The Secret Cooking Club Read Online Free Page A

obstinate?
    â€˜Whatever, Mum. I’ll have a snack later.’

    I go up to my room and take out the little recipe book from underneath my pillow. I open it and reread the inscription inside the cover: To my Little Cook – may you find the secret ingredient.
    I wonder what it was like for the Little Cook – a daughter or son, I assume – to spend time with their mum learning how to bake and cook wonderful things. One thing’s for sure, I can’t imagine my mum ever doing something like that with me.
    I flip through the nursery rhyme section of the notebook, smiling at the recipes for pies, bread and gingerbread, and the little rhymes about ‘The Cat and the Fiddle’, and ‘Goosey, Goosey Gander’. There are a few recipes for basic things: ‘Humpty Dumpty’s Perfect Eggs’; and ‘Yankee Doodle’s Four-cheese Macaroni’. There’s also an ‘ABC of Spices’, most of which I’ve never heard of. But lots of the ingredients make my mouth water: buttercream, ginger, golden syrup, cocoa and caster sugar. Best of all are the cinnamon scones. There’s a picture done in pen and coloured in with crayonof little fluffy triangles steaming hot in a basket with a red and white gingham cloth. My stomach rumbles just thinking about them. If I could try just one recipe, it would be that.
    But I can’t try any of the recipes. Not here at home where Mum would know about it.
    So I’ll have to find another way.

THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
    T he street is quiet as I slip out of the front door. I walk up the weedy stone path to Mrs Simpson’s house. I tell myself that it’s not really breaking and entering when there’s an old lady in the hospital and a cat that needs feeding. And a recipe book that needs returning. It’s a no-brainer really. And if, by some chance, Mrs Simpson is already home from hospital, I’ll tell her I came over to look after the cat.
    No one answers when I knock on the door. The key is still under the mat. With a quick glance around to make sure no one’s watching, I let myself into Mrs Simpson’s house.
    The first thing I see are those two yellow eyes again, shining like twin moons. The cat meows impatiently like it’s been waiting for me and I’m late. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘You still here by yourself?’ The cat swishes its tail. It gets to its feet and leads the way to the kitchen.
    I get down to business – scoping out where everything is so that I can get on with my plan. Just being here again has made up my mind. I’ve found a special little recipe book and the perfect kitchen just on the other side of the wall. And now . . .
    I’m going to cook something.
    One by one I open the cupboards. It’s like exploring a supermarket baking aisle. There are dozens of little jars and tins of herbs and spices. There are bags of flour: stoneground, buckwheat, spelt, malted wheatgrain; and sugars: demerara, caster, icing, muscovado – who knew there were so many different kinds? Even though everything is labelled, it’s still kind of overwhelming. The cat rubs against my leg and stands in front of one of the cupboards.
    â€˜OK, OK, I get it. You’re hungry again.’ I open the cupboard and find a large supply of cat food. I dig around some more until I find a tin-opener in a drawer, along with a complete set of baking utensils and electric appliances, most of which I’ve no idea what to do with, and some of which look likescary dentist instruments.
    Once the cat has its head contentedly in its bowl, I take out the little recipe book and set it on the bookstand. It practically falls open to the recipe for cinnamon scones. I read over the instructions: mixing everything together, then rolling out the dough and cutting out little triangle shapes that are to be dusted with more cinnamon and sugar. Then they’re supposed to rise and become all fluffy in the oven. It