Sweet. Kathryn Littlewood

Paris, that young Philippe Canard did confess to Sir Falstaffe Bliss that his sole wish on the occasion of his fifth birthday was that his notoriously sour, crabby, ill-tempered, and otherwise foul Grandmother might grant him a smile. Sir Bliss did feed these sweet cookies to the Countess Fifi Canard, who, at the occasion of Philippe’s birthday party, did hoist Philippe into her arms, kiss his cheek, and smile so sweetly that young Philippe himself did smile for the remainder of his life.

      Sir Bliss did place four fists of WHITE FLOUR in the centre of the wooden bowl. Into the flour he cracked one of the CHICKEN’S EGGS, then poured an acorn of VANILLA and one staff of melted COW’S BUTTER. Afterward, he did add the LOVER’S SWEET WHISPERS, congealed in almond butter.

      “So that’s our one special ingredient,” Ty said. “‘Lovers’ sweet whispers in almond butter.’ That should be easy enough to get. I’ll just whisper into a jar.”

      Balthazar rolled his eyes. “No, kid. You’ll need the sweet whispers of two people who are in love, not one person who wishes he was in love.”

      “Burn, Abuelo,” Ty replied. “Burn.”

      There were a few more instructions, and then the recipe ended with:

      He did rest the cake in the oven HOT as SEVEN FLAMES for the TIME of SIX SONGS and then fed the cookies to the sour Countess, who remained sweet thereafter.

      Just then Lily walked up, arm in arm with Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre. The short man she’d been talking with earlier was nowhere to be seen.

      “Look!” Lily said, pointing at the scrap of paper with the recipe. “They’re cheating!”

      Purdy stepped between Lily and the recipe. “Lily, if you sunk any lower, they’d have to dredge you up from the bottom of the Seine.”

      Lily smiled at Jean-Pierre. “I really hate to have to tattle on children,” she said. “I’m just trying to protect the integrity of the Gala.”

      Albert stepped in with a toothy grin. “No rule violations here, sir! The rules prohibit using a cookbook while baking. The kids have merely planned out their recipe. The paper will be gone come competition time.”

      Gus, still in the baby sling on Balthazar’s chest, swatted Rose’s ear till she leaned close, his whiskers tickling her cheek. “If I were you, I’d go now and get those sweet whispers. An hour goes by faster than you think.”

      “But where are we going to get lovers’ sweet whispers?” Rose asked.

      Gus squinted a minute, thinking. “In my first marriage, my dear Hilarie and I often exchanged sweet nothings while catching mice along the River Thames in London.”

      Gus was right – lovers did tend to congregate by water. The expo centre was only a few blocks from the Seine, the winding, snaky river that cut through Paris.

      Rose reached up and scratched the soft grey fur under Gus’s chin.

      If it’s possible for a cat to look bashful, at that moment, Gus did. “Thank you,” he said. “Now go.”

      Though the riverbank was just a few minutes’ walk from the Hôtel de Ville expo centre, Sage complained the entire time.

      “Why am I even here? You and Ty are gonna do all the baking, and I’m just supposed to watch?” he whined. “With all those cameras around? I should be in front of the cameras! I could launch my stand-up comedy career. But no, you two get to do everything important, as usual.”

      Rose glanced over at Ty, then looked guiltily at the blue mason jar she was carrying, which she’d slathered on the inside with pale yellow almond butter. It was true. Sage rarely got the opportunity to do anything important. Of course, when he did, he usually made a mess of it.

      “Why don’t you be in charge of collecting the sweet whispers?” said Rose. “In fact, you could collect all the special ingredients! We’ll do the baking, you’ll do the collecting, and then when we win, we’ll introduce you on camera and you can launch your stand-up comedy career.”

      Ty looked at her like she was crazy, but Sage smiled and immediately stopped complaining. He took the blue mason jar from Rose and cradled it in his arms like it was an infant.

      The morning light rippled across the Seine like a spilled canister of silver glitter. Rose thought that this may have been the most romantic place she’d ever seen, even more romantic than the overlook point on Sparrow Hill in Calamity Falls. She imagined building a hut on the stone riverbank and living there with Devin Stetson, baking croissants for passersby while he played guitar and collected change in a hat.

      As she was plotting where on the river wall she’d build her hut, Rose spotted a man and a woman walking hand in hand. The man and the woman were staring at each other so lovingly and intently that the man tripped over a raised brick in the pavement and fell to his knees. The woman giggled as she hoisted him up again and kissed his cheek.

      “Jackpot,” Rose said.

      Sage nodded and scooted ahead, falling into step a few feet behind the couple. He opened the blue jar and held it up to the back of their heads, trailing behind as close as he could without running into them.

      It worked for a few seconds, until Sage sneezed and the man whipped around. “What are you doing, kid?” he said.

      Sage snapped the jar closed so as not to catch any less-than-sweet whispers in the almond butter. “Uhhh. . .”

      Ty jogged over to Sage. “You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Ty said. “He’s collecting fireflies.”

      “But it’s the daytime,” said the woman.

      Ty covered Sage’s ears with his hands. “He thinks he’s collecting fireflies,” he whispered. “Poor kid hallucinates fireflies wherever he goes. Carries this jar everywhere and just keeps swiping it through the air. We don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.”

      The man and woman nodded sympathetically as Ty removed his hands from Sage’s ears. “You keep chasing those fireflies, son!” the man said, rustling Sage’s curly red hair. The pair waved and headed off towards the Eiffel Tower.