Free Just Like Magic by Elizabeth Townsend

felt satisfied for the first time in months.
Not that cooking was easy from then on. I forced myself to read from Mrs. Homebody’s Household Helper , tried some of her simpler recipes, and wrote down a long list of questions for Lottie. What did sauté mean? How much seasoning was “season to taste”? How hot was a “hot oven”? I burned (and buried) a tray of cookies, and for several meals we had tea and toast for various reasons: one morning I had trouble getting the stove lit again, and one afternoon I forgot a whole chicken roasting while I was picking and arranging flowers from the garden.
But most of the meals were better, and one morning I mixed up cinnamon muffins that came out light and delicious—and I made my bed every day.
That next week Lottie arrived with a basket of apples. I fed her muffins and asked her my questions, and she answered them and showed me how to bake apple pie. “This is going along a bit quick, miss, but you can practice this week, and next week I can bring you some starter and we’ll try bread.”
Bread! What with baking, nursing a starter (I only killed it once, by leaving it on the stove by mistake, and Lottie brought more the next week), and keeping the kitchen more cheery (I swept and dusted every Wednesday, before Lottie came), my life was becoming quite busy.
But it wasn’t all pie and flowers. Some nights I went to bed with eyelids I could barely prop open and slept like Archibald till dawn, but there were other nights, nights when I couldn’t drift off till far past midnight and finally slept with a damp pillow and swollen eyes. For my stepsisters had not failed to notice that I was spending more time in the kitchen.
I had just brought them breakfast in the dining room one morning when Gerta glanced at me. I was wearing a pink-flowered muslin dress and had pinned a daisy at my waist to cheer myself. “My goodness, Ella,” said Gerta. “Wouldn’t a plain gray dress be better for working in the kitchen?”
I nearly dropped my tray. “I beg your pardon!”
“That would look delightful!” said Lucy, considering me over the rim of her teacup. “So—so suitable! Just like Mrs. Trenton back home.”
“And would you two like plain gray dresses for walking Mon Petit and dusting?” I demanded.
“Dresses? Dresses?” said Stepmama, looking up from Mon Petit, who was seated on the chair next to hers as she fed him toast. “Dearest, we must wait on new dresses! The horrid budget, you know!”
“A pity,” said Lucy, aiming another venomous glance at me before attacking her egg.
But worse, somehow, than their plans for dressing me like a scullery maid were their lively conversations about the balls, parties, and picnics that they were attending. For it was September now, and the Little Season had begun.
Gerta described an evening party at the Countess of Clatham’s. “Boats on the lake, you know, and lanterns in the trees! Of course it was horrid damp, but the gentlemen were so attentive—”
“You mean Viscount Allen asking you to dance?” Lucy interrupted. “He could hardly refuse after you bumped into him like that!”
“It was an accident!”
“No, your real conquest, I think, is that lieutenant. The big one with hair like a haystack that you met at the Duke of Reynham’s. He danced with you twice, didn’t he? And how many times did he step on your feet?”
“Well, what about you? Dancing with the Minister of Finance! He must be eighty-two!”
“At least I wasn’t wearing a headdress like a feather duster!”
“I’ll have you know my plumes were greatly admired!”
“Then there must have been a bird fancier’s club at the party!”
Another day Lucy went on and on about a musical soirée. “Simply everyone was there. Her Royal Highness noticed me, of course. She was wearing mauve silk, and I must say my pale green set hers off to great advantage.”
Gerta yawned. “It’s a pity it didn’t set you off to great advantage. And that pianist! I thought