Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,51

and inspiring a younger generation I see. You’ll be putting me out of a job.’

‘Your job is quite safe,’ Penny said. ‘Working with Daisy has been a delight but I don’t think I’d want to work with thirty teenagers.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, they can be a handful at times.’ He turned back to Daisy. ‘Will you be popping in this week before the school closes for Christmas? It’d be nice for you to meet the rest of your form at least.’

‘Yes, I think I’m coming in Thursday or Friday this week.’

‘Well, I look forward to seeing you then.’

He moved on to Penny while Pippa chatted to Daisy.

‘This angel is stunning, Tuppence.’

‘Penny.’

Jackson smiled. ‘Penny, my apologies. The detail of the hair is quite beautiful. I’m very impressed, but I had no doubt that you would go on to do fantastic things with your art. I’ve seen a lot of your sculptures around town over the years, makes me very proud. If you ever did want to come to school and do an ice carving workshop with the kids, it would be very inspiring and I’d be there the whole time so they wouldn’t give you any grief.’

Penny smiled at the idea. She had thought about teaching some kind of carving course at the local college; she loved being able to pass on her skills and inspire other people to carve too. She had done hen and stag ice carving parties before and a few corporate team building days, which were always a lot of fun, and she had loved working with Daisy over the last few days. Maybe working at the school for a few days would be an excellent way to dip her toe into that side of things.

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ Penny said and Jackson smiled.

Pippa joined them.

‘I love your angel, Penny, I think it’s magnificent.’

‘Thank you.’

Pippa and Jackson wandered off to the middle of the room to discuss the results. There was lots of gesturing around the room, especially towards Octavia’s castle. The organiser of the event joined them and he nodded as they told him the result. Jackson didn’t look too happy though.

‘We have our winners here,’ the organiser boomed in his deep voice. ‘And I must say the level of quality we have seen has even got our judges arguing over the winner, but our lovely Mayor does have the final say. So, in third place, the judges have chosen…’ He paused dramatically. ‘Daisy Travis with her snowflake.’

There was a big round of applause from the crowd and Penny cheered the loudest. As she moved to hug her she realised Daisy was shaking.

‘Well done, I’m so pleased for you, you totally deserve it,’ Penny said.

‘In second place is… Octavia Greene.’

There was a huge collective gasp from the crowd that Octavia hadn’t come first. Every single person in this room knew that Octavia’s sculpture should have won, including, it seemed, Octavia. Her mouth dropped open, not from pleasant surprise but in pure outrage. Penny winced, knowing where this was going next. For Octavia to be awarded second place that meant that Penny had been awarded first as Pippa’s attempt to say thank you for saving her son’s life the day before.

‘And first place goes to…’

Penny prayed that Frank’s flowers or Ignatius’s lighthouse had caught the judges’ eye.

‘Penny Meadows.’

There was a polite round of applause and lots of murmuring and shaking heads as people obviously disagreed with the final verdict.

Penny wanted the ground to swallow her up. She didn’t want to win like this. She was proud of her angel – it was good – but Octavia’s castle was incredible.

Daisy threw herself at Penny, squealing loudly, clearly not having any idea why Penny had won.

The judges came over to shake Penny’s hand and award her a rosette. She could barely muster a smile of thanks. A few other people came to shake her hand and pat her on the back and then the competition was over and people started to leave.

Octavia stomped over to her and Penny knew it wasn’t to congratulate her. ‘You and I both know why you won tonight and it has nothing to do with your ice sculpture.’

She stormed out and Daisy looked at Penny in confusion. ‘Talk about losing graciously.’

‘Come on, let’s go home,’ Penny said, feeling thoroughly deflated despite the ribbon that was shimmering on her chest.

Josh and Daisy followed her out.

Daisy chatted to Josh all the way back to his house but Penny was annoyed. The whole evening had been a