LITMIR.BIZ

      n hour or so later, with a slight smell of burnt sugar in the air, Jack sent Tilly round to Crumbs with some pop cakes. It had taken him a few batches, but he had finally perfected them so that when you bit into one you got a mouthful of lovely sticky honey. As Tilly stepped on to the street the fresh air and streams of people clutching takeaway coffee cups and mobile phones were reassuringly solid and familiar. Pushing open the door to Crumbs, she saw that Oskar was in his usual spot, this time doodling on a notepad.

      ‘What’s that I spy?’ Mary said. ‘Is it an offering from Jack?’

      ‘Yes!’ Tilly replied, holding the cake box up. ‘Pop cakes fresh from the oven! They’re best now while the honey is still a bit warm.’ She opened the box and Mary took one.

      ‘Jack sent enough for Oskar too,’ Tilly said loudly, and he looked up hopefully.

      ‘Let me bring you two some drinks to have with them,’ Mary said, pulling another chair up to the table Oskar was sitting at and nudging Tilly into it.

      ‘What are you drawing?’ Tilly asked him as she took her coat off. Oskar spread his arms over the paper, like he was trying to stop someone copying a test at school.

      ‘Nothing much, only scribbling. Just something to do,’ he said.

      ‘Oh, okay,’ Tilly said, embarrassed at having made him uncomfortable. She messed with the ends of her hair as he painstakingly smoothed a bent corner of paper.

      ‘So, uh, what’s your favourite kind of cake?’ Oskar asked awkwardly after a pause.

      ‘Carrot cake, I think,’ Tilly said, surprised at the line of questioning. ‘What’s yours?’

      ‘Red velvet.’

      ‘I like that too,’ Tilly replied, unsure how the conversation had dried up so much since that morning.

      ‘I like carrot cake too.’

      The silence seemed to solidify around them.

      ‘Anyway, I’m not really very hungry,’ Tilly said, standing up and banging her knee against the table as her coat sleeve got twisted round the back of her chair. ‘I was just bringing the cakes over for your mum. See you in school.’

      ‘Don’t go,’ Oskar said abruptly, watching Tilly untangle herself. She stopped wrestling with her coat. ‘I mean, I just wanted to ask which book you decided to read for English homework,’ Oskar said, picking at his fingernails.

      ‘I think I’m going to read one of my mum’s old favourites,’ Tilly said. ‘You know I found that box of her books the other day? Well, I thought I might choose one of those that I haven’t read yet. Maybe Treasure Island?’

      ‘I love that one,’ Oskar said.

      ‘You’ve read it?’

      ‘Well, I’ve listened to the audiobook, if that counts.’

      ‘It definitely counts,’ Tilly said.

      They both fell silent as Mary brought them two glasses of orange juice and two pop cakes on patterned plates.

      ‘Everything okay?’ she said.

      ‘Yes, fine, thank you,’ Tilly replied automatically. Then, after a moment, she asked, ‘Mary, who’s your favourite character from a book?’

      ‘What a tricky question.’ Mary paused in thought as Tilly and Oskar ate their pop cakes. ‘I think it would have to be Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. Have either of you read it?’

      Oskar hadn’t, but Tilly nodded her head, although she hadn’t actually read it; she’d only seen the TV version that her grandma watched every Christmas.

      ‘Do you ever think about what you would say to her, if she was real?’ Tilly asked.

      ‘I can’t say that I ever have before, Tilly, but it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I suppose I would ask her what it was like in her family, and what Mr Darcy was really like. I must admit, Tilly, that part of the reason I love her is how much she reminds me of your mum.’

      ‘What?’ Tilly blurted, remembering the conversation with her grandma earlier.

      ‘Yes, I always thought that Bea had a similar sense of humour to Lizzy’s and your mum was a very sharp observer of people, Tilly – honestly, she used to make me giggle describing some of the customers who came into Pages & Co. Goodness, it would be fun, wouldn’t it, to be able to talk to Lizzy Bennet? Although I wonder if she would be like I imagine her, if I actually met her.’

      ‘I bet she wouldn’t,’ Oskar said. ‘I think if you met your favourite character they’d just be disappointing. It would be like meeting

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