The Best Mother's Day Breakfast in the World

In the town of Fernwood, where the March mornings were still cold enough to need a coat but the sunshine had started to feel like it meant it again, there lived two children named Isla and Ben. Isla was ten years old, sensible and organised, with long red hair and a notebook in which she wrote lists of things that needed doing. Ben was seven, cheerful and chaotic, with a gap where his two front teeth used to be and a habit of starting sentences with the word actually that drove Isla only slightly mad.

They had the best mum in the world. They were both completely certain of this, not in the way that all children think their mum is the best, though that is also true, but in the specific, detailed, evidence-based way that Isla preferred to think about things. Their mum, whose name was Sarah but who they called Mum in the way that made the word feel like the warmest word in the English language, worked very hard. She was a nurse and did long shifts that sometimes meant she left before they woke up and came home after they were in bed. On those days she always left a little note on the kitchen table for each of them. Isla's notes were practical and organised, reminding her of things to do. Ben's notes always had a small drawing in the corner, a dog or a rocket or a wobbly star, because their mum knew that Ben needed something to look at as well as something to read.

She made the best pasta in the world. She remembered every single thing they told her, even things they mentioned once in passing months ago. She knew that Isla liked her sandwiches cut diagonally and that Ben could not eat anything orange, not because of the taste but because of the colour, which was a distinction their mum respected completely without ever making him feel odd about it. She sang quietly to herself when she was cooking, always slightly out of tune and always completely unbothered by this. She had a laugh that started in her shoulders.

Mothering Sunday was coming. The fourth Sunday of Lent. And this year, Isla had decided, they were going to do something properly special.

She called a meeting.

The meeting took place in Isla's bedroom on Friday evening, after their mum had gone to have a bath. She had written an agenda in her notebook. Ben sat on the end of the bed eating an apple and looking at the agenda upside down.

"We are going to make Mum the best Mother's Day breakfast she has ever had," Isla announced.

Ben turned the notebook round. "What's a shakshuka?"

"It's eggs in tomato sauce. Mum loves it. She made it once on a Sunday and said it was the most comforting thing she had eaten in years."

"Can we make that?" said Ben doubtfully. He had tried to make scrambled eggs once and they had ended up in a state that nobody could fully explain.

"I have a recipe," said Isla. "And I've looked at it three times. It is not difficult."

Ben ate a piece of apple. "Actually," he said, "I think we should also make something sweet."

"I have scones on the list," said Isla.

Ben looked at the list. "And can we get flowers? Mum likes flowers. She always stops to look at them in the market."

"Already on the list," said Isla, pointing.

Ben looked impressed despite himself. "You've thought of everything."

"That is what lists are for," said Isla.

Their dad was in on the plan. He had to be, because they needed someone to drive them to the market on Saturday morning to get the ingredients and the flowers, and also because leaving two children alone in a kitchen with a hot stove was not something any sensible adult arranged on purpose. Their dad, whose name was Paul and who was an enthusiastic but unreliable cook himself, agreed immediately and with great excitement.

"Can I help with the cooking?" he asked.

Isla looked at him. She had a clear memory of the time he had tried to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and somehow managed to get batter on the ceiling.

"You can help Ben with the scones," she said carefully. "I'll do the shakshuka."

Her dad looked slightly relieved, which told Isla that he also remembered the pancake incident.

On Saturday morning they went to Fernwood market while their mum was at her Saturday yoga class. The market was a good one, with wooden stalls selling vegetables and bread and cheese and flowers and all sorts of other things. Ben immediately wanted to stop at the stall selling handmade wooden toys, and their dad immediately wanted to stop at the stall selling cheese, and Isla kept them both moving with the firm patience of someone who had a list and intended to follow it.

They got ripe tomatoes, red onions, garlic, peppers, eggs, and a tin of chopped tomatoes from the vegetable stall. They got flour, butter, and cream from the baker who also sold ingredients. They got a small jar of smoked paprika and a jar of cumin from the spice stall, where the man behind the counter had a magnificent grey beard and told Ben that cumin was the most ancient spice in the world, which Ben found so interesting he insisted on telling Isla three times on the way home.

At the flower stall, Ben chose yellow and white flowers after considering the options for a very long time. Isla chose deep pink ones with a good smell. Their dad was given the job of carrying everything, which he did without complaint, slightly resembling a walking market stall himself by the time they got back to the car.

They hid everything in the utility room when they got home, because their mum was back from yoga and sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the newspaper. She looked up when they came in and asked if they'd had a nice walk, which was the cover story, and they said yes in a slightly overlapping way that almost certainly made her suspicious but she was kind enough not to say so.

Sunday morning arrived grey and soft, with a thin drizzle that blurred the garden and made the kitchen feel extra warm by contrast.

The alarm on Isla's phone went off at half past six. She sat up immediately, turned it off before it could wake anyone else, and went to knock quietly on Ben's door. Ben was already awake, sitting up in bed with his hair pointing in four directions and an expression of great seriousness.

"Ready?" whispered Isla.

"Actually," whispered Ben, "I've been ready for ages."

They crept downstairs in their socks. Their dad was already in the kitchen in his dressing gown, having had the same idea, and had already put the kettle on, which was the right instinct even if it was not on Isla's list.

Isla tied on an apron that was slightly too big for her and began.

She fried the onions first, slowly and gently, the way the recipe said, until they were soft and golden and the kitchen began to smell wonderful. Ben stood beside her and watched with genuine interest, asking questions that were mostly sensible and occasionally very strange.

"Why do onions make you cry?" he asked.

"Gas released when you cut them," said Isla.

"Why does the gas make you cry?"

"Chemistry."

"Why does chemistry make you cry?"

"Ben."

"Sorry."

She added the garlic and the peppers and then the paprika and the cumin, and the smell that rose from the pan was deep and warm and complicated in the best possible way. She added the chopped tomatoes and the fresh ones and let it all bubble gently while she made a cup of tea for their mum.

Their dad helped Ben make scones at the other end of the kitchen. This went reasonably well, with only one minor incident involving too much flour that covered the worktop and one sleeve of their dad's dressing gown in white dust. The scones went into the oven looking small and slightly lumpy, which their dad said was perfectly normal, and came out looking exactly like scones, which was a genuine relief to everyone.

Ben arranged the flowers in the jug that lived on the windowsill, working very carefully to get the colours alternating in a way that pleased him. He stood back and looked at them for a long time.

"Actually," he said, "those look brilliant."

"They do," Isla agreed, and she meant it.

When everything was ready, Isla made the eggs in the shakshuka, pushing small wells in the thick tomato sauce and cracking an egg into each one, covering the pan and watching through the lid until the whites were set and the yolks were still soft, exactly as the recipe said. She felt a quiet pride that surprised her with its warmth.

Their dad put everything on a tray. Scones with butter and jam. The shakshuka in the pan with a trivet to protect the tray. A cup of tea made exactly how their mum liked it, strong with a small splash of milk. A small glass of orange juice. The jug of yellow and white and pink flowers.

Ben made a card. It was not tidy. It had a drawing of the four of them that looked more like four surprised hedgehogs, but above it in large careful letters he had written THE BEST MUM and beneath it Isla had written a longer message in her neat handwriting, saying all the things they meant, the notes on the table and the diagonally cut sandwiches and the laugh that started in her shoulders, all of it, written down plainly and honestly because some things deserve to be said out loud even if they feel obvious.

They carried the tray upstairs together, all three of them, their dad holding the heavy end.

Their mum was awake. She was sitting up in bed reading, her hair loose around her shoulders, and she looked up when the door opened with an expression that started as surprise and moved very quickly through several other things before settling into something that had no precise name but lived in the same neighbourhood as joy.

"Oh," she said. It was the same small word that Nana Rose had said watching the snow on New Year's Eve, and Clara on the bus, the word that carries more than it looks like it should.

Ben climbed onto the bed beside her and presented the card with great ceremony.

She read it slowly. Then she read it again. When she looked up her eyes were bright.

"This is the best thing anyone has ever written to me," she said.

Ben looked extremely pleased. "Actually," he said, "Isla wrote most of the words. But the hedgehogs were me."

Their mum laughed the laugh that started in her shoulders.

They ate breakfast together, all four of them on the big bed with the tray in the middle, while the drizzle ran down the windowpane and the flowers sat bright in their jug on the tray and the shakshuka was warm and deep and exactly right.

Their mum said it was the best breakfast she had ever eaten. Their dad said the scones were surprisingly good. Ben ate two scones and informed everyone that cumin was the most ancient spice in the world. Isla drank her orange juice and felt the particular satisfaction of someone who made a plan and watched it work.

Later, when the tray was cleared and their mum was dressed and they were all downstairs together, she paused in the kitchen doorway and looked at Isla and Ben with the expression that meant something true was coming.

"Do you know what the very best part was?" she said.

"The shakshuka?" said Isla hopefully.

"The hedgehogs?" said Ben.

Their mum shook her head. "That you did it together," she said. "That's the best part. Always."

That evening, when Isla was in bed and the house was quiet, she could still smell the faint warm ghost of cumin and tomatoes in the air. She looked at her notebook on the bedside table, full of lists of things that needed doing.

She picked up her pen and wrote, very small, at the bottom of the last page: today was a good day.

Then she put the pen down, turned off her lamp, and slept.

Outside, the March drizzle had stopped. The garden was very still and very clean and somewhere in the apple tree a bird was beginning, experimentally, to sing.

Spring was almost there.

*The End.*