The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Page 18

  Grammy’s expression didn’t change, not even a flicker in her eye, and Daisy was watching closely. Of course, her grandmother had decades of training in not betraying anything she didn’t want to, but still, Daisy was sure she’d catch something… if there was something to catch.

  She continued. “When I asked her about it later, she said she was only teasing me. And maybe that’s all it was, but it sounded real.”

  Grammy tilted her head. “Honey, don’t you think you’d know if you had a brother?”

  “Maybe not,” Daisy insisted. “Mom and Dad are away so much they could have five other families for all I know!”

  Her grandmother paused to consider that. “Okay, good point. But trust me, you are an only child. Your mother just has a strange sense of humor sometimes.”

  Hmm, her mother was pretty laid-back and was good at making people smile, but Daisy had never found her to be laugh-out-loud funny.

  Grammy blew a kiss at the screen. “See you soon, honey.” Feeling a bit defeated on both the brother thing and the road trip, Daisy moved to switch off the vid com. This time it was her grandmother who called out that she should wait. Daisy pulled her hand away from the button. “Yes, Grammy?”

  “How did the holojection do?” her grandmother asked with a wide grin.

  “The what?” Daisy asked, assuming she’d misheard.

  “The hologram projection. We call it a holojection. Watch, I’ll turn it off.” Her grandmother touched a button on the side of her new watch, and right before Daisy’s eyes, the rock wall and the damp cavern disappeared. The pounding of the waterfall stopped abruptly.

  Daisy blinked and brought the vid com close to her face. “Whaaa? Huh?”

  Her grandmother was sitting at her desk at home, the giant world map behind her as usual. “So? Did it look real?”

  Daisy could only gape at the screen as she nodded, stunned. Finally she said, “Where’d the pelican go?”

  Grammy laughed. “No pelican. Just part of the computer simulation.”

  Daisy shook her head. Wow. R & D had really outdone themselves! “It looked amazing.”

  Grammy nodded. “Good! I’d been waiting for a chance to give it a test run.”

  “You may want to consider wetting your hair a little next time, though,” Daisy added. “I did kind of wonder how you stayed perfectly dry behind a waterfall.”

  “Excellent idea,” Grammy said, scribbling on a notepad beside her. “Bye, honey.”

  “Bye, Grammy,” Daisy said, still shaking her head in wonder. Then she stopped. If Grammy could easily spin lies about where she was—even including that bit with the pelican!—she could easily be lying about the mystery brother.

  Daisy debated calling back, but her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten a real meal in a long time. Camp Tumbleweed wasn’t known for its food. Spaghetti would be awesome. Or, no… tacos! Mmmm, tacos! But she’d pretty much settle for anything right now. Even one of AJ’s sandwiches, if it came to that.

  She made her way back to the front of the RV and sat down beside AJ again. The sun hung low in the sky, turning it all sorts of colors. The wide windshield made Daisy feel like she was watching a movie of a sunset rather than the real one. Her stomach growled again and reminded her of why she’d come up there. “So whatcha got that passes for real food around here?” she asked. “Other than sandwiches and donuts, I mean. You’re the one who usually thinks about food all the time, and you haven’t even once mentioned eating. It’s unnatural.”

  “I know,” AJ replied. “But when you can’t smell, you can’t taste very well, either. Food doesn’t have the same appeal.”

  Daisy didn’t say anything. AJ loved his sandwiches. She was starting to get a greater sense of what he’d lost.

  “Don’t you want to see the note?” he continued, changing the subject. “The words showed up.”

  She reached over to the dashboard and picked up the paper. She’d actually forgotten all about it. Grammy was right. Even thinking about her personal life with friends and a mystery brother had led to her forgetting about her job.

  She’d expected the note to give them instructions on how to get into the birdhouse, but instead it said this:

  Ieigynehnicng.nhsot,cdehaaqsdpbrNcooppbqzomnxhBeegyrpmesd

  592034.023153076089844322,-111126078.1541313450670436

  “At first I thought you were right, that it was another scytale,” AJ admitted. “But when I fed the paper into the RV’s onboard computer system, it generated that coding.” He nodded his head toward a paper sticking out of the dashboard, right below the navigation screen.

  “Neat,” Daisy said, pulling it out of the nearly invisible slot. She read over the computer code.

  looking.text = input(“Message?”)

  length = len(text)

  for i in range (0, length, 3):

  decoded = text[i]

  print(decoded, end=“ ”)

  It looked correct to her, but she didn’t need it. She could tell at one glance that the spies had written an nth letter code—in this case, every third letter or number. She’d been cracking those since she was four. She picked up the spies’ note again and carefully picked out the hidden message. I n s i x d a y s d r o p b o x h e r e 43.9781 N, 15.3836 E. Then she read it faster. “In six days drop box here.” She looked up at him. “Those coordinates are about five hundred miles away from Spring Haven.”

  AJ nodded, slowing down as they approached a large open field. A sign in front of it read OVERNIGHT PARKING, PERMIT REQUIRED, NO OPEN FIRES. Two other RVs and a truck were already set up for the night.

  “Impressive code-breaking, Daisy Bertha Dinkleman,” AJ said as the in-dash computer spewed out a pink paper with PERMIT printed across it. AJ turned off the engine and slapped the fake permit onto the windshield. “Who needs computers when we have ol’ D.B.D. on the team?”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “So you give me a middle name, and you can’t think of anything better than Bertha? Is that even a real name?”

  “Sure it is,” he said, ducking out of the driving area so he could stretch. “I have an aunt Bertha. Or maybe she’s a great-aunt.”

  “Hey,” Daisy said, realization dawning on her. “That’s right! You’re eighteen now. You know who your real family is!”

  AJ nodded. “Can’t talk about it, of course. Except, well, now you know about Aunt Bertha. Or maybe her name’s Mabel. Anyway, how about I whip us up something special for dinner now that we have our next plan? I’m thinking tacos.”

  Something clicked inside Daisy when he said tacos. Her mind began moving pieces around like a jigsaw puzzle. First, she had just been hoping for tacos, and then he mentioned them out of nowhere, like he’d read her mind, the way siblings do. Second, he couldn’t tell her about his family. Maybe he couldn’t tell her because it was also her family! Third, Grammy often stuck them together for assignments, maybe because she wanted them to bond. Fourth, he hung out with her parents when he could, often without her. Fifth, and perhaps the best evidence of all, they constantly annoyed each other, they were always competing, and she was often tempted to pinch him really hard and run.

  AJ stood at the freezer, trying to pry out a box of frozen tacos from behind the bag of ice. It wasn’t exactly the meal she’d dreamt of, but it was still tacos. She tiptoed up behind him, reached under his hat, and yanked a single hair out from his head. His other senses really must have increased after all, because he yelped and jumped, nearly hitting his head on the top of the freezer.

  He turned to stare at her. “What was that for?”

  “I’m going to prove it!” she declared, marching toward the bookshelves with the hair held firmly in between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Prove what?” he asked, rubbing his head.

  She pulled out the book on the left corner of the shelf, and the whole shelf flipped over to reveal a mini laboratory. It had been built into the RV so they could analyze any foreign material or create their own chemicals, if the mission required. B
ut she would be using it for a different purpose.

  “Daisy,” AJ said, his patience clearly wearing thin, “can you please tell me what you’re trying to prove?”

  She placed the hair into one of three slots labeled SAMPLE and slid the cover over it. Then she looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’m going to prove you’re my brother.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AJ stopped laughing long enough to say, “I knew this day would come. The pressure of your job has finally made you crack. We don’t even look anything alike. Me… you… related… that’s—how would you put it? A whole hat full of crazy!” Then he started laughing again.

  The fact that she wanted to kick him hard in the shin just confirmed her suspicions that they were siblings. “You’ve never heard me use that expression.”

  “I’m pretty sure I have,” he said, wiping his eyes. “But both of us saying the same thing doesn’t make you my annoying kid sister, no matter how much you act like one.”

  “Said just like a bossy older brother,” she snapped. “I’m telling you, it could be true. Maybe the family they told you about isn’t real. Maybe they couldn’t tell you about your real family until I’m old enough to know, too.”

  That shut him up.

  She turned back to the lab and let a thin stream of saliva pool into the slot marked SAMPLE B.

  “Lovely,” AJ muttered. He left her to it and started on dinner.

  She reopened the first slot to make sure the tiny white follicle was still attached to the end of the hair from where she’d pulled it out. That was the part with the DNA in it. Once assured that she wouldn’t have to yank out any more, she keyed in the instructions and watched as the two samples descended into the machine to be analyzed. Both of their DNA strands would be replicated over and over, and then eleven genetic markers would be compared to obtain the results. Then to top it off, the results would go wirelessly to a real lab to be verified before they were sent back to the mini lab. “We’ll know the truth in twenty-two minutes,” she announced.

  “Good,” he said, pulling the tacos out of the microwave. “That will give us time to have dinner before you have to apologize for your temporary detour to Crazytown.”

  “Once it’s official,” Daisy said cheerfully, “you’ll have to be a lot nicer to me.”

  His expression turned serious. “Look, don’t be disappointed when you see we’re not related.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” But as they sat down at the booth, she knew she would be. What was that expression Grammy used? The devil that you know is better than the one you don’t. If they were a match, at least the mystery would be solved.

  A frozen taco was better than no taco, but just barely. They ate in silence as they watched the sun take its final dive behind the horizon. The field was filling up with trucks and motorhomes, all of them keeping their distance from each other. A woman in the camper next to their RV stepped outside, right into their line of sight. She looked to be about fifty years old, wearing very white sneakers and an apron stamped with the words MOTORHOME MAMA. Daisy knew the RV’s windows were impossible to see into. It didn’t stop the woman from peering closer, though, until her nose was almost against the glass. Then she disappeared back into her camper, and when she came out again, her hands were full.

  Daisy and AJ looked at each other, and then both jumped up from their seats. Daisy flicked the switch that would turn on the outside lights while AJ fumbled to open the door. They ran down the stairs to meet the woman, closing the door firmly behind them.

  “Howdy, neighbors,” the woman said as she approached. “Hope I’m not intruding.”

  “Not at all,” AJ said, flashing her his brightest smile. “We just finished dinner.”

  “You two cooked for yourselves?” She looked around. “Or are your parents with you?”

  Daisy shot AJ her best “See, I told you people think we’re related!” expression and then shook her head. “Our parents are at work,” she explained. “We’re on our way back home from… a two-week camping trip.” She was very good at lying when it wasn’t truly lying.

  “How lovely!” the woman said. “I can’t get my own kids to go five minutes without bickering, let alone choose to spend two weeks together. Your parents must really have raised you right!”

  “Yes, ma’am, they did,” AJ said, tipping his cowboy hat. Daisy forced a smile.

  The woman beamed at them. “Would you two like some homemade cherry pie?”

  “Absolutely,” AJ said, sounding as though he couldn’t imagine anything better in the world at that moment. The woman beamed even more and handed him a large plastic plate with half a pie sitting on it. She pulled two plastic forks from her apron pocket and stuck them in the pie.

  “Thank you very much,” Daisy said. “I bet it’s wonderful.” She knew they couldn’t eat it, no matter how good it smelled or how delicious it looked with the steam still rising through tiny Xs on the crispy crust. Basic rule of life as a spy—never take food from strangers.

  “Well, we’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away,” the woman said, turning to go. “Stop on by if you need anything.”

  They assured her they would. As soon as she turned the corner, AJ dug into the piece of pie.

  “Mmmm, delicious,” he said, rubbing his belly with his free hand.

  Daisy stared. “First of all, why are you eating that when you know it goes against our training, and second, I thought you said losing your sense of smell means you can’t taste things.”

  He ate another bite, then said, “First, our training also allows us to judge the potential for harm. Since she arrived before us, I judged the likelihood that she would know our identities and would have some reason to serve us poisoned pie to be very low. And second, my brain still remembers what cherry pie tastes like, even if my tongue can only taste a vague sweetness. And my brain tells me this is some high-quality pie!” He held the plate out to her. “Want a piece?”

  Daisy shook her head. “That woman might not know we’re spies, but she could still be a crazy person who wants to poison innocent travelers on a lonely country road in the middle of nowhere.”

  AJ put his fork down with his next bite stuck to it. “Boy, you really know how to ruin a piece of pie for a guy.”

  “Just doing my sisterly duty.”

  AJ rolled his eyes and stood. “C’mon, time’s up. Let’s put an end to this crazy idea of yours.”

  Daisy grabbed his sleeve before he could open the door. “Wait. We should talk about this first. What if it comes out positive?”

  “Nothing’s going to change either way,” AJ said firmly. “We’ll go back to barely tolerating each other, but at least we’ll know why we can barely tolerate each other.”

  She frowned. “Is that really how you feel about me?”

  “C’mon, don’t you think I know how you complain whenever your grandmother assigns us a mission together?”

  Daisy stuck out her chin. “That’s because you’re always so braggy and know-it-all-ish.”

  “I’m only like that around you. You’re so good at everything that I feel the need to take you down a notch.” Then he grinned when he heard how that sounded. “Maybe you’re right and we’re siblings after all.”

  “Race you inside.” She pushed him out of the way and darted up the stairs.

  “Pretty sneaky, sis,” he said, close on her heels. They hurried over to the lab. Twenty-four minutes had passed. The results were in. Daisy took a deep breath and tapped the screen. The words came up quickly.

  Sample A and Sample B are not related.

  “Well,” AJ said. “Talk about getting straight to the point.”

  Daisy nodded but didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she reached for a jacket hanging by the door. “I’m going to go outside for a walk if you don’t need me for anything.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, too embarrassed to look at him. “It was a dumb idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
>
  “It wasn’t a dumb idea,” he said. “We’re a team anyway, right?”

  “Sure,” she said without enthusiasm.

  “At least take your vid com so I can find you if I need you,” he said.

  She nodded and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. She had the feeling AJ wanted to say more, but he didn’t stop her as she brushed past him and went out the door.

  The air was warmer at night than it had been in the mountains at camp. It would be time for lights out in the cabin. She briefly wondered what the girls at camp thought had happened to her. Or to Ava, rather. She hoped they wouldn’t take it personally that she’d left.

  That one flicker of thought would be all she would give the girls she’d spent nearly every waking moment with for the past two weeks. And that’s exactly how it should be, how it should have been after she left the factory. It was ridiculous to try to cobble a family together, and with AJ, of all people. She made her way between the parked vehicles, hands shoved deep in her pockets.

  As she reached the far end of the field, she began to notice that all the parked vehicles had their outside lights off. It couldn’t be much past nine thirty. Was everyone asleep already? If she hadn’t had such excellent eyesight, she might have tripped right over the group of at least twenty people lying on blankets or leaning back in folding chairs. They were all looking up at the sky, many with binoculars.