditions and heats and things to get through first?’

Harry looked shifty.

‘Well, yes there were,’ she said. ‘But I had a word with the producers and they saved two spots for us.’

‘A word?’ I said. ‘What word would that be? Abraca-bloody-dabra?’

Because that was the other thing about Harry and me. We were both witches. Just like our mums, and Eva – and my toddler daughter Clemmie, which was already proving to be a bit of a headache. But unlike Harry and the rest of my family, I wasn’t massively enthusiastic about witchcraft. I used it when I really had to – why clean the bathroom by hand? – but I wasn’t casting spells left, right and centre like the rest of them were.

I was fairly sure that Harry had used her magical skills of persuasion to get the producers to let us enter the competition at this late stage and probably to get them to hold the bloody thing in Claddach too.

Harry grinned at me.

‘It doesn’t matter how I did it,’ she said. ‘All that matters is we start filming next weekend.’

‘I’m busy next weekend actually,’ I said, sulking. ‘I’ve got things to do. We need to paint the baby’s room.’

Harry waved her hand as if that was a minor inconvenience.

‘You’ve got ages before the baby comes,’ she said.

‘And I can’t bake,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t be in the competition.’

‘They always have two local contestants,’ Harry said.

‘I can’t bake,’ I said again. ‘Just because you’re a bloody domestic goddess nowadays, you can’t assume everyone is.’

Harry laughed.

‘I’m not a domestic goddess but, yes, I can bake because I learned. And so can you.’

‘Not by next weekend,’ I wailed.

‘Oh we’ll sort it out,’ Harry said vaguely.

‘With magic?’ I was hopeful Harry could fix this, even if I couldn’t.

‘Erm, not really,’ Harry said.

‘Not really?’

‘Not at all.’

My jaw dropped.

‘What do you mean not at all?’

‘No magic allowed, I’m afraid,’ Harry said. ‘You know as well as I do that we can’t bake with magic – it just doesn’t work.’

‘What’s the point of entering then?’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘Well, it’s fun, isn’t it?’ said Harry. ‘And it’s nice for us all to get together.’

I put my head in my hands.

‘So how does it work?’ I said, dreading the answer.

‘They’re putting up a big marquee on the shores of the loch, right by the café,’ Harry said. ‘It’s going to be amazing. There will be ovens and fridges and mixers and everything we could possibly need inside there.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘It’s every weekend for six weeks – someone gets knocked out each weekend.’

‘I’ll be out first,’ I said, cheering up a bit. ‘So it’ll only be one weekend really.’