‘Cath! There you are!’ Mary Ann was rushing towards her, black skirt bunched up in both fists and hair tumbling from her blue-and-yellow bonnet. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’
‘What’s happened?’ Cath glanced around and noticed, for the first time, how empty the beach felt.
‘Nothing, yet. But the contest started ten minutes ago and they’re going to get to your cake any minute, but you have to be present if you’re to win!’
‘Conte—? Oh! The contest!’
Mary Ann shot her a disgruntled look. ‘You forgot?’
‘No, of course not, I was just . . . I . . .’
Mary Ann grabbed her wrist. ‘You best not have. I’ve been dreaming about those twenty gold crowns all morning, imagining all that we can do with them to bring the bakery to life.’ Relaxing, she shot Cath a bright smile and pointed up at her bonnet. ‘I really do think there’s something about this hat. Is yours from the Marvellous Millinery too? It’s quite charming.’
‘Why, yes, it . . .’ Catherine paused, one hand reaching for the squishy brim of her hat, the ridiculous macaron. She realized with a start that her mother, who should have thrown a fit at the impropriety of her daughter wearing such a garish thing, had said nothing. Had not even seemed to notice it.
What had Hatta said? Something about capturing charisma in headwear – but what did that mean?
She thought of Margaret Mearle at the King’s tea party and how she looked almost pretty in her rosebud fastener. She thought of Mary Ann’s burgeoning dreams. She thought of the chef’s hat she’d picked off the hat shop walls, when Hatta had mentioned unconventional decisions, moments before she thought to offer her macarons as proof of her talent.
Cath’s mouth twitched with delight, with the marvellousness of her discovery.
Hatta was selling exquisite, magical hats.
Mary Ann hauled Catherine into the grandstand tent. All of the seats were full, with countless more guests standing at the back. Five judges were seated at a draped table on the stage – the King and Knave of Hearts, the Duke of Tuskany, Mr Caterpillar, and the Turtle that Cath had loaned her handkerchief to. Before each of them was a blue-frosted cupcake with raspberry-pink sugar crystals being dug into by the forkful. With the exception of the Turtle, that is, whose plate held only blue-frosted crumbs. Most of the sugar crystals had stuck to his pointed upper lip.
The White Rabbit stood at a podium on the side of the stage. Once all the judges had sampled the cupcakes, Mr Rabbit bellowed, ‘The judges will give their scores for the berry berry cupcakes made by the Vine and Flower Society!’
Three potted plants had been set on the contestants’ stand at the front, holding one another’s leaves.
‘Berry good!’ yelled the King.
‘Berry gone!’ yelled the Turtle.
‘Could have used some ground pepper on top,’ suggested the Duke, to which Catherine traded wary glances with Mary Ann, and Mary Ann mouthed back to her, Pepper?
Mr Caterpillar removed the hookah from his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke across the table. The other judges coughed politely and leaned away.
Jack, the Knave, threw his fork down beside his cupcake, having tasted only a single bite. ‘Rubbish,’ he muttered.
The potted flowers bobbed their blossoming heads at one another – pleased with the judges’ scores. Three footmen came forward to carry their planters off the stand, while another group of courtiers brought out the next dish – squares of right-side-up pineapple cake from Lady Margaret Mearle.
Margaret took her place on the competitors’ platform and squared her already-rather-rectangular shoulders. From his seat at the judging table, the Duke’s pink-tinged skin turned flaming red. He tried to smile at Margaret around his protruding tusks.
Margaret sneered and turned her chin haughtily away.
The Duke deflated.
Trying to still the fluttering in her stomach, Catherine looked out at the crowd and spotted her mother and father in the front row. They would have no idea that she’d submitted an entry into the contest, and she wasn’t sure how they would react.
Behind her parents sat Peter Peter and his wife, whose pallor was only slightly improved from when Cath had last seen her, though her eyes remained glossy and ill-looking. She was staring hungrily at the case that held the contest desserts.
Cath peeled her gaze away before Sir Peter could notice her, hoping he wouldn’t be suspicious over her spiced pumpkin cake. But why should he? He was by no means the only pumpkin grower in Hearts. He had no reason to suspect she’d stolen one from his patch.
She hoped.
Her eye drifted further back and landed on Hatta himself. He loitered at the back of the tent, the ribbon from his top hat whipping in the wind from the beach. He noticed her, too, and cast a nod in her direction, indicating the macaron hat. But he turned away before she could return the nod, his whole demeanour changing. In a moment he’d dropped the broody stance and smiled his rare, friendly smile. Then Jest was there, too, squeezing Hatta’s shoulder in greeting.
Her heart twinged, still too raw from their recent encounter.
The White Rabbit cleared his throat and Catherine forced her attention back to the stage. ‘What have the judges to say on Lady Mearle’s entry?’
‘Pineappley pleasant!’ yelled the King.
‘Pleasantly gone!’ yelled the Turtle, scraping up the last bits of cake.
‘Would be better upside down,’ said Jack, tipping back in his chair and staring at the tent’s ceiling.
‘Upside down is a fine way to be,’ agreed the Caterpillar. He had taken off one pair of house slippers and was pressing the bottoms of his bare feet into his cake. ‘I’ve spent quite a bit of time upside down myself.’