Page 5 of A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street
The contractor is on his way out the door without giving me a chance to ask anything else. ‘Cheerio,’ he says, despite being the least cheerful person I’ve met in recent months. ‘And good luck.’
The silent ‘you’re going to need it’ is etched in the smirk on his face, and the fear that he’s right follows me like a cloud as I go inside and look around my oven-less kitchen. There’s a fridge, an industrial sized kettle, and a four-slice extra-wide toaster on the unit. There’s plenty of counter space for food preparation, a large sink area with drying racks and a draining board, bread bins and cupboards for food storage, and a walk-in cupboard with plates and cutlery stacked inside, and that’s it.
I was expecting a kitchen like you’d find behind the scenes in a restaurant. I assumed there would be at least some way of cooking food. I’d never thought about how or where Lilith prepared her food. I just assumed it was all done in this little room that was off-limits to customers.
Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Assumed that having a tearoom of my own will magically unlock all therecipes I can’t remember and turn me into a younger version of Mary Berry, when the most complicated thing I’ve successfully cooked in recent years has been cheese on toast? I can feel panic rising and I fight it by concentrating on the things Icancontrol, like turning this little space into an all-singing, all-dancing Wonderland to inspire awe in children and adults alike. There has to be a solution to the kitchen issue. I don’t know what it is yet but something will come to me. Ithasto.
Two weeks later and The Wonderland Teapot on Ever After Street is ready to open. Contractors came and broke up the old floor tiles and replaced them with a black and white chessboard of shiny new squares. The boring sign on the shopfront has been repainted with an iridescent white background, and ‘The Wonderland Teapot’ is painted in swirly lettering of eye-catching pink and purple Cheshire-Cat-style stripes.
The interior of the tearoom is decked out with Lilith’s vintage chairs and tables, and I’ve gone through a million glue sticks and should’ve bought shares in a fabric paint company. I’ve stencilled roman numerals around the edges of each tablecloth and put hands in the centre so each table looks like the face of a clock, and each one has got a centrepiece of a bouquet of roses, made from playing cards, displayed in mismatched teapots.
I’ve painted the wall on the left red and stood a row of black and white wooden chess pieces along it, each one about five-foot high, apart from the king and queen, which are suitably taller, and there are the giant paper flowers I’ve been making. They’re all the height of an adult, with stick-on googly eyes in an array of bright colours like the talking flowers Alice encounters in the Disney movie. The counter is along the far side of the shop floor, and I’ve painstakinglystencilled my favourite Wonderland quote on the wall behind it –Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible– and it’s surrounded by a hotch-potch of different size flowers in a rainbow of colours, and on the other side of the counter is the door to the customer bathroom, where I’ve added pieces of wood around the handle and painted them with a face, so it looks like the talking doorknob Alice first meets when she falls down the rabbit hole.
On the right-hand side of the room, I’ve shifted the nearest tables inwards and created a space for a game of flamingo croquet. There’s a strip of artificial grass, and pink plastic flamingo-shaped clubs for little ones to have a go at knocking the hedgehog-shaped balls through the playing card arches.
I’ve turned broken teacups and teapots into decorative planters at every opportunity, and the display case at the front of the counter will be filled with delicious, dainty treats… that I made.
Okay, that I madeifanyone asks.
The reality is that I’ve been so busy with making the tearoom look like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee have exploded in it that practising any kind of baking has had to come second, and it’sveryhard to bake anything with the single hob in the caravan.
Which is why it’s now 11p.m. and I’m walking around the local supermarket, desperately looking for things to serve my customers on opening day, which is in… approximately ten hours.
It’s not like I haven’t tried. The other night in the caravan, I followed a child’s recipe to make chocolate fairy cakes and took the results up to the house for Marnie and Darcy to try. Darcy wasn’t brave enough, and Marnie took one tiny nibble and politely suggested that the caravan stove might be on the blink. I used to be able to make fairy cakes, and now… no matter how hard I try, something always goes wrong. My tearoom dream depends on me being able to get it right, and I’m just… not.
So I’ve had an idea. I can buy things from the supermarket, unpack them, decorate them for my own unique Wonderland twist, and serve them in the tearoom, and no one will be any the wiser.
I’m not proud of it, but needs must. And it’s not like the local supermarket is going to mind, is it? And it’s only temporary – until I can afford to rent another flat with a kitchen. Until then, absolutely no one is going to know, and if I add my own spin to things, it’s notexactlylike taking someone else’s work and passing it off as my own.
I fill a trolley with the regular things I’ll need to buy anyway. Loaves of bread and tubs of butter and other sandwich fillings, and then I add a few boxes of cupcakes with swirls of icing on top, traybake brownies that I can cut up, packages of scones, crumpets, and custard tarts.
‘Ooh, someone’s having a party,’ the checkout woman exclaims as I pile my goodies onto the checkout belt.
I give her a tight grin and make a mental note to use the self-service checkouts in future. She might get suspicious if she sees me buying this amount of stuff again.
I lug home bags of shopping and pass one of my Cheshire Cat signs in a tree on the way. I bought wooden outlines of the cat’s face and tail, painted them in pink and purple stripes, and strategically placed them in trees and hedges around Ever After Street and the surrounding area, intended to look like the cat has started to disappear, like he does in the films. I’ve attached laminated tags to them, advertising the opening of The Wonderland Teapot. I got posters printed up and every shop has got one displayed in their windows for me, and I also got some postcards printed and every shopkeeper took a handful and promised to pop them into the bags with every customer’s purchase.
I just hope it will be enough because I’ve never wanted anything to be a success more than I want this to. This opportunity is perfect for me – I just need to be perfect forit.
3
It’s opening day and I’ve been here since 7a.m., unpacking everything I bought last night and decorating it. There are the trays of brownies that I’ve cut into individual squares and affixed rice paper ‘Eat Me’ tags to. Red velvet cupcakes with swirls of cream cheese icing on top that I’ve showered with red heart sprinkles. The scones have been given a dusting of edible glitter. I got circle-shaped shortbread biscuits, added cat ears made out of pretzels, and iced them in pink and purple stripes.
As I finish each item, I arrange them on my homemade cake stands, made by gluing upside-down teacups between plates that decrease in size as they go upwards, and display them in the glass case in front of the counter where I’ve stood many times and chosen which of Lilith’s treats to devour that day.
A part of the wall beside the counter is painted with chalkboard paint, and I’ve added sandwich options in a rainbow of colourful chalk writing, alongside tearoom staples like toasted teacakes, crumpets, hot buttered toast, and scones with clotted cream.
I’m cutting apples into thin slices to form a rose shape to put on top of each custard tart, when there’s a knock at the door. It’s halfpast eight. Who on earth is that going to be? Early customers? I can see a flash of colour standing outside the frosted glass panels in the door, and I pull it slightly ajar and peer out.
‘Twinkle twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you’re at.’ Standing on the cobblestones outside is the Mad Hatter, who winks at me with a grin that’s as bright as the rest of hisexceptionallybright outfit.
I recognise the quote from Wonderland immediately, and the costume the man is wearing is unmistakably inspired by the Hatter, from his lime green jacket to his blue spiky hair and the stack of top hats sitting on his head. What on earth is this? Are eager customers dressing up now? I hadn’t considered others might embrace the Alice theme with such dedication.
Unfortunately this one is a bittooeager and I’m going to have to put him off. ‘I’m sorry, we’re not open yet. If you could come back in half an hour…’
‘’ello! Mad Hatter reporting for duty.’ He salutes me by raising a hand to the second of the stack of three top hats balanced on his very bright head of hair.
I’m unsure of what he’s going on about but I try to be as polite as possible as I close the door. I really need to get those apple rose tarts finished, I can’t let a customer in at this time of day. ‘As I said, we’re not open ye?—’
