He reappeared a moment later carrying a dusty tome at least a foot thick, bound in ancient, disintegrating leather. He laid the book gingerly on the table and blew softly on the cover. A puff of black dust flew in Leigh’s face.
“Is it customary in the land of Mexico to blow clumps of dust into the faces of small children?” Leigh coughed.
Gus bolted upright and dropped the shell of the cream puff he’d been licking back into his metal bowl. “I’m sorry; did the toddler just speak like a grown lady?”
“Of course I did!” Leigh answered indignantly. “This, from the talking cat!”
Rose peered at the book, which was thicker than her head. There were symbols printed on the cover, none of which she recognised.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“It means ‘Bliss Cookery Booke’ in Sassanian,” the old man said. “Sassanian’s a dead language that was spoken by a tribe of ancient shamans in the Fertile Crescent. They made their medicines of wheat and honey and other sweet ingredients – those were the first magical bakers.”
Balthazar pulled a short stack of parchment from the back of the Booke and slapped it down on the table. Recipes. They were written in English in perfect calligraphy, not a stroke out of place. “These,” he said, “are the translations I’ve done so far. Nine in all.”
“You’ve only translated nine recipes?” Albert asked, scratching at his beard and fanning out his armpits.
“Do you know how hard Sassanian is to decipher? I’m not about to do a rush job on something so important!”
“He’s a bit. . . fastidious,” Gus added.
“This, from a cat,” Balthazar countered.
“We need access to as many recipes as is humanly possible by the time the Gala begins,” said Purdy.
“And when’s that?” said Albert.
“Day after tomorrow,” said Purdy, pushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead. “We fly to Paris in just a few hours. Looks like we’re toast.”
Rose’s heart plummeted. It was over before it ever began. There was no way she’d be able to defeat Lily – not when Lily had the Cookery Booke, not when Rose had nothing but her skills as a baker. It might have been different if she were able to read Sassanian, but now. . .
Balthazar stared off into the sky for a moment, snarling one side of his lip.
“You’re just going to have to bring me along then,” he announced, coughing. “I’ll go pack my bags.”
ROSE SQUIRMED IN her seat aboard the 747 flying her and her family to Paris. The cabin lighting had been dimmed, and the muted roar of the jet engines was soothing; but Rose was having trouble falling asleep.
Her great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar was across the aisle from her, snoring. For the last hour, she’d watched a single droplet of spittle dangle from the corner of his mouth, then tuck itself up again, back and forth like a yo-yo, shivering with each massive snore, while Gus the cat, strapped into a baby sling against Balthazar’s heaving, snoring chest, looked out in fury.
On the other side of Balthazar, Ty fiddled with a video game. Sage had pulled his legs on to the seat and fallen asleep Indian style, his hands on his knees.
“Excuse me, sir,” said a voice from behind her. Rose craned her neck around the seat to check on her baby sister, who’d grabbed the sleeve of a passing flight attendant. “I am very sorry to bother you. This juice box is a little saccharine and, frankly, unappealing.”
The flight attendant gaped at the child, speechless.
From the next seat, Albert clapped a hand over Leigh’s mouth. “She’s fine with the juice box. Thank you.”
Rose flopped back into her seat, a hot ball of anxiety churning in her stomach like a hurricane. She’d never felt so awful.
Purdy was sitting beside her. She reached over and took Rose’s hand in hers. “I can practically hear your mind racing, Rosie.”
Rose buried her head into the crook of her mother’s arm. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mama,” she said. “What if I get the measurements wrong? What if I can’t beat the egg whites fast enough? What if I sweat into the cupcakes, or just crumble and start crying, right there on TV?”
Purdy laughed. “Listen. You’re a master already. You wanted more responsibilities in the kitchen; you got ’em. You’ve been an incredible sous-chef for the past nine months, even though the baked goods haven’t been as magical as we’d like them to be. Now it’s time for me to be your sous-chef; I’ll be right there beside you every minute. And remember, I competed at the Gala when I was fifteen and came in third, with no sous-chef! So just imagine how well we’ll do together!”
And it was then that the shaking in Rose’s hands and the gurgling in her stomach finally abated, and her racing thoughts slowed to a jog, then a stroll, then sat down in the middle of her head and went to sleep.
Rose jolted awake as the jet touched down and bumped along the runway. Wiping sleep from her eyes, she leaned over her mother and looked out the window. Before this, Rose’s whole world had been no bigger than Calamity Falls, with the occasional trip to her Aunt Gert Hogswaddle’s house in the neighbouring county of Humbleton. Now it had burst at the seams and expanded to include the entire Atlantic Ocean.
The Bliss family got off the plane and picked up their luggage. Rose ogled all the signs written in French and listened to the French announcements piped in over the loudspeaker, none of which she understood. It was a new feeling, being a foreigner.
Riding in his baby sling on Balthazar’s chest, Gus the Scottish Fold looked vaguely bored. Ty, on the other hand, swaggered through the long hall of the airport like he was having the time of his life. “Hola,” he said over and over again, in a near-whisper, to every long-legged woman they passed.
“We’re in France, Ty,” Rose reminded her brother. “Not Spain.”
“Maybe some of these ladies are here on vacation from Spain,” he retorted.
Sage was trying to imitate Ty’s confident swagger. “¡Hola!” he called to a girl in a pink dress, and received a glare in response.
At the end of the long corridor was a man in a black suit and white gloves. He was holding up a poster board with BLISS printed on it in block letters.
Albert shook his hand. “Hi, hi,” he said nervously, scratching the back of his head. “We’re the Blisses. Last time we checked!”
“Oui,” said the driver, the French word for yes, Rose knew.
The driver eyed Balthazar and Al cautiously. “Welcome to Paris,” he said. “I am Stefan. Your car is right this way.”
“To the Hôtel de Notre Dame, then?” Albert asked, fiddling with a few stapled papers on which he had printed their itinerary.
“No, no!” yelled Stefan. “The hotel will have to wait. You are late for the Gala orientation meeting with Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre, which means you are already treading on thin ice.”
They had only just arrived, and already Rose was in trouble.
Rose’s jaw dropped as Stefan stopped the car in front of the expo centre. It was a massive glass building with enormous banners on each side of the entrance. The banners were covered