I love my dolls because they never laugh at me or say they’re going to get me on the way home from school. We just sit here quietly and I pour tea into their cups (it’s just water, really) and I tell them what I’ve been doing at school that day. I don’t tell them about the nasty things because that would make them very sad.
Today, I tell them Mum wants me to make the cake for Dad’s birthday on Sunday. She’s going to let me mix the icing and decorate it and everything!
I’m so lucky to have my treehouse. I think maybe the reason Lucy Slater is angry with me is because her dad didn’t make her a treehouse like mine …
Chapter 1
I’m about to spread snowy white icing onto the perfect fairy cake, before adorning it with a sugary, melt-in-the-mouth pink rose, when a rail official walks into the carriage.
‘All tickets, please.’
Pulled from my daydream, I sit up and start scrabbling through my belongings, panicking that I might have lost my ticket. If only I could be more practical and less prone to disappearing into my imagination.
As an only child, I tended to escape into a comforting fantasy world in times of stress, and now – at thirty-two – I’m still a bit of a dreamer, although the days of being bullied at school are thankfully long behind me.
Something tells me I’ll have to start being super-practical if I’m going to run a successful café …
I boarded a train four hours ago in Manchester, where I’ve been studying at catering college for the past year, then I switched to this local line that will take me to the village of Hart’s End in Sussex, where I lived all my childhood. I’ve spent the time scribbling away in a notebook, composing a list of cakes, scones and tray bakes that will look good on a café menu. There’s a price beside each one, although I’m finding it hard to work out what customers would be prepared to pay. That’s why the page is full of scorings out and question marks.
Keeping busy like this also means I’m not worrying about Dad all the time.
We’re less than an hour away from Hart’s End now and my stomach churns constantly as I think about the life-changing steps I’m about to take.
I really need this café to be a success.
Honey Cottage, our family home, will have to be sold if I can’t step in and start paying the mortgage on it. With Dad in hospital, undergoing the cancer treatment that Mum and I desperately hope will save his life, the last thing my parents need is to be worrying that they’re going to lose their house. So that’s where I come in.
Twilight Wilson to the rescue!
My insides shift uneasily. I’ve always loved baking, but it’s a massive leap from turning out my favourite cakes in the warmth of my own kitchen to becoming a successful café owner …
Finally, I locate my ticket.
The only other passenger in the carriage – a woman who looks about my age, sitting further along, across the aisle – is having to buy her fare, and the rail official is gently reminding her that she really should have bought her ticket on the platform. He shrugs in a friendly way as he says it, and she pats her glamorous blonde up-do and gives him the benefit of a winsomely apologetic smile.
The instant he’s gone, the smile vanishes, like a light bulb being switched off. She raises her eyes to the ceiling with a look of contempt and gets back to her sporty-looking magazine.
The train slows down, entering a tunnel, and my reflection appears in the window, staring back at me from the darkness beyond. Fine, strawberry-blonde hair brushing my shoulders, wide-set blue eyes and too-plump lips that I’ve hated all my life. The rest of me is probably a little on the plump side, too, mainly because I love baking and you can’t be a baker and not sample the end results, can you? I’m also fairly short, so every calorie-laden mouthful tends to reveal itself elsewhere.
As a kid, I loved making cakes: experimenting with different flavours and textures. After a bad day at school, I could forget Lucy Slater and lose myself in the supremely soothing world of buttery cake mix, glorious home-baking smells and endless icing possibilities.
Baking is still my passion. It never fails to give me that comforting feeling of old. And I’ve been taking refuge in it even more lately, with Dad so very ill in hospital.
I hand over my ticket to be stamped. Then I sit back and close my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to be lulled by the gentle rocking movement of the train.
Minutes later, we pull into a station and people flood onto the train.
‘Is this seat free?’ says a deep voice.
I glance up. A tall man with dark hair and round, Harry Potter glasses is looking down at me quizzically, and I return his smile. ‘No, feel free.’
‘Thanks.’
He pushes the glasses further up his nose then hefts his sports bag onto the overhead rack. After zipping open the side pocket, he starts feeling around inside it. His pale blue T-shirt hitches up, revealing a glimpse of washboard stomach above long, muscular jean-clad legs. Quickly, I look away, out of the window.
But when he draws out a book and drops it on the table, the temptation to be nosy and read the title upside down is too great.
My brow knots in confusion.
Adventures with Crotches?
Crikey. That’s the sort of book to read on a Kindle so no one can actually see the title! He flings himself into the seat opposite me and I’m enveloped in the scent of eau de sporty man. It’s clear he’s been
