Angel Cake Read online

  Readers love to ask me where my ideas come from, and the answer is… anywhere and everywhere!

  A while ago in Ireland, someone told me a story about a young Dublin boy who wandered about the city after dark, wearing angel wings. Nobody seemed to know who he was, or why he wore the wings… and a few months later he vanished, leaving nothing behind him but mystery. That story captured my imagination and set me dreaming.

  When I decided to write about the experiences of a Polish girl who comes to settle in Britain, the angel boy idea somehow sneaked its way in too. The world needs more boys with angel wings!

  The Polish girl in my story, Anya, was inspired by a real-life Polish reader I met at an event. She handed me a description she’d written of her first ever day at school in Britain, and although her English wasn’t good her feelings just about jumped off the page at me. For the first time, I began to see how scary it must be to move countries and start again in a place where you don’t even know the language… and the idea for Angel Cake was born.

  Angel Cake is a story about dreams and how they don’t always work out the way you imagine, and also about falling for the wrong boy… who might just turn out to be the right boy, after all.

  Where does the cake come in? Well, I guess cake has been a pretty big inspiration of mine over the years too, so why not? I hope you enjoy Angel Cake - and remember: life is sweet!

  Cathy Cassidy xxx

  Books by Cathy Cassidy

  DIZZY

  DRIFTWOOD

  INDIGO BLUE

  SCARLETT

  SUNDAE GIRL

  LUCKY STAR

  GINGERSNAPS

  ANGEL CAKE

  DREAMS & DOODLES DAYBOOK

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Text copyright © Cathy Cassidy, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Sara Flavell, 2009

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  ISBN: 978-0-14-193136-4

  Thanks…

  To my lovely, patient husband, Liam, and my fab kids, Calum and Caitlin, for endless hugs, and also to Mum, Joan, Andy, Lori and all my family far and wide. Hugs to all my brilliant friends: Sheena, Helen, Fiona, Mary-Jane, Magi, Zarah, Jessie and the whole crew for keeping me sane… well, almost. Thanks to Catriona for helping with the website, organizing my life and being generally all-round fab; to Martyn for looking after the adding-up bits; and to Darley and his angels at the agency for… well, everything! Thanks to Amanda, the world’s sweetest, smartest and most patient editor; and to Sara, the world’s best cover-artist/illustrator; also to Adele, Francesca, Emily, Sophie, Sara, Kirsten, Tania, Sarah, Jennie and the whole Puffin team.

  Special thanks to Ana, who started me dreaming and inspired the story, and to Polish girls Agatha, Klaudia and Kasia for helping with research; also to Andrew B. and Zosia for the same; and to Scratchy for the pyjamas-in-the-park story; and Sinead for the angel-boy one! Thanks to the two best cafes in the universe, for their inspiration and help with the cake research… Designs in Castle Douglas and Kitty’s Tearoom in New Galloway, which actually has a cake called Angel’s Wings… sigh.

  Finally, thanks to my brilliant readers, whose feedback, support and enthusiasm make all the hard work worthwhile. You’re the best!

  The last few bits and pieces are packed. Mum is running around the flat with a duster, trying to make it all perfect for the next tenants, and Kazia’s sitting on her suitcase hugging the old rabbit Gran knitted for her and trying not to cry.

  I know how she feels. I’m excited about moving, but scared as well. I’ve tried so many times to picture this day, but now that it’s finally here I feel numb, shaky. My stomach is full of butterflies, some of them in hobnailed boots.

  Gran and Grandad arrive to take us to the airport, and then it all moves too fast. The worst bit is saying goodbye. Gran and Grandad hug me so hard it feels like they are trying to memorize the shape of me in their arms, and both of them are crying fat, salty tears even while they are telling us to be brave, to think of the future, to make the most of the new life that’s waiting for us in Liverpool.

  ‘We’ll write, and phone, and email,’ I promise. ‘And we’ll visit, and you can come over at Christmas and visit us…’

  ‘Of course,’ Gran says, but I know they won’t. They will be with Uncle Zarek and Aunt Petra and the cousins this Christmas, in their big flat with the log fire crackling and the festive table always set with an extra place in case a lonely traveller should come knocking at the door.

  By the time we get through security, Mum is crying too, and Kazia, and even I have to take a deep breath in and wipe the tears away. It is hard to leave Krakow, to leave Poland, and step into the unknown. It is hard to leave my family, my friends, the place I once called home.

  It’s hard, but it’s what I’ve dreamt of too, for years.

  Dad went away to work in Britain when I was nine. He could earn better money there, Mum explained, and one day, maybe soon, he would send for us. In Britain, we would have a better life. I didn’t know I needed a better life, back then. The one I had seemed good enough, until Dad went away.

  I missed him. I’d sit by my bedroom window, looking out beyond the city rooftops to the big, blue sky where the swallows that nested in the eaves just above our apartment swooped and soared in the late summer sun. I wondered if there were swallows in Britain, if Dad could look up, as I did, and see them dip and glide through the blue.

  I wished I could fly south for the winter, like the swallows, to a place where the sun always shone. I wished we could all be together again.

  In Krakow, the winters are cold – thick snow lies on the ground for months at a time. The rooftops are dusted with white sugar-frosting, and you have to wear two pairs of socks inside your boots just to stop your toes from turning blue.

  ‘Does it snow in Britain?’ my little sister, Kazia, wanted to know, when Dad came home that first Christmas.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he told us. ‘But it’s not as cold as Krakow!’

  ‘Can we go back with you?’ I asked.

  Dad smiled. ‘One day, Anya! Britain is a land of opportunity, a place where hard work is rewarded. The streets are paved with gold. Not real gold, of course, but you know what I mean.’

  I kind of did. I imagined a place where e
verything was beautiful, where everyone smiled because they could have whatever they wanted.

  ‘We could have a future there,’ Dad said softly, his eyes bright with dreams of his own.

  ‘Are there swallows?’ I asked Dad, and he just laughed.

  ‘Yes, there are swallows,’ he said. ‘Just like the ones in Krakow. Britain is not so different, really, Anya.’

  But I knew it was a world away.

  It took three years for Dad to settle enough to bring us over to England, three years of postcards and letters and long-distance phone calls. Sometimes, if we were really lucky, there were little wooden toys, animals mostly, that he’d carved and painted on the long, lonely nights in England, just for Kazia and me.

  Dad had to take whatever work he could find, picking fruit, on a building site, night shifts in a pickle factory. I wasn’t sure how any of that could be better than his job in Krakow, managing a team of joiners and woodworkers for a big firm in town, but I didn’t argue.

  Then Dad came to Liverpool and met Yuri, a Ukrainian guy running an agency that placed migrant workers in jobs all over the city. Dad went into the office looking for a job and ended up as a partner in the business.

  ‘Yuri wants to use my management experience,’ Dad told us over the phone. ‘And my language skills, of course. I can bring many Polish workers to the agency. With my skills, the business can grow, become the best of its kind in the north-west.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Mum had said, but her eyes were anxious. I could see that living in Britain was Dad’s dream and mine, not hers, but she didn’t argue.

  ‘This is our chance,’ Dad explained. ‘This business will make a fortune for us. This is the start of our new life!’

  Dad said he had a house for us, in a nice area, with a garden. I imagined a pretty cottage with whitewashed walls and a glossy red door and climbing roses clinging to the walls, like pictures in the books Dad used to send to help me with my English.

  I imagined a new school, where the pupils wore neat uniforms and played hockey or quidditch and had midnight feasts. I imagined new friends, a boyfriend maybe.

  Mum gave up her job at the bakery in town, where she had been in charge of making wedding cakes and birthday cakes and the rich, dark poppy-seed cake everyone loved to eat at Christmas. ‘No more cake,’ my little sister Kazia frowned.

  ‘There will always be cake,’ Mum promised. ‘Life would be dull without a little sweetness now and then.’

  We packed up our possessions, said our goodbyes.

  And now we are on the plane, which is scary and exciting and wonderful all at the same time. None of us have ever been on a plane before, and Kazia looks scared as Mum buckles her seat belt. She hugs her knitted rabbit tightly. We are leaving our old lives behind, building new ones from scratch, in a city called Liverpool where the streets are paved with gold.

  I bite my lip. The plane climbs through grey cloud, finally emerging into clear blue skies and sunshine. The clouds are far beneath us now, a carpet of soft white candyfloss. Everything feels fresh and new. It’s like being on the edge of something wonderful, something you’ve dreamed of for years and years but never quite had within grasp until now.

  Britain, at last.

  I am ready for this. I have worked so hard on my English – in my last school test I came top of the class. Beside me, Kazia slips her small hand into mine. ‘I won’t know what to say to anyone,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t remember any English words. It’s all right for you, you’re good at English!’

  ‘So are you,’ I tell my little sister. ‘We’ll be fine!’

  ‘It won’t be as easy outside the classroom,’ Mum reminds us. ‘There are accents to unravel, and your dad says Liverpool has quite a strong one. But we will settle in, I know.’

  I smile and lean back against the window. I think about the swallows, making their long journey south, year after year, never knowing just what they will find. I try to be brave, like them.

  We can’t stay above the candyfloss clouds forever, of course, and eventually the plane begins its descent towards Liverpool John Lennon Airport. The three of us hold hands as the plane lands, our eyes wide, our hearts thumping. Climbing down the plane steps on to British soil, we find ourselves in a dark, grey world where the wind whips our hair against our faces and the rain slants down in sheets.

  ‘Just like Krakow,’ Mum jokes.

  We collect our cases and go through passport control and immigration, and then we are at the gates, and Dad is there, waving madly, his face breaking into the widest grin I have ever seen.

  ‘My girls!’ he yells. ‘My beautiful girls!’

  We fall into his arms.

  Nothing about Britain is the way I thought it would be. Instead of blue skies and sunshine, there are grey clouds and endless rain that seeps into your bones, your soul. It’s October, and there are no swallows, just noisy pigeons and squawking seagulls.

  It’s funny how quickly a dream can crumble.

  The house Dad promised turns out to be a poky flat above a chippy called Mr Yip’s Fish Emporium. The faded wallpaper curls away from damp walls and the smell of stale chip fat clings to everything. Dad has fixed the broken window, mended the kitchen cupboard, but still, it’s a dump. There are no roses around the door, just yellow weeds between the broken paving stones and a litter of scrunchedup chip papers.

  It turns out that Dad’s new business isn’t making his fortune after all. Instead, it’s eating up most of his time and quite a bit of his savings.

  ‘It’s just a little cash-flow problem,’ he explains. ‘I promised you a proper house, and we will get one, definitely, once the agency is doing well. This flat – this area – is just temporary.’

  Mum looks around the flat as if she might cry.

  ‘The agency will take off,’ Dad promises. ‘You have to trust me on this. We’ve had a few problems, but with the cash I’ve been able to put into the business, we will soon be in profit. I didn’t want you to change your plans – I wanted us all to be together. We’ve waited so long to be a family again.’

  Dad puts his arms round Mum and me and Kazia, and for a moment the nightmare flat fades. We are together again. That’s what matters, isn’t it? And this is an adventure…

  That’s what I tell myself, curled up in a creaky bed with the moonlight flooding through stringy curtains and the sound of my little sister Kazia crying quietly into her pillow.

  That’s what I tell myself the next day, as we walk into town to go to Polish Mass at the Catholic cathedral. Mum, Kazia and I look around at the tall Victorian houses, which look like they’ve seen better days, the ragged pair of boxer shorts hanging from a tree like a flag, the beer cans in the gutter.

  Even the cathedral is a disappointment. It’s like a giant ice-cream cone dumped down on to the pavement, or a shiny spaceship that has landed by accident and can’t quite get away again. It’s a million miles from the tall, elegant churches of Krakow.

  Inside, though, light streams through the stained glass. It’s like being inside a giant kaleidoscope, with patches of jewel-bright colour everywhere. I listen to the Mass, close my eyes and pray for a miracle, something to rescue us from the sad and scruffy flat, the endless grey drizzle. I want my dream back, because it was way better than the reality.

  After Mass, we stand on the cathedral steps while Dad introduces us to his friends and workmates.

  ‘This is Tomasz and Stefan, who work with me,’ he says, beaming. ‘This is Mr and Mrs Nowak, and Mr and Mrs Zamoyski…’

  ‘Pleased to meet you… of course, this is a difficult time to be starting out… there’s not quite as much work in the city as there once was, but I’m sure you will be fine! Welcome, welcome!’

  We shake hands and smile until our faces hurt.

  ‘You’ll find it very different from home,’ one girl tells me. ‘I hated it, at first.’

  ‘Just don’t show them you’re scared,’ another tells me.

  ‘I’m not scared!’ I argu
e, and the girls just look at me, smiling, as if they know better. Well, maybe they do.

  The next day, I pull on a white shirt and black skirt, ready for school. I slip on a second-hand blazer, black with red piping, two sizes too big for me. It belonged to the teenage son of one of Dad’s workers, who went to the same school I will be going to. He doesn’t need his blazer now, because the whole family packed up and went back to Warsaw.

  I look out at the grey rain, and I almost envy them.

  Mum walks us to school, her lips set into a firm, determined line. The playground of St Peter and Paul’s is quiet as we walk over to the office, with just a few kids in blazers hanging around in little groups.

  In the office, we fill in forms, slowly, with lots of sign language and mime to help us along. Mum keeps looking at me to help explain what the office staff are saying, but it doesn’t sound anything like the language I’ve been studying so hard at school in Krakow. It makes no sense to me at all.

  The head teacher, Mr Fisher, shakes my hand and tells me, very loudly and very slowly, that he hopes I will be happy here. And then Mum and Kazia are gone, to go through the whole thing again at Kazia’s new primary school, and I am left alone.

  When I step out into the corridor this time, there is a sea of teenagers, pushing, shoving, laughing, yelling. A school secretary leads the way, bulldozing through the crowd to deliver me to Room 21a. She ushers me inside and disappears back to her office, and kids descend on me like crows picking over a roadkill rabbit.

  They prod, they poke, they tug at the sleeve of my too-big blazer, and all the time they are talking, laughing, asking questions. I can’t understand anything at all. By the time the teacher turns up, the questions have got louder, slower, with accompanying sighs and rolling of eyes.

  ‘WHAT… IS… YOUR… NAME?’

  ‘WHERE… DO… YOU… COME… FROM?’

  I open my mouth to answer, but my voice has deserted me, and the teacher raps on her desk for silence. I slump into a front-row seat, shaken, my eyes suddenly brimming with tears.