Rose said to no one in particular.
A furry grey head, its ears flattened, appeared from a mound of dirty clothes at the foot of her bed. “Be careful what you wish for,” Gus said. “Wishes before birthdays have a strange way of coming true.” The Scottish Fold cat raised a paw and began licking carefully between each sheathed claw.
“That’s just silly,” Rose said. “My birthday isn’t until the end of summer. Anyway, I didn’t really mean it.” She scratched his head and he purred. “I’d just like to not have to bake for a little bit, you know?” She’d become a baker because she loved her family and her town, and baking was in her blood – but thanks to her victory at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands, everything had been turned upside down.
She knew it had only been a measly two weeks, but the past fourteen days had been the longest of her life. No peace and quiet. No time to enjoy the summer. Baking wasn’t fun anymore; it was something she was expected to do – like homework.
And that was no fun at all. As far as Rose was concerned, unless something changed this summer, she was done with baking for good.
Downstairs, inside the kitchen of the Bliss Family Bakery, the situation was no better. Camera flashes burst through the drawn curtains like stuttering flickers of lightning, and the barking of reporters outside the door made it sound like there were a thousand people outside instead of just a few hundred. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?
The mail was almost worse.
Rose’s brothers, Sage and Ty, were already sitting in the bakery kitchen, tearing through yesterday’s mail, throwing the unimportant letters into a giant black trash bag and placing the ones that needed answers in a pile. Rose knew the letters were for her (“Your fans love us – I mean, you,” Ty liked to say) but she was tired of having to read them. She didn’t want to look at another letter now – or ever. She just wanted to get back to a normal life.
“Junk,” announced Sage, throwing a stack of balled-up paper into the trash. Rose’s pudgy-cheeked younger brother had just turned ten, but he didn’t look a day older than eight. He had curly, strawberry-blond hair, and the only thing that had grown on him over the past year was the number of freckles on his nose.
“What was in it?” asked Ty. Rose’s handsome older brother had grown, but not enough – lately he had confided in Rose that he was worried that his dreams of NBA superstardom were out of reach.
“The prime minister of Spain wants a cake,” Sage said, flipping through the letters, “Warren Buffett wants an enormous pie-chart pie, with a different flavour for every section.”
“What’s a pie chart?” Ty asked.
“Who’s Warren Buffett?” Rose asked.
“Some nobody who likes pie, I guess,” Sage said, and read another letter. “The United Nations General Assembly wants us to make a cupcake for every ambassador for their next meeting – frosted with the country’s flag, and – listen to this – ‘the flavour of each ambassador’s homeland in every single nibble.’”
“Ugh,” Ty replied. “When is someone important gonna write to us?”
Sage opened the next letter, a heavy pink envelope that wafted out a gentle breath of sweet perfume. He fell to the floor and clutched his chest like a man dying of heartache.
“Now!” he cried, handing the letter to Ty and Rose.
Rose scanned the delicate sheet of stationery:
Dear Wonderful Rose and the Rest of the Follow Your Bliss Bakery!
Please send me a cake. Please. I don’t care what kind. I have to have one of your cakes. I will die without it. I will pay you anything. You can even play in the band on my next tour.
Send the cake soon.
Katy Perry
“No!” Ty gasped. “She must have been watching the competition, seen me, and fallen in love. The cake is just a way to get to me.”
Rose sighed. She knew she should be excited, but all these letters from famous people just made her tired. Baking wasn’t about getting notes from celebrities. It was about mixing and stirring and folding, about flour and butter and sugar and heart, and love, and—
“We’re rich!” cried Ty, holding up a letter embossed with the cartoon image of Kathy Keegan, the name of a big baked goods conglomerate.
“Rose,” Ty said, “they’re offering seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars just for doing a single thirty-second commercial endorsing their products.”
“Why all the sevens?” Sage asked.
“All you have to do is eat a Keegan Kake and say, ‘I’m Rosemary Bliss, youngest winner in history of the Gala des Gâteaux Grands,’ and, um, ‘Kathy Keegan is my inspiration!’” Ty handed her the letter and stared moonily at the ceiling. “If I were married to Katy Perry, and you signed this endorsement deal … none of us would ever have to work again!”
“Kathy Keegan isn’t even real,” Rose answered. “The Keegan Corporation was founded by a group of businessmen. How can I say someone is my inspiration when she isn’t even an actual person? Besides, I would never eat a Keegan Kake. You know what Mum says about cakes that come wrapped in plastic.” She stuffed the letter into her pocket and turned away. She’d had enough of letters.
That’s when she noticed that every available surface in the kitchen was covered in cookie sheets lined with parchment.
Her mother, Purdy Bliss, burst through the saloon doors from the front room of the bakery, her arms laden with grocery bags. She was a sturdy woman with a sweet face and curly black hair and bangs that flopped wildly over her forehead.
“Boys, the buttons!” she cried. “I told you to pipe the buttons and not stop until all these cookie sheets are filled!”
The boys grumbled as they each picked up a pastry bag. Purdy tousled their red hair as they set about piping little blobs of chocolate dough onto the sheets in tidy rows.
“What’s going on?” Rose asked.
“Those reporters,” Purdy said, kissing Rose on the forehead. “We’ll never get on with our lives until they vamoose.”
“I’ll help,” Rose said, feeling enthusiastic for the first time in days. Maybe she could actually be useful.
“Rose, honey,” said Purdy, unpacking the groceries, “you should probably go back upstairs. You’re the one who really sets them off.”
“Am I just supposed to stay in my tower, like Rapunzel?” Rose asked, throwing up her arms. “I don’t think so.” She seized a pastry bag filled with chocolate dough and squeezed out a few orderly blobs as her brothers finished the rest.
“Three hundred buttons,” Purdy said, counting. “Just enough. Children, come here.” She drew Rose and her brothers close to her, gently settling her arms on their shoulders.
The door to the walk-in fridge swung open, and Rose’s great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar emerged carrying a massive blue mason jar lined with chicken wire. From inside it came a sound like ten thousand electric toothbrushes all buzzing at the same time. “You ready?” he asked.
Purdy nodded and cried, “Release the bees!”
Balthazar set the jar down in the center of the kitchen floor, then cracked open the lid. A swarm of bees tumbled forth, filling the kitchen like a horrible fuzzy cloud of buzzing black-and-yellow smoke.
“Behold, the Dread Swarm of the Tubertine!” Balthazar cried, tugging at his beard.
“The cookies are Mind Your Own Beeswax Buttons,” explained Purdy over the sound of the buzzing. “If you eat a cookie imbued with one sting from the Dread Swarm