The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  Miles giggled at the mistake. “Sorry! Will try harder. Here’s the thing, you know how me and my parents are Chinese?”

  Yup.

  “Well, my dad’s parents aren’t. They were Irish. From Ireland.”

  After a short pause, she replied, Okay.

  “So, we haven’t done genetics in school yet. Is that even possible?”

  After another, longer pause, she answered, No. Was your dad adopted?

  Miles leaned back, nearly slipping off the milk can. He sat up again. His dad was adopted! Of course that was it! He must have known deep down. But his dad had never mentioned anything like that. Miles mouthed, “I guess he must be! But why wouldn’t he talk about it?”

  You sometimes don’t talk about things. Maybe you get that from him.

  Her words surprised him. “Me? I’m an open book. Just ask Philip—he wanted to punch me every time I talked about the afterlife.”

  Yeah, but that was more about losing his mother than really being annoyed at you.

  Miles realized she was right. Insights like that were the reason he was calling her and not someone else.

  Daisy’s words started coming again. You talked about the afterlife, but you never really talked about what you saw at the lake, or about hiding in your room and always being scared something was going to happen to someone you cared about and all that stuff that you told us later, when you were ready. Maybe it’s like that with your dad. It’s too hard for him to talk about. Is he close with his parents?

  “They are in the afterlife now. You and I used to go visit them. You liked the red swing the best.”

  That’s sweet.

  “I never knew them, but yes, he was very close with them and loved them a lot.”

  I think you have your answer. He doesn’t want to hurt them by implying they weren’t his real parents. Even though they aren’t alive anymore.

  Miles thought about that lip quiver every time the conversation could have turned toward the adoption. Obviously the topic upset him. And upsetting his dad was the last thing he’d want to do. Daisy was totally right.

  “Thank you!” he mouthed.

  You’re welcome. Really gotta go now. Got a bit of a thing happening here.

  “Anything I can help with?” Miles mouthed.

  You wouldn’t happen to know how to get honey out of hair, would you? Max never taught us that in our candymaking classes!

  “I actually do know a thing or two.” He recited the sentence about honey he’d copied earlier, feeling the sticky spot on his chin. Nope, the honey hadn’t cured him yet. The pimple was still there.

  More text appeared on his screen. Helps burns? Wonder if it would help Logan with his scars.

  As soon as he read Daisy’s comment, Miles immediately knew why he’d picked that line out of the book on natural remedies. He was supposed to help heal Logan’s scars! His mind began to race. Maybe part of why he missed thinking about the-girl-who-drowned wasn’t only because he missed the creativity of making his map. Maybe he missed helping someone. Each day he had thought of a way to make the girl’s afterlife better. He could channel that into helping a real person now. And if that person just happened to be his best friend, then all the better!

  Miles, I really gotta go. I need to figure out a believable story for AJ to get me out of something.

  Miles snapped his attention back to the screen. “How about Bo Dinkleman, the cowboy who pulls tractors with his teeth, could pretend you’re needed back on the ranch for corn-shucking season.”

  That’s actually a great idea! Just for that I’m going to give you a treat. Hang on. I’m taking a picture for you.

  A few seconds later a photo of Daisy filled Miles’s screen. What was on her face? He pulled the book closer to him and then burst out laughing. Her cheeks had bright orange dots sprinkled all over them, like the worst fake freckles he’d ever seen. But the funniest part had to be the pieces of hair clumped together with honey. Oh, and the honey had small white feathers stuck to it. He couldn’t imagine how she’d wound up in that situation.

  “That must be a really funny book!” Logan’s voice said from very close by.

  “Gnipael sdrazil!” Miles cried out, launching the book in one direction and his body in another. This turned out to be a very bad idea.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Miles was about to tell Daisy that he had honey on his face as well (what were the odds?), but Logan surprised him, and everything happened fast after that. He felt bad about snatching his book before Logan could retrieve it for him, but he didn’t want Logan to know he had talked to Daisy. He was just glad that they’d been mouthing the conversation, so Logan hadn’t heard them talk about the scars. That would have been awful.

  It meant more to him than he knew how to express that Logan gave him the box with Samuel Sweet’s old papers. He’d never had a friend who understood how much he’d love something like that. He’d wanted to jump up and hug him, but there were a lot of strangers around and he didn’t want to embarrass Logan.

  As Miles carried the box toward the library, he could barely believe his good fortune. Sure, his mom was bound to ask later why he was covered in Band-Aids (and he was pretty sure he still had a few thorns in an area he wasn’t about to ask the nurse to check!). And yes, his disappearing-ink bottle had exploded, soaking not only his shorts but the list of random thoughts from his books. As irksome as those events were, it was impossible to be bothered by anything when presented by his best friend with a box full of old journals and maps!!!

  Barely able to see over the top of the box, Miles pushed the library door open and stumbled in. Mrs. Gepheart, the factory’s long-time librarian, popped up from behind the desk.

  “Watch out for the—” she started to shout.

  “Oopf!” Miles ran straight into the table that had definitely not been there the last time he visited the library. He realized too late that she was trying to warn him about the display she’d been working on for all the visitors. He and the table collided. His glasses flew off his face, and the box dropped to the floor, taking Miles and half the items on the table with it.

  Well! That was certainly embarrassing. “So sorry!” Miles said, sticking his (fortunately unbroken) glasses back on his face. He scrambled to pick up the fallen items—a framed dollar bill signed by Samuel Sweet; an old Pepsicle carton from the days when a whole box cost only a dime; a handful of black-and-white photographs, including some that showed a row of people Miles didn’t recognize standing on the factory’s front steps; and a certificate awarding Life Is Sweet the official trademark for the name of the company. The sign, now knocked sideways on the table, read A VERY SHORT AND SWEET HISTORY OF Life Is Sweet.

  “That was some entrance!” Mrs. Gepheart said, doing her best to rearrange the samples of each candy, now lumped together in random piles. They had been carefully lined up in the order of when they were released, a project that had taken longer to put together than one might think. Max and Henry had argued for nearly two hours over whether the Leapin’ Lollies should go before the Snorting Wingbats. Apparently they had hit the stores on the exact same day, fifteen years ago. Max had thought the order should be determined by which had been invented first (Leapin’ Lollies). Henry thought it should be the candy that came off the conveyor belt first (Snorting Wingbats). They finally agreed to let the sales record speak for itself. In a close tiebreaker, the first candy store to log in sales for that day—The Candy Basket—reported that a pack of Snorting Wingbats had sold one minute and twenty-three seconds before the first Leapin’ Lolly. The winner had been crowned and the correct order set.

  Miles stood back to get a good look. “That one goes here,” he said, replacing the High-Jumping Jelly Beans with the Sour Fingers. “And the Magic Bar should be here,” he announced, gently picking up the rarest item on the table and moving it between the Pepsicle and the Some More S’mores. The bar, wrapped tightly in blue foil, felt both solid and airy beneath his fingers, but of course by this time it
would be stale beyond recognition. This was the first time he’d seen one up close. The box of wrappers from the library hadn’t contained the rare Magic Bar wrapper.

  Many candies had been discontinued over the years as tastes and trends changed. Some never really took off to begin with, like Flo’s Forever-Flavor Gum. The flavorful treat—named in honor of Logan’s grandmother Florence—had to be pulled when reports of jaw injuries began trickling in. It turned out that if gum never lost its flavor, kids didn’t know when to stop chewing it.

  But the history of the Magic Bar—the very first chocolate bar the factory had produced—was shrouded in mystery. One brief, shining week of glory, and then it disappeared from shelves across the nation, never to be seen again. Only whispers of its greatness remained. This had happened decades before Miles was born, but it had not escaped his notice.

  Mrs. Gepheart looked the display over and nodded. “You’re right, that’s more accurate. Not that I’m surprised. Between you and Philip, it’s hard to decide who knows more about our candy and its illustrious history.”

  “That’s easy,” Miles said. “I knew it even before the candymaking contest. So the answer is clearly me.”

  Mrs. Gepheart smiled. “Probably.”

  “How did you get a Magic Bar?” he asked, tempted to touch it again. “I asked Logan about them once, and he said he’s never even seen one.”

  She leaned over to straighten the DO NOT TOUCH sign. “That’s actually a chunk of foam with a Magic Bar wrapper around it. As far as I know, there’s only one Magic Bar left in existence, and it’s locked in the vault for safekeeping.”

  “Wow,” Miles said. “I didn’t even know the candy factory had a vault.”

  “It’s more like a safe in the wall,” she explained. “It contains all the original recipes, prototypes of most of the candies, and I’m sure other things that I wouldn’t know about.” She glanced down at the box at their feet. “Now, what have you got there that caused all this commotion? We don’t have much room to expand right now, but I’m still collecting memorabilia for a big display at the annual picnic.”

  In all the excitement, Miles had momentarily forgotten about the box! He bet one of the old notebooks or journals in the box would make a perfect addition to the display. He was about to share that idea with Mrs. Gepheart but stopped himself. Samuel Sweet could have brought these to the factory anytime over the half century he’d spent as Candymaker. The library shelves were full of booklets he had written, on topics like how to succeed in the candy business, how to build a safe and happy workplace, and how to set up a working farm and cultivate crops. There was even a booklet on the proper way to eat a chocolate pizza (hint: any way you like). Many of his original sketches and designs for the factory’s machines hung on the hallway walls for every passerby to see, along with framed letters from candy-loving kids and dozens of awards and newspaper articles highlighting the various charity groups the Candymaker supported. Bottom line—if Logan’s grandfather had left the material in this box behind, he’d done so for a reason.

  “It’s just some stuff of Logan’s that he asked me to keep here for a few hours,” Miles finally said. This was, essentially, the truth, if not the whole truth. “But I actually do know where some more stuff is. My friend Arthur at the Spring Haven public library found a whole collection of old candy bar wrappers. I’m sure he’d lend them to you for the picnic.”

  “That would be wonderful,” she said. “Now that visiting hours are over, I’ll be heading out. The door will be unlocked for you and Logan to collect your box of… whatever it is.” She pushed the box under the table and out of harm’s way.

  “Thanks, Mrs. G,” Miles said. He ducked out of the library and ran two doors down to the Advertising Room. Before he met Logan, Miles hadn’t been much of a runner. Now he could barely sit still. His mother was not convinced this was a good thing, but Miles liked being so excited about a place that he had to run to it.

  The door to the Advertising Room opened just as he arrived. Miles felt instantly more at ease when he saw the smiling face of Sabrina Katz, the head of advertising at the factory. At only twenty-eight, Sabrina was the youngest department head. She wore purple-framed glasses and a different hat every day. Whenever she spoke, she kept her hands busy solving a Rubik’s Cube, or using a calculator to calculate pi to the four thousandth decimal place, or sketching animals that were combinations of other animals. (Miles’s favorite was the caticorn, a half cat, half unicorn that used its magic horn to grant wishes to children.) Sabrina often stayed late into the night to work on one brilliant idea or another, or occasionally to play floor hockey with the cleaning crew, using brooms and bars of soap. Miles had never met anyone like her before, and he thought she was supercool.

  Sabrina grinned widely. Today she wore a soft black baseball cap over her long blond hair. “Young Miles has arrived!” she announced, ushering him into the room. “Ready to wow us with your ideas?”

  “Um, I hope so?” Miles said, suddenly feeling shy. At least twenty men and women from not only Advertising but also Sales and Marketing and Publicity stood around the large conference table in the center of the room. He wasn’t even sure of the differences between marketing and publicity and advertising, but he knew that they all had to do with trying to think of new ways to introduce the public to Life Is Sweet’s products, and that the people in these departments wore regular clothes instead of the factory’s uniform. He suddenly wished he’d dressed better that day.

  All the chairs and desks (and the beanbag chair they’d gotten for him to use during their previous meetings) had been pushed to the back, and large mock-ups of the Harmonicandy wrapper lay across the conference table. Sabrina guided Miles to a spot at the head of the table. Talking stopped, and everyone smiled up at him. Only one or two of them showed any uncertainty in their eyes.

  Sabrina said, “A few of you may not have met Miles O’Leary before, but he’s the brilliant mind that came up with the name of the Harmonicandy, and now he’ll get a chance to help create the advertising slogan for our initial ad campaigns. The floor is yours, Miles!”

  The group clapped. One or two of the guys he’d gotten to know even cheered. Miles smiled gratefully at them and cleared his throat. “I thought about this for a while, and I have a bunch to run by you.” He took a deep breath and flipped open his notebook. “Okay, so these slogans would all go after the word Harmonicandy on the wrapper, or, like, underneath it.” He took another breath and told himself to pretend he was reading to his parents again. With all the drama he could muster, he began to read the list.

  Candy for your taste buds AND your earbuds!

  Music to your ears AND your taste buds!

  Sounds delicious!

  Now kids can finally play with their food!

  The only instrument you can eat!

  Now you just need the rest of the band!

  Chew to the tune!

  Hits the spot and the right note!

  It really plays!

  The musical treat!

  Music for your mouth!

  Chew in harmony!

  Candy never sounded so delicious!

  Tap your feet to the beat of this delicious treat!

  A new tune in every bite!

  Taste the tune!

  Play it and eat it!

  Music you can eat!

  It’s a melody in your mouth!

  Taste the music!

  A tune you love to chew to!

  The candy that strikes a chord!

  Such sweet music!

  A symphony of sweetness!

  It makes your taste buds sing!

  Play with your food!

  Sounds as good as it tastes!

  Tastes as good as it sounds!

  Bring harmony to the whole family!

  Play your troubles away, then eat them!

  Sounds great, tastes even better!

  When he finished, he tore the page out and handed it to Sabrina. At first the room was silent.
He swore he could hear his own heart thudding. Then almost at once, the room erupted. They all talked over each other, shouting out which one they liked best. Sabrina thumped him on the back.

  “Wonderful job, Miles!” she said. “Now you’ve left us with the hardest part—picking one!”

  “Thank you for giving me the chance,” he said. “Where are all the other suggestions?” The group usually brainstormed their ideas on the dry-erase boards stuck on each wall, but the boards were blank.

  “There are no other ones,” Sabrina replied. “We didn’t want to freak you out by letting you know it was all up to you.” She winked and joined the group crowding around the list.

  Shaking with excitement, Miles snuck off to the back of the room. He pulled his beanbag chair out from under a desk, plopped down, and instantly jumped back up. He’d found that last thorn. Since he couldn’t very well pull it out there, he settled for leaning casually against the wall.

  Listening to the grown-ups argue whether “Sounds as good as it tastes” was better than “Tastes as good as it sounds” counted as one of the highlights of his life.

  At one point the Candymaker checked in with Sabrina on the walkie-talkie. Miles heard his name but didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. After saying “Over and out,” Sabrina called for a vote. She handed out pieces of paper and instructed them all to write down their favorite slogan. Miles got one, too!

  When all the votes had been collected, Sabrina opened the papers while a guy from Sales tallied the results on one of the boards. In the end, four slogans tied for first place:

  HARMONICANDY: SOUNDS GREAT, TASTES EVEN BETTER!

  HARMONICANDY: TASTES AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDS!

  HARMONICANDY: SUCH SWEET MUSIC!

  HARMONICANDY: PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

  Everyone clapped, and the room became a flurry of activity again. Desks and chairs were moved back into place, and the advertising folks hurried to their computers to start designing the four slogans so they’d be ready to go with whichever one the Candymaker chose.