Free Step Back in Time by Ali McNamara

because I’m now living here in the sixties? There’s so many things I don’t understand, so many questions I need answering. And all I know for definite at the moment is I have to get back, and to do that I have to find the – what had George called it? The link that will help me learn what I need to know. Even that was cryptic.
    Deciding I’ve heard enough music for now, I lift the needle on the record player, replace the Beatles record in its sleeve, and head into the kitchen to see how Ellie is getting on.
    The scene that greets me is somewhat chaotic.
    There are mixing bowls, wooden spoons and empty packets everywhere. Lying on the kitchen counter, there’s an upturned set of kitchen scales that Ellie borrowed from one of our neighbours before she began, and a cloud of white dust floats over the whole kitchen, which could either be flour or icing sugar.
    ‘How’s it going?’ I ask casually, leaning against the doorframe.
    ‘Bloody awful,’ Ellie moans, turning to face me. ‘Look.’ She waves her hand in the direction of two trays of fairy cakes. At least, I think that’s what they are. The contents of one tray are so black it looks as if Ellie has commanded a dragon to breathe fire across it in order to bake the cakes. On the second tray, the cakes are a much more edible golden brown colour, but there appear to be large craters in the centre of every one.
    ‘Oh,’ I say, pulling a face.
    ‘It’s a disaster, Jo-Jo, a 100 per cent, no-holds-barred disaster!’
    ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I try to reassure her, moving into the kitchen to fully inspect the cakes. ‘Oh,’ I repeat, as I view the full extent of the catastrophe in front of me. ‘Apparently it can.’
    ‘Aw,’ Ellie wails, ‘what am I gonna do? This was me only chance of impressing the bosses. It’s not like anyone notices me at work, is it? I’m just a typist; I’m like all the other typists in the pool, I’m never goin’ to stand out. And I
want
to win that prize. I
want
to meet the Beatles! It’s me one chance to do something exciting!’
    ‘Right,’ I say, taking charge. ‘For one thing, don’t let me ever hear you say that again. You, Ellie, are an individual. You’re unique. No one else is like you, and don’t you ever forget it. You can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it, just you wait and see.’
    Ellie’s big green eyes open wide in her flour-covered face.
    ‘And secondly,’ I continue, as I reach for a flowery apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen, ‘you happen to be sharing your flat with the best cake maker since Jane Asher!’
    ‘Jane Asher?’ Ellie wrinkles her nose. ‘Do you mean Paul McCartney’s girlfriend? Does she cook, then?’
    ‘I don’t know about now,’ I say hastily, as I reach for a clean mixing bowl and a new packet of flour, ‘but I’m pretty sure she’ll be very good at it in the future.’
    We spend the rest of the evening creating perfect-looking cupcakes, although Ellie insists on calling them
mahoosive
fairy cakes. Luckily our neighbour, Martha, is a keen cook, and lends us a few more items than just her scales, after we visit her begging for supplies. Martha, who I find to be an enchanting little old lady, delights in finding us the perfect items for our baking session. She confesses she doesn’t bake as often as she used to since her husband’s death, and she’s more than happy for her equipment to be put to good use. So we return to our flat with piping bags, cake decorations, food colouring – the lot, with a promise to let Martha taste some of our first batch when we’ve finished baking for the evening.
    I wonder if Martha might be a bit lonely, living on her own next door, and it seems such a shame she never gets to use any of her baking equipment any more. So while I’m working away, I decide I’ll ask her to bake Ellie and I one of her own favourite cakes if she’d like to, when we return with our own efforts, and we’ll pop in and have tea with