Free A Spoonful of Sugar by Kerry Barrett

and nodded.
    ‘Oh I reckon so,’ he said, not at all bothered by his baking disaster. ‘Yours looks amazing by the way.’
    I was piping my pastry into éclair shapes on the baking tray.
‘They’re not bad, are they?’ I said, feeling a bit smug. ‘Harry had an inkling we’d get éclairs this week so she made me practice.’
    ‘Ooh careful,’ said Wilf. ‘Pride comes before a fall here.’
    I paused in my piping and looked at him.
    ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
    Wilf came closer to me and spoke quietly.
    ‘Well, Amelia was boasting about her bakes and she was taken out,’ he said, his eyes wide.
    ‘No,’ I scoffed. ‘I know she’s been saying she doesn’t feel safe but that’s just to get attention, surely?’
    Wilf made a face that said he wasn’t convinced.
    ‘She doesn’t really mean
Britain Bakes
is dangerous,’ I said, feeling slightly less sure of myself. ‘It was an accident.’
    Wilf pursed his lips.
    ‘And Ronald?’
    ‘Coincidence,’ I said firmly. ‘Unlucky coincidence. Whatever the opposite of serendipity is.’
    ‘If you’re sure,’ Wilf said, giving his disastrous choux pastry another stir. ‘But all I’m saying is: watch your back.’
    I rolled my eyes at him and he smirked at me as he went back to his bench to start all over again.
    I didn’t need to watch anything, I thought, carefully putting my éclairs in the oven. It was fine. Amelia was just using her accident to further her career and get herself on Peter’s show.
    In fact, I forgot all about Wilf’s words of doom while I piped cream into my crisp, evenly brown éclairs, and dipped them in chocolate icing. They were the best things I’d ever made, I thought proudly. And I hoped the judges thought so too.

Fourteen
    To my surprise, the judges did.
    ‘These are terrific,’ Lizzie said, munching happily. ‘You’ve got the right amount of cream and icing, and they’re perfectly baked.’
    I smiled in delight. Maybe I had inherited the family talent for baking after all.
    ‘Well done,’ Peter said grudgingly. I fought the urge to scowl at him. He was such a misery guts.
    Of course, Harry’s éclairs were voted best of the bunch, while June’s were also gorgeous. Wilf’s weren’t great. His second attempt at the dough had also been too runny, and he’d ended up with skinny little éclairs that were, according to Lizzie, ‘too chewy’.
    ‘You’ve made a right mess of those,’ Peter told him. Wilf looked glum and I felt sorry for him. Hopefully he’d pull it out of the bag in the next challenge. Although, I thought suddenly, my competitive nature finally getting into gear, if he did, then I’d probably be the one to go home this week. With the final round in sight – just two weeks away – I discovered I actually really, really wanted to make it to the end.
    That was a surprise. I decided to spend our lunch break studying my notes and recipes for this afternoon’s test – pies.
    We all sat together in the cafe for lunch, but instead of joining in the chatter, I read and re-read everything I’d brought with me. This next challenge was to make a three-tiered pie – a celebration pie. Jamie was thrilled with the very idea and had spent all week eagerly suggesting ideas and then gobbling them up as fast as I could make them. I’d eventually decided on a three-course-dinner pie. My smallest tier was a starter – a feta and spinach parcel sprinkled with sesame – then the main course was a traditional chicken and mushroom pie, and pudding, the biggest tier on the bottom, was a treacle tart. Apart from the timings, it was all pretty straightforward and once again I was worried I’d gone too simple.
    Harry was making three kinds of fruit pies, each with a different fancy crust. June was doing pies for three occasions – Christmas, Easter and Halloween. And Wilf’s was genius. He was doing breakfast, lunch and dinner in pie form. Sausage, bacon and egg on one tier, a layer of Cornish pasty for lunch