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She tickles under my arms. It always makes me giggle. ‘I’ve missed you too, Nanna. Mummy said she was too busy to bring me last weekend. And the weekend before, Stella from next door looked after me and my brothers and sisters.’
Nanna pushes her head against mine in the way she normally does. Her curly, gray hair is fluffy like a teddy and tickly on my skin. ‘Well, you’re here now, sweet pea. Guess what?’
She starts walking us into the house, still carrying me. There are so many things, I can’t think of what to guess.
‘What am I wearing?’ she continues.
I open my mouth wide. ‘A pinnie! Are we making cakes?’
‘We sure are. What’s in this bag of yours today?’
I wriggle out of the pink backpack that Nanna bought me and unzip it when she sets me down on a wooden chair at the kitchen table.
I take out my school workbook. ‘I bought this to show you.’
Nanna leans her head to one side, and I know what I did wrong. ‘You bought it, or youbroughtit?’
‘Oops.’
‘Remember, Rebecca,broughtis when you have brought something along with you.Boughtis when you’ve bought something from a shop.’ She’s told me this before, but I always forget. Some words I’m good at but bought just sometimes slips out. I do it at my house, and Mummy never says anything, but Nannaallllwayscatches me.
‘Now, let me see.’ She takes the orange book from me and opens it to the last page. She draws in a big breath and smiles. ‘You got ten out of ten? This is the spelling test we worked on last time, isn’t it?’
I nod, and my smile hurts my lips because it is so wide.
‘Well, it’s a good thing I bought you an extra special treat for baking today, isn’t it?
I feel my eyes open wide. Nanna takes a paper bag from the kitchen bench and hands it to me. I look inside and slide out pictures of all the princesses I love. Cinderella – she’s my favorite – and Belle, and Princess Jasmine.
‘They are to go on top of the cakes we make.’
‘Really?’ I stand up on my chair and wrap my arms around her neck. ‘Thank you, Nanna.’
‘You’re very welcome, sweet pea. Now, let’s get this jacket off and start baking, shall we?’
She takes off my pink coat, leaving me in my dungarees and flowery T-shirt – an outfit my Nanna bought me. She combs my hair, hurting me when she tugs on the tangles, but she puts it into a plait and I like it when she does that. It feels nice to have someone play with my hair. When she’s done, she makes me stand on a stool and wash my hands in the sink.
When I’m clean, she holds a big bowl and tells me to put in flour and eggs and sugar. She beats them all together until all the lumpy bits are gone; then she lets me have a go. It aches my arm, but I keep going because it’s so much fun making cakes with Nanna.
‘What do you say to doing some vanilla cakes and some chocolate cakes?’ She takes a bar of chocolate from the fridge and wiggles it in front of my face.
‘I think you know the answer to that, Nanna.’
She laughs. Her laugh is pretty.
When our mix is done, we pour it into colored papers inside a tin. I have to stand on my stool and watch Nanna put the cakes in the oven because she says it’s burny.
‘Right you are then, why don’t you spell the word’ – she looks in my orange workbook – ’pottery for me, and if you spell it correctly, I’ll let you lick the chocolate bowl?’
I clap my hands and try to think. I remember how the word looks from my school class. ‘P O T E… no, P O T T E R Y. Pot-tery.’
She tucks a paper towel into my T-shirt at the neck, then we sit at the kitchen table, and I lick the chocolate bowl and the wooden spoon. Nanna tries not to, I can tell, but she ends up putting her fingers in the vanilla bowl and licking them more than one time.
When our cakes are done, Nanna says they have to cool before we can do the best part and put icing on them, but we get to make the icing with butter and a different, fluffy kind of sugar. After, we put it in the fridge and eat ham sandwiches at the table. I only ever sit at the table to eat at Nanna’s house.
Finally, Nanna feels the cakes and says it is time to put the icing on. I climb back up to my stool beside her, and we use a spoon to ice the cakes. She gives me some shiny silver balls and some sparkly glitter and the princess stickers.
I start with my favorite. I poke Cinderella’s face until she sticks to the icing. ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be like Cinderella. Except I’m going to have wings too, so I can fly anywhere I want.’
