Balthazar was scratching Gus’s pinched, rumpled ears. Rose leaned over and whispered, “You can be my assistant, right, Grandpa Balthazar?”
Balthazar shook his head. “Nope. I competed in the first Gala des Gâteaux Grands in the nineteen fifties, when I was sixty-six. Lost flat-out. It was gruelling.”
Rose looked at her father. “I know you never competed, Dad,” said Rose.
Albert reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a brown paper bag, then held it to his mouth and began to hyperventilate. “Rose,” he managed in between puffs, “I can’t be in front of cameras. Or audiences. I’m too shy. I’ll get seasick. You’ll be better off with Ty. You two were a good team when your mum and I went off to Humbleton, right?”
“Thyme, my sweet,” said Purdy, “you’ll help Rosie, right?”
Ty perked up, staring joyfully at the table where Miriam and Muriel Desjardins sat. “Sure! I’ll get to be on TV, right?” Purdy nodded. “Anything for my beloved hermana.” Ty practically shouted when he said hermana, hoping the French girls would hear him.
They didn’t – but Jean-Pierre did.
“Shush your mouths!” he yelled. “You’ll have the rest of the day to sort out your pairings. I will see you all tomorrow morning at 9am for day one of the competition.”
With that, Jean-Pierre grabbed the handlebars, which hoisted him higher and higher until he disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.
Rose looked again at her brother Ty, who gave her a double thumbs-up sign.
We are going to lose, she thought.
THE NEXT DAY, Rose examined her little Gala kitchen in the expo centre. It was one of twenty that were connected by an aisle of black and white checkered tiles that led to a raised platform at the front of the room with a microphone and a long oak dining table.
Hanging above the row of kitchens were balconies draped in red velvet, like special box seats at an opera. In the balcony above her, Rose saw Balthazar and Gus sitting with her parents and Sage and Leigh.
Across the black-and-white-tiled aisle stood Lily’s kitchen. Lily was standing coolly behind a wooden chopping block, wearing, as usual, a black cocktail dress. She turned and winked at Rose as she tested the dials on her oven.
Rose sighed heavily, and Ty poked her in the shoulder. “What’s bugging you, mi hermana?”
“This whole thing, it’s too much pressure,” she said.
Ty tousled her stringy black hair. “Don’t worry, Rose. You’re the best there is. And you’ve got me right here, all the way.”
Ty had been so nice to Rose in the previous nine months that she almost couldn’t believe it. But nice wasn’t going to help her get the Booke back. She needed expert assistance. Still, it was comforting to have her older brother beside her.
“Thanks, Ty,” she said.
Rose peered round her kitchen once more. On one side of the oven was a red refrigerator, and on the other was a wooden bookcase that served as a pantry. There were clear mason jars of flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and cocoa powder, plus a brightly coloured cardboard box hidden in the back.
“What’s this?” Ty asked Rose, picking up the box.
Rose took the box from Ty and recognised it immediately as a box of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. “No!” said Rose. “What’s this doing here?”
Rose marched across the aisle of black and white tiles and stopped short in front of Lily’s wooden chopping block.
“Why is this in my kitchen?” she demanded.
“It’s in everyone’s kitchen!” Lily replied, brushing a strand of black hair from her cheek. “I donated it, so it’s part of everyone’s allowable pantry items. Anyone can add a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient – I think it’ll really improve their results.”
“It’ll improve your results, you mean!” Rose cried. “Anyone who eats this stuff waxes poetic about you! The judge will just start talking about how amazing you are!”
“Can I help it if it has that particular side effect?” Lily winked.
The expo centre suddenly went dark, and Rose hurried back to her own kitchen. A set of roving purple spotlights focused on the centre of the ceiling, where a giant cupcake with a hollow centre hovered like a hot-air balloon.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed an announcer, “please welcome the inventor of crêpes suzette, the champion pastry chef of France, and the founder of the Gala des Gâteaux Grands: Chef Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre!”
Orchestra music soared as the giant cupcake sank slowly to the ground. Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre stepped out of it, dressed in his coat of red velvet, his hands clasped atop his wide belly. His beady eyes peered from behind his glasses as he stared out over the crowd.
He raised a microphone to his lips and said, “Remember, after I announce the theme, you’ll have precisely one hour to plan and to gather your one special ingredient, one that is not found in the pantry.”
“So now Lily can combine her Magic Ingredient with any of the magical recipes in the Booke, which will make it infinitely more powerful!” whispered Rose. “Can you believe this, Ty?”
But Ty was too busy staring across the black-and-white-tiled aisle. Miriam and Muriel Desjardins were looking casually at Ty. Ty was pretending not to notice, staring into the distance with his eyes wide and his mouth pursed, as if he were writing the lyrics to a painful love song in his head.
The twins had perfect faces, with sparkling eyes and pouting lips, chic haircuts, and expensive-looking clothes. They looked a year or two older than Ty, and an inch or two taller. They were definitely out of his league, but he would be the last one to admit it.
“And now. . . ,” Jean-Pierre said over the thunder of a drumroll, “the theme of the day is. . . SWEET! You may interpret the theme however you wish. The cooking will commence in one hour. Go. Now!”
The lights snapped back to full in the room and the spectators in the opera boxes clapped as all of the bakers and their assistants began to confer in heated whispers.
SWEET. Rose could bake a hundred versions of the common cupcake, but today she was competing not only against the best bakers in the world, but also against her Aunt Lily, who could make any magical recipe in the Cookery Booke, plus add a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. To make it through this first round, she would need something from the Bliss Cookery Booke, and for that she needed Purdy and Balthazar.
As she waited for her mother and great-great-great-grandfather to join her on the expo floor, Rose glanced over at Lily. Lily was conferring with an impossibly small man wearing a calico jumpsuit of purple, white, and gold satin, the kind you’d find on a medieval clown. He was little, but he wasn’t proportioned like a dwarf – it was as if he was a typically sized man who had been shrunken down. The top of his head barely reached Lily’s hip. He had tanned skin, a bald head, thick black eyebrows, and a long, black moustache.
Lily’s assistant? Rose wondered.
Balthazar and Purdy hurried up, with Albert, Sage, and Leigh trailing behind.
“Look at this,” said Rose, holding up the box of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. “She donated this to the Gala. Everyone’s pantry is stocked with it.”
“That wicked cheater!” Purdy yelled.
“I