Page 18 of The Cake Fairies
Polly nodded at the folder and Annabelle loosened her grip. Slowly, she passed it back across the table. This time, Polly decided she really wouldn’t let it out of her sight. A sip of tea and a clearing of her throat later, and she was ready to begin. Cautiously, she opened it to page one, reading aloud in a hushed tone:
“Welcome to The Cake Fairies manual and congratulations… for being YOU… blah blah blah.” She skimmed the inaugural paragraph with her fingertip, eager to race ahead to the juicy bits.
“This is so ridiculous,” said Annabelle. “I can’t believe we’re even contemplating this.”
Polly raised her hand to quell the critique. Just hours ago (relatively speaking, and irrespective of their current notch on life’s great timeline, anyway), the girl sat before her had been seeking Marco Polo-scale adventure, a complete pivot on their lives. They just had to find out what they were doing here, couldn’t keep guessing. But the more she read, the more she realised this was going to require more patience than the card game of the same name; Amber Magnolia had an odd way of doing things.
“Your tasks will be split into three-hundred-and-sixty-five quite unique days of the year. This is a study guide, as much as a mission manual. Do not read ahead to the next day’s challenge. Your minds won’t be ready. Focus on the present day. Never fall foul of temptation.”
Polly continued to read, trying to block out the image of the world’s dishiest waiter whom she was not supposed to be fancying. Like a mirage in the distance, his fuzzy figure bent to expertly cut their cake, plating it with military precision.
“That’s bang out of order.” For a moment, Polly couldn’t have been more grateful that Annabelle had snatched her back from the tendrils of her daydream. “It’s one thing to send us here, quite another to make us sign up to a year’s worth of rules and regulations. No. I’m having no part in this.” She scraped back her chair and stood up to leave. “I’ll find a station on my own, jump on the next train to Bristol and hide from the ticket inspector… in the loos, no matter how badly they pong… I just have to get back to my parents before they start to panic. Goodbye and good luck, Polly.”
Annabelle made to bolt out of the café into a future and a London unknown, not even giving Polly a second glance. Her cousin’s anguished cry of, “come back, just give it a chance!” rebounded from table to table; an unruly pinball in an arcade game, silencing every conversation – on and off Facetime. Then Annabelle crashed headfirst into Adonis with a thud so loud that it probably drew Her Majesty the Queen to the nearest of her seven-hundred-and sixty Buckingham Palace windows. His tray flew into the air, taking their scrumptious order with it. Shards of red, gold and white scattered all around; cake confetti falling as time stood still for a second and was then followed by the smash and bang of cutlery and plates.
