Page 9 of The Gingerbread Cafe
And there it was. He was going to turn the conversation onto her, and poke fun too. Well, she wasn’t in the mood to embracecaring and sharingeither. A jiggle from Angel Gabriel’s bag told her she needed to get Lukas out of there soon.
‘Christmas is … special for me.’ As she thought back to everything it symbolised, she felt her own internal shutters slam down. She stood up. She should tidy. This place was a muddle.
Gretel snatched up the packet of flour she’d been uncomfortably perching on and watched with a gasp as some of it cascaded around the stool in a snow globe effect.
Yet it felt so oddly calming – both the blanket of newness and the extra mess it caused. She poked the delicate powder with the toe of her snow boot. There, wasn’t that magical? ‘Maybe the pressure cooker bit is everything outside of Christmastime,’ she said.
‘What, real life?’
Lukas was at her side now, trying to stop her hands from sprinkling even more of the white flour around her feet like a tiny snowstorm. She’d barely noticed she was doing it. It just looked so … lovely.
‘If I worked with you, it would be like supervising a child,’ he muttered.
He went to grab a damp cloth and crouched to clean her pretty snowflakes from the floor, moving around the kitchen with his funny rubber chef’s clogs getting ever closer to Angel Gabriel’s sleeping place. As the bag kept gently twitching, a fresh panic began to rise. But before she could think of a plan, Angel Gabriel poked his innocent white head out of his hidey-hole. He gave one of his trademark squeaks, catching Lukas’s attention.
Lukas’s mouth dropped open. ‘A rodent. You brought a bloody rodent into this kitchen!’
He was glaring at Gretel now. She hated being shouted at, and no one should be mean to her ferret.
‘Ferrets are not rodents – not that there’s anything wrong with a rodent. Angel Gabriel would quite happily eat one for his breakfast if I let him. He’s more like a domesticated weasel. Or a very small dog.’
‘Tell that to Environmental Health! You’ll have this place shut down before it’s even open, you reckless …’
Though her heart was racing, she found herself glaring straight back, daring him to finish his sentence. Angel Gabriel, not accustomed to conflict or even too much human company, had clearly had enough. He jumped out from his cosy nest and darted across the kitchen like a wild thing.
Lukas shook his head and strode across the room towards the exit.
‘And you wouldn’t get a rodent into a Christmas jumper,’ Gretel added quietly. She let the thought hang in the fractious air.
He turned. ‘I actually came to check if you needed anything. But … No. I cannot do this.’ His words came through gritted teeth, his face hardening like the marble worktops.
She took a deep breath. She was doing this for Nell and it wasn’t her fault she didn’t have the first clue. ‘Yes, you’ve said that.’ Her voice was wobbly, but she was past caring. ‘I know where I stand. It’s a festive party for one. What’s new?’
‘A weasel in a knitted outfit, apparently.’
As he eyeballed her, she thought she saw something resembling regret flicker across them. Had he been entertaining the possibility of helping her before Angel Gabriel had appeared? No, surely not? Anyway, he could keep his fickle sentiments. Quite frankly, she’d rather have a troublesome ferret by her side than his thunderous face.
‘I’ll manage,’ she said, lifting her chin and hoping she sounded bolder than she felt. She still had three days, two handfuls of hope and a whole lot of ginger and spice.
Chapter 8
‘Excuse me, I ordered my flat white at least ten minutes ago. Why isn’t it here?’
‘Don’t you even have any of those little German lebkuchen biscuits? It’s the only reason I came.’
‘Sorry, madam, but my gingerbread lady seems to be missing a leg. Can I have my money back?’
So many questions. So many people! She didn’t know Mistleton even had this many residents. When she’d zipped around the village putting up posters to say when they’d be opening she hadn’t expected anyone to actually read them.
Gretel’s thin shoulders tensed as voices yelled at her from all directions. Some were at the side of her, making a writhing, snake-like queue along the counter. Others gesticulated from tables. The café was almost bursting at the seams with hungry, disgruntled customers and every part of Gretel’s cowering skin just wanted to run and hide.
A ginormous sob rose up her throat. Nell had trusted her to take over her pride and joy of a café, but she was seriously letting her down. Gretel had known she wasn’t great with people, pressure or chaos … butthis. She flicked her eyes to the heavens and prayed for a miracle; and yet she knew it wasn’t coming. How could it be?
She pressed more buttons on the complicated beast of a coffee machine, but the evil thing just blinked and hissed at her. It seemed to know she couldn’t make coffee and she had no idea what a flat white even was. When she’d tried to serve it up to someone as coffee with a glug of milk earlier, they’d sent it back in a huff. That was certainly the theme of the morning so far.
Over the last few days she’d been so busy trying to bake gingerbread people, ice their broken body parts back on and make up gooey batches of cinnamon hot chocolate that she hadn’t had time to master thecoffee beast.Who knew that decoding a pedantic coffee machine would be trickier than gaining entrance to Takeshi’s Castle?
The bell over the door chimed and yet more people bustled in.
