Ellis and the Borrowed Mustache — The frosting bag hissed in Ellis’s hand as he tried to pipe the last swirl before Dad’s surprise supper. Read the full story →
The frosting bag hissed in Ellis’s hand as he tried to pipe the last swirl before Dad’s surprise supper. The cake already had stars, hearts, and a striped sugar tie, but the top looked lonely. Ellis opened the little wooden box where Dad kept odd things from his old print shop: buttons, paper clips, a brass key, and one empty square where the mustache stamp should have been.
Outside, rain ticked on the awnings as Ellis hurried two blocks to the shuttered shop. The air inside smelled like ink, dust, and lemon oil. Under the counter, he found the stamp wrapped in a receipt from years ago: FIRST FATHER’S DAY CAKE—SAVE FOR NEXT TIME. To reach it, he had to trade his clean sleeve for a streak of black ink and crawl past a stack of creaky paper trays. “Worth it,” he whispered.
Back home, Ellis pressed the stamp into rolled chocolate and lifted it carefully. The mustache curled wide and proud above the letters, and Dad laughed so loudly the plates rattled. Then Ellis stamped tiny chocolate mustaches for everyone’s napkin. If you spot the grand mustache on the cake, you know the little wooden stamp made more joy than Ellis could carry alone.
