The Goat Who Ate the Wedding Cake

The wedding was in Aunt Pearl’s garden, and everything smelled of cut grass and lemonade. Bea carried a basket of rose petals. Her cousin Sam carried a tray of tiny sandwiches and ate two of them before he reached the table.

“You’re supposed to serve those,” Bea said.

“I’m serving them to me,” said Sam. “Quality control.”

At the end of the lawn sat the cake. It was three layers tall, white as a cloud, with sugar flowers climbing one side. Bea had watched Aunt Pearl fuss over it all morning.

Near the fence, in a pen made of folding chairs, stood Crumpet the goat. Crumpet belonged to the farm next door. He had come for the wedding in a bow tie and had eaten the bow tie by nine o’clock.

“He looks lonely,” said Bea.

“He looks like a paper shredder with legs,” said Sam.

The photographer called for the bride and groom. Everyone hurried to the rose arch. Aunt Pearl waved her arms. “Smile! Big smiles, everyone!”

Nobody watched the cake. Nobody watched the pen.

Crumpet watched both. He leaned on the folding chairs until they tipped. Then he trotted across the grass, quiet as a cat in socks. He climbed the steps to the cake table. He sniffed the frosting.

Then he started eating, and he did not stop. He ate the sugar flowers, then the top layer, then the middle. Frosting gathered on his chin like a beard. At the bottom layer, he paused and looked around, as if checking whether anyone wanted a bite.

Nobody did. Nobody saw. The camera clicked on.

By the time the bride turned around, Crumpet was licking the cake stand clean. The stand spun slowly under his tongue, empty and bright.

***

Bea came back for her basket and stopped walking.

The cake stand gleamed. No cake. Just a goat with white frosting on his face and one sugar flower stuck to his ear.

“Sam,” she whispered. “Sam. Come here. Quickly.”

Sam arrived with the sandwich tray. He looked at the stand. He looked at Crumpet. He set the tray down very slowly, as if the tray might explode.

“That’s the cake,” he said.

“I know it’s the cake.”

“The whole cake.”

“I know the whole cake, Sam!”

Crumpet burped. It was a small, polite burp, and somehow that was the worst part.

Bea looked across the lawn. The bride was laughing under the rose arch. Aunt Pearl was adjusting someone’s hat. Any second now they would all turn around and want cake.

“We have to tell someone,” said Sam.

“We can’t. Aunt Pearl will cry. She spent two days on those sugar flowers.”

Crumpet took a step toward Sam and chewed the corner of his bow tie, which was somehow still there.

“He’s guilty,” said Sam. “Look at his face. That’s a guilty face.”

“That’s a frosting face,” said Bea. But her hands were shaking. “Okay. Okay. We fix this. We don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” said Sam, who was panicking.

Bea grabbed the empty stand. “We bake a new one. We have an hour before anyone cuts anything.”

“Do you know how to bake?”

“I’ve watched it on television.”

“That’s not the same as baking!”

“It’s close,” said Bea, and she marched toward the kitchen with the stand under her arm. Behind them, Crumpet followed, frosting still on his chin, and the sugar flower still stuck to his ear.

The kitchen smelled of butter and panic. Bea flipped through a cookbook that was older than her mother. “Here. ‘Simple Sponge.’ Three eggs, sugar, flour, butter.” Sam counted eggs into a bowl. “We have two eggs. And the butter is mostly gone.” Crumpet had found the butter dish and was licking it like an ice cream cone.

“Use margarine,” said Bea. “And applesauce instead of eggs. I saw that once.” Sam measured applesauce with a teacup. The batter looked like lumpy wallpaper paste. Bea poured it into a tin and shoved it in the oven. “Twenty minutes,” she said. “We have time.”

They did not have time. The oven was ancient and ran hot. When Bea pulled the tin out, the cake was black on top and raw in the middle. Smoke curled toward the ceiling. Sam flapped a tea towel at the smoke alarm. “Open a window!”

“The window sticks!” Bea hacked at the burnt top with a knife. It came off in one piece, like a giant scab. “We’ll frost it. Frosting hides everything.”

Attempt two used a different recipe. “‘Fluffy Vanilla Dream,’” Sam read. “It says to beat the egg whites until stiff.” Bea beat them for four minutes. Her arm ached. The whites stayed runny. “Maybe stiff means something else,” she said. She poured the whole mess into a tin anyway. It rose beautifully in the oven, then fell with a soft sigh, like a balloon losing its air. The middle was a sunken crater.

“We can fill the crater,” said Bea. “With jam.”

Attempt three was a disaster of salt. Sam grabbed the wrong jar. The cake came out golden and proud, and Bea took one bite and spat it into the sink. “That’s not sugar,” she said. “That’s salt. A whole cup of salt.” Sam stared at the jar. “It was next to the sugar,” he said. “It’s a trap.”

Crumpet wandered over and ate the salty cake in three bites. He seemed to like it. Bea sat down on the floor. Flour was in her hair. “We have twenty minutes,” she said. “And no cake.”

***

Sam was quiet for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. “Crumpet’s recipe book,” he said. “From the farm. Aunt Pearl keeps it in the pantry, on the shelf with the goat stuff. He has his own book.”

“Goats don’t have recipe books,” said Bea.

“This one does. It’s called ‘Treats for Crumpet.’ The farmer wrote it. It’s got weird stuff in it.”

Bea found it behind a bag of oats. The cover was chewed. Inside, the pages were stained and smelled of hay. “‘Dandelion Fluff Cake,’” she read. “One cup dandelion fluff. Half a cup honeycomb. Three spoons of clover honey. A jar of blackberry jam. And something called ‘a goat’s patience.’”

“We don’t have goat’s patience,” said Sam.

“We have Crumpet,” said Bea. “He’s right there.” Crumpet was eating a dish towel. “He can be the patience.”

They ran outside. The lawn was full of dandelions. Bea blew the fluff into a bowl while Sam hunted for honeycomb in the shed. He found a sticky chunk in a jar. “This looks like honeycomb,” he said. “Or a very old sponge.”

“Close enough,” said Bea. Back in the kitchen, they mixed everything together. The batter was lumpy and golden, and it smelled like summer. Bea poured it into the one clean tin and put it in the oven. “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “And we need jam. The jar is in the pantry. Crumpet, stay.”

Crumpet did not stay. He followed them to the pantry and sat down right in front of the jam shelf. His tail wagged. “He wants to help,” said Sam. “Or he wants to eat it.”

Bea looked at the goat. The goat looked back. “Crumpet,” she said slowly, “can you carry this jar to the kitchen without eating it?” Crumpet tilted his head. Then he gently took the jar in his mouth, like a dog carrying a bone. He walked to the kitchen and set it on the table. The jar was not even slobbery. “Good goat,” said Bea, and she meant it.

The oven timer dinged. Bea pulled on two oven mitts that were far too big for her and lifted out the tin. The cake was golden and tall and slightly lopsided, like a hat worn by someone in a hurry. It smelled of honey and warm grass.

“It’s not burned,” said Sam, sounding amazed.

“Don’t say that yet,” said Bea. “Wait until it’s cool.” She set it on the windowsill, where the afternoon sun made the top shine. “Now the jam.”

Crumpet had already carried the jar to the table, but the lid was still sealed tight. Bea twisted it. Nothing. Sam tried. Nothing. The jar was slippery from the goat’s mouth, and neither of them could get a grip.

“We could smash it,” said Sam.

“We are not smashing jam in Aunt Rosa’s kitchen.” Bea wiped the jar on her shirt and tried again. The lid groaned and stayed shut.

Crumpet stepped forward. He nudged the jar with his nose, then looked at Bea and made a small, patient sound, like a question.

“You want to try?” Bea held it out. The goat took the lid between his teeth, turned his head slowly, and the lid came free with a soft pop.

Sam stared. “He’s a genius.”

“He’s a goat,” said Bea, but she was grinning. She spooned the jam over the top of the cake, and it slid down the sides in slow red ribbons. Then she added a ring of dandelion fluff around the edge, which was the strangest thing she had ever done to a cake and also, somehow, the prettiest.

The cake stood on the stand in the middle of the table. Nobody had ever made a cake like it. It was a little crooked and a little wild, and the jam caught the light like stained glass. From the garden, the music started up again.

“That’s the sign,” said Sam. “They’re going to cut the cake soon.”

***

Bea carried the cake across the lawn with both arms out, walking like she was balancing on a beam. Sam walked in front, clearing the way, and Crumpet followed behind, his hooves clicking on the flagstones.

Aunt Rosa turned around. Her white dress glowed in the sun, and her face was still pink from laughing. “There you are,” she said. “Where have you two been? And why is the goat out?”

Bea’s mouth went dry. “Aunt Rosa,” she said. “I have to tell you something. Crumpet ate the cake. The whole cake. Every bit. So we made you a new one, and it’s not the same, and I’m sorry.”

For a moment Aunt Rosa said nothing. Then she looked down at the cake in Bea’s arms. The jam was dripping. The dandelion fluff was drifting slightly in the breeze. She bent closer and took a deep breath.

“What’s in it?” she asked.

“Honeycomb,” said Bea. “And dandelions. And a pinch of something from the shed that might have been a sponge.”

Aunt Rosa laughed so hard she had to hold her hat. “That,” she said, “is the best cake I have ever seen. Cut me a slice before I change my mind.”

Bea cut a slice, and Aunt Rosa took a bite, and her eyes went wide. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, that’s good.” Then she crouched down and scratched Crumpet behind his horns. “And you,” she said. “You troublemaker. You’re forgiven.”

Bea cut the goat a tiny slice, and Crumpet ate it in one happy gulp. She watched him lick jam off his nose and decided that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t so bad after all. Then she cut herself a big slice, because being brave was hungry work.