Page 33 of Tricks & Treats at The Cosy Cornish Bakery

Dulcie returned carrying two piled up bowls of pasta. ‘Nice to see you two getting on,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘Get the kids, Hannah. Tea’s ready. But get them to leave Ziggy in the front room. You know how he likes to beg.’

Hannah opened her mouth wide and, without moving, bellowed, ‘Kids. In here now. Grub’s up.’

‘I’ll get the garlic bread, shall I?’ Chloe stomped into the kitchen wondering how she shared genes with these people.

The evening had gone exactly as predicted. Hannah ploughed her way through another bottle of wine, Dulcie pressed copious amounts of food onto them, the children squabbled and Ziggy escaped and ate the bolognaise sauce they’d ground into the floor. And Chloe had developed a headache.

Tyler, beefy and exhausted-looking had collected his wife and children but not before Hannah had, with an evil smirk, announced that Chloe had something to say about the bakery. Chloe hadn’t much time for Tyler but she felt a pang of sympathy for him. Being married to Hannah couldn’t be easy.

The inevitable argument with Dulcie had followed, with her mother unable to understand Chloe’s decision. Dulcie had almost been in tears, showing a vulnerability Chloe hadn’t seen in her before. She’d ended up promising she’d do her hardest to get the Pengelly Bakery well and truly re-established before leaving.

Dulcie had sniffed. ‘Well, that’s something.’ She brightened. ‘And at least it means you’ll be around for the scarecrow festival and Halloween. Ooh and the Scare Fest and fair. It would be lovely if you and Hannah took the kids trick or treating. You’d have a load of fun, maid.’

As Chloe marched home trying to work off the calories her mother had fed her, she seriously doubted that.

CHAPTER 17

Halloween was revving up in Wheal Kitty Cove. Pumpkins, carved and otherwise, appeared in windows and doorways, orange and black bunting fluttered from lamp posts and trees, and the autumn fair appeared on Ticky Tacky Green. The weather remained crisp and sunny, with a saline slicked breeze rushing up the lane from the sea.

Ginger had badgered Chloe to make a scarecrow and enter it in the competition. She already had one propped up in the porch of The Sanctuary. A blonde-wigged scarecrow in a sunny yellow dress purloined from the Seal Sanctuary Charity Shop sat in a chair, with one of Ginger’s multi-coloured crocheted throws wrapped around it.

‘Looks like she’s been on the scrumpy,’ Ginger had observed when she and Josh had manoeuvred her into position. ‘She’s leaning heavily to the right and I don’t have anything leaning heavily to the right in my house.’ She’d added an empty stone cider flagon and a pair of wellies to complete the scene.

When Chloe passed by, having forced herself on an early morning run along the coastal path, Ginger had grabbed her by the arm. ‘Go on, Chlo. It’ll be fun making one and you can enter it into the competition. All entry fees are split between the lifeboat fund and the Seal Sanctuary. How could you not? We can sit it on a chair outside the bakery. Be a bit of publicity, too.’

Now, two hours later, Chloe stared at the sack of leftover straw Ginger had hauled down from The Sanctuary and deposited on the pavement outside the bakery. ‘I’ve no idea how to do it,’ she moaned. She couldn’t believe her life had come to this. A few short months ago she’d been negotiating multi-million-pound international deals, now she was stuffing straw into an old pair of Pammy’s American Tan tights.

‘Just shove handfuls down as far as they’ll go.’ Ginger grinned. ‘Not too stuffed as we want the legs to be bendy so we can pose her on the chair.’

‘It’s a woman?’ Chloe said doubtfully.

‘It’ll be whatever we can get hold of that’s left in the Seal Sanctuary Charity Shop to dress it. They have a rush on their clothing on the run-up to the scarecrow festival.’

Chloe paused and irritably flicked a stalk of straw away. She wiggled her nose, trying not to sneeze. ‘So, we buy from the charity shop, make these scarecrow things, pay a fee to enter and all proceeds go back to the shop?’

‘And to the lifeboat fund.’

‘Sounds as if, one way or another, they’ll be raking it in.’

‘Ah, Chloe, don’t begrudge those cute little seals the money. Have you seen them? Huge mournful eyes. Like spaniel puppies.’

‘Do not mention spaniels to me.’

Ginger giggled, blowing straw off her face. ‘What’s Ziggy done now?’

‘Got home after dinner at Mum’s last night to find he’d chewed the corner of my handbag.’

‘Oh dear,’ Ginger replied, trying not to laugh.

‘Don’t laugh. It’s a Longchamp. It cost nearly a thousand.’

‘You spent a thousand pounds on a handbag?’ Ginger stopped laughing and stood immobile, her mouth dropping open.

‘Yes. Why?’

Ginger rammed straw forcefully into one leg of the tights. ‘Just we have different lives, that’s all. That sort of money would have paid for a bit of roof.’

Chloe straightened. ‘I’ve already offered you a loan,’ she said reproachfully. ‘I wish you’d take it.’