More Than You Bargained For and Other Stories -- Joan Aiken

Two of these stories featured birthday cakes with pink icing and decorated with silver balls.  Odd, no?

Highlights:

Dolls' House to Let, Mod. Con.:

The Armitage family returns.  This time, the trouble revolves around an extremely rambunctious, obnoxious, bossy and demanding Borrowers-sized family and a rich American inventor.

The Third Wish:

A sad little love story involving three wishes and a swan.

Pigeon Cake for Miss Samphire:

A traveling egg salesman, a birthday cake, some Bad Men, a cafe that offers this menu:

Oyster Tea.  Off.
Shrimp Tea.  Off.
Scones.  Off.
Cakes.  Off.
Salad.  Off.
Snail Tea.  Off.
Prawns, Cockles, Mussels.  Off.
Bread and Butter.
Mustard and Cress.  Off.
Devonshire Tea.  Off.

and the seldom-seen Miss Samphire, who is described as being "rather phosphorescent".

A Room Full of Leaves:

It starts, "Once there was a poor little boy who lived with a lot of his relatives in an enormous house called Troy.  The relatives were rich, but the were so nasty that they might just as well have been poor, for all the good their money did them."

This collection wasn't nearly as strong as the first one.  Ah, well.  Joan Aiken on a bad day is still better than most.