When I got back into the kitchen, the cake was out of the oven and cooling on the table. Dad was digging through Martha’s bag of stuff, but then he looked up and caught James almost sticking his face in the cake and prodding it with his finger.
‘James!’ said Dad. The Guilty Boy jumped backwards so hard that he crashed into the fridge. ‘Will you stop poking and wiping your nose on that cake? People are going to eat it.’
Dad opened up the bag and lifted out a massive block of bright yellow icing that almost hurt your eyes to look at. ‘What do you think of this, then?’ he asked proudly. ‘It was on special offer.’
I bet it was. I think I’d rather eat the bit of cake that James wiped his nose on, but Dad can never resist anything on special offer. He tipped all the other special offers out of the bag. There was about three tonnes of coloured sprinkles, squirty toppings, sweets, chocolate shapes and of course some dodgy pink crisps. Yahoo, good old Dad! If you’re making a cake for a Guess the Weight of the Cake competition, you don’t want it to look boring.
Dad and me began rolling out the icing and slapping it on the cake, but James just stood in the corner having a bit of a panic.
‘Do you want to do a bit, James?’ I asked him nicely like the lovely sister I am.
‘I’d rather he found that remote,’ said Dad as he aimed a strawberry sauce squirter at the cake. ‘Because James isn’t going to get any pocket money till it turns up.’
BLOSH!
SPLUDGE!
SQUIRTY PLOP!
We’d been decorating the cake for about half an hour, and the yellow icing was completely covered with flowers, stars, hearts, rockets and a rather lovely skull. The whole soggy lump was dripping with so much strawberry and chocolate topping that it had run off all over the table. There were just a few tiny silver sugar balls left on a saucer.
‘Shall I put these on Dad?’ I asked.
‘Hmmm . . .’ he said having a deep artistic contemplation to himself. ‘Nah, better not. We don’t want to overdo it.’
Just then we heard the front door open. ‘We’re home!’ shouted Mum and then little sister Tilly ran in wearing her ballet skirt.
‘What’s that?’ said Tilly when she saw the cake.
‘It’s for the school fete on Monday,’ I told her.
‘Oh,’ said Tilly wrinkling her nose.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Dad proudly.
That was a mistake. You should never ask Tilly if she likes anything, because you always get the same answer.
‘Hmmm . . . bit boring,’ said Tilly, then she ran upstairs to get changed.
‘She’s wrong,’ said Dad sounding hurt. ‘This cake is a legend. In years to come there’ll be coach tours going down Odd Street showing people where it was made. It’s one of the all-time greats.’ He took some photos of the cake on his phone then wrapped a big sheet of cling film round it. Finally he took one more photo and then went upstairs for a bath because he was covered in yellow icing, flour, cream and squirty toppings. James was still staring at the cake like it was about to bite him.
‘What is your problem?’ I asked.
‘The TV remote’s in there,’ whispered James. ‘It has to be!’ He went to the kitchen drawer and got a long metal meat spike out. ‘I’ll see if I can feel it.’ James was just about to stick the spike into the top of the cake.
‘Are you mad?’ I warned him. ‘Dad will go nuts if you burst the cling film.’
‘Then how can I find out? I have to know!’