The Final Endgame.

Chapter 8

The following morning, at about ten, I came down the stairs, again in my little blue dress, to find that everyone seemed to be in the bakery. Having been enticed in by the frankly gorgeous smell, I found myself slap bang in the center of a culinary tornado.

"Morning, dearie!" Mrs. Smart smiled, mixing bowl in one hand and spoon in the other. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah" I replied, as Tarquin barged past me with a baking tray full of delicious-smelling god knows what. "What's going on?"

Smart replied, from the corner where he was busy piping away at a cake.

"Mother's had an order in" he explained. "We knew it was coming-that's why Quinne came down, you see. To help out. Trouble is, it's slightly bigger than we anticipated. Fancy lending a hand?"

"I can't really bake..." I began.

"No problem, dearie" Mrs. Smart cut in. "You can fetch and carry, and roll out dough, and time things as they go in the oven. No actual baking skills required. Aprons are on the back of the door."

I grabbed a smallish-looking lime green one that clashed awfully with my dress, and slipped it over my head. Mrs. Smart then set me off on making fondant flowers, something which, after a few failed attempts, I found my small fingers and attention to detail actually really helped with. Unfortunately, though, I hardly ever had chance to do any, since the minute I was settled I had to get up again to fetch some more butter from the larder. Then, we ran out of eggs, and I had to take over Tarquin's duties whilst he ran out to get some.

"Allie?" Smart called, as his older brother returned, eggs in hand, huffing. "Could you get something out of that cupboard for me?"

"What?" I asked, skipping out of Tarquin's way and crossing to said cupboard, opening it.

"Green food dye" Smart replied, still focused on his task in hand. I grabbed a stool, as this particular cupboard was too high up for me to reach.

"Tobias, why do you need green food dye?" Smart's mother demanded, whilst pushing a tray of cookies into the oven and setting the timer beside it.

"I was going to do some fondant stems for the flowers on this" Smart replied, a little defensively, and I got the feeling he was not about to get his way.

"Why on earth are you putting flowers on that one?" his mother demanded, scooping another bowl out of the sink and cracking some of the newly bought eggs into it. "We've already got flowers on one set of cupcakes, and the miniature Victoria Sponges!"

"This is a 50th anniversary, Toby, not a flower show!" Tarquin added wickedly, and as Smart scowled at his brother I held in giggles.

"Tarquin, be nice to your brother! It's not like you haven't made some disastrous mistakes in your time!" Mrs. Smart scolded, and now it was Smart's turn to grin. I decided they were all getting off topic.

"So what do you want from this cupboard?" I asked meaningfully, rattling the handles to get their attention.

"Get the berry syrup from Halloween!" Tarquin smirked. "Give the old ladies a fright with some bloody Madeiras!"

"I'll give you a fright if you don't shut your snarky mouth and get to work, Tarquin Smart!" his mother snapped, brandishing a fork at her eldest son. Tarquin shut up very quickly.

"Get the blue and the red food colouring, and mix as little of them as possible to make a pale purple" Smart told me, smiling tiredly.

"Miss Winter, get just the red. He may be a genius, but he knows nothing about colours" Mrs. Smart cut in. I got the red food colouring. But it seemed the argument wasn't over yet.