Changed For The Better

Cupcakes

While we waited for the cakes to bake, and after we had done all the washing and drying up, Agatha and I were sat calmly in the lounge. I was watching some film that was on tv, and just like a typical Grandma or  something, Agatha was sitting on an armchair and had some knitting on her lap.

"What are you making?" I asked, as the adverts came on.

"It's going to be a blanket, for you"

"For me?"

"Yeah, sort of like a welcome home present. And that bedroom of yours gets so cold, specially this time of year since it's much colder outside. So I thought I could make you a little something to keep you warm"

"Wow, that's amazing. How did you learn to do that?" I asked as I watched what she was doing. I couldn't make sense of it just by watching her, but she was moving quickly and you could see the blanket growing slowly as she went.

"It was actually my mum who taught me" she said, then suddenly stopped. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it..."

"No it's fine. I don't mind people talking about it, we have to talk about it really. It would be selfish of me if I stopped people around me from talking about their parents just because of what happened to my parents. I'm learning to accept it. I know I will never be over it, but I'm learning to live with it."

"Wow" she said. "How can you deal with so much at such a young age?"

I shrugged. "It is hard, but you get through it eventually. Luckily, once I moved to the dumping ground I had friends and carers who supported me through it and helped me realise that, as bad as it sounds, it is something you can get over. And with every bodies help, I have learned to find happiness again"

"That really is amazing. I'm so proud of you" she said. Luckily, the alarm on the oven started going off so she went to go and get the cupcakes out of the oven. I waited for a few seconds then decided to follow her through to the kitchen.

She was using the oven gloves to place the cakes out onto the stove top. They looked slightly golden brown and were very well risen, way better than I've ever been able to do before. Maybe because back at the dumping ground we had to use Yorkshire pudding tins rather than muffin tins.

We set them out on the side to cool down and Agatha returned to her knitting while I went upstairs to my room to get a hold of Ryan. I didn't really care about whatever was on tv and things were really starting to get awkward between Agatha and I. We were running out of conversations that weren't too sensitive, so I thought we should have a short break, before we get back to icing them. 

Mike was still working in his office. I never thought that care workers would have stuff that they need to do at home, almost like homework. But this whole time, Mike has been working non stop. i don't even think I have ever had that much homework to do.

I grabbed my phone and rang Ryan. Maybe for the first time since we met, he didn't pick up. It went through to answer phone after ringing for a few moments. I'm sure he was just busy or something, so I didn't bother leaving him a voicemail.

I'm sure he will see the missed call and ting me back or text me or something. And it isn't like I had anything massively important to tell him. I can invite him over whenever, and I'll see him at half eight tomorrow morning at school anyway.

I put my phone down and sort of flopped back on the bed. What do people do when they don't have other people around them? I'm not used to this, which is weird since before going to the dumping ground I lived just with my aunt, but she never really cared for me being there.

I was always by myself, but now I can't remember what I used to do. How did I fill my time? Somehow I feel like if I had homework right now I would be happy to do it. But of course, when I have a load of spare time, I don't have anything to do.

I checked my phone again to see if Ryan was there, even though I knew he wasn't since the phone never went off and my sound is on full volume. I looked around the room and became increasingly aware of the size of the room.

What are we going to do when Ryan is here? What is there to do here that we don't do anywhere else? Since we won't be spending as much time together as we used to, we should take advantage of the time we have together. So no more just sitting down and watching films all the time. Not never, but just not as often.

Baking is off the list as well since we only baked today, and I'm very sure Agatha won't want me baking anything else before we eat all of the cupcakes. Speaking of cupcakes, it's been a while, so it's probably about time to ice them now.

----------

We were back in the kitchen. I was stood above the pan where we were melting some white chocolate, that we were using to make some icing to go on the cupcakes. I kept stirring the chocolate while Agatha got all the cupcakes out, as well as the sprinkles to go on top.

Once the chocolate was melted, Agatha took it to the countertop and added butter and icing sugar before intensely whisking it. She spilled some icing sugar onto the ground which made me laugh. At first she was stone faced, then she laughed as well.

She flicked some sugar in my direction, so I blew some back at her. We were both laughing hard, but soon realised that we weren't getting things done, and got back to the baking. she filled two piping bags with the icing and showed me how to do it.

She effortlessly created a swirly mountain of icing on top of one of the cupcakes. I tried and failed miserably. She looked at me and laughed again, before wrapping her hands over mine and guiding me, which turned out significantly better.

We did half of them each, and I'm semi-convinced that she is a cake maker in disguise. Her cakes were so neat and tidy and could have been sold in a shop. Mine on the other hand, sort of looked like a five year old had made them.

Still, they could have been worse. They were acceptable for a first attempt, but I bet if Kazima was here she would show me how it's done. After that, all that was left to do was to sprinkle the sprinkles on, and even I couldn't mess that up.

Agatha got out a foldaway cupcake stand and presented the cupcakes on it. They looked awesome! I ran upstairs, grabbed my phone which still had no messages and took a photo. That is ho proud I was.

Agatha and I decided to taste one now, but then save them for after dinner. I unwrapped my first one, which was the terrible attempt at icing. Always get rid of the bad looking ones first. They tasted great, how have I never heard of funfetti before? I feel like I've been so deprived before now.

Agatha made Mike some tea, and I took his tea, as well as a cake, along to the office where he was working. I knocked on the door before slowly pushing it open.

He was on the phone and smiled at me when I walked in. He sounded quite frustrated at whoever was on the phone to him, so I simply set the cupcake and tea down on his desk and left him to it, specially since whatever it is he is talking about is not my business to hear.

I made sure to give Mike one of the good cakes though. He knows how bad I am at stuff, but he doesn't need to know that I failed when with Agatha, the literal god of cake making.