Bliss. Kathryn Littlewood

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      TO ROSE, THE prospect of helping Chip was far more terrifying than finding a slug.

      Chip, who had been Purdy’s kitchen helper since before Rose could remember, was already at the bakery, staring through the kitchen window, past the slug and past the swing and past the hedges, past Calamity Falls. He was bald and tanned and looked like he had just walked off a photo shoot for the cover of a bodybuilding magazine.

      The one conversation Rose had ever had with Chip involved the silver metal ID tags he wore on a chain round his neck.

      “Were you in the army, Chip?” she’d asked.

      “The marines,” he’d grunted.

      “Then why are you working as a helper in a bakery?” she’d asked.

      He squatted down so that his face was square with hers. He breathed noisily, staring her in the eye. “I like to bake,” he’d whispered.

      Rose pictured what the week ahead would be like – having to bake alongside the hulking bulk of Chip’s chiselled torso, and having to use the recipes in the boring old Betty Crocker cookbook, which Albert and Purdy had given to Chip before they left.

      “Here, Chip – use these recipes.”

      He’d snorted. “What about your special cookbook?”

      “This one is easier to read,” Purdy had said, handing him the paperback book with an ordinary cherry pie on the cover.

      She was terribly upset that her parents weren’t allowing them to use the magical Cookery Booke while they were away.

      It wasn’t fair. She had devoted her life to the bakery!

      It was Rose who woke up early to help her parents prepare for the day while other kids her age were still sleeping. It was Rose who came home straight after school because she was needed to help clean the bakery in the afternoons. And Rose did it all without complaining in the hope that one day she too would become a kitchen magician. And now her parents were denying her the only thing she’d ever wanted: to bake something magical.

      And it was Rose who got stuck helping her little sister when no one else wanted the job. Rose looked down at Leigh, who was digging a hole with her hands in which to bury the fallen slug.

      “I’m not in the mood for a funeral,” said Rose. “I’ll push you on the swing. Come on.”

      Leigh left the slug and bounded over to the swing, a wooden contraption that Albert had erected a year earlier. The wood was wet and green with mould, and the rusty chains creaked as Rose heaved her little sister back and forth.

      “Push!” Leigh pumped at the air as hard as she could by swinging her knobby knees. “Higher, Rosie, higher!”

      Leigh was wearing her filthy red-and-white-striped shirt and red-and-white-striped headband, the same ones she insisted on wearing every day. When they were absolutely covered with mud stains and juice spills and marker mishaps, Rose stole them from Leigh’s room while she was asleep and popped them in the wash.

      Haven’t I earned the right to try a little magic? thought Rose. When is all of this errand running and babysitting going to get me anywhere?

      A minute later, Rose heard the faint buzzing of a motorcycle. The sound drew closer and closer to the house. Rose’s heart thumped in her chest like an angry bullfrog trapped in a shoebox. She only knew one person in town who rode a motorcycle (or moped, anyway), and his name was Devin Stetson.

      Her mind raced to throw together a few things to say if he were to stop in her driveway and stroll into the back garden.

      Hi. How are you? My name is Rose. Have we met? Why are you in my back garden?

      He would say that he saw that caravan of police cars and was worried about her. Then he would say that he needed to get to Poplar’s Open-air Market because his father wanted to start making blueberry doughnuts, but he didn’t know where it was.

      I know where it is, she’d say. Let me show you.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ