A Spoonful Of Sugar: A Novella

Crisis averted. Sort of. I made my jam, but there wasn’t really enough time for it to set, so when I stuck the layers of my cake together it looked amazing for about thirty seconds and then started to slide, slowly, to one side.

I stared at it in dismay, wishing Harry had waggled her fingers and produced a jar of jam instead of just some raw ingredients, and righted it just as Lizzie and Peter appeared at the front of the room.

‘Time’s up,’ they called. ‘Step away from your cakes.’

We all carefully took our cakes up to the front and then perched on our stools waiting for the axe to fall.

For all his mess, Wilf’s cake looked amazing. He presented it proudly to the judges and listened with a grin as they praised him to the skies. Harry, June and Amelia also came in for lots of praise, especially Amelia, which made me scowl though I remembered just in time that there were cameras everywhere and fixed a smile to my face instead.

Ronald’s cream was over-whipped and his cake slightly caught round the edges, but Lizzie said it was beautifully presented – he’d cut out a stencil of a British flag and shaken icing sugar over the top, leaving the recognisable silhouette on top of his cake.

And then there was me. The top layer of my cake had almost completely slid off by the time Peter and Lizzie got round to trying it. My icing sugar topping had melted because I’d put it on when the cake was still warm. It wasn’t a bake to be proud of.

‘It tastes good,’ said Lizzie kindly.

‘You had a problem with your jam, didn’t you?’ Peter added. ‘I can see that’s where it’s gone wrong.’

I nodded, trying to look stoic and knowledgeable.

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

Peter nodded grimly.

‘Watch your timekeeping,’ he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I nodded.

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

Harry looked sympathetic, which was unusual for her.

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

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

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

‘This is nice,’ I said.

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

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

Harry chuckled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A flustered Portia appeared in the door of the marquee.

‘Don’t panic,’ she cried.

‘We’re not,’ I said under my breath.

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

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

I grinned. Surely we were out of there?

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