The Summer of Secrets by Sarah Jasmon Read Free Book Online Page A

going to waste.’ He’d given Helen a sideways grin to make her feel included. ‘If you ask me, the best cakes are those butterfly ones, like you get at school fêtes.’
    So these were for Seth. Over the week, she’d eaten all sorts of new things that the Dover children took for granted. Spaghetti from a long paper packet with nothing added but oil and herbs. Things from tins with French names: ratatouille, cassoulet. A sort of grain you had to pour hot water on, which they mixed with a fiery paste. She’d joined in, clumsily chopping onions, or stirring when directed. Once or twice, Seth had taken a plateful upstairs, but more often it was as if Alice didn’t exist. Sometimes Helen would find herself looking at the stairs and wondering if Alice was up there or not. She couldn’t decide on the right way to ask, and in the end, stopped noticing.
    The cakes were also a way of proving she could do something of her own, and she’d found Seth’s choice in the only recipe book her mother had left behind. She pulled the book over now to check again on the buttercream filling. There was no icing sugar, so she’d had to make do with a bag of hardened caster sugar that had been hidden away at the back of the cupboard. As she pushed the wooden spoon into the block of butter, the crystal edges of sugar began to break, with a satisfying crunch. She let her mind drift, picturing Seth taking a cake, smiling at her, saying how nice it was.
    She’d barely finished scooping the last of the buttercream into its hollow when Pippa burst through the door.
    ‘Victoria needs you to come over!’ She was panting from her run. ‘Ooh, those are pretty. Can I have one?’
    It was good to hear. The cakes didn’t look much like the picture in the book. Helen broke the flattest one in half.
    ‘Here you are. We’ll take the others with us.’ She’d spent enough time with Pippa to guess the summons wasn’t as urgent as it sounded. ‘What’s she doing?’
    Pippa shrugged her shoulders.
    ‘I’m going to have that one next. The one with three wings.’
    The cottage kitchen was full of steam. Helen paused on the step, wondering if Victoria had been baking as well.
    ‘About time.’ Victoria turned from her position in front of the stove and pointed to the saucepan on the gas ring. ‘Stir!’
    Helen squeezed her plate of cakes into a space on the dresser and did as she was told.
    ‘Is it supposed to look like this?’
    The pan was half-full of a lumpy grey mass with a slowly erupting surface.
    Victoria was kneeling on the sink, trying to open the window. It had been sealed with years of repainting, though, and she didn’t seem to be having much luck. She gave the frame another bang with the heel of her hand and it jerked out a few inches, one of the panes of glass falling loose. They both stopped to listen as it shattered on the stones outside.
    ‘Oh well.’ Victoria manoeuvred herself down from her perch. ‘At least we’ll get some air in.’
    Helen looked back at her saucepan.
    ‘What is it?’
    Victoria came back and, lifting the wooden spoon, let the mixture drip off.
    ‘That’s about right.’ She carried the saucepan across to the table, then took an empty one across to the tap. ‘But we’re going to need loads more. Pass me the flour.’
    ‘Need it for what?’ Helen went to the cardboard box in the corner where they kept their stores. ‘Dinner?’
    ‘Mmm, yes, does it tempt you?’ Victoria dumped the new pan on the stovetop and held out a hand for the flour. ‘It’s glue, actually. We’re going to paper my ceiling.’
    ‘With this? Really?’ Helen dipped the tip of a finger into the mass. ‘How do you know it’ll work?’
    ‘It always has before.’ Victoria emptied the entire bag into the water and turned the heat up under the saucepan. ‘Except once when we ran out of white flour and Alice said to use wholemeal. The walls went mouldy that time.’
    Alice. It was hard to imagine her involved in anything so