Madame Pamplemousse and the Enchanted Sweet Shop

by Rupert Kingfisher

  The witch began speaking to her in a soft, hypnotic tone. She told her about the local woods and how there was a certain toadstool growing there that Coco had to find. One day, she said, this toadstool would change her life for ever.

  If the witch said anything else, then Coco did not remember it, for soon afterwards she awoke to find her mother standing in the doorway at the top of the cellar stairs.

  x

  Whether or not the witch was real, Coco never found out. She tried her best not to think about it and later blotted out all memory of that time in the cellar. But she did not forget about the toadstool, and the night before the banquet, it came to her in a dream.

  She woke in the dead of night, got out of bed and crept softly downstairs. She took a torch, an old jam jar and a pair of heavy-duty gloves. She packed these into her bag and then set off down the hillside into the woodland below.

  Coco foraged there for several hours, until the first light of dawn. She was on the brink of giving up when at last she found them: a whole rash of Witch’s Caps growing in the shade of an old elm tree. They were tiny, the size of an acorn, with pointed black heads. She picked over a hundred, just to make sure, and collected them inside the jam jar. This would then be emptied into the fish stew once Olive’s back was turned.

  On the day of the banquet, all seemed to go according to Coco’s plan, until the moment came to empty the jar. For no sooner had she done this than Olive turned round.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Coco, inhaling deeply. Hurriedly, she stirred the little toadstools into the stew. ‘How delicious! What a treat everyone’s in for!’

  Olive stared at her in silence. From the look in her eyes, Coco feared that she had been caught red-handed.

  ‘You shouldn’t stir it,’ said Olive eventually. ‘The flavours need to steep.’

  ‘Oh, silly me!’ Coco laughed shrilly to cover her relief. ‘I’m so sorry, I was only trying to help.’ She paused a moment, then added impulsively, ‘You know, I’ve always thought of us as sisters.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Thank you, Coco,’ said Olive quietly. ‘So have I.’

  ‘And I think you’re such an amazing person. You’re going to be so famous one day!’

  Olive frowned slightly. ‘Do you think so?’ she said.

  ‘Of course! In the village at least – no one’s ever going to forget you after tonight!’

  When the fish stew was finally ready, Olive ladled it into bowls and Coco and the other children took them out to the hungry villagers. Then, while they ate, Coco went to a quiet corner of the village square, where she waited patiently for the poison to take effect.

  It was well into the following day by the time Coco realised her mistake. She had picked the wrong toadstool. The Witch’s Cap was identical to another, quite harmless variety of fungus that grew in the same woods. However, by then it was too late, for Olive had already left the village to take up her scholarship in Paris.

  Olive studied there until she was seventeen, whereupon she left to go travelling and went on to have many adventures. She worked in some of the best kitchens in the world, in cities as far and wide as New York and Tokyo, Mumbai and Berlin. But it was always Paris that she considered her true home and so it was, many years later, that Olive chose to return there and open up a shop; a little shop on the banks of the river, which she ran together with a cat whose name was Camembert. The shop was called ‘Edibles’ and Olive, by this time, was known as Madame Pamplemousse.

  x

  Chapter Five

  Camembert lived with Madame Pamplemousse in an apartment above the shop. They ran ‘Edibles’ by day and come sundown would often share a bottle of Violet-Petal Wine on their balcony high above the city. At night, Camembert would sometimes sleep in the apartment in an old threadbare armchair, but just as often he would go prowling about the city rooftops.

  It had been nearly three weeks since either of them had seen Madeleine. This was not so unusual: there were times when the two of them went travelling, or when Madeleine was on holiday with the Cornichons. But one cold night in January, Camembert met with a cat who told him a certain piece of information.

  The cat was a friend of his, a young Blue Burmese who had recently run away from his owner. His owner was a girl called Mirabelle and he had been given to her for Christmas. The Burmese told Camembert how he never much liked the girl, but the food was acceptable, so he had decided to stay. At first Mirabelle treated him perfectly well, he said, until just after Christmas, when her behaviour had changed. Mirabelle began playing nasty tricks on the Burmese, locking him in the cellar and chasing him with a water pistol. On one occasion she had even dropped him into a scalding hot bath.

  Over breakfast the next morning, Camembert relayed this story to Madame Pamplemousse.

  ‘It sounds like he did well to get away,’ she said, dipping a croissant into her coffee, ‘though I have to say, I’m not surprised. Often the nicest-seeming girls can be exceedingly cruel.’

  ‘But there’s something else,’ said Camembert. ‘The Burmese said that one day the girl brought home a box of chocolates. He said they smelt funny, really quite disgusting, but the girl seemed to like them; she kept stuffing them into her mouth. And it was only after eating the chocolates that she turned into a little witch.’

  Madame Pamplemousse put down her coffee cup. ‘That’s interesting,’ she said, giving him her full attention.

  ‘I found out where this girl lives and yesterday I followed her.’ He paused.

  ‘Go on,’ said Madame Pamplemousse.

  ‘She goes to the same school as Madeleine.’

  It was soon after this that Madeleine’s teacher, Madame Poulet, received a visitor. Two visitors, in fact, for one of them was a woman, dressed in black, and the other was a cat; a thin, white cat with a patch across one eye. The woman sat down opposite Madame Poulet’s desk and the cat jumped on to her lap.

  As a rule, Madame Poulet did not allow animals into the school. She was about to raise this objection when something in the woman’s manner made her falter. Somehow she sensed that this woman could not be told what to do. She was also put off by the woman’s eyes, which were the most unusual she had ever seen, being exactly the same colour as lavender.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Madame Pamplemousse. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about Madeleine.’

  ‘Madeleine?’ said Madame Poulet. ‘Ah yes, of course! A bright girl. Rather quiet, perhaps, but hard-working.’ She paused.

  Madame Pamplemousse raised an eyebrow. ‘But there’s a problem?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no . . .’ said Madame Poulet, obviously meaning the exact opposite.

  ‘Please go on.’

  ‘Well, there have been occasions – rather too frequent in my view – when I’ve caught Madeleine staring out of the window during lessons.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, perhaps she’s only staring out of the window because she’s bored or because she’s thinking about something more interesting.’

  Madame Poulet glared over her spectacles. ‘May I ask, Madame, what relation you are to this child?’

  ‘I’m her friend,’ said Madame Pamplemousse.

  ‘Her friend? Really?’

  This notion did not meet with Madame Poulet’s approval. She did not like the idea of a child being friends with a grown woman – it sounded unconventional and smacked of poor discipline.

  ‘Well, Madame,’ she said, ‘perhaps if Madeleine spent less time daydreaming and more time mucking in with everybody else, then she wouldn’t be in the mess she’s in now!’

  ‘And what “mess” is that, Madame?’

  ‘Well, first let me be quite clear: there’s nothing wrong with child prodigies –’

  ‘T
hough you, yourself, do not approve of them?’

  Madame Poulet flared her nostrils. ‘No, Madame, I do not! And I don’t know how Madeleine behaves at home but here at school she’s quite the little so-and-so! Frankly, I’m surprised she still has any friends, the way she treats them. If they weren’t such nice friends, I very much doubt she would. One girl in particular, who’s gone out of her way to help her –’

  ‘This girl,’ interrupted Madame Pamplemousse. ‘Her name wouldn’t be Mirabelle, by any chance?’

  Madame Poulet looked surprised. ‘Why, yes. Do you know her?’

  ‘Only by name.’

  Madame Poulet’s face brightened at the mention of her favourite pupil. ‘Now that’s the kind of girl Madeleine should be looking up to,’ she said. ‘The kind of girl this school can be proud of and whom she’s jolly lucky to have as her friend.’

  ‘Just as she’s obviously lucky to have so wise and perceptive a teacher,’ said Madame Pamplemousse.

  For a second, Madame Poulet wondered if the woman was being sarcastic, for there was a slight archness to her tone. But then she decided she was just imagining it and softened at the flattery.

  ‘Why, thank you, Madame,’ she said.

  There was a sudden, low growl. Madame Poulet looked down in alarm. It had come from the white cat, who until now had not made a sound. Then something happened which Madame Poulet found most unsettling. In response to the growl, the woman laughed as if the cat had just said something funny.

  x

  Chapter Six

  The names Madame Pamplemousse and Camembert no longer meant anything to Madeleine. She had forgotten that they ever existed, just as she seemed to have forgotten so much lately, ever since the day when she had fainted at school – the same time when she had that peculiar dream.

  Certain dreams or nightmares are so powerful that they leave behind an atmosphere; a strong mood that can linger like a bad taste in the mouth. Turning on a bedside light is usually sufficient to dispel it, but for Madeleine it never quite went away. She could still vividly remember that icy bedroom with the sinister babysitter waiting next door.

  Soon after the day she fainted, she had been passing a café when she stopped outside the window. Something inside caught her eye: a figure sitting at one of the tables.

  She noticed his clothing, which was coloured silver and old-fashioned in style. Seeming to sense Madeleine watching him, he lowered his newspaper. His face was ghostly white and shaped like a crescent moon, and on seeing Madeleine he smiled.

  Madeleine stared in horror, transfixed by this apparition. But then a second later she blinked to find an old lady sitting there instead. She assumed her eyes had been playing tricks with the shadows.

  Madeleine had also forgotten quite how she and Madame Bonbon had first met, although Madame Bonbon assured her that it was months ago, soon after Madeleine first moved to Paris. She told Madeleine that she had been the one to discover her great talent, and now she was going to make her a star.

  Madame Bonbon had arranged for Madeleine to appear on television, on a live game show called Cook around the Clock. The producers were delighted, since they had been trying to get their hands on Madeleine for some time. To publicise the show, they had booked a photo shoot. Madeleine was given a complete makeover. She was dressed in the latest children’s fashions and her hair was styled by the city’s most expensive salon. When she looked in the mirror now, Madeleine hardly recognised her reflection.

  In fact, sometimes Madeleine did not even feel like the same person at all. She would stare at herself for ages, trying to remember who that person was, but could find only a strange emptiness; a sense that it was not just her memory that she had lost, but something more vital and irreplaceable. Only Madame Bonbon seemed able to make her feel normal again, by giving Madeleine one of her white chocolate truffles.

  ‘It’s because you’re changing, Madeleine,’ Madame Bonbon reassured her. ‘Like a butterfly. You’re not that shy little girl who got bullied any more. You’re brilliant and beautiful and now everyone will love you.’

  Her words certainly seemed to ring true when Madeleine went back to school. From the moment she arrived, Madeleine was treated like a major celebrity. The producers of Cook around the Clock had invited the whole of Madeleine’s year to attend the filming of the show. The headmaster announced this fact proudly to the class and at break-time the canteen was buzzing with excitement. Everyone was coming up to Madeleine, inviting her to sit with them, offering to fetch her lunch, begging to have their picture taken alongside her. People asked if she would sign their workbooks, their lunch boxes, their satchels. There was only one group that hung back conspicuously from the rest.

  Mirabelle and her gang were sitting at their usual table. Madeleine stared at them across the room, but not one of them looked up. They were chatting among themselves and appeared quite oblivious to all the commotion around them. To everyone else, Madeleine was the centre of attention, yet they behaved as if she were completely invisible.

  ‘Just ignore them,’ said a voice behind her.

  Madeleine glanced round to see a boy called Tagine. She knew him slightly, as he was in the same year. Tagine was part of a gang that was quite unusual in the school, since it included girls as well as boys. For this reason Mirabelle called them ‘weird’, but Madeleine had always liked the look of them. Unfortunately, though, she was too shy ever to go over and say hello.

  ‘They’re only pretending to ignore you because they’re jealous. After all, who wouldn’t be?’ Tagine raised his eyebrows, indicating her new clothes and her hair. His tone was teasing but not unfriendly. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to see you’re not hanging around with that bunch any more – I always wondered what you saw in them.’ He grinned. ‘Good luck with the contest!’

  x

  Cook around the Clock was filmed live before a studio audience. The audience consisted mostly of children from Madeleine’s school, although the Cornichons had also been invited. Monsieur Cornichon was in a foul temper. He had never liked the idea of Madeleine taking part in the show and had only agreed to it because his wife insisted. At least, she had said, it meant that Madeleine was cooking again. For the past month now Madeleine seemed to have lost all interest in cookery, staying in bed at weekends and never coming down to the kitchen. When they nervously asked her how things were at school, she replied that they couldn’t be better.

  ‘But surely you must be proud of her?’ said Madame Cornichon.

  ‘Of course I am!’ her husband grumbled.

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a bad feeling.’

  ‘But at least she’s smiling again. And she looks so pretty with her new clothes and hair!’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Something’s different. She’s not the same.’

  His wife looked at him wistfully. ‘She’s growing up,’ she said. ‘I know it seems sudden, but it had to happen one day.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I mean, she’s not herself. Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but Madeleine and I used to work together –’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she snapped.

  ‘Nothing, but when you work with someone in the same kitchen –’

  ‘Are you suggesting you know her better than I do?’

  ‘Of course not!’ he protested.

  But at that point someone told them to be quiet as the show was about to begin.

  Cook around the Clock’s bouncy theme tune began playing. An usher guided Madeleine out on to the stage. The lights were dazzling. She could barely see the audience but heard their applause as a massive roar.

  The presenter introduced the rules of the contest. Either side of the stage there wer
e two kitchens, one painted orange and the other blue. Each kitchen had been stocked with a set of mystery ingredients. Using these ingredients, the two contestants had just thirty minutes in which to prepare a finished recipe. The winner would then be judged by a panel of celebrity guests. The presenter went on to introduce the first contestant and as he spoke her name, Madeleine looked up in shock.

  It was Madame Bonbon’s idea. She had persuaded the producers that this was the best way to show off Madeleine’s unique abilities: to pit her against a child her own age, just an ordinary girl with no special talent, but one brave enough to compete against the young ‘gastronomic star’. The girl she had suggested was Mirabelle.

  The sight of Mirabelle so disarmed Madeleine that, for a moment, she quite forgot where she was. When the presenter introduced her, she did not understand what he was saying. All that she could hear was the raucous shrieking from Mirabelle’s friends; a sound that took her right back to the canteen at school.

  Her disorientation continued when the studio clock started ticking and it was several minutes before Madeleine realised that the competition had begun. She now had less than half an hour in which to prepare her finished recipe.

  Madeleine stared nervously at the ingredients laid out before her. There were onions, shallots, garlic, celery, potatoes, lemons, ginger, spinach, tomatoes, butter, cream, goat’s cheese, Gruyère cheese, puff pastry, lentils, pasta, vinegar, green olives, anchovies, vegetable stock, white wine, spices, fresh tarragon and a large fillet of raw salmon.

  Earlier, in her dressing room, Madeleine had received a present. It was a box of truffles from Madame Bonbon, with a note wishing her good luck. Madeleine had eaten one immediately and so had felt blissfully confident as she walked out on to the stage. But now, faced with these ingredients, all that confidence fell away. The effects of the truffle had worn off, leaving her in a state of horrific anxiety; for that was when Madeleine realised that she had forgotten how to cook.