Bliss. Kathryn Littlewood

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СКАЧАТЬ side. Purdy and Albert looked at each other nervously while Purdy kept a hand on the Bliss Cookery Booke, which sat closed on the chopping block. When the book was open, it looked like a fat white bird spreading its wings; closed, it looked vulnerable, like a little loaf of brown bread.

      This is it,Rose thought. Someone has come for the book.

      Every Tuesday evening, Albert and Purdy went to two-for-one night at the Calamity Falls Movie Theatre and left their neighbour Mrs Carlson in charge. As Albert left, he’d always say, “Don’t let anyone in! It might be the government coming to steal our recipes!”

      The kids always laughed, but Rose knew that her father wasn’t really joking. She’d glimpsed pages in the book with medieval drawings of storms, fire, a wall of thorns, a man bleeding – recipes you wouldn’t want to fall into the hands of someone who might actually use them.

      Sage climbed up on the breeze block, but couldn’t see through the window. “What’s going on?” he asked.

      “They’re going to take the cookbook,” she said, struggling to push the words past a massive lump in her throat. She looked in at the strange cast-iron stove that sat like a dark beehive against one wall of the kitchen, at the row of glistening cherrywood cabinets that lined the other, at the tangle of racks and metal hooks that hung in a cluster from the centre of the ceiling and held at their ends every conceivable size of metal spatula and spoon, at the giant silver stand mixer that sat in the back corner, with a bowl so big that Leigh could (and sometimes did) climb inside, and a twirling dough hook the size of a rowing boat’s oar. She stared at everything her parents had built, shabby as it was, and stifled a sob.

      She imagined her parents locked in a dirty jail cell, her brothers begging on the streets, the country ruled by a mob of tyrannical bakers who used muffins and pies as their weapons of mass destruction.

      “I’ll stop them,” Sage muttered, and rushed around to the back door. He threw it open and shouted, “My parents didn’t do anything!”

      Albert and Purdy spun round inside the kitchen and tried to shush Sage, but it was too late. The woman in the navy trouser suit stared out of the back door and motioned for Sage and Rose to come inside.

      “My name is Janice ‘The Hammer’ Hammer,” she said. “I’m the mayor of Humbleton.” She flashed a strained smile, and Rose realised that though this wasn’t the friendliest woman she’d ever met, she wasn’t there to steal their book, either.

      “Why are the police here?” said Rose.

      “Those are cars that I had painted to look like police cars so that I’d look more intimidating whenever I went on a trip. The men inside are my colleagues on the Humbleton Board of Trustees. One is a florist, one is a lawyer and the third is a plumber who fills in when he doesn’t have any toilets to unclog.”

      “Isn’t it illegal to dress up like a police officer?” Sage prodded.

      Mayor Hammer just glared at him. “I came to ask your parents for help in fighting a summer flu in Humbleton. I’ve never seen one this bad – it’s like a plague. Rubbish bins overflowing with Kleenex. Doctors totally out of cough drops. The ear, nose and throat guy fleeing in terror to his condo in Florida. Wimp.”

      Albert and Purdy laughed nervously.

      “Anyway, I didn’t know what to do. But then I remembered your parents’ almond croissants – people swear they make fevers and runny noses just disappear. So I’ve come to beg for forty dozen.”

      Mayor Hammer turned back to Albert and Purdy. “I know it’s short notice, but I’ve run out of options.”

      Purdy wrung her hands. “We-we’d love to help,” she stammered, “but this kitchen really doesn’t have the capacity to make forty dozen croissants. We’re just a family bakery.”

      “Come to Humbleton, then!” blurted out Mayor Hammer. “You could feed an army out of the kitchen at Town Hall. You’ll make your almond croissants there. And then you’ll make pumpkin cheesecake.”

      “Pumpkin cheesecake?” asked Albert, his forehead wrinkling.

      Mayor Hammer reached into her black leather briefcase and pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping from the Calamity Falls Gazette. The headline read, “Ten-Year-Old Boy with Swine Flu Eats Bliss Pumpkin Cheesecake, Miraculously Cured.”

      Albert wiped his hands on his apron. “Ha! Wouldn’t that be something? That was just a tall tale, though. The kid was just faking so he could skip school.”

      Her parents never admitted to anyone but their children that Bliss baked goods had magic in them. “If word gets out about the magic,” Purdy always said, “then everyone will want it, and our little bakery won’t be our little bakery any more. It will become a giant factory. Everything would be ruined.”

      If anyone noticed the sometimes miraculous effects of the cookies, the cakes, the pies, Albert and Purdy would shrug it off, insisting that these were the standard benefits of a perfect recipe, well prepared.

      Rose, though, could still remember when that cheesecake had been made. She’d been watching from the stairs, observing how her parents had sifted the ingredients from a few different mason jars together one night after the bakery was closed, how a purple mist had risen from the bowl and swirled around her mother’s head, how the mixture had sizzled and popped, shooting off sparks of pink and green and canary yellow.

      What she wouldn’t give to bake like that! It was a kind of baking that commanded respect, even if the whole thing was kept a secret.

      Mayor Hammer tapped her foot impatiently. “I don’t care whether the cheesecake actually cures people or not – people love it, it makes them feel better, and that’s what we need.”

      Purdy made her voice soft and sweet as a chocolate chip cookie. “Well… how long do you need us?”

      “No more than a week,” said the mayor.

      Albert shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mayor Hammer. We’ve been open for twenty-five years, and we’ve never closed the bakery for more than a single day. There’s just no way we can leave for an entire week.”

      Mayor Hammer nodded to one of her bodyguards, who produced a leather-bound cheque book. She scribbled some numbers on a cheque and showed it to Albert and Purdy, who looked at each other in shock, like someone had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat – a very expensive, diamond-encrusted rabbit.

      Albert gasped. “So many zeros.”

      Purdy looked at Mayor Hammer with embarrassment. “We’ll do it—”

      “Oh, wonderful!” said Mayor Hammer, handing Purdy the cheque.

      Purdy tore the cheque into pieces. “You didn’t let me finish! We’ll do it, for free.”

      Rose smiled. Her parents could be the richest people in the world – CEOs wearing fancy grey suits, sipping fancy champagne, riding in the back of a fancy car, like Mayor Hammer – but they would rather live in the simple rooms above the cramped kitchen of their tiny bakery.

      Mayor Hammer reached across the chopping block and hugged Albert and Purdy to her chest. “We’ll take you on over as soon as you’re ready,” she said. “I’ll be waiting in the Hammer Hummer.”

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