Friendship Never Ends by Alexandra Sheppard

Author:Alexandra Sheppard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knights Of
Published: 2024-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MAY

It took me a whole week, but I eventually started talking to Jenny again. It was tricky to give her the silent treatment without Mum and Dad noticing, but they didn’t pick up on it. As long as I talked to her at the dinner table (“pass the soy sauce” etc) no one else suspected a thing.

I know she didn’t mean to, but she had destroyed my business.

When the neighbour from No. 19 knocked on our door holding a tray of half-eaten brownies, my mind raced through the horrible reasons why she was there. Maybe I’d accidentally used table salt instead of sugar, or I’d missed a rotten egg in the batter. But no. It wasn’t my fault.

No. 19 was fuming. She accused me of deliberately trying to sabotage her BBQ and even threatened to sue. I apologised and handed over what was left of her cash for a refund, then shut the door in her face as she ranted. I know it was rude, but I had to get her to stop shouting at me!

I carried the brownies into the kitchen where Jenny was waiting for me.

“I don’t get it! I tasted the batch, and they were fine,” I said.

“Only one way to find out,” Jenny said, before cutting herself a big wedge.

“Don’t eat too much! What if they are actually poisonous?”

Jenny ignored me, taking a big bite. She chewed and chewed and didn’t drop to the ground in agony. That was a good sign, so I cut off a small slice and ate it myself.

It was tasty. More than tasty. It was delicious, rich and dense and chocolatey. And the pink sugar balls added a lovely crunch.

“I don’t get it! These brownies are amazing,” I said.

Then it hit me. My mouth flooded with white-hot heat. It must have hit Jenny too because she rushed to the fridge for milk and drank it from the bottle.

“Save me some!” I squealed, pouring the milk straight down my throat.

The flames in my mouth subsided, but my entire face tingled. A bit of something hard and crunchy lodged in my tooth. I spat it into my hand and there it was: a pink sugar ball.

I had a hunch. I picked a sugar ball off the tray of brownies and crunched it. There was that peppery heat again.

“Jenny … you said these were sugar balls,” I said quietly.

“They are,” she said. “Why?”

“Go get the jar. Now.”

Jenny went to the baking cupboard and came back with an unlabelled glass jar filled with pink balls. There were loads of unlabelled jars and bottles in our kitchen because Mum recycled like she was paid to do it, so that wasn’t unusual. She could tell what everything was from sight and smell alone, so she didn’t need to label them.

I opened the jar and took a sniff. “Jenny, these aren’t sugar balls. They’re Szechuan peppercorns!”

“No way! But they’re so bright and pretty,” Jenny said.

“Aren’t you the least bit sorry? You ruined the entire batch!” I yelled.

Jenny looked at me blankly.

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