Page 70 of The Cake Fairies
Chapter Thirty-Two
ANNABELLE
Annabelle decided she really,reallywould tell Polly today.
No, she would! She wasn’t sure when exactly during this brand-new twenty-four-hour page in life’s book. But she knew this was the perfect place; serenely beautiful Wales. It was a wonder she’d lasted this long, though. The times Annabelle had been this close to doing a runner from the shitty mission. But a runner to where? Amber Magnolia was the electricity to her plug. She despised the fact, but she was no longer foolish enough to deny it. Only six more months to go.
Half a year! No, six months. It sounded better that way.
All of which should have meant her foolish behaviour of precisely half a year ago – because in this scenario that sounded way better than six months – would go in one of Polly’s ears and straight back out the other.
This was Tom Jones land. Polly had always had a soft spot for the singer and his dulcet tones. Perhaps they’d bump into some of his distant male cousins, reducing the memory of Alex to the size of a mosquito? There had to be a chance. Her life was beginning to depend on it. If Polly didn’t meet another potential letter Z soon then she was certain a penalty awaited her once they’d completed the mission. And that didn’t bear thinking about. She’d inserted herself, quite literally, between love and destiny. There was probably no greater universal crime.
But twenty-four hours predictably bled across the pages of yet another chapter (month). What did she always say about diets? Tomorrow never came.
Changing the subject, though, why had she never been to Wales before? Admittedly, the limo looked more than a little out of its depth navigating the country roads surrounding the verdant valleys and the dappled blue lakes, but she was glad Nigel had taken them the scenic route.
“We think Somerset is the be-all and end-all, with its cows and its buttercup-studded pastures. But this is something else,” Annabelle said dreamily.
“Pah, when I think of Zummerzet, all that springs to mind is patches of bleedin’ nettles,” Nigel shuddered and hit the close button on the window before either Cake Fairy could interject.
“I think I’m in love.” Polly sighed as she gazed wistfully out of the window.
“I know you are.” Bugger. Annabelle hadn’t realised she’d said that bit out loud. She stunned herself into silence. Which wasn’t really difficult since Nigel was his usual un-talkative self for the journey, partition window up, save for Polly’s incessant loo breaks when he would cave in and make small talk about the weather.
Home for the first six weeks had been a farmhouse Airbnb – whatever one of those was – in the quaint but sleepy village of Beddgelert. It was lovely, no two ways about it. But more was the pity that the village’s famous ice cream parlour wasn’t open yet, and it was heartbreaking to read up on, and witness, the changes at the local campsite which had once provided affordable accommodation for all budgets; now upper-crust cabins replaced much of the rustic, rough and ready space where tents used to be pitched.
Another giant cross against the modern world. Another example of sixties life being infinitely better.
The drops had felt mundane again too, the past week involving an incessant stream of assorted chocolate cake flurries outside petrol stations – of all the places this great country had to offer. Some days Annabelle even craved the torture of an Edinburgh ghost tour.
But March had somehow dragged its heels into April, and neither Annabelle nor Polly was entirely convinced about the merits of their current daily polenta cake edifices, varied only by fruit composition, to change the state of the modern world. Maybe their boss had chosen to keep things simple since summer’s impending wave of activity would require a conservation of energy? All Annabelle knew was the unimpressed looks they were bagging at Portmeirion, Porthmadog, and even Snowdon’s summit – mercifully they’d taken the little train to the top of the latter. None of it screamed reforming teenagers or their screen addict adult counterparts. Ivy would have hated this cake, in any of its guises, but especially the rather fitting sandy-textured yellow monstrosity they’d left on the sea wall in Anglesey, only for a bunch of seagulls to snap it up, scattering debris everywhere.
She supposed it was the only major disaster to date. Even her very literal cake drop in Edinburgh had been salvaged by Polly’s slightly more stylish effort.
Okay, Annabelle was slightly overlooking the time when Ivy saw whatever she had seen in the manual. And then there was Annabelle’s recent banshee screaming episode at the dentists. She’d like to think that the patients, receptionist, and heck, even the dentist himself, were simply actors put on her path by a certain someone to test her dedication to the cause. Surely, they’d have cashed in on the cupcake, as soon as Nigel had pressed his foot to the gas and sped her far, far away?
Today might have been a non-descript day for most. But April 11, 2020 was Annabelle’s birthday. And not just any old birthday: her thirtieth and her eightieth,for crying out loud! Yes, just like Her Majesty the Queen, she would be celebrating two in this inscrutable year.
And how was she celebrating? Standing on Llandudno’s admittedly glorious pier, watching idiots from rival gangs make derogatory videos about one another; that’s how. Give her a game of bingo with the WI ladies any day of the week. This took not so much the biscuit as the cake.
Sure, they didn’t look like locals. In fact, having heard their banter from afar they sounded as English as warm beer. But that wasn’t the point. Of all the days, Amber Magnolia might have manifested something a little more buoyant. Something with a pair of letter Zs…
It was the perfect example of mobile telephone communication gone awry, though. They’d started out with a brisk but bracing walk along the town’s great Georgian landmark to make a cake deposit next to the pop-up Punch and Judy show. The clock on the little kiosk claimed it’d be starting at 3 p.m. Apparently Punch and co were making a come-back, something both cousins found equal parts sad and hilarious.
Then it had all turned into Armageddon. Annabelle and Polly had watched in tentative delight, followed all too swiftly by despair, as two groups of kids engaged in a dance-off, whereby an amicable boogie battle was supposed to be as feisty as things got. Except one lad purposely and unfairly stuck his foot out, to trip up the most uncoordinated boy from the underdog’s team, smack bang in the middle of his fair-to-middling floss, then broadcasted it to the cosmos, at which point, of course, all hell broke loose.
“Look, it’s got nothing to do with us, Polly! Mission has been completed and now they can follow their noses to the cake. We’ve played our part. It’s my birthday, for Pete’s sake.”
“On a run-of-the-mill day of the week, you’d be right. I mean, you are right. It is your special day. But then, that’s all the more reason to try to put this straight, to leave your legacy.”
“We’ll get our arses kicked.”
“Not with this idea. Trust me and wait.”
Annabelle’s knuckles were white from her panicked grip on the plastic see-through windshield that marked out the centre of the pier’s walkway. How she wished the wooden boards would give way beneath her feet so she could escape the madness, but then she sensed what she hoped were Polly’s footsteps behind her. Forget Chelsea and Millwall’s epic rivalry back in the capital. These dancing dudes could give most grown-up sporting hooligans a run for their money. And yet the fighting was as choreographed as a dance routine; at times intimidating, at times flipping well impressive.
A sheet of racing-green material fell over her face, interrupting her footie flashback and now she panicked that she was about to suffocate.
