Gus wore a look of sheer contempt as he gazed into the eyes of the round-headed baker.
“No cats in the kitchen,” said Mr Kerr, pulling Gus from Marge’s arms and dropping him back inside Rose’s backpack. She heard the Scottish Fold sigh deeply over the ratchet of the zipper.
“Do I start baking now?” Rose asked, eager to get this whole charade over with so she could return to her family. They’d be worrying, she knew.
“That’s the spirit!” said Mr Butter. “But no. It’s too late today. You’ll start in the morning.”
“You expect me to sleep here?” Rose asked, outraged. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
Mr Butter gritted his teeth, but said cheerfully, “If you are to perfect the five recipes in the five days we’ve allotted you—”
“Five days?!” Rose repeated, shocked. She had expected to spend a few hours here at the most – not days.
“It’s not enough time for an average baker, I know,” Mr Butter said, stroking his lip, “but are you not the great” – he coughed into his hand – “Rosemary Bliss? The youngest baker to win the Gala blah blah blah?”
“It was the Gala des Gâteaux—”
“Yes, I know what it was called. I said ‘blah blah blah’ to show you that I am not impressed. As I was saying, to make the most of the five days until … well, the five days we have allotted you, you will live here. Your bedroom is up those stairs there, in the office that overlooks the FLCP Development Kitchens. Tomorrow you’ll get started, and Marge and the team will execute your marvelous ideas. The team is always here. If you have an inspirational dream and come up with something brilliant at three in the morning, just wake Marge, and the team will rally behind you.”
“The bakers all live here?” Rose asked, looking around uneasily.
“Of course,” said Mr Butter. “They sleep right back there, in the Bakers’ Quarters. Where else would they live?”
“In town, maybe? With their families?” Rose offered.
“Oh,” said Mr Butter, laughing as though Rose had told a funny joke. “Goodness, no. We are in recipe crisis here, Rose, and recipe crisis requires round-the-clock attention. What are families and homes when there are snack cakes to perfect? Nothing! The only thing that matters – to me, the Mostess Corporation, and to you – is that these recipes be perfected.” He dropped one of his bony hands on her shoulder; it was like having a bag of hangers draped across her back. “The bakers won’t be going anywhere until our little problem is solved. And neither, for that matter, will you. Good night, Rose. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Rose climbed the spiral stainless steel staircase in the corner of the test kitchen, which led to a room suspended from the corner of the ceiling. She could hear Gus snoring from inside of her backpack, so she knew he was OK.
The room had glass walls and looked out over the test kitchen like a fishbowl on a shelf, with Rose the fish. Marge had turned off the lights and the bakers had returned to their quarters at the back of the kitchens. Rose’s room had a single, tiny window to the outside world, just one foot square, above the bed. Through it, June twilight filtered in and glinted on the prep tables in the darkened kitchen below.
The room was filled by a twin bed with a white duvet, a metal desk and desk lamp, and a little wooden dresser. Past a door on the back wall was a white-tiled bathroom, complete with little monogrammed towels. MOSTESS spelled the red thread. Sitting on top of the desk was a glass of milk and a few dry-looking biscuits. Dinner? Rose thought.
Rose breathed deeply – the room had an oddly familiar smell, though she couldn’t place her finger on it. Was it the faintest whiff of old perfume? A faintly flowery hint of … she couldn’t recall where she knew the scent from. Maybe it was just the trusty old smell of a bakery?
White curtains were tied in bunches in the corners of the room; Rose untied them, covering the glass walls for privacy. Then she unzipped her backpack and Gus tumbled out onto the bed.
“Ah!” he said, waking up from his nap. “Are we home yet?” He glanced from side to side, then sat back and curled his tail round his feet. “I was hoping this place was all a bad dream.”
“I’m afraid not,” Rose said. She took a biscuit and broke it in half, popping one of the pieces into her mouth and giving the other to Gus. Then she took a swig of milk.
“It’s OK, Rosie,” the cat said between bites. “We will triumph! Are we not cats? Are we not the slyest, smartest, most surprising foes in all of creation? Are we not—”
“You’re a cat,” Rose said, frowning. “I’m a girl.”
“A technicality,” Gus said. “My point, though, was simple. We shall get through this. We have each other.” He yawned.
Rose cracked open the window above the bed and stuck her head out. The room was pretty high up. All she could see were the tops of other warehouses. They seemed to go on forever. On the very edge of the horizon was a barbed-wire fence. There’d be no escaping through this window.
The sky was a dark purple, the color of a summer plum, with little rivulets of bright orange winding their way through the deep clouds. Her parents would definitely be panicking by now. They would notify the police, they would search Calamity Falls, they would find her bike outside Stetson’s on Sparrow Hill, and Devin Stetson would tell them she had made her final delivery at around three that afternoon. They would know she’d been missing ever since.
Rose gave a trembling sigh. She just wanted to go home. She missed her sister and her parents, Balthazar and Chip – she even missed her brothers! “I wish I’d never made that wish,” she muttered. “To stop baking. Then none of this would have happened.”
“This isn’t happening to you because of a little wish,” the cat said, “so don’t go beating yourself up over it. Just get a good night’s sleep. That’s a cat’s solution to everything, you know: sleep. The right thing to do is always obvious in the morning. Oh, and by the way – had you considered sharing your milk?”
Rose stared at the half-empty glass. “I’m sorry, Gus. How rude of me.” She tipped the glass over on the floor and let Gus lap up the rest of it with his tongue.
“Oh no,” Rose moaned, staring at her clothes. “I don’t have any pyjamas.”
“Neither do I,” Gus said, looking up at her. “But you don’t see me complaining about it!”
Rose rolled her eyes and went to the dresser and tugged open the drawers. They were stuffed with white linen trousers in all sizes, white chef’s coats, white chef’s hats, and boy’s underwear.
“Seriously?” she said, holding up an unopened package of briefs. “I have to wear these?”
Gus did his best to twist his head around so that he could clean his back. “Ugh! Out, out, spot! I’ve been cleaning since we got here, and there is still flour stuck in my fur.”
Rose sat down again on the bed, right next to Gus. The two of them huddled against each other, and Rose thought about what her family would be doing right about now if she’d been at home.
Leigh would have been pulled out of her filthy trousers and T-shirt and been loudly unhappy until she was zipped up into her pyjamas. Sage would be using the head of Rose’s desk lamp to create a spotlight, and then performing in its beam, telling the jokes he’d written and then raising his hands to quiet the nonexistent audience. Ty would be making plans for what he called “the Grand Finale” – the stunts he hoped to pull off during the last week of school. And her parents …
It was too much. Rose blinked back tears. She knew her family wouldn’t be doing any of these things. They’d all be awake, so worried about Rose they’d be unable to eat dinner, let alone sleep. She had to find a way to contact