A Spoonful Of Sugar: A Novella

By Kerry Barrett

Competing with witches spells disaster…

When popular baking show Britain Bakes decides to televise their latest series on location in Claddach, Esme is thrilled. This will finally put her beloved hometown back on the tourist map, and revive the family’s cafe business.

But when her cousin Harmony insists that novice baker Esme join her as a contestant on the show, she panics – with no witching allowed on prime-time TV, this will be a question of focus over hocus pocus…

So once filming gets underway, Esme is surprised to find that she is actually enjoying herself, until strange ‘accidents’ start to befall the other contestants. Are they just run-of-the-mill baking mishaps, or is someone trying to sabotage the show? It looks like Esme may need to wave her magic spatula after all…

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Aug 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781474035897

Book preview

One

‘No,’ I said. ‘Absolutely not.’

I crumpled up the flyer and threw it into the bin.

‘No.’

My cousin Harmony – known as Harry – looked at me with disappointed eyes.

‘Okay, Esme.’ She shrugged. ‘If you’re absolutely sure. It’s just a shame though...’

‘Oh don’t do that,’ I said, feeling my resolve beginning to weaken and hating myself for it. ‘Don’t do that disappointed but resigned thing.’

Harry gave me a sad smile.

‘No, honestly, it’s okay,’ she said. ‘Would you mind ringing your mum and telling her it’s not happening? I’ve got some stuff to do.’

She got to her feet and picked up her jacket. I sighed.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

Harry squealed, which was very unlike her.

‘Really?’ she said.

I nodded glumly.

‘Really. But don’t expect me to be any good.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Harry said with a grin. ‘I’m good enough for both of us. I’ll ring them now and tell them you’re in.’

‘And don’t expect me to enjoy it either,’ I shouted at her back as she disappeared out of my office.

But either she didn’t hear me, or she didn’t care.

With some difficulty I fished the flyer out of the bin and smoothed it out on my desk, then I sat back in my chair and rested my hands on my bump. I was seven months’ pregnant with my second baby and I felt enormous. Absolutely the last thing I wanted to do was take part in a baking competition. Especially as I was no baker. But Harry was very persuasive and the fact was, I grimaced, she was right. Again.

Harry and I both lived in Edinburgh now but my mum, Tess, and Harry’s mum, Suky, lived in a small town called Claddach in the Scottish Highlands where they ran a cafe with their friend Eva. Eva’s husband Allan was an artist and he looked after the top floor of the loch-side, running it as a gallery and small arts centre. But a couple of years ago, a huge avalanche had cut off the town for a whole winter – making the bohemian tourists look elsewhere for their writing/painting/pottery/poetry retreats, and they’d never really come back. Businesses were suffering and something had to be done to put Claddach back on the map. And, much to my horror, Harry had decided she was the person to do it.

She’d found this baking competition – it was an annual thing apparently and very popular – and somehow convinced the organisers to hold it on the shores of the loch next to the cafe. She said the publicity would be worth thousands of pounds, and if we were to enter the competition, it would be even better.

I picked up the flyer and sighed. I supposed she had a point – it was a great opportunity. I just didn’t really want to be involved.

Britain Bakes! the paper said. Do you have what it takes to bake your way to the top? Then enter our tasty competition and prove it!

I shook my head. There were so many things wrong with this whole situation that I didn’t know where to begin.

For a start, like I said, I was pregnant. And grumpy. Sweating over an oven as I fended off midges on the shores of the loch was not how I planned to spend the last few weekends before my baby arrived. And there was the tiny problem that I was useless at baking. Mum was brilliant, my Auntie Suky was brilliant, Harry – I had to grudgingly admit – had recently discovered a talent for whipping up the most amazing cakes. But I was hopeless. I had no business entering a baking competition.

I peered at the flyer again. At the bottom was a logo. It was a large H with swirly writing around it. Highland Television it said. WHAT?!

Harry came back into the office, her phone in her hand.

‘It’s on bloody TV,’ I said. ‘It’s on Highland Television.’

‘Is it?’ Harry said. She didn’t sound very surprised.

‘You knew?’

‘Well, yes,’ she admitted, sitting down opposite me and thumbing through some papers on my desk. ‘But that’s why it’s so great. The cafe will get so much publicity. Claddach will look amazing. Tourists will flock there and takings will go through the roof.’

‘I don’t want to be on TV,’ I said. ‘What if someone I know sees it?’

‘They’re not likely to watch Highland Television, are they?’ Harry pointed out. ‘I think it’s got something like ten viewers.’

She didn’t quite meet my eye, though, so I suspected HTV got a lot more viewers than that.

‘Anyway, it’s too late,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s all sorted. There are six contestants, including us, two judges and loads of crew. Milicent’s beside herself with joy because they’re all staying at her B&B.’

I grinned. Milicent was the local hotelier. She was a real character with a heart of gold, and she would love all the extra people descending on Claddach.

‘We start filming next weekend.’

‘Next weekend!’ I practically shouted. ‘Aren’t there like auditions and heats and things to get through first?’

Harry looked shifty.

‘Well, yes there were,’ she said. ‘But I had a word with the producers and they saved two spots for us.’

‘A word?’ I said. ‘What word would that be? Abraca-bloody-dabra?’

Because that was the other thing about Harry and me. We were both witches. Just like our mums, and Eva – and my toddler daughter Clemmie, which was already proving to be a bit of a headache. But unlike Harry and the rest of my family, I wasn’t massively enthusiastic about witchcraft. I used it when I really had to – why clean the bathroom by hand? – but I wasn’t casting spells left, right and centre like the rest of them were.

I was fairly sure that Harry had used her magical skills of persuasion to get the producers to let us enter the competition at this late stage and probably to get them to hold the bloody thing in Claddach too.

Harry grinned at me.

‘It doesn’t matter how I did it,’ she said. ‘All that matters is we start filming next weekend.’

‘I’m busy next weekend actually,’ I said, sulking. ‘I’ve got things to do. We need to paint the baby’s room.’

Harry waved her hand as if that was a minor inconvenience.

‘You’ve got ages before the baby comes,’ she said.

‘And I can’t bake,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t be in the competition.’

‘They always have two local contestants,’ Harry said.

‘I can’t bake,’ I said again. ‘Just because you’re a bloody domestic goddess nowadays, you can’t assume everyone is.’

Harry laughed.

‘I’m not a domestic goddess but, yes, I can bake because I learned. And so can you.’

‘Not by next weekend,’ I wailed.

‘Oh we’ll sort it out,’ Harry said vaguely.

‘With magic?’ I was hopeful Harry could fix this, even if I couldn’t.

‘Erm, not really,’ Harry said.

‘Not really?’

‘Not at all.’

My jaw dropped.

‘What do you mean not at all?’

‘No magic allowed, I’m afraid,’ Harry said. ‘You know as well as I do that we can’t bake with magic – it just doesn’t work.’

‘What’s the point of entering then?’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘Well, it’s fun, isn’t it?’ said Harry. ‘And it’s nice for us all to get together.’

I put my head in my hands.

‘So how does it work?’ I said, dreading the answer.

‘They’re putting up a big marquee on the shores of the loch, right by the café,’ Harry said. ‘It’s going to be amazing. There will be ovens and fridges and mixers and everything we could possibly need inside there.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘It’s every weekend for six weeks – someone gets knocked out each weekend.’

‘I’ll be out first,’ I said, cheering up a bit. ‘So it’ll only be one weekend really.’

Harry shook her head at my lack of focus.

‘Anyway,’ she carried on. ‘Each week concentrates on a different aspect of baking. We do two challenges and the judges taste them and decide who’s going through to the next round and who isn’t. It’ssimple.’

‘Simple?’ I said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Simple.’

‘What’s the first week?’

‘Spongecakes,’said Harry. ‘Easy bloody peasy.’

‘Fine,’ I said, perking up at the thought of scoffing cake for days on end. ‘I’ll do some practice this week. Are you taking the kids?’

Harry and her wife Louise had twins – Fiona and Finlay – who were three years old, adorable, and, in my opinion, out of control.

‘No way,’ she said. ‘Louise will be fine at home with them. Jamie can look after Clemmie on his own, can’t he? She’s no trouble.’

I wasn’t so sure about that, not now my cute Clemmie had started experimenting with her new-found witching skills. But the thought of an unbroken night’s sleep was too good to resist.

‘He’ll love it,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it.’

Two

‘Are you trembling?’ Harry looked at my hands in suspicion. ‘You are, you’re all shaky.’

‘I’m nervous,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been on television before, I can’t bake, I’m too fat to do up my own shoelaces and, altogether, this is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done.’

Harry gave me a look that suggested I’d just grown an extra head.

‘It’s going to be fun,’ she said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s just my idea of fun is normally very different from yours. Can we drive down? I’m not walking.’

We had arrived in Claddach, the tiny town where we’d grown up, super-early that morning after driving up in Harry’s car. The competition was taking place down in the town, on the shores of the loch and close to Mum’s cafe. I was keen to see what it would be like after Harry’s talk of marquees and what not. We’d not seen anything yet as the road from Edinburgh skirted Claddach itself and wound up into the Cairngorms where our house was perched in the foothills and where we now stood, contemplating the road in front of us.

It was a beautiful day but the walk into Claddach was pretty steep and I knew that while I might manage to waddle down the slope, the chances of me waddling back up again were slim.

I sighed heavily and stuck my bump out, and Harry rolled her eyes.

‘Okay, fatso,’ she said. She beeped the car doors and I, rather inelegantly, wedged myself into the passenger seat.

‘So what should I expect?’ I asked as Harry pulled out on to the