Secrets, Schemes & Sewing Machines

by Katy Cannon

  “Well, in that case…” Miss Anderson disappeared to the shelf of cookbooks behind us. “You’re going to want to make these.” She left the book open for us, and we all stared at the red and white cupcakes in the photo.

  “Red velvet cupcakes,” Lottie read. “Perfect!”

  “So, we’re going to do this?” Yasmin asked.

  I nodded. “Definitely. Thanks, guys.” Romance, cake and fundraising. It would be perfect. I couldn’t wait to tell Connor.

  “No problem.” Yasmin grinned. “Then we’d better get planning!”

  Yasmin loved organizing things, and Lottie wanted to be in on all the details. So while they debated bunting colours with Izzy, and whether we’d provide the Valentine’s Day cards, I tugged on Jasper’s sleeve and led him over to the cookbook shelf, under the guise of looking for more recipes.

  “How about these heart-shaped cookies?” he asked, flipping through the pages of Sweet Treats.

  “How about you fill me in on what’s going on with you and Izzy?” I folded my arms and stared him down. “Come on. She was asking about you when you didn’t come back to Sewing Club, you know. So? Is this a rebound thing, or what?”

  “It’s a friends thing,” Jasper said firmly. He let the book fall closed and shoved it back in its place. “She taught me how to sew. I thought it was only fair that I returned the favour by teaching her to bake.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” Reaching up, he grabbed another book from the shelf. Since it was about cooking with mince, I didn’t think it was going to help hugely. “Izzy knows all about Ella, and she knows that I’m kind of, well, you know…”

  “Still hung up on her?”

  “Something like that. Anyway. Izzy’s cool, and I like hanging out with her. But we’re just friends.” He made it sound like he’d achieved some great milestone in male-female relations.

  I was pretty sure he was just kidding himself.

  “So … Izzy’s completely all right with that, then? Just being friends?”

  “Of course she is.” Jasper looked at me with wide, clueless eyes. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “Somehow, I knew you’d be responsible for all the pink and red around the school today.” Mr Hughes stood in the doorway to the school hall, arms folded. He was smiling, though, so I figured I wasn’t in too much trouble.

  “Actually, it was all Yasmin’s idea.” I straightened the plate of red velvet cupcakes so that Lottie couldn’t complain. “The whole of Bake Club helped. Izzy and I did make the bunting, though,” I admitted, looking up at the strings of pink and red flags that hung around the hall. They covered most of the school, actually. It turned out that making bunting was simple when you got the hang of it, and Izzy and I had gone a little overboard with our pretty triangles. Jasper had been hanging it up since the caretaker opened the school at seven, and I wasn’t sure he had finished yet.

  “So when you said bake sale…” Mr Hughes trailed off.

  “I meant incredible Valentine’s Day Extravaganza that is totally going to save my costume budget.”

  “Fair enough.” Mr Hughes shrugged and turned to go. “Hey, if any of the teachers ask, tell them I gave you permission for everything, OK?” he called over his shoulder.

  I beamed at his retreating back. “Thanks, Mr Hughes!”

  Yasmin and Lottie arrived with another couple of plates of cakes and biscuits. Miss Anderson had let us in early to finish baking that morning, but we’d done most of it at Bake Club the night before. Yasmin had spent the weeks since we came up with the idea meticulously planning everything down to the last detail. All we’d had to do was follow the recipes and the plan.

  Now there was only half an hour until school started and, any moment, students were going to start arriving and walk into our Valentine’s Day Extravaganza.

  We’d started hinting that something was going to happen with some posters Jasper had designed, which we’d put up around the school at the beginning of last week. We hadn’t wanted to give too much away too early, but we also needed to make sure that people remembered to bring money in on the day. Jasper had done a great job of suggesting that we could solve everyone’s Valentine’s Day anxiety, without actually saying how.

  I just hoped the plan was going to work.

  At least the manic preparation for the takeover meant I hadn’t had time to obsess about whether I should be doing something for Connor on Valentine’s Day. Were we there yet? I wasn’t sure. What did “get to know each other better” really mean anyway? And did it involve gifts?

  The Valentine’s Day Extravaganza started with just a couple of confused-looking Year Eights, cash in hand, uncertain exactly what was going on. Yasmin, ever the saleswoman, stood up and explained.

  “First off, we have a selection of cakes and biscuits for you, or your loved one. But that’s not all.” She leaned across the stall and dropped her voice. “I bet you two girls have a certain someone you’d like to send a romantic gift to, right?”

  The girls exchanged a look, giggled and nodded.

  “Well, in that case,” Yasmin said, straightening up, “let me recommend our deluxe package. Choose any cake and card, write your message, give us a name and a class and we’ll deliver it to the guy or girl of your choice in their next lesson, all for only three pounds.”

  Given that the cakes were selling for one pound, but cost pennies to make, and that Yasmin had picked up a stack of cards at the pound shop, three pounds sounded a little steep to me, but the girls handed over their money readily enough.

  As they wrote their cards, Jasper checked the class schedule he’d swiped from somewhere, then passed me their sealed envelopes with an amused grin on his face. On the front of the first one were the words “Connor O’Neil”.

  “You know, Mr Hughes’s stepson,” the Year Eight girl told me, earnestly. “He’s soooo hot.”

  “Yeah. I know him,” I said, handing the card back to Jasper and trying not to scowl. It wasn’t Connor’s fault that other people had noticed he was cute, too.

  Then the door opened and in strolled Connor O’Neil himself, eyebrows raised as he took in the decorations. The Year Eight girls took one look, giggled and ran off again. Jasper just kept grinning.

  “So this is your answer to our costume fund issues, huh?” Connor asked.

  “Well, I had a little help,” I admitted. “But yeah, hopefully. So, you got anyone you want to send a Valentine to?” I waved one of Yasmin’s pound-shop cards at him.

  “I like to think I could do a little better than that,” Connor said.

  I liked to think so, too, not that I’d seen any evidence of it just yet. “How about a cake, then?”

  Connor shook his head. “I’ll come back and get one later. Guy— Mr Hughes needs me in the art room to look at the scenery boards. I’ll see you later, though?”

  I nodded. “Sure. You know where I’ll be.”

  He gave me a slow smile, and for a moment I thought he might kiss me there, in front of everybody. That would be enough of a Valentine for me.

  But then Jasper popped up beside him. “Connor O’Neil,” he announced loudly. “I have been charged with delivering this very special Valentine to you!” He handed over the bright pink envelope and a red velvet cupcake. Connor took it with a look of trepidation.

  “This something to do with you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “You should be so lucky,” I told him, straightening up the cakes again. “But apparently you’re very popular with Year Eight.”

  Connor slipped the card back into the envelope and shoved it in his bag. “Pity for them that there’s only one girl I’m interested in, then, isn’t it?”

  I’m not going to deny it, I blushed at that. Maybe I didn’t need cards, or cake, or presents after all. Knowing I was the only one Connor cared about … that felt a lot better than any of that other stuff.

  Before I could think of a suitable reply, the next lot of customers came in – a gang o
f Year Sevens. Then a guy from Year Ten, and a few from Year Eleven – and Connor simply waved from behind the crowd as he left. I’d have tried to catch him up to say goodbye properly, but I was too busy because, from there on things didn’t really stop.

  Word got around quickly. Once the first few customers had told their friends what was happening, they all wanted to get involved. Some just bought cakes, others took up Yasmin’s offer of the full Valentine’s package. Soon we had to rope in a few Year Nine girls to help with the deliveries in return for a free cupcake and card for their own crushes.

  We took shifts, depending on our classes, although most of the custom came during breaks and lunch, and in between periods. Just before lunch a tired-looking Mac turned up, and I handed him a red velvet cupcake straight off.

  “You look like you need the sugar,” I told him.

  He unwrapped it with a grateful look. “Thanks. I’ve been at work since four thirty.”

  “Aw, and you still came here to see Lottie on Valentine’s Day.” I packaged up a couple of cookies for him, too. No way one cupcake was going to see him through.

  Mac looked up at me with wide eyes. “Valentine’s Day? Oh God, she’s going to kill me.”

  “You forgot? Mac…”

  “I know, I know. I need to fix this.”

  “And quick,” I agreed. “We can give you a card and some cake, but…”

  “That’s not going to cut it,” Mac finished. In a couple of bites, he demolished his cupcake. “Right. If she asks, you haven’t seen me. I’ll be back later.”

  Of course, that was the moment Lottie walked in from her food tech class. She took one look at Mac racing out of the door, and turned to me with her eyebrows raised.

  “Have I mentioned recently that your boyfriend is an idiot?” I said.

  Lottie rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. He forgot Valentine’s Day?”

  “Yep.”

  Lottie stared at the door Mac had run off through. “He’ll make it up to me.”

  After an afternoon of more cake, more deliveries and almost running out of cards, we were all exhausted by the end of school. In fact, we were totally ready to pack up for the day when Connor walked back through the doors again.

  “Heard you guys have had the whole school crazy in love all day,” he said, helping himself to a cupcake. Yasmin held out a hand, eyebrow raised, and he dropped two pound coins into it before grabbing another cupcake. “How much did you make?”

  “Including your two pounds … £684.50.” Yasmin slammed the lid of the cash box closed and locked it. “Think that will do you for your costumes?”

  “Wow. It definitely should do.” Connor grinned and turned to me, his second cupcake balanced on his palm as he held it out. “For you.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Me? You realize I actually made these cakes, right?”

  “Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Also, I have a favour to ask you, and that kind of thing tends to go better with sugar.”

  “I should have known. Go on.” I peeled the heart-covered paper case off the red velvet cupcake and took a bite. Perfect, if I did say so myself.

  “Are you free next weekend?” he asked, and I raised an eyebrow. Maybe this was more of a line than I’d given him credit for.

  “Depends. What have you got planned?”

  “I thought we could go into London.” He ducked his head. “Actually, I already made an appointment for us at the National Theatre costume-hire place. We can reserve our costumes now, then pick them up the week of the show. And we could look for the last few props we need, too.”

  “I can do that. It sounds like fun.” Actually, what it sounded like was our first real date. I was already planning my outfit when another thought occurred to me. “Wait. You already made the appointment? How did you know we’d raise the money?”

  Connor gave me a lopsided smile. “I’ve never yet seen you not get what you wanted, if you wanted it bad enough.”

  “What about the role of Beatrice?” I stopped and felt my face flush. What made me say that? After months spent convincing him that I wasn’t scheming to steal the part, I’d pretty much just admitted that I was.

  “Well, I figure there’s still two and a half weeks until curtain up,” Connor said, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was joking. “Plenty of time yet.”

  The door opened, and a sheepish Mac stuck his head around it.

  “Uh-oh,” I murmured to Connor. “We might be in for a scene now.”

  “What happened?” Connor whispered back.

  “Mac forgot Valentine’s Day,” I said, and Connor rolled his eyes – whether at Mac’s forgetfulness or the importance placed on the day, I wasn’t sure.

  “Hey, Happy Valentine’s Day,” Mac said, as he reached Lottie.

  Lottie looked up from the cakes she was packing up and smiled. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too.”

  Connor glanced over at me, and I knew what he was thinking. So far, so good.

  “I missed you earlier,” Lottie went on, and I braced myself for yelling.

  “Should we be watching this?” Connor muttered.

  “Probably not.” But I didn’t move.

  Mac winced. “Yeah, sorry. I just…” he sighed. “Truth is, I forgot Valentine’s Day, and I wanted to get you something special. But I couldn’t find anything.”

  “You’re an utter idiot,” Lottie said fondly and reached out to touch his arm. “Grace says so.”

  My eyes widened. “Hey. You really don’t need to drag me into this!”

  “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just been really busy and—” Mac cut himself off as Lottie rolled her eyes and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “You’re not mad?” he asked, as the kiss ended.

  “Think about it, Mac. What is the best present I’ve ever had?”

  Mac blinked at her. “I don’t know.”

  Honestly. Boys were so oblivious. “Here’s a clue,” I called out to him. “You gave it to her. Last year.”

  “But I’ve never given you a proper present. That’s the point. I wanted to… Oh.”

  “There you go,” I muttered, as Mac pulled Lottie up to kiss her again.

  “You are the best girlfriend ever,” he said, as they broke the kiss.

  “I know,” Lottie replied and kissed him again. “I don’t need presents. I just need you.”

  “So … what did he get her?” Connor asked, looking bemused beside me.

  “He baked her a birthday cake.” I explained. “It was a whole thing. Anyway, she liked it.”

  “So, would a cake be enough to win your heart?” Connor asked, a mocking smile on his lips.

  I looked down at the empty cake case in my hand. “I’m more of a diamonds girl,” I joked.

  “I guessed as much.” Tugging my arm, he pulled me to the side of the hall where we were almost in private. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small parcel, wrapped in shiny silver paper. “Well, maybe this will do for starters.”

  I blinked at it in confusion for a moment before taking it, excitement and nerves making my blood pump faster. What was it? Carefully unpeeling the paper, I slipped out the book inside. It was small and old, and the boards of the cover were a faded red. But there, in silver lettering on the front, were the words “Foods and Fashions of the 1920s”.

  “It’s from the 1940s,” Connor said, looking a little uncomfortable. “I found it in this second-hand bookshop before Christmas and thought you might like it… I just hadn’t found the right time to give it to you.”

  I flipped through the yellowing pages. There were photos and sketches of the sort of clothes I was trying to recreate for the play, between recipes for cakes, bakes and dishes of the period. Yasmin and Lottie would definitely want to get a look at this.

  And there, just inside the front cover, was an incongruous yellow post-it note.

  To our Wardrobe and Props Mistress Extraordinaire. Something to remember our version of Much Ado by. Connor x

  “I
figured you probably already know all this stuff, but I thought it could be, like, a keepsake?”

  Glancing up from the book, I saw uncertainty playing on Connor’s face. I smiled at him to put him out his misery.

  “I love it,” I told him. “But … I didn’t get you anything. I wasn’t sure if we were… Well, I guess we never talked about if we were … at the gift stage, I suppose.”

  “Well, if it helps, I can think of something I want from you for Valentine’s Day,” Connor said, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Dipping his head, he kissed me. The sort of kiss that made every inch of me tingle. The sort of kiss that promised a lot more to come.

  “I think that makes us even. Don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” I said, grinning.

  What you need:

  1 piece of soft cotton 75 x 100cm

  1 piece of fleece or plush fabric 75 x 100cm

  What to do:

  1. Iron your cotton and place it right-side down against the right side of your fleece.

  2. Align the two pieces of fabric so they match exactly, then pin in place.

  3. Tack around the outside to hold them together, then remove the pins.

  4. Using your sewing machine, or backstitch if you’re hand sewing, sew all the way around the rectangle, about 1cm in from the edge. Start on one of the short sides, and stop 10cm before you reach the end, leaving an unsewn gap.

  5. Cut through and remove the tacking stitch.

  6. Turn the blanket the right way out through the gap, then fold over the loose edges of the fabric in the gap to match the rest, and pin in place.

  7. Iron the blanket again on the cotton side to make sure the edges are neat.

  8. If you’re hand sewing, neatly sew the gap closed using slip stitch or whip stitch.

  9. If you’re using a sewing machine, sew another line of stitches all the way around the blanket, 7.5mm in from the edge, making sure you catch and sew up the gap.

  I met Connor at the station that Saturday, feeling strangely self-conscious out of school uniform and without any of the cast or my friends around. I’d purposefully not dressed up too much for the occasion – we were going to root through old costumes, after all. But still, I wanted to look nice. I’d used the tutorial Faith had emailed to make a skirt from some gorgeous pale green fabric I’d found in the costume-cupboard scraps bin that we had permission to use, so I wore that paired with a pretty cream top, tights, boots and my favourite jacket. A little make-up, but not too much, and my blonde hair loose with just a little added wave, and a vintage clip in the side.