The Midnight Cake

“Let’s bake a cake.”

My sister’s voice cut through the darkness of our shared room, and I blinked in sleepy confusion.

“What? Let’s… what?”

It was well after midnight, and our teenaged giggles and gossip had slowly given way to yawns. I had been happily drifting into slumberland, but her startling announcement pulled me back.

“Let’s bake a cake!” Her voice rose with slowly building excitement.

“Bake a… you mean now?”

“Why not?” she trilled. “It’s mom’s birthday tomorrow—we could surprise her in the morning with fresh cake for breakfast!”

“I dunno.” I pulled the covers closer under my chin. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, come on!” She interrupted my reservations, leaping out of bed with a sudden energy that startled me into more wakefulness than I would have liked.

“Live a little! We’ll be done in less than an hour, and I’ll handle the bulk of the work. Just help me get everything together.”

And with that she was gone, whisking her robe from the chair and practically dancing out of the room.

I lay in bed a moment longer, hoping she might return and admit the bizarre timing of her proposal, but all I heard was the click of the lights turning on in the kitchen.

That pulled me out of bed. My sister wasn’t exactly the quietest of humans, and the en suite in our parents’ bedroom happened to border the kitchen itself. Keeping the sound to a bare minimum would be my job, I decided, and I followed her with a reluctant sense of purpose.

“So what are we making?” I half-yawned half-whispered.

She turned from the hefty recipe book she’d placed on the kitchen counter.

“I’m gonna do this coffee cake,” she beamed. “It’s super easy, and Mom loves coffee.”

“And so do you,” I mumbled, but she’d already turned to rummage in the pantry.

I sighed, turned the oven on, then wandered across the open plan dining area to pull out a cake pan from the wooden serving cabinet.

A sudden crash jolted me into complete wakefulness, and I turned to see her standing in the kitchen—eggs clutched in one hand, coffee jar in the other, and a guilty look painted across her face.

“I dropped the milk,” she stage-whispered.

“You don’t say,” I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, you’re lucky Mom and Dad are heavy sleepers.”

She carefully deposited her load on the kitchen counter before pouncing on the recalcitrant milk bottle.

“It didn’t even crack!” she exclaimed gleefully.

“Shhhh!” I responded. “If tossing ingredients around the kitchen doesn’t wake them up, your trumpeting commentary will.”

But she merely giggled.

“Get the cooling rack too,” she ordered, ignoring my grousing as she marched across to the walk-in pantry. “This cake is gonna be amazing.”

I turned back to the cabinet, eyeroll in full swing, when a new sound froze me in my tracks.

The groaning clunk of our parents’ bedroom door rang out like a whipcrack in the night.

For the moment, we were temporarily separated by the extra door between their hallway and the living area, but I knew that we had only seconds before one of them made their way down the hall, opened the lounge door, and stepped into the arena of our secret capers.

“Someone’s coming!” I hissed.

And as my sister stared at me in horror, I shut the pantry doors with her still inside, flicked off the kitchen lights, and dove behind the dining room table.

Not a moment too soon.

The lounge lights sputtered wearily into being as our father ambled into the living room.

I peered out from behind the wooden chairs and was relieved to see him calmly putting the kettle on to boil. He obviously hadn’t heard The Great Milk Bomb of 12.47pm, and was merely making his usual nighttime drink of herbal tea.

I ignored the cramping in my leg as I stared daggers at the pantry doors. But for once, my sister seemed to be doing a stellar job of holding herself in silence, and I breathed a little easier.

All we had to do was wait this out a few more minutes, and then we could get back to our tiptoe baking. Once Dad was back in bed with his tea and buried in a book, not even slamming their bedroom door in front of him would capture his attention.

Then my heart sank as he pulled a cup out from the sideboard. I had just remembered where he kept his favourite herbal tea, and it was not in the sideboard cupboard.

He shuffled across to the pantry.

Opened the wooden doors.

And stared at my sister pressed up against the shelves, a bag of flour clutched in front of her like a talisman.

There was a long pause.

“What are you doing?” Dad’s voice was more sleepy than anything else, and he had obviously decided to go with curiosity for now.

“Um,” my sister held up the bag of flour like an awkward stage prop. “Making a cake?”

Dad sighed, looked at the bag of flour, then reached past her to grab his tea.

“Don’t wake Mom up,” he said slolwy, and he gently closed the doors on her again.

~

It was almost two hours later when we finally crawled back into our respective beds, falling into the heavy sleep of post-adrenaline, post-subterfuge, post-midnight baking.

The next morning, Dad’s smile gave nothing away as he accepted the extra-large piece of cake I sheepishly offered him.

“Happy Birthday, Mom!”

Meanwhile, my sister’s glowing grin was back in business, as she proudly served fresh cake to our delighted mother.

“Oh, how sweet of you girls!” Mom laughed. “And that coffee frosting smells delicious. Thank you, my darlings.”

She took a big bite of cake, chewed, paused, then delicately spat it out again.

I lifted my own piece of cake, took a sniff and then a nibble, then turned to my sister.

“So uh, how many eggs exactly did that recipe use?”

“Only two!” She protested. “Why?”

I set down my plate and marched grimly into the kitchen, pulling out the food scrap bin from under the counter.

“Because you didn’t use TWO eggs,” I said, exasperated. “You used TEN.”

“Ten eggs?”

Mom’s voice was faint. My sister’s mouth hung agape.

I flopped back down onto the couch, glaring at the beautiful cake that had cost me a good night’s sleep, a heart attack or two, and the dubious joy of silently washing dishes at 2am.

My sister stared at the slice on her plate, working up the courage to take a bite of her creation. She chewed like a disciplined athlete before swallowing with audible determination. There was another pause.

“It tastes like scrambled eggs,” she finally announced.

“Yeah,” I responded grumpily, “scrambled eggs topped with freshly brewed latte.”

Dad quietly set his untouched cake aside and picked up his mug of hot tea.

“Well,” he said diplomatically, “You did promise us a birthday breakfast…”