Before the Doors Open

My name is Ben. Dad's sister, Aunt Lucy, is getting married at the weekend, and the party will be in the town hall by the river. More than a hundred people are coming. Mum is making the cake. Dad is doing the rest.

"What is the rest?" Mum asks.

"Getting the cake to the hall," says Dad. "I can do it!"

Mum looks at him for a long time. Then she makes a plan on a piece of paper and puts it on the kitchen wall. Day one: buy everything. Day two: cook. Day three: the cake goes to the hall at four. "By the time the doors open at six," she says, "that cake will have been on the table for an hour. Do you understand?"

Dad understands.

On day one, Mum buys eggs and everything else on the list. It fills two heavy bags. Dad looks at our car and says the cake will be too big for it. "I can do it!"

By the evening, our car has no back seats. When we drive to school now, I sit on a box.

On day two, Mum cooks all day. The kitchen is hot, and nobody is allowed to speak. When the last cake is ready, there are three of them, one on top of the other, as big as me. Dad says the cake will move in the car. "I can do it!" He makes a big box for it from the wood of my old bed, so that it cannot move.

It does not move in the car. It does not move out of the kitchen either, because the box is bigger than the kitchen door.

By ten that night, the kitchen door is in the street.

On day three, Aunt Lucy sends Dad a message. "I will be having my hair done until five. The code for the back door of the hall is 1966. The front doors will be locked until six. As soon as you arrive, put the cake on the table by the window."

At four we carry the cake to the back door of the hall. Dad tries the code. Nothing happens. He tries again. Nothing. He rings Aunt Lucy, but she is having her hair done, and her phone rings and rings.

It is ten past four. "I can do it!" says Dad.

At half past four, the back door of the town hall is on the ground.

Then a woman with keys in her hand walks round the corner of the building and stops. She looks at us. She looks at the cake. She looks at the door, and she keeps looking at it.

"That code has not worked for two years," she says. "I have the keys. I was going to open it for you." She is quiet for a moment. "Who is going to fix that door?"

"I can do it!" says Dad.

The woman asks Mum for the number of a man.

By the time the doors open at six, the cake has been on the table by the window for an hour. Well, the front doors open. The back door is still on the ground, and the kitchen door is still in our street.

Aunt Lucy arrives, sees the cake, and puts both hands over her mouth. She says it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. Mum says that is because nobody has fixed it.