Page 13 of The Gingerbread Cafe
Gretel looked down sharply to see Angel Gabriel hissing and hunching his back. Realising with a pang of guilt that people weren’t giving him room, she scooped him up and gave his fur a fuss. She was so used to people smiling and respecting his space, but Lower Paddleton had a strange sort of hustle. She stepped back and huddled into an empty shop doorway, soaking in her surroundings. It was so different to the friendly bustle of other nearby villages. People were laden with plastic bags, on a mission rather than stopping to wave or chat. Gretel wasn’t a small-talker, but this felt so …impersonal.
Surely it didn’t used to be like this? Hadn’t it been just as charming as Mistleton once? She scanned the street for clues. There. Wasn’t that the old hardware store across the road, all boarded up and deserted? She turned around in the doorway she was standing in. Aha! The old-fashioned sweet shop. She definitely remembered that and the lovely older lady who’d owned it, with her generous portions. And where was the bakery with the delicious Victoria sponges? There was no sign of it now.
Dotted between the odd relic of a closed-down independent shop were faceless franchises. One of those bargain basement shops. (Go in for two things, come out with twenty.) A 99p shop. (Just in case you didn’t already buy a bunch of stuff you didn’t need.) A vaping shop. (What was in those things, anyway?) And her own personal worst – a branch of Quickie Café. Loveless refreshments, horrible coffee and staff too overworked to muster a smile. How could this be?
Gretel shook her head and took a moment to calm her thoughts. Perhaps she’d got the wrong first impression. It couldn’t all be this bad. Giving a swift look around, she inched out of her hidey hole and tried to filter herself back into the bustle, this time keeping Angel Gabriel tucked under her arm. She continued along Penny Road, breathing deeply and trying to assess the situation. It wasn’t that she hated a chain or franchise; she admitted they were useful. Everyone needed to stock up on toiletries or browse the best ever range of weird health foods now and again. But they had their place in the bigger towns and cities.
How would their little villages continue to attract tourists if the quaintest thing they could buy was a 99p family pack of Jammie Dodgers? And how would the independent shops survive if chain stores turned up next door, piled things high and sold them for a steal? They wouldn’t, she realised with a sad gulp, as she dusted off a cobweb that must have attached itself to her in that old shop doorway. Lower Paddleton was paddling down the drain, and if the chain shops inched their way into Mistleton, maybe their village would encounter the same faceless fate. It always started with one, didn’t it? If they ended up selling The Gingerbread Café to the Whimples, what if it became the wobbly link that sent the other dominoes toppling?
As Gretel’s eyes became heavy with the threat of tears, the grey expanse of clouds seemed to feel her anguish. Sharp bullets of rain began shooting down from the sky, stinging her face and attacking the shoppers around her. There were flurries of cursing and umbrella shaking as disgruntled people tried to stake their claim to brolly space. Gretel pulled up her hood and moved out of their way, gravitating towards the fountain in the centre of the pedestrianised street. She remembered it as a place where friends would sit and chat on the benches around it, but there were no friendly faces now. In fact, despite all thewater that was falling from the sky, not a drop flowed from the fountain’s fish mouth. Its spout looked rusty and the only water in the stone basin was murky and as green as a frog. It wasstagnating.
And then she saw it – a flash of orange light catching her attention from across the street. It took her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the hideousness of it, but when she did, she was almost transfixed. Just when she thought she’d seen it all around here.
Chapter 12
The sight of the Whimple & Sons office blared at Gretel from across Penny Road. Its signage and street hoardings were a monstrosity of black, gold and huge images of Francesca and her family’s fake-smiley faces, with flashing orange lights blazing from the window. It couldn’t have looked more out of place in a Cotswold village. How was that level of garishness even allowed? Yet, much like an ugly wart that your eyes were inexplicably drawn to, she couldn’t resist a closer look. She checked around her. Nobody she knew. No sign of a swingy bob or a pair of black and gold trainers. Gretel was early for her meeting.
Gretel pulled her hood tighter around her head and moved across the street, stepping as close to the screaming window of the office as she dared. Surely with all that advertising junk in the window they wouldn’t notice her having a poke around outside? The posters seemed to shoutwe buy any shop(by pouncing on your struggle) andwe rent or sell onto the highest bidder(extra points if you’re a tacky chain). Or was Gretel just being pessimistic? Even Angel Gabriel was hissing again, and the slow churn in the pit of her stomach warned her this was anything but jolly news.
She slunk back to the benches by the dingy fountain and plonked herself down, giving Angel Gabriel’s fur a rub to calm them both.
Just as she was debating whether to flee she heard a series of splooshes coming her way. A woman hidden by a ginormous black and gold umbrella marched past the benches, her matching trainers slam-dunking into the puddles. Gretel gasped as the puddle spray fanned out over her suede snow boots, but the woman was too engrossed in her phone chat to notice. She stopped just beyond Gretel to take a puff on her golden vaping thingamy and cough out a cloud of cigar-scented steam. Then she shook the rain-water off her umbrella before hiding her head back under it. Even from the back view, Gretel would have recognised that swingy bob anywhere. Not to mention those trainers. Francesca Whimple.
‘Yeah, so I’m meeting that dippy gingerbread woman in about fifteen.’ Miss Whimple checked her oversized gold watch. ‘But whatever, she can wait.’ She gave a shrill laugh that could probably have shattered windows. ‘No, not that old bat – she snuffed it. I mean the mouse girl she left the café to. Looks like a hopeless pale fairy, dresses like a poor kid at Christmas. She’s doing a shit job of running the place all by her sad self, and looks like she might burst into tears every time a customer comes near her. Yep, seriously.’
Gretel was sure she felt an eardrum split as the high-pitched laugh came again.
‘Talk about no social skills, right?! On the awesome side, at least no one else will be sniffing around to buy the place. Did I tell you they keep it looking like the arse end of Santa’s grotto? All. Year. Long! As if anyone else would be willing to take on that festive puke disaster. She and Lukas Knight will be begging me to buy them out as much as Quickie Café are desperate to move in and tear out all that Christmas turd. Lukas needs Christmas like a hole in the head after all the heartbreak it’s brought him.’ She spun her umbrella, rain flying from it like fat tears. ‘And once I get my hands on one of those shops, the rest of the sheepwill give up their half-hearted bleating and follow the herd. Ker-ching! It’s too freaking perfect.’
Gretel wasn’t sure how long her mouth had been open. When the woman turned and squeaked off along the street, every modicum of common sense in Gretel’s brain was telling her to storm after her and stand up for herself; but the thought of all that confrontation made her feel even more nauseous. A hopeless, snivelling fairy trying to run afestive puke disaster. Was that what people thought of her?
She put Angel Gabriel in her pocket and stood up, leaning against the fountain as she tried to summon strength in her legs. As the dry fish mouth seemed to gawp with her, the answer swam up from the murky depths of the basin. She might not have the guts to chase after the woman and put her straight, and if she did, she’d probably be laughed straight back to the bus stop. But the best way to get to the Whimple woman would be to prove her wrong.
Because Francesca Whimplewaswrong that no one else was willing to take on the festive café. Gretel was. And as she leaned with one arm against the sorry fountain, one foot already pointing in the direction of her bus, she realised that until now, she had only had one foot in the game, as far as The Gingerbread Café had been concerned. She hadn’t really believed in herself or given it her all, because putting your heart into things meant life might trample on them. But if she was going to have a ferret in hell’s chance of making the place a success – either for herself or for a buyer infinitely more worthy than Swingy Bob Smoke Breath – she was going to have to goall in. No more half in half out, like she was doing the Hokey sodding Cokey. It was time to prove to herself and the Christmas Grinch doubters that she wasn’t a lost cause and neither was her precious Christmas-themed café.
Did she know exactly how she would make the magic happen? Not just yet. But she did know where she would start.
Chapter 13
Were Christmas miracles really a thing, like little glass Nell had once sort of promised? Because for the first time since she’d opened the doors of The Gingerbread Café nearly two weeks before, Gretel felt like she might actually be on the edge of one.
It was mid-December, and after overhearing Francesca Swingy Bob Whimple poking fun at her, Nell and the Christmas-themed café earlier that week, something inside her had snapped. She was going to show people she could absolutely do Nell proud and run this place like the wonderful, gingerbread-inspired sanctuary it deserved to be.
As mean as Swingy Bob’s words had been, Gretel had forced herself to digest them. The woman had had a point. Gretel couldn’t keep battling on like ahopeless fairyby hersad self. The thought of being in charge of another person felt terrifying, but the café was frantic at this time of year. Gretel knew she’d need someone to help serve customers rather than lose them through the door. She couldn’t exist in a bubble, or even a snow globe, as safe as the glass walls she’d constructed around her world had felt. Even Santa needed helpers.
It was clear Lukas wasn’t going to step up. He was too busy and important in his rotten carrot of a restaurant, and he only ever showed up to scowl and sayna na, I told you so. As soon as she’d got home from Lower Paddleton she’d marched back to thecafé, put up a notice advertising for casual help, and sent out a silent prayer to the elves of festive wishes.
It seemed like they were on her side.
Swiftly enough Amber with the kooky red hairdo breezed in. Of all the people Gretel could imagine trying to nervously work in tandem with, this girl had seemed the least daunting. There was something reassuringly standoffish about her and Gretel wasn’t one for getting matey.
‘Fancy a job?’ The words tumbled out of Gretel’s mouth as though conscious she’d swallow them given a second longer. The poor girl had barely set foot through the door.
Amber looked surprised, even though she’d said before that she did waitressing, and she was wearing the black and white uniform for it. ‘I’m meant to be at …’ She gave a suspicious look around. ‘My other job.’
Gretel asked her where else she worked, wondering why she wasn’t there, but Amber was strangely evasive.
‘Oh. It’s not La Carotte Rôtie, is it? That place on the outskirts of the village.’ She recalled the weird way Amber had disappeared after she’d mentioned Lukas the other day, and there weren’t many other places to waitress at nearby.
