The day the Aliens arrived, Mum had just won first prize in the Country Women’s Association cake-baking competition at the Wharton Annual Show.
I have to admit, my Mum really does make the best-ever ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’.
In fact, the judge said it was quite possible that no one in the world could make ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’ quite like her.
‘All it takes is time and my secret ingredient,’ said Mum, looking very pleased with herself.
Then the Aliens landed at the fairground, their spaceship casting a shadow bigger than the Ferris wheel. Three of them descended the ramp and looked around. They had big, round heads with their mouths at the top, three eyes and round bellies. Their large eyes made them look like they were very surprised about something. They must have been hungry because they began to taste everything in sight.
First, they sampled from the pigs’ trough, but it didn’t agree with them.
Then they tried the cattle droppings from the show ring. They didn’t like that either and I can’t blame them.
They tried Mr Hamish’s chilli sauce, washed it down with Mrs Nelly’s cider, and even swallowed six punnets of Old Man Sorrens’ strawberries.
Then they got to the cakes.
Down the line they went trying a slice of everything. They took one bite of each then threw the rest aside.
Then they got to Mum’s ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’.
One Alien took a bite, made a grunting sound, and then passed the slice to the next Alien. He (was it a he or a she? How should I know?) took a bite, made a very satisfied sounding grunt, and passed what was left to the third Alien.
Guess what he did?
Well, he took a bite, gave a grunting sound – not surprised yet are you? – then took another slice of cake and ate all that. The other two Aliens took another slice of cake each and pretty soon Mum’s award-winning ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’ was all gone.
The Aliens looked around at the crowd. We were all staring, frozen in surprise and shock at what was happening.
The tall one, obviously the leader, held out his hands in a gesture asking for more.
All heads turned to Mum. Mum stared blankly. She wasn’t very good at reading gestures. She was always saying, ‘Use your words’.
‘Mum,’ I whispered urgently, ‘they want more of your “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”.’
‘Oh,’ Mum whispered back. ‘But there isn’t any more, I just watched them eat it all up.’
Sometimes mums can be so dumb.
I whispered slowly and clearly, ‘You have to make some more’.
‘But that takes time – and my secret ingredient.’
The Alien must have followed our conversation, because he made the gesture again, then gave an upside down frown, which should have looked like a smile but clearly wasn’t, and turned to the table. He took out a device from his spacesuit pocket, pointed it at the table and pressed a button.
The table melted.
He turned back to Mum and made the gesture. She stared helplessly or maybe it was fearfully now.
The Alien turned toward the tent and pointed his little device again.
The tent melted.
So did the truck that was parked behind it.
‘Mum,’ I yelled, because whispering wasn’t doing anything, ‘you have to make your “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing” and you have to make it NOW!’
The Alien pointed toward the shed and Mum finally snapped out of her daze.
‘Right,’ she said crisply, ‘I am going to need ...’ and she listed all the tools and ingredients for making her “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”.
The other members of the Country Women’s Association leapt into action around her.
‘Flour!’
‘Butter!’
‘Sugar!’
‘Milk!’
‘Baking soda – and eggs!’
The dairy farmers brought over their award-winning cream, and Old Man Sorrens personally delivered a crate of strawberries.
‘I need an oven!’ Mum yelled.
‘The barbecues are here, including the display of outdoor cookers,’ shouted Dad from across the grounds.
Meanwhile the Aliens stood still and watched the activity. Hopefully they knew we were trying to get the cake ready. In any case, they hadn’t melted anything else yet.
Mum carried all her ingredients to the outdoor cooker display and started baking up a storm. Normally Mum looks really happy when she is baking. ‘It calms me,’ she says, ‘and I get enormous satisfaction out of watching my family enjoy eating what I have made.’
Today, she didn’t look happy. There was a look of intense concentration on her face.
I don’t know much about baking, but I did know that sponge cakes are really tricky things to make properly. A noise at the wrong moment can mean that it doesn’t rise properly, and you have to start all over again.
I know because I usually make a lot of noise, and Mum always lets me know it if it is the wrong time. Unfortunately she often has a wooden spoon in her hand.
Yet although there were a thousand people at the show this year, it was very quiet that afternoon. Mum measured, stirred, mixed, and poured. Finally the cake was ready to go in the cooker.
Then she looked very worried. She bit her lower lip and shook her head.
‘I guess there’s no way out, I need to add my secret ingredient,’ she whispered.
I gasped in horror. Mum’s secret ingredient had won her countless awards for baking over the years. If everyone saw what it was, well, it wouldn’t be a secret any more, and she may never win another award.
She looked sadly over at the Aliens. The head Alien lifted his arm with the device still pointed toward the shed. He gestured with it and Mum had to act.
I went over to her and put my arm around her. So did my Dad, and my little sister. Mum looked at us gratefully and gave us each a kiss on the cheek. ‘I love you guys,’ she whispered.
Then she turned around and gently placed the cake in the cooker.
There was whispering among the gathered CWA ladies, and the older ones nodded gravely, as if they had known about Mum’s secret ingredient. The rest of the people just looked confused.
‘Now,’ said Mum, ‘all we need is time.’ She looked at the Aliens to make sure they understood. Gesturing to the timer, she tried to make them understand that when it had moved back to the ‘0’ the cake would be finished.
Well, actually it wouldn’t be finished. It needed to cool, be sliced into two, filled with jam and cream, and covered with passionfruit icing. It would take a couple of hours to finish.
Baking a cake, especially a ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’, was not a simple task.
‘So,’ I said cheerfully (and rather bravely, I thought), ‘let’s enjoy the carnival while we wait.’
The Aliens looked around them as if realising for the first time they were surrounded by the exciting rides of the Wharton Annual Show. Normally you needed to buy a wristband to get onto the rides, but the owners made an exception for the Aliens.
Although the merry-go-round was a little tame for them (they had travelled through space after all), they seemed to get a kick out of the Cha-Cha and the Matterhorn. The Mad Mouse ride had them cheering for more, but the Ghost Train must have confused them because they came out scratching their big, round heads.
They put balls into clown mouths and threw softballs at cans that never fell for us, but promptly collapsed the second the balls left their Alien hands.
Their lucky tickets always won something, and as the afternoon progressed they enlisted the help of all my friends to carry their prizes. Ironically, one of these included a giant, stuffed Alien toy that didn’t look anything like them but they seemed to like.
Finally we put them on the Ferris wheel with a bag of fairy floss, doughnuts and a hot dog each to keep them happy until the “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing” was ready.
The Ferris wheel operator was pretty smart and he stopped the wheel stop with the Aliens at the top while the mayor and shire council members had a quick meeting.
‘What will they do when the cake is ready?’
‘How can we make them go away?’
‘What on earth was that secret ingredient nonsense?’
‘I don’t want to be melted!’ wailed the obnoxious former real estate agent Mr Crimms, who I would have thought was a tough guy, but apparently not.
The mayor, Mr Welling, looked up at the Aliens and waved, smiling brightly. ‘We need to give them the recipe. They need to be taught to make their own cake. Or we could give them Mrs Charple.’
I heard that. ‘You’re not giving away my Mum!’ I yelled.
‘Shhhh!’ exclaimed the mayor, turning red. ‘It was just a joke.’
The councillors agreed that it wasn’t funny. Then, being proud of themselves for finally agreeing on something, they dispersed around the fairground.
I looked at Mum. ‘Mum, you have to give away your recipe for “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”. It is the only way we can get rid of the Aliens.’
‘But,’ said Mum, ‘I can’t give them all the ingredients, my secret ingredient comes from …’ She looked worried again.
‘We have to try, Mum,’ I interrupted pleadingly, ‘we have to make them understand, then maybe they can create their own version of the secret ingredient.’
Mum looked at me and smiled. ‘Let’s do it.’
She hastily jotted down the ingredients and described how to prepare the cake mix. She did this in between mixing strawberries and cream to fill the ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’.
Then she iced the cake, after quickly running across to get some fresh passionfruits from the vine that grew along the fence around the fairground.
It was ready.
The Aliens had finally been released from the Ferris wheel, and had wandered around slightly giddy, finishing in the Baby Farm Animal enclosure, making crooning noises over the rabbits, calves and goats.
(I don’t know why rabbits would be included in a farm animal enclosure, as every self-respecting farmer hates rabbits, but they are cute to pat.)
Mum carefully approached the Aliens, carrying her beautiful ‘Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing’.
The Aliens all smiled, and this time it did look like a frown, but I am sure they were happy because they gently each took a slice of the cake and quickly sucked them into their mouths.
They reached for seconds but Mum, being a Mum, snatched the cake away with her palm up. ‘Where are your manners?’ she asked in the voice that every Mum uses when her kids are misbehaving.
The Aliens looked surprised. Well, more surprised. No one had probably ever stood up to them before. The head Alien reached into his pocket for the melting device. Mum reached out and slapped his wrist firmly. His mouth opened so wide in surprise that it threatened to open his head up completely and turn him inside out.
Then Mum spoke again. ‘You can have the rest of this cake. This cake is special. I have written down the instructions for making your own “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”, so you can eat it every day if you want to bake it.’ She held out a piece of paper.
The Aliens stopped looking surprised and started to look greedy with hunger. The head Alien hesitantly reached out to take the piece of paper where Mum had written down the recipe. Mum handed it to him carefully.
I hoped the Aliens could read English, but apparently they could because they conferred briefly over the recipe, turned back to Mum and nodded. The smallest Alien stepped up to Mum and pointed to the final ingredient listed.
Mum’s gesture reading had improved significantly that day and she knew exactly what the Alien was asking.
‘That, my Alien friend, is my secret ingredient. You will need some of that every time you make this cake. Otherwise it just won’t taste the same.
‘Oh, others have tried,’ she went on, ‘in fact you sampled them all today, but none came close, because no one else knows that when you bake any cake, for it to taste every bit as good as my “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”, you have to bake it with “love”.’
The surprised-looking Alien managed to wrinkle his triple eyebrow into something that made him look confused.
‘I can’t explain what love might mean to you, but to me it is my family. Just a kiss or a hug is enough to enhance the flavour beyond the ordinary into my award-winning “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing”.’
I held my breath as the Aliens considered what Mum had said. The CWA ladies nodded furiously in agreement. I could see them already making plans to expand their recipes in preparation for next year’s show.
Then the head Alien lifted his hand holding the melting device. We all groaned in despair and a shriek was heard from the former real estate agent shire councillor.
The Alien pointed his device at the melted tent, pressed the button and the tent reappeared. So did the truck behind it. Then he pointed at the melted table and it came back, too.
The smallest Alien stepped up to Mum, bowed graciously, took what was left of her “Sponge Filled with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Cream and Covered with Delicious Passionfruit Icing” and quickly scuttled away to the spaceship, up the ramp and disappeared inside.
The other two also bowed, then followed their friend. Within minutes the spaceship had disappeared.
We all heaved a massive sigh of relief.
Of course, Mum was declared a hero and her picture was in the local newspaper. The national newspapers didn’t think we were telling the truth so you probably haven’t heard about it before now.
ONE YEAR LATER
The Wharton Annual Show was in full swing when the Aliens returned.
They only stayed long enough to submit their entry in the cake-baking competition.
They would have won it, too, but Mum had moved on to Black Forest Cakes, and the rich chocolate and dark cherries were impossible to beat.
PS: I’m really sorry about that comment about Mums being dumb.