Page 5 of Cupcake

‘Nothing sweetie,’ laughed her mother, innocently raising her eyebrows.

‘Can we play I Spy?’

‘Not right now.’

‘Turn left up here,’ said Elsie as they slowly approached a junction. ‘It’s so kind of you to do this.’

‘Honestly, it’s no trouble, and I feel just as guilty as I know Tom does - I asked him to take the photograph of the three of us.’

‘It was just an accident, I’ll be fine.’

‘Is your leg going to fall off?’ asked Marlie from the back.

‘Yes it is, sweetie,’ said Anna with a straight face. ‘We’re just going back to their house to find an axe. Do you want to do the chopping?’

‘Yeah! Chop! Chop!’

‘Chop! Chop!’ joined in Amabella.

Elsie burst into giggles in the front, smiling and shaking her head.

The roads were beginning to clear now and Anna started to speed up as the white covering turned slushy and then grey, the tarmac resurfacing as a few other cars began to appear, their lights twinkling in the flurries.

‘Take a right at the roundabout,’ said Elsie as it came into view. ‘We’re about a mile up the lane.’

‘You’re not that far from us,’ said Anna, smiling as she indicated, a force of habit despite the lack of other cars around. ‘We live another few minutes that way.’

‘It’s beautiful round here, isn’t it?’

Anna turned right onto the single track lane, the four by four doing its job as she crept up the hill a few metres at a time.

‘I’ve always wondered what’s up here,’ she grinned.

Elsie glanced across at her as she looked back and for a moment their eyes met, and lingered for a moment too long.

She had such a beautiful smile. It was her eyes that did it, they shone with such an overwhelming innocence and sense of honesty that you couldn’t help but be enchanted by her.

It was dizzying, and for a moment Elsie felt her chest warming. She smiled and looked away, shy and embarrassed.

‘I think we’re here,’ said Anna pulling up into the driveway of their cottage, ploughing through the snow and then slowing to a halt behind Alice’s buried car. ‘Is this you? Fern Cottage?’

‘This is me,’ said Elsie, as she took a deep breath. Her chest was fluttering and she did her best to hide her rising embarrassment and widening grin as Anna flicked off the ignition.

‘Then let’s get you inside.’

*

A thin layer of snow was falling from the sky again, settling on the windscreen and quickly melting against the heat of the four-by-four’s interior as the engine cooled.

‘So, is that your friend’s car?’ she said, glancing sideways as she peered at Alice’s buried vehicle. ‘How long has she been here?’

Elsie nodded and then blushed. ‘She came over for dinner on Saturday night and got snowed in.’

‘But the snow didn’t start until Sunday morning.’

‘Oh. Yes, I know,’ she bit her lip and then turned awkwardly to look at Anna. ‘She got a little drunk and slept on the couch, by the time she woke up the next morning it was eight inches deep.’

‘So she’s been staying with you since then?’

---