smallhobbit

“Yes, mum,” Reggie replied.“What do you want me to do?”

“Can you line the cake tins while I get on with mixing the sponge? You’ll need to draw round the outside of the cake tin on the greaseproof paper and then cut out two circles.”

Reggie nodded and went to get a pencil. “I thought you were making a fruit cake, not a sponge cake,” he said.

“The fruit cake’s already in the oven. I thought I couldn’t make a cake for Nonnatus House and not make one for us as well.”

Reggie laughed. “Can I spread the jam in the sponge when it’s ready?”

“Of course you can, love.”

***

That afternoon Reggie, who had been helping weed the garden at Nonnatus House, was already in the kitchen when Fred arrived with the cake tin.

“Cake for you all,” Fred announced, “with Vi’s compliments.”

“That’s the wrong tin,” Reggie said.

Fred looked at him. “I don’t think so.”

“We put the square fruit cake in the square tin, and the round sponge cake in the round tin. That’s a round tin.”

Nurse Crane removed the lid of the cake tin and looked inside. “He’s right, Fred. That is most certainly a sponge cake.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Val got up to answer it, to find Violet standing outside, holding a square cake tin. She invited her in.

Once inside, Violet said, “Fred Buckle, I told you to bring the cake tin over and left it in the middle of the kitchen table, where even you could see it.” She paused and saw that everyone was looking at the other tin.

“Ah,” Fred said, “Reggie did say I’d brought the wrong tin.”

Violet sighed. “I’d have been better off asking Reggie to do it in the first place.”