The Secret Cooking Club

by Laurel Remington

  It’s almost dark by the time I turn on to my road. I stop outside Mrs Simpson’s house. The windows are covered, but I can just make out a sliver of light coming from inside. I creep up to the door and peek through the letter box. The light is coming from the partly ajar kitchen door. And then I hear laughter – girls’ laughter.

  My heart goes to my throat. Violet is inside. And she’s with someone else – not one person, but two. ‘Yummy!’ a high voice squeals. I know that voice.

  Gretchen.

  I stand there frozen, unable to breathe. I’m not sure how much time goes by, but pretty soon I see the silhouettes of Gretchen and Alison against the cosy rectangle of light. I hear a chorus of ‘bye’s, ‘thanks’ and ‘catch you later’s. I rush away from the door and hide behind a smelly wheelie bin in the alleyway at the side of the house. The door opens and closes. Footsteps.

  ‘That was actually fun.’ A voice – Alison’s.

  ‘Yeah – I told you Violet was cool.’

  My heart is thrumming so loud that I barely hear them walking off down the road. Whatever they were doing, Violet’s stayed behind to clean up the mess. I storm up to the door and ring the bell – I hope it scares the pants off her.

  There’s no answer, so I kick away the mat, pick up the key and turn it roughly in the lock. I slam the door behind me as I go inside.

  There’s a sound in the kitchen of running footsteps. Violet must be trying to hide. I stomp in – let her think it’s Mr Kruffs.

  ‘Violet?’ Instead of sounding menacing, my voice breaks.

  There’s no answer.

  ‘How could you do it? We had a secret – together. How could you tell Gretchen – of all people?!’ My voice catches again, and an instant later, I’m sobbing. ‘I trusted you!’

  Violet comes out from around the side of the bookcase. Her face seems thinner, and her eyes have dark circles underneath, like she hasn’t slept.

  ‘You said you didn’t want to do this any more,’ she says quietly. ‘I came here yesterday after school and the day before and waited for you. But you didn’t come.’

  ‘So instead you brought Gretchen! You know how I feel about her. You brought her here!’ The words gurgle from my mouth like poison. ‘You betrayed me, Violet. You betrayed us.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She tries to put her hand on my arm but I jerk away. It’s then that I notice the tray of undecorated cupcakes in frilly pink wrappings set out on a wire rack to cool. I clench my fists to keep from throwing them in the bin.

  ‘Gretchen figured out it was me,’ Violet blurts. ‘That I was involved in The Secret Cooking Club. I mean, it was kind of obvious, wasn’t it? The free samples started just about the time I joined the school.’

  ‘So? You could have denied it.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t! Nick saw you in the corridor acting weird. Gretchen put two and two together, and figured out that you put the pies in the canteen.’

  ‘No!’ I put my hands over my face. ‘That’s exactly what I was afraid of.’

  ‘Listen – OK? She thought The Secret Cooking Club was a really cool idea. She tried the flapjacks and loved them. And actually, she didn’t get sick from the banoffee pie – she had a stomach bug.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. The secret was out. I knew you wouldn’t want her to tell your mum.’

  ‘My mum?’ My whole body goes rigid.

  ‘Yeah,’ Violet says. ‘So to make her keep the secret, I invited her and Alison to join.’ Her shoulders slump. ‘I saw where the key was kept so I knew I could get in . . . I know now it was a huge mistake but I didn’t know what else to do. I knew you probably hated me for making you put the pies in the canteen. But even if you never came back, I wanted to keep the secret. I told Gretchen that she could never tell anyone that you were involved. That you hated what she did to you before. I . . .’ Her voice quavers. ‘I thought I was doing you a favour . . .’

  ‘A favour!’ I cry. ‘Is that what you call it? I poured out my heart to you – told you all about my stupid mum and how she makes me feel. And what do you do? Tell Gretchen, of all people!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett.’

  ‘I mean, how would you like it if your mum splashed your whole life over the web? How would you like it if your mum were like mine—?’

  I stop abruptly. Violet turns away, her shoulders shaking as she begins to cry. All of a sudden, the penny drops. I’ve made a terrible mistake.

  BUTTERCREAM

  My anger dissolves in my throat. It all makes a kind of sad, tragic sense. For all my whingeing about my mum, Violet has never mentioned hers. And I’ve never asked. Aunt Hilda – why is Violet living with Aunt Hilda?

  ‘My mum’s dead,’ Violet says. ‘So’s my dad. So you’re right – I don’t know exactly how you feel.’

  ‘Oh, Violet.’ I take a step backwards, astounded by the force of her revelation and, unwittingly, my own selfishness. She lifts her head and I put my arm over her shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.

  Nodding, she wipes her eyes. I sit her down in one of the chairs. The cupcakes are cooling on a wire rack in front of us. I lean forward and examine them. Even un-iced, they look fluffy and delicious.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I say quietly.

  She doesn’t answer. Next to the cupcakes is a big bowl with a wooden spoon sticking out of it. She pulls the bowl in front of her and starts stirring – it’s the icing for the cupcakes. A piping bag and a box of cake-decorating nozzles are set out on the table.

  ‘We made these cupcakes for my birthday,’ Violet explains. ‘It’s tomorrow.’ Her lip quivers. ‘I felt bad coming here without you, but I really thought you’d quit. I didn’t want to lose this.’ She gestures with the spoon. ‘The Secret Cooking Club was important to me too.’

  ‘I’ve been totally selfish,’ I say. ‘And I hope you can forgive me.’

  She smiles faintly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can I help with the cupcakes?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  We split the icing into two separate bowls. I colour my half pink, and she adds clear white glitter to hers. I hand her the icing kit. The picture on the box shows that you can make little whirls and swirls with the icing bag. It looks kind of complicated, but I’m sure Violet can do it. She spoons some glitter icing into the bag and tries out some of the nozzles on a piece of kitchen roll. I smooth on a base layer of pink to each cupcake.

  She takes one of the cupcakes I iced and begins making a little border of icing swirls around the edge. Then she puts a crystallized violet in the middle and surrounds it with crystallized rose petals. Finally, she tops it all off by sprinkling on pink edible glitter.

  ‘It’s so pretty,’ I say.

  ‘I love doing the piping.’

  I hand her another cupcake. She changes nozzles and this time she makes a border like a ribbon. We work in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘My parents were in a car accident,’ she says finally. ‘They were driving home from a church fundraiser and a drunk driver hit them head-on. Dad was killed straightaway. But Mum . . .’ She sniffs. A tear trickles down her cheek. She stops piping the cupcakes and wipes her sleeve across her face. ‘They thought she would be OK. She was in a coma. I moved in with Aunt Hilda and visited Mum every day in hospital and sat with her for hours. I talked to her, sang songs – stuff like that. I just wanted to do something to make her wake up.’ She swallows hard. ‘And then she did wake up. She didn’t know who I was. They said she had “trauma to her brain and internal organs” but that in time she might recover. But as I was sitting there, the machine started beeping. She went into cardiac arrest. They did what they could, but nothing worked.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ As I say it again, I realize that ‘sorry’ must be the most useless word in the whole world. ‘It must have been— I mean, so awful.’

  She picks up the icing bag again. ‘It was,’ she says. ‘I try not to think about it. But sometimes, I dream abou
t that sound – when she flatlined.’ Another tear dribbles down her face. She wipes it away quickly. ‘I don’t usually cry.’

  ‘It’s OK – really.’ I give her another quick hug. ‘And I’m so sorry that I’ve been whingeing about my mum, when at least she’s—’ I stop, worried that I’ve put my foot in it again.

  ‘. . . alive,’ Violet finishes for me. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She starts on the next cupcake. ‘Your mum sounds pretty awful. I guess I’m lucky – Aunt Hilda’s been really nice to me.’ Her hand trembles and she blurs the border she’s making. I smooth it over with a knife so she can start again. ‘But she’ll never be Mum.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say stupidly. I remember the pang – the very brief pang – I felt when I saw the ambulance in our road and worried that maybe something had happened to Mum. When Dad left, I felt sad, and for a while I wondered if there was something I could have done to be a better daughter so he would stay. But Dad had nearly always been at work or out with his mates; he’d never had much time for Kelsie and me, so it wasn’t such a big change when he suddenly wasn’t there. Kelsie was only a toddler so she barely even remembers him. But if something happened to Mum . . .

  I shiver inwardly. She may not be perfect – far from it – but she’s still my mum.

  ‘Aunt Hilda had to take me because there was no one else. I don’t think she really wanted to – I mean, she has her own life. She likes to go out with her friends after work, but she doesn’t want to leave me alone. Plus, she got divorced a year or so ago, and she belongs to an internet dating site. I’m . . . you know . . . kind of in the way.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

  She shrugs. ‘Whatever. At least I’ve got this.’ She points to the cupcakes that look so beautifully white, pink and sparkly.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She looks up at me, her eyes the colour of a dayold bruise. ‘So now you know. My life in a nutshell.’

  I nod.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ she says. ‘About The Secret Cooking Club? I need to know – are you still in?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, immediately. ‘I’m still in.’

  *

  I’m still in.

  Of course I am. Violet needs a friend as much as I do, and besides, The Secret Cooking Club is half me. Or . . . a quarter, now.

  I lie awake in bed that night, unable to sleep. I still feel worried that Violet let Gretchen in on our secret – even if she meant well. When we’d finished the cupcakes and were cleaning up the kitchen, Violet assured me that Gretchen was totally on board and would keep things a secret. Alison wasn’t a problem – she would do whatever Gretchen told her. She said she’d talk to Gretchen and Alison tomorrow, and we could all meet up on Sunday.

  ‘OK,’ I said, still sceptical. ‘But if Gretchen tells anyone, then that’s it – I’m out,’ I warned. ‘Do you understand?’

  Violet said she understood.

  She said she would take care of everything.

  I have to believe her.

  THE NEW SECRET COOKING CLUB

  ‘Welcome to The Secret Cooking Club.’ My voice comes out less steady than when I practised it. I force a smile as Violet comes into Mrs Simpson’s kitchen followed by Gretchen and Alison.

  Gretchen eyes me warily. ‘Hello, Scarlett.’

  ‘This is such a killer kitchen,’ Alison says. ‘It must be nice to have a super-blogger for a mum.’

  I glance over at Violet. She’s obviously not told them whose kitchen this really is. She shrugs awkwardly.

  ‘We need to get a few ground rules straight.’ I gesture to the table where I’ve set out some mugs and glasses. The kettle is boiled, and I’ve also made a jug of squash. Alison and Violet sit down, but Gretchen leans back against the shelves of cookbooks, her arms crossed.

  I’m not quite sure what to do next: sit or stand; pour drinks or not. There’s a strong current of tension in the room. I continue standing at the head of the table and just keep talking.

  ‘First of all,’ I say, ‘secret means secret.’ I look squarely at Gretchen.

  She lifts her chin like I’ve insulted her, staring right back. ‘We won’t tell anyone at school,’ she says. ‘If that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘Or my mum?’ I realize that I’ve given away my entire hand in three words, but what else can I do?

  She pauses long enough to make me sweat. ‘Or your mum.’

  Our eyes lock for a long second. I decide that enough is enough. I sit down at the table. I’m not sure which one of us has ‘won’, but the tension begins to ebb away. Gretchen makes herself a cup of tea and I pour squash into glasses for the rest of us.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘That’s the main thing. But there are still some other things you should know.’ I look at Alison. ‘Like . . . this isn’t my house.’

  Violet gets the cupcakes we left here out of the fridge while I explain about Mrs Simpson. Gretchen tries not to act surprised, but I’m sure I see a new respect dawning in her eyes. I tell them about my breaking and entering to feed the cat, and how Violet and I visited Mrs Simpson in hospital.

  When I’m finished, I expect some kind of reaction – questions, or something. But by then, we’re all biting into the delicious pink cakes with buttercream swirls, and no one says much of anything at all. Finally, Alison wipes her mouth. ‘You can trust us, Scarlett. I mean, the whole thing is cool because it’s a secret.’

  ‘And since we’re a club,’ Gretchen says, ‘we should have some kind of secret handshake or password.’

  ‘OK,’ I acknowledge.

  ‘How about “Banoffee”?’ Violet suggests.

  Gretchen makes a face.

  ‘Maybe not.’ Alison laughs.

  ‘What about “Marzipan”?’ Violet tries again.

  ‘Too complicated,’ Gretchen says.

  ‘“Buttercream”,’ I say quietly.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘“Buttercream”.’

  Gretchen looks at Violet, who nods. ‘Yeah,’ Gretchen says. ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘Fine,’ Alison says. ‘Now that we’ve got that over with, are we going to cook something, or what? Those free samples aren’t going to make themselves.’

  I get up from the table and get the little marble-covered notebook from the bookstand. ‘This is the recipe book we’ve been using,’ I say. ‘It’s really special – at least, I think so.’

  Violet nods.

  I hand it to Gretchen like a flag of truce. ‘What do you guys fancy making?’

  Gretchen and Alison flip through the book. ‘I can’t believe someone took so much time to write all of this,’ Alison says. ‘And the pictures – they’re so cute! Let’s try “The Knave of Hearts Strawberry Tarts”.’

  ‘I’d rather do “Hansel and Gretel’s Gingerbread”,’ Gretchen says. She lowers her voice like someone might leak her preference to the PTA. ‘Gingerbread is my favourite.’

  Leaving them to it, I check what’s in the cupboards and the fridge. To my surprise – why am I surprised by anything that happens in Rosemary’s Kitchen? – there’s loads of fresh fruit in the fridge, including cartons of strawberries and blueberries, kiwis, and even a punnet of cherries.

  ‘I think we should start with fruit tarts,’ I say. ‘We can do gingerbread next time.’ I glance at Gretchen to make sure she’s OK with that.

  ‘Fine,’ she shrugs. ‘Whatever.’

  I take the fruit out of the fridge. Violet looks surprised too – but like me, she just goes with it.

  ‘OK,’ I say, ‘now, first, everyone wash their hands. Then, someone needs to wash and cut the fruit, someone needs to make the custard, and someone needs to make the pastry for the tarts – and oh yeah, before I forget, we need to preheat the oven.’

  The tasks get easily assigned. I team up with Gretchen to make the pastry dough. Together we find the ingredients and weigh them out into a bowl.

  ‘Did your mum teach you to cook?’ Gretchen asks me.

  ‘No,’ I
say. ‘She doesn’t cook at all really. She doesn’t have time.’

  Gretchen stiffens and I wonder what I’ve said.

  ‘I mean, she’s too busy slagging me off,’ I add.

  She stops measuring. ‘I never really got why you were so angry. Your mum made you into a star.’ She frowns. ‘And then, you completely changed. It was like you didn’t have time for any of your friends, or anything at school any more.’

  ‘That’s totally not it.’ How could Gretchen, of all people, get things so wrong?

  ‘Well, what then?’

  I tip the flour into the bowl. ‘You know, before she started, I thought I was pretty normal. I sometimes did stuff I wasn’t proud of . . . you know . . . embarrassing stuff. But it didn’t seem like a big deal. But then, Mum started broadcasting everything. It was front page news that I passed wind at Christmas dinner and scratched my eczema in my sleep. And she’d go on about what knickers I wore, and what my gym kit smelt like. Suddenly, all that stuff seemed huge – it was all I could think about. I felt like everyone was looking at me and laughing.’ I shove the bowl towards Gretchen. ‘I mean, do you really think that makes me a star? Do you think I didn’t have time for any of my friends so I could get more of that?’

  Gretchen shrugs. ‘To be honest, I didn’t know what to think. I mean, you totally helped out on my campaign, and then you disappeared as soon as I won. I thought maybe you were jealous – but then, why didn’t you just run yourself? You totally could have won.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I mean, you were cool – smart and talkative and stuff. Everybody thought so.’

  ‘I thought I was “the most boring girl in the world” – your words, not mine.’

  ‘Come on, Scarlett, I didn’t really mean that. I was fed up, that’s all. You never even said “congratulations” when I won. I had no idea what I’d done wrong.’

  ‘Well, emailing my mum didn’t help.’

  Gretchen puts her hands on her hips. ‘I thought your mum was totally cool when she started that blog. And for the record, she emailed me, not the other way around. I am the PTA rep after all. She asked me stuff about you because you stopped talking to her. I assumed she was just worried. I said maybe you weren’t feeling well because it was your time of the month or something. I had no idea she was going to start writing about it.’