Freddy's Special Ingredient

"Bring the baking bowl back here Freddy. The dough is ready."

"Okay Mumma! The chocolate chips look soooo yummy!"

"Let's slip it into the oven now sweetie, so it can get nice and hot and bake for tomorrow!"

"Mmmmmm," nodding, "I wanna lick the bowl"

"Yes! It'll be our little secret."

"No because the others will know"

"You are a clever one, aren't you!"

"Yes. No secrets but I want it anyway, okay?"

"Very well. After you have finished, teeth and bed, okay little one?"

"Okay Mamma."

As Mamma slid the tray with its contents into the opening of the clay oven her face flushed a warm orange. Freddy massaged the tacky chocolate dough from around the bowl, tongue taking in the flavours and slurping the goo from her fingers.

As she took care to find all the little traces of chocolaty goodness from around the bowl, she pondered all the extra stuff she had added to the mix. Her eyes glinted and she felt warmth flush through her. It dwelled in her belly as it prepared for the magic mixture to meet it there.

'Tonight was special. Mamma doesn't even suspect anything.' The little girl's head bobbed up and down as she agreed with herself. 'I am quite clever, it is true.'

She nodded some more, and her mother patted her head gently and said, "Time for bed Fred."

"It's not done yet Mamma," Fred looked up at her mother and smiled. "There's special stuff in here you know. I don't want to waste any."

"Oh, I know. Beautiful flour, and cacao, and what else Freddy?"

"Yes, I know all of that stuff Mamma, I don't mean proper, norrrmal stuff, I put some extra stuff in there."

Freddy's mother looked quizzical, "Whatever do you mean Freddy? What extra, special stuff did you put into the mixture?"

Freddy closed her eyes and sucked the last lashings of the dough from her fingers, "Oh, you know, stuff like fire-flies and night skies as big as the Milky Way, that kind of thing."

"Oh!" said Mamma, "tell me more."

"Beatrice showed me how. We put the love of what we think of into our mix at her house and it comes out extra special and then magic things happen when you eat it. You will see. It's the extra love, but also the things too."

"Freddy you're so smart."

"Yes, I know. You're always saying that."

"Well, I guess I put the 'smart' into you!"

"No, you didn't do that, I have always just been very clever. Remember?"

"Hahaha. I love you my sweet girl,"

"Why are you laughing?"

"Well, when I was baking you in the oven Freddy," she pointed to her belly, "I would always whisper extra special things into you! I said to you that, 'you will grow well and be clever and strong and ask good questions. So there you go!"

"Oooo... I am like a special cake with all the specialist things mixed in. I think I already knew that. Thank you for reminding me Mamma."

"You're welcome Freddy. Now come on, let's have that bowl and get ready for bed."

Tucked under the covers that night as she closed her eyes, Freddy felt the special mix stir her insides. She took a deep breath and tingled as the light tendrils were curling out of her belly and reaching up all around inside of her, and then up through and all around her. 'Wow!' Freddy thought, as a carriage of star dust infused her room with a brilliance so bright her room was no more.

She dissolved into the lights, and merged with the sky, the surrounds becoming punctuated with inky depths. From her bed she had always spied the fireflies that make up the Milky Way from her window. It had a little rectangular part at the top where no blinds covered it, and she could always see them. They very rarely had cloud cover.

She was quite excited as she was whisked up into the swirl of the Milky Way and carried away on a sea of fireflies. They buzzed and hummed when they moved and Freddy got a funny fluttery feeling inside where she would have been, had she not been dissolved into the fire-fly sky.

She giggled, although she didn't know which part of her was giggling, or if she was she or asleep, awake, or anything really. It all just felt so very nice, to be big like that and so tucked and warm all at the same time.

This was the gift she had put into the mix. When the others ate their own piece of chocolate cake, they would get to feel it too, that big, warm, fluttery, humming symphony of a firefly sky.

She really was smart. 'Thanks Freddy,' Freddy said to the cascading musical notes of each tendril of light. Her firefly carriage surrendered into the current of their song, 'Goodnight,' she whispered.

This really was the best ever secret ingredient Freddy had added yet!