Sweet

For my beloved Grampy, a craftsman of the highest order

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue Prepackaged Magic

Chapter 1 The Challenge Will Be Televised

Chapter 2 A Cat of Many Words

Chapter 3 Enter the Master of Ceremonies

Chapter 4 Sweet, Sweet Nothings

Chapter 5 Quiet as a Mouse

Chapter 6 The Seventeenth Floor

Chapter 7 Picture Im-perfect

Chapter 8 Making Whoopie

Chapter 9 A Grave Birthday Celebration

Chapter 10 Head in the Clouds

Chapter 11 Bothered, Bewitched, and Beheaded

Chapter 12 Romancing the Stones

Chapter 13 Home, Sick Home

Chapter 14 A (Tiny) Thief in the Night

Chapter 15 An Unusual Challenge

Chapter 16 Tears from a Rose

Chapter 17 Caught on Tape

Chapter 18 The Cat Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Acknowledgments

Copyright

About the Publisher

IT WAS NINE months after her Aunt Lily stole the Bliss Cookery Booke right out from under her nose that Rosemary Bliss discovered something horrible on the shelves of Ralph’s Supermarket in downtown Calamity Falls.

Rose’s sneakers squeaked on the floor as she stopped dead in her tracks.

Staring back at her from the front of each of dozens of cardboard boxes was the smiling face of her lying, conniving aunt. Each box bore a banner reading LILY’S MAGIC INGREDIENT! AS SEEN ON TV.

The economy-sized tub of mayonnaise Rose had been carrying slipped from her fingers and fell to its death on the floor. “Mum!” she cried.

Rose’s mother, Purdy, ran over. “Oh dear.”

“No, Mum, not the mayonnaise. Look!” Rose pointed at the boxes of Lily’s Magic Ingredient.

Since she’d disappeared with the Bliss family’s magical Cookery Booke, Aunt Lily had made good on her promise to use it to become famous. She had written a bestselling cookbook, Lily’s 30-Minute Magic, and had a cooking show on TV. Now there she was, smiling happily on the shelves of their very own supermarket, while the rest of Calamity Falls had fallen into a grim malaise.

Without the Booke, Purdy and Albert Bliss had no choice but to make ordinary pies and muffins and croissants from the pages of an ordinary Betty Crocker cookbook. The baked goods were still delicious, of course, and the residents of Calamity Falls still came by every morning as they always had; but the magic of the town had dried out, leaving everything and everyone in it feeling a bit like warm lettuce: sickly, grey, and wilted.

In the picture on the box, Lily looked as beautiful as ever. She had grown out her close-cropped hair, and now it fell to her shoulders in perfectly wavy heaps the colour of black chocolate. She was smiling seductively, her hands covered with orange oven mitts and planted on her hips. “Add a tablespoon to any of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic recipes,” the box read, “for a dash of magic!”

“Listen to this!” cried Purdy, reading from the box. “‘Not a sufficient source of Iron or Vitamin C. Ingredients: Secret. FDA approval pending.’”

“Why would anyone eat anything that hadn’t been approved by the FDA?” Rose asked.

“Lily is a celebrity,” Purdy said, brushing her wild bangs from her eyes. “People see her face, and they plunk down a credit card. Plus, look at the size of this fine print.”

FDA APPROVAL PENDING.

“What do we do, Mum?” Rose whispered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing as straight as soldiers. Rose already felt guilty enough knowing that the biggest mistake of her young life – trusting her treacherous aunt Lily – had brought calamity to Calamity Falls. The thought that the calamity had spread to the rest of the world was just too much guilt to bear.

“What we do is figure out exactly what this ‘magic ingredient’ is,” Purdy said, rolling up the sleeves of her tattered blue coat. She swept box after box into her red plastic shopping cart until the shelf was empty.

* * *

Rose and her mother spent the rest of the weekend baking all of the recipes from Lily’s 30-Minute Magic and adding a dash of Lily’s Magic Ingredient to each one.

The Magic Ingredient was a blueish-grey powder that smelled like burned toast. When Rose threw a tablespoon of the Magic Ingredient into the batter for Lily’s Gooey Chocolate Pudding Cake, the batter sizzled like hot oil and whispered her aunt’s name with each pop: “Liiiilllllyyyyy!”

When Rose tossed a tablespoon into the crust of Lily’s Caramel Apple Tarte Tatin, the crust rattled on the table, giggling “Lily!”

The same happened with the Lily’s Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée, the Cherry Clafouti à la Lily, and the Just Peachy Peach Pie.

Rose’s brothers, Ty and Sage, walked through the kitchen on their way to play basketball in the driveway. “Did someone say ‘Lily’?” Ty asked. In the time since the Bliss Cookery Booke had been stolen, Ty had grown taller still. He gelled his red hair straight up in the front so that it looked like he was wearing a tiara two inches high, or a tiny, red-picket fence. He had treated himself to a bottle of cologne from the pharmacy for his sixteenth birthday, and he smelled like a walking European discotheque.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to say her name!” Sage cried into his portable tape recorder. Rose’s younger brother had read that some stand-up comedians recorded themselves in normal conversation in case anything funny came out, and so he’d started recording every comment he uttered in case he later needed the material for a stand-up routine. Sage had grown taller as well, and his cheeks had grown proportionally puffier, as had the red curls atop his head.

“No one said her name,” Purdy replied.

“I was just telling Mum about my new friend, Tilly,” Rose said. “And my other friends Billy and Gilly. . . who live in Philly.”

Ty and Sage squinted suspiciously at their sister and their mother, then scooted outside.

Rose and Purdy continued their dreadful experiment. Lily’s Low-Fat Pound-for-Pound Cake came out of the oven smelling like burned rubber, as did the Deep-Fried Cookie Dough Balls, the Luscious Lemon Squares, and Lily’s Bodacious Brioche Bread Pudding.

“Are we overcooking them?” Rose asked.

“No!” her mother exclaimed, confused. “If anything, we’re undercooking them!”

By the time Rose and Purdy were finished, every surface of the Follow Your Bliss Bakery kitchen was covered with plates of cakes, cookies, pies, and puddings, each containing a tablespoon of Lily’s Magic Ingredient. The kitchen itself was filled with a subtle, acrid, sinister smell.

“How do we find out if they’re dangerous?” Rose asked.

Purdy brushed flour from the wild curls of her hair. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Do we dare try them ourselves?”

As Rose pondered what to do with the potentially poisonous baked goods, Purdy clicked on the portable TV that the family kept atop the counter in case of emergencies.

Much to Rose’s dismay, Aunt Lily appeared on the screen, wearing a fitted black cocktail dress. They had happened to tune in to her cooking show. “Here it is, folks – the world’s best devil’s food cake!” Lily said. “And you know what that means: Time for the C-word!”

She raised her arms like a preacher while the live studio audience chanted wildly, “Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate!”

Rose changed the channel in disgust, then wiped the flour-ridden remote control on her jeans. A commercial popped on.

“Now for a limited time only, Lily’s Special Spatulas are only nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents! Order today and we’ll include a Bombastic Bundt Pan, absolutely free!”

Rose changed the channel again. “Jeez louise!”

Lily again. This time she was on the set of a talk show, wearing a different fitted black cocktail dress. “The secret to my success?” she said, coyly batting her eyelashes. “Why, my passion for baking, of course!”

“Turn on the news!” Purdy yelled, and Rose changed the channel yet again.

“In entertainment today,” said the newsreader, “a new record has been broken: Lily’s 30-Minute Magic has become the highest-rated daytime cooking show in the history of television broadcasting. Its ratings have actually exceeded the number of televisions in America, a statistic that continues to baffle authorities.”

Rose and Purdy were busy ogling the television screen when Leigh waddled into the kitchen. “I want lunch, Mummy.”

“Lunch is in half an hour, Leigh.” Without looking down, Purdy reached a hand to tousle Leigh’s head. “I see you’ve had a haircut.” Since she’d turned four, Leigh had insisted on cutting her own hair. This resulted in a mop of shaggy black chunks of every conceivable length. “Why don’t you go get your bow, and I’ll tie up your hair.”

“Okay!” Leigh said, and turned to go.

But she didn’t go far. Mesmerised by the Lily-a-thon on the TV, Rose and her mother didn’t notice as Leigh reached atop the counter and gobbled down the entirety of Lily’s foot-long Pound-for-Pound Cake.

Leigh sat on the ground for a minute, licked her fingers, then stood and cleared her throat.

“Wow, that’s tremendous!” she said in a voice far too deep and gravelly and sophisticated to be coming from such small lips. “That was just a tremendous pound cake. So sweet – but not cloyingly so; velvety, rich, moist. . . Who is responsible for this confectionary delight?”

Rose and Purdy spun around and stared at the little girl, who, a moment before, had hardly known what a pound cake was, let alone the meaning of the word cloyingly.

Oh no, Rose thought.

Leigh looked up at the TV and saw Lily sitting on the set of the news show, her long, tanned legs crossed. “Of course! It’s Lily, of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic, hostess of the most highly-rated television programme in American history! Lily, the doyenne of Danish, the priestess of parfait, the grande dame of graham crackers! It’s a shame that her charisma should be confined to the realm of baking – she should run for public office!” Leigh stopped a moment, savouring this new idea. “Yes! Lily should be the first female president of the United States! She’s the centaur of cinnamon buns! The sultan of—”

Purdy clapped a hand over Leigh’s mouth and looked at Rose in horror.

Leigh’s irises had widened so much that her pupils were an endless vortex of shimmering black.

Rose sank into the red-leather booth of the dining table, stunned. “If Lily gets people to eat this mix,” Rose said gravely, “she’ll have the country in the palm of her hand.” Rose pulled the worn fleece hood of her green sweatshirt over her eyes. Not only did Lily want fame, but now it seemed she wanted power, too.

Leigh broke loose from Purdy’s grip and marched towards the back door. “I’ll not be chained like chattel! I’m off to find Lily and tell her how magnificent she is in person!” She shut the back door behind her, leaving Rose and Purdy among the mess of pans and tainted baked goods, sweaty and covered with flour and splatters of yellow batter.

“Our first order of business,” said Purdy, “is to turn Leigh back to normal. Then we clean this kitchen. And then—”

But Rose didn’t need to be told what the third order of business was. The country was in serious danger, and it was all Rose’s fault. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she knew she would have to steal back the Bliss Cookery Booke.

LILY BALANCED PRECARIOUSLY on a pair of high-heeled shoes as she pulled a tray of steaming pumpkin muffins from the convection oven in the wall of her studio kitchen. She turned to the audience and displayed the muffins, which looked slightly out of place in the hands of a woman wearing a short black cocktail dress and five-inch stilettos. “Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous in your life?”

Lily set the tray down on the countertop and raised both her arms. “Can you smell it, folks?”

Everyone in the audience hopped to their feet and chorused, “Cinnamon! Cinnamon! Cinnamon!”

Everyone, that is, except for Rose and Ty.

“Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!” Rose whispered to her older brother as they sank down into their back-row seats.

Lily’s studio kitchen had bright yellow walls, sunny orange cabinets, and an island in the centre covered with turquoise tiles. A window in the back of the kitchen opened on to a New York City skyline.

Fake, Rose thought, her fists clenched. Just like her. This studio’s in Connecticut!

Rose looked out at the rows and rows of giddy audience members, at the hundreds of bright lights hanging from a grid on the ceiling above, and at the cameras, five in total. Rose tried to imagine how important Lily must feel standing in front of all those doting eyes, and the millions more watching at home. So this was the glamour that Rose had turned down when she told Aunt Lily that she wouldn’t be going with her to New York.

Rose knew she’d made the right decision. If she’d gone with Lily, her family would right now be sitting around the kitchen table, sensing that something was missing but with no memory that Rose or the Booke had ever existed. Rose would never be able to see them again, not even in a photograph. No amount of fame or acclaim was worth losing the love of her family.

And yet, where had love gotten the Blisses? These days the streets of Calamity Falls felt cold and grey, even in the springtime. Mrs Havegood’s fibs had become far less inventive, the League of Lady Librarians had retired their tour bus, and Mr Bastable and Mrs Thistle-Bastable had lost their burning passion for each other. There was no laughter, no magic. The soul of Calamity Falls had shrivelled like a dead leaf, and it was all her fault.

Even Devin Stetson had lost his lustre. Since Lily had stolen the book, Rose had worked up the courage to speak to Devin Stetson on five separate occasions, about two things: twice in the hallway about the difficulty of algebra, twice at the counter of Stetson’s Doughnuts and Automotive Repair about the difficulty of algebra again, and once at the counter of the Bliss Bakery.

“How are you?” she’d said, her right eye twitching nervously, as it always did in his presence.

“Oh, fine, I guess.” Devin sighed. His floppy bangs, formerly the colour of spun gold, were now just pale, dull blond. “The Calamity Falls Community Chorus disbanded. No one felt like singing any more.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose had replied. She had wanted to reach out and touch his sullen cheek, but she was too afraid, and too guilty.

Rose sighed at the memory, and glared out at Lily. As much as Rose hated her aunt, the person she was most angry with was herself. If she had just been a little wiser, if she hadn’t trusted Aunt Lily and fallen for her flattery, everyone she loved in her town would be happy and healthy. But as it stood, every time Rose traipsed down the grey streets of Calamity Falls, she was reminded of the grim mess she’d caused.

“This beard itches,” Ty whined, tugging at the long, grey beard their father, Albert, had glued to his face hours before. “And the beard glue smells like a chemical-processing plant. I might pass out.” Ty shifted in his white linen robe. “Why did I have to wear the skirt?”

“It’ll be over soon,” Rose said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m pretty sure the Question-and-Answer portion is next.”

Rose spoke as calmly as she could, but her hands were shaking. Appearing on television for the first time was nerve-racking enough, but Rose was about to appear on television for the first time and do something crazy.

“OK, sit, sit!” Lily called. “Let’s move on to Question-and-Answer. And while we do, I’m going to dig into one of these Pump-Me-Up Pumpkin Muffins – if you all don’t mind. All this talk of cinnamon has me very hungry.”

She winked coyly as she unwrapped the accordion of aluminium foil from the bottom half of one of the hot muffins and sank her gleaming teeth in. She wiped the corner of her mouth. There was never a crumb on Lily’s lip, never a hair out of place. She was perfection.

Rose knew this was her chance to strike. She raised her hand high and waved it back and forth until Lily noticed her in the back row. “You, sweet thing in the back with the blonde curls!”

Ty wasn’t the only one wearing a disguise. Rose had pulled back her long, black hair and pinned it under a wig of blonde ringlets that Purdy had bought at the Halloween Haven in Calamity Falls. Rose was wearing a dress of pale-blue satin with poofy sleeves and an even poofier skirt that sat atop layer after layer of itchy blue crinoline.

“Are the disguises really necessary?” Rose had asked her mother before they’d left for the studio. “If I had a shepherd’s staff, I would look just like Little Bo Peep.”

“You’ll need the disguises to ask your question,” Purdy had warned her. “If Lily recognises you, she’ll never call on you.”

A bearded man with a headset handed Rose a microphone as Rose stood. It took all her strength not to collapse. This was the moment of truth.

Rose raised the microphone to her trembling lips and spoke in a whisper. “Testing? Testing?” The microphone squealed with feedback.

“The microphones work!” Lily said. She was chuckling, but her eyes were narrowed. It was the same look of impatience that Rose had seen on her aunt’s face those times in the Bliss Bakery kitchen, the same look that Rose had chosen to ignore.

Look where ignoring my instincts has gotten me, Rose thought. Wearing a wig on TV.

But Rose knew – and her family agreed – that this was the only way to right the wrong that had been done.

Rose cleared her throat. “I think your Pump-Me-Up Pumpkin Muffins are bland and dry,” Rose said, pushing the words past the arid bubble of fear that squatted in her throat. She took a deep breath. “I could make a better pumpkin muffin.”

Everyone in the audience gasped and turned to look at her.

Lily glared at Rose. Then, for just an instant, Lily’s eyes went wide, and Rose knew that Lily had recognised her.

“Ha! We have a comedian in the audience!” Lily said, giggling and clapping. “That’s so cute! Next question!”

Before the next person could stand, Ty bounded up from his seat and pointed a finger in the air. In his grey beard and red cloak, he looked like Santa Claus. “This young lady, whom I have never seen before and am not related to, deserves a chance to bake!”

The studio fell silent. Scattered applause fluttered up from the audience.

Rose raised the microphone once more. “I challenge you, Lily Le Fay, to compete against me in the Gala des Gâteaux Grands in Paris, France.”

Rose handed the microphone back to the young man with the headset and plopped into her seat, her arms folded across her chest.

The audience gasped once more, looking back and forth between their idol and the curly-haired little girl who had just challenged her to a duel at the world’s most prestigious televised pastry competition – back and forth, back and forth, like they were watching a tennis match.

Lily stood frozen in the centre of her studio kitchen, wobbling on the points of her high-heeled shoes. Lily had no choice but to accept the challenge. If she didn’t, it would look like she was afraid of being outdone by an adolescent.

Suddenly Lily’s face transformed, her glare replaced by a sweet smile. “I accept the challenge! I will compete against this brave young thing at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands!”

The audience went wild, clapping and hooting and hollering.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Lily asked.

Rose stood and pulled off the blonde wig, letting her long, black hair cascade down to her shoulders. “My name is Rosemary,” she said. “Rosemary Bliss.”

Beside her, Ty discreetly pumped his fist. “Yes!” he said.

“Well, Rosemary Bliss.” Lily spat out the name as if it were another term for a skin disease. “Just because you’re little doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. You know that, right?”

“Yup,” Rose said defiantly. And she curtsied to her Aunt Lily, who steadied herself by leaning up against the kitchen counter.

I can’t believe I just did that, thought Rose.

* * *

At the end of the show, while the rest of the audience was filing out, the bearded man in the headset plucked Rose and Ty from the line. “Lily wants to see both of you,” he said. “This is huge! She never wants to see anyone!

“I’m Bruno,” he went on, leading Rose and Ty down a back hallway of the studio. “But Lily still doesn’t know my name. She calls me Bill. But hey, she’s Lily! She could call me Armpit for all I care.”

Rose scowled. It seemed Lily had everyone in the country wrapped around her elegant pinkie finger.

At the end of the hall was a metal door painted blue, with a sign in the shape of a star that read MS LE FAY.

Bruno knocked quietly on the door. “I have the little girl and the old man here, Lily!”

“Oh, thanks, Bill!” she called. “Send them in!”

Bruno pulled the door open, and Rose and Ty walked into what could only be described as a palace. In the centre of the room gushed a stone fountain ringed by ornate cast-iron benches. A lush forest of orchids hung from the ceiling, and flowing swathes of blue silk draped the walls.

And there, sitting in a hammock, rocking gently from side to side, was Lily. She was wearing a plush white robe, like she’d just emerged from the shower; only her perfect black hair was dry. Even in a bathrobe, she looked ready for an awards show.

“Have a seat by the fountain, Rosemary. You, too, Thyme.”

Rose sat with her brother on one of the cast-iron benches and looked up at the massive fountain, which was a fifteen-foot marble statue of Lily stirring a spoon around an overflowing bowl, her neck long and elegant.

“It’s so nice to see both of you again! How do you like my little dressing room?” Lily stepped out of the hammock.

“I gotta say, it’s pretty sweet, Tia Lily,” Ty said, looking around.

Lily perched on the edge of the fountain, folding one tanned, silky leg over the other. “Let’s get down to business. Your little stunt today was reckless, to say the least. What exactly are you trying to do?”

Rose sat up straight and cleared her throat. “Losing the Gala des Gâteaux Grands would ruin you. But unlike you, I don’t have a reputation to worry about. I’m twelve. So we’re offering you a deal. I will lose the competition on purpose if you just give us back our Cookery Booke and stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”

Lily feigned surprise. “Right, the Booke! You want the Booke back. Of course. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“You already have a TV show, Tia Lily,” said Ty. “What do you still need the Booke for? Our town is in trouble!”

Lily plucked a bit of fuzz off her white robe and flicked it into the fountain. “See, this is the problem with the Bliss family. None of you has any ambition. You’re more concerned with your Podunk town than with succeeding. You think that just because I host the highest-rated daytime TV show in history and have a fifteen-foot marble statue of myself in my enchanted-forest-themed dressing room that I have ‘enough.’ There is never enough!”