Daisy made a squeak next to her. ‘That’s Jackson Cartwright. He’s going to be my art teacher at White Cliff Bay Secondary School.’

‘He was my art teacher when I was there.’

‘How cool is that. He must have been very young when he was teaching you.’

‘He was, all the girls fancied him. He rode a motorbike and wore a leather jacket and he smoked so obviously that made him a hundred times cooler than all the other stuffy teachers.’

‘He has all these cool sculptures in galleries in London, I’m such a fan of his work.’

‘Would you like me to introduce you?’

Daisy nodded. ‘No.’

Penny laughed at the mixed signals. ‘Well, maybe I can chat to him and you can be standing next to me.’

‘Yes, that sounds good.’

‘Competitors, please take your places by your sculptures to meet the judges,’ a loud voice boomed across the hall.

Penny noted the young red-head standing next to Melody’s mermaid sculpture and gave her a friendly smile. She saw Octavia by the Hogwarts Castle as she suspected and Ignatius, a man with a long flowing white beard and long hair to match, standing by a splendid-looking lighthouse. On the other side of him was Frank, dressed in a dusty pink trouser suit and standing next to an intricately carved vase of flowers.

The Hogwarts Castle was obviously going to win, but Penny couldn’t call second and third place at all. Even Daisy’s snowflake, though simple in its design, showed a real talent.

The judges moved around the room, admiring the sculptures and chatting to the competitors.

Finally they came to Daisy. Penny watched them as they studied her piece and noticed how Daisy was standing almost in shock at being so close to her idol. She willed Jackson to say something nice about it; if he did that would make Daisy’s entire night, even if she didn’t make the top three.

‘This is an incredible piece,’ Jackson said. ‘These branches are so thin and perfectly round. I’m very impressed with the detail that you’ve put into this.’

Penny’s heart soared with happiness for Daisy. She could see she was already beaming from ear to ear.

He looked at the card with her name and then looked back at Daisy. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You’re the new girl. You’re going to be in my form after Christmas and I’ll be teaching you for art too.’

‘You’re my form teacher?’

Jackson nodded. Now he’d made her entire year.

‘I’m so impressed that you have this skill at such a young age, have you had much training?’

‘I did a wood carving course in the summer and Penny has been showing me lots of things.’

Jackson turned his eyes on Penny and smiled. ‘Tuppence Meadows, how lovely to see you here, 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 farce. She wanted to inspire Daisy to continue with her carving, show her that with hard work and commitment she could create beautiful sculptures that people would admire. Instead she had exposed her to the crazy world of fierce competition and showed her that, no matter how hard you worked, it came down to who you knew and whose back you had scratched. Was there any point entering the big competition at the ball in a week’s time if the winning vote had already been cast?

Penny dropped Josh off and she smiled when she saw him give Daisy a quick peck on the cheek to say congratulations. Daisy sat in silence with a huge smile on her face the rest of the way home.

They pulled up outside their house and Daisy practically bounced to the door, overflowing with excitement. Penny let them in through her front door and after Daisy had greeted Bernard with enough affection to last him a lifetime, she burst through the connecting door into her lounge.