The Oven That Only Bakes for Singing

Ben was nine, and he was the best rememberer of words in his family. If Ben knew a song, he knew all of it, right down to the last verse that everybody else hums through. His dad was the other way round. Dad knew the first line of every song, and not one word after it. He sang that first line loud and happy, and then he made something up about a bus.

On Saturday morning Mom went to stay with her sister, and Sunday was her birthday. Ben meant to have a proper tall birthday cake on the table when she walked in the door. That was the whole plan. The hard part was the oven.

They lived in a tall crooked house on a hill, and the house had its ways. Mom had left a letter about them on the fridge, and Ben read it out loud in the voice of a captain giving orders to a ship.

“Dear Ben and Dad,” he read. “Here is how the house works, since you both forget. One. Do not call the kettle a pot. It sulks, and then it won’t boil for anybody. Two. Let the stairs finish counting. If you go up two at a time, they lose their place and start again from one. Three. If you lose something, ask the cupboard under the stairs. It always gives back somebody else’s first, so be patient.”

“Get to the oven,” said Dad.

The oven was number four, and it had the most underlining.

“The oven only bakes while somebody is singing,” Ben read. “A hum warms it. A whistle gets it hot. Full voice and it roars. Things rise exactly as tall as the singing is glad. Anything with eggs in it: keep singing till it’s done, and don’t stop to answer the door. And do not sing the sad one. You know the one. Last time Dad sang the sad one, the scones came out so flat we used them for coasters. Love, Mom. P.S. Feed Mustard.”

Mustard’s tail thumped the floor at the sound of the name.

The oven knob had no numbers on it at all. It said HUM, and WHISTLE, and FULL VOICE, and that was all it said.

The cake would take forty minutes. Ben had the flour and the sugar and four eggs, but no whisk, so he asked the cupboard under the stairs. The cupboard gave him a green left glove that belonged to nobody he knew. Then it gave him a seashell. Then, at last, it gave him the whisk. Ben put the glove and the seashell on the hall table, in case anybody came for them.

* * *

“Leave the singing to me,” said Dad.

Ben read number four out loud once more, to be safe, and finished on “Do not sing the sad one.”

“I never would,” said Dad. He turned the knob to FULL VOICE and sang.

He sang the first line of a song about a sailor, and the first line of a song about a train, and the first line of a song that is only ever sung at weddings. The oven roared. Through the little glass door, Ben watched the cake begin to climb. Mustard barked once at the end of every line, because Mustard always knew when a happy song was finishing, and Dad nearly always sang happy ones, being Dad.

At minute nineteen there was a knock at the front door.

Dad stopped in the middle of a word and went to answer it. He was that sort of man.

“Dad!” said Ben. “Don’t stop to answer the—”

Then Ben remembered he could have sung himself, and opened his mouth to do it. Too late. Nobody was singing, and the oven gave a small clank and went cold.

At the door stood Mr. Hatch from the bottom of the hill, wearing one glove. He had lost the other, he said, and he was asking at every house. Dad handed him the green glove from the hall table, and Mr. Hatch was so pleased he shook Dad’s hand for a long time.

When Dad came back, the cake had gone flat.

“Flat,” said Dad. “The one thing a singer should never be.” He said it would make a lovely coaster.

* * *

For the second try, Dad hung a sign on the front door. It said BAKING. PLEASE COME BACK AFTER THE CAKE. This time they both sang.

Ben sang every song he knew, every word: the one about the goose who lost her boots, the one about the moon in the rain barrel, and the long one about a boat with a very small sail. Dad sang every first line he could think of, which on a Saturday afternoon was fourteen. By minute nine, they had sung everything they knew between them.

So they sang it all again.

You may be thinking they could simply sing the same song forty times. They could not. Things rise exactly as tall as the singing is glad, and nobody is glad the fourth time through a song about a goose. The knob slid down from FULL VOICE to WHISTLE, and from WHISTLE to HUM. At minute sixteen they ran out of glad altogether, and the oven stopped.

The cake sat in its tin half risen, with its top in a sulky little slope.

Dad rubbed his eyes. “Put the pot on,” he said.

The kettle turned its spout to the wall.

“Number one,” said Ben, and he patted the kettle. “Sorry, kettle. He didn’t mean it.”

Then Ben went upstairs to think. He went slowly, so the stairs could count him. “One,” said the stairs. “Two. Three.” They counted all the way up to thirteen, the way they always did. The stairs did not know any songs. They only said what was there.

On step thirteen, Ben stopped.

“Dad!” he shouted. “We don’t need songs we know!”

* * *

That evening they mixed the third cake. Ben turned the knob to FULL VOICE and watched the clock.

“Sing about what’s here,” he said. “Anything you can see.”

“I can see a spoon,” said Dad.

“Then sing about the spoon.”

So Dad sang, “Oh, there’s a spoon, a lovely spoon, it’s been a spoon since Tuesday!” It was not a good song. The oven roared anyway, because Dad was glad to be singing it. And it was a good deal better than the bus.

Ben sang about the drawer with all the string in it. Dad sang about the kettle, and how it was a kettle, a proper kettle, the finest kettle on the hill, and never anything else. The kettle forgave him and whistled the high part. Ben sang about Mustard’s ears, which were too big and flipped inside out whenever Mustard ran. And whenever they got stuck, they sang the chorus Ben had made up on the spot: “Mom is coming home on Sunday, Mom is coming home!”

Mustard barked on the word “home” every time, and got it in the right place more often than Dad did.

At minute twenty-six Dad got tired. His voice went slow and low, and without meaning to, he slid into the sad one. Do not sing the sad one, said the letter on the fridge. He only sang a verse. But through the little glass door, Ben saw the cake begin to lean to the left.

Ben climbed onto a chair and sang about Mustard’s ears as loud as he could. Mustard barked twice and turned round in a circle. Dad laughed and came back to the chorus.

They sang about the sink, and the salt, and the clock on the wall. By minute thirty-five Dad sounded like a gate that wanted oiling, and still he sang. At minute forty Ben said, “Stop!” and they stopped, and the oven stopped too. When it stops, it stops.

They had to tip the cake sideways to get it out of the oven door.

Dad opened his mouth to say well done, and out came a squeak.

* * *

Mom came home on Sunday morning. In the hall she picked up the seashell and said, “My shell! I lost that when I was nine!” Then she came into the kitchen and stopped.

The cake stood on the table so tall it nearly touched the lampshade. It leaned a little to the left.

“Who sang the sad one?” said Mom.

Dad raised his hand.

He tried to sing happy birthday, but all that came out was a whisper, like the kettle just before it boils. So Ben sang it for both of them, every word, at full voice.

The cake was much too tall to fit in the oven, so Ben had put the candles in there on a tray by themselves. When the song was over he opened the oven door, and out they came, already lit. Mustard barked once at the very end, right on time, because Mustard knew a happy song when Mustard heard one.

Mom said she had missed them all weekend, even the kettle. She said it was the tallest cake the house had ever made. Then she cut the first slice from the leaning side and gave it to Dad, who had sung himself silent for her.

It was glad all the way through, even on the left.