The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Page 2

  “Perhaps it wasn’t your best effort,” Henry agreed. “But most people don’t know that. All they know is that the kid who was rude to everyone won the contest, and you didn’t get what you wanted.”

  “But losing the contest actually is what I wanted,” Logan insisted. “I mean, not before it started, but once I got to know the others, everything changed. The Harmonicandy was really a team effort, even though Philip has to get the credit officially. You know he’s only half as obnoxious as he pretended to be while he was here, right? And then when we were able to save the factory, I really did win!” Logan shoved his marshmallow into his mouth to keep himself from rambling even more.

  “I know all of that,” Henry said gently. “And I understand your frustration. But you have to see it from the other side.”

  Logan let his shoulders slump and crossed his arms.

  Henry chewed his marshmallow and laid his stick next to Logan’s on the counter. He turned off the burner. “Perhaps you’re being oversensitive and a bit overdramatic.”

  Logan would have argued that perhaps he wasn’t being dramatic enough, but then Randall rapped on the glass door, and Logan immediately straightened up. He didn’t want Randall to see him sulking.

  Randall balanced a large brown box under one arm while he chomped on a green apple held in his free hand. He grimaced with every bite. He’d once confided to Logan that he didn’t like apples but had to eat them when he was taste-testing different candies. Sour apples neutralized chocolate. Bread neutralized hot, spicy foods, and fortunately, Randall liked bread.

  Randall could also always be counted on to have packets of crackers stuffed in his coat pockets because they neutralized almost any taste—spicy, sour, bitter, or sweet—just not as well as the apples. While Logan loved learning anything about the candy-testing process, he didn’t need to use any of those tricks. His taste buds were always on high alert.

  Logan jumped up to open the door.

  Randall tossed the apple core into the trash can. “I’m sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” he said, laying the box on the counter beside the marshmallow sticks. “This package arrived a few minutes ago, so I offered to deliver it on my way to the Harmonicandy Room. Only a few more tests to go before the first one comes down the conveyor belt. Exciting, don’t you think?” He glanced at Logan, and his grin wobbled a bit.

  Logan looked pointedly at Henry. This was exactly the kind of thing he’d been talking about.

  Henry leaned over to look at the shipping label. He squinted and mumbled that the return address was blurry. “Is this the new vanilla-bean grinder I ordered?” he asked Randall. Halfway out the door already, Randall called back, “Nope. It’s for Logan.”

  Logan and Henry looked at each other in surprise. “Me?” Logan asked.

  He pulled the box closer. The return label was printed in neat, even letters. Maybe Henry needed better glasses (even though his lenses must have been a half-inch thick already). The handwriting didn’t look familiar to Logan, and the address—a post office box a few states away—didn’t mean anything, either.

  “Maybe it’s from Daisy,” he suggested to Henry. “It doesn’t look like her handwriting, but maybe that’s on purpose to cover her tracks.” Henry was the only adult at the factory who knew Daisy’s true identity. He’d promised to keep her secret, and Henry always kept his promises.

  Logan pulled at the thick tape on the side of the box but couldn’t get a good grip. He would need scissors or a knife to cut through it. Logan and sharp instruments didn’t mix well. “Will you open it for me?” he asked.

  Henry nodded. “Certainly.”

  As Henry crossed the room to his metal supply cabinet, Logan thought how much he appreciated that Henry hadn’t jumped up to help before Logan even asked. He’d become very aware of people doing that for him.

  Henry returned and got to work cutting through the thick tape. He was very careful. When the flaps were loose enough, he stepped back to let Logan pull the box open.

  Logan thought maybe it might contain a game or a puzzle or something funny that Daisy had come across on her travels. She knew he didn’t leave the factory very often, so she liked surprising him with random things from the outside world. The week before, she’d sent him a (not very good) painting she had found at a rest stop on the highway. It showed a cat waving a magic wand while wearing polka-dot pajamas. The painting had a title (Abra-Cat-abra) and the signature of the artist (a woman named Ava Simon) in the lower right corner. It now hung proudly over his bed.

  “So what’s in there?” Henry asked.

  Logan carefully lifted out a thick stack of yellowed newspapers and dusty spiral notebooks tied together with brown twine. A folded-up map, the back yellowed with age, remained at the bottom of the box. “I don’t think it’s from Daisy,” he said, moving the contents from his arms to the counter. His new friends were well aware that he didn’t have much patience when it came to reading. He’d once told Miles that he usually read the last page of a book first, and Miles was so horrified he didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. Talk about being overdramatic.

  “I bet this will tell us,” Henry said, pulling a long, thin envelope out from underneath the twine. He handed it to Logan, who turned it over in his hands. The envelope was new, while the rest of the stack looked as if it had been rescued from someone’s attic or basement. Logan tore open the envelope and unfolded a typewritten letter. He held it up so that he and Henry could read it together.

  Logan had only gotten as far as the first sentence when Henry asked if he minded reading the letter out loud, so Logan began again.

  Dear Logan,

  We have never met, but your grandfather—the one and only Samuel Sweet—and I spent our boyhoods together. We lived two houses away from each other, and I believe I spent more time at his home than at my own. I would be lured over by the most wonderful smells of whatever Sam was cooking up! (Unlike your great-grandmother’s cabbage, which did not smell good AT ALL!)

  I recently found a bunch of Sam’s old journals and candymaking research in my basement. I know he would want you to have them. Even though my life took a different path, I do keep up with candy news because it reminds me of my dear friend and the world he treasured. I heard that you were defeated at the candymaking contest and that your family’s factory was given the honor of producing the winning Harmonicandy. I hope you will be comforted by seeing all the notebooks your grandfather filled with ideas for candies that failed. Don’t give up! I am old and coming to the end of my days faster than I want to accept, but there is greatness ahead for you. I can smell it from here.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Franklin O. Griffin

  Logan stared down at the letter. “Even strangers feel sorry for me. Still think I’m being oversensitive?”

  When he got no answer, Logan looked up. Tears were streaming down Henry’s cheeks in two even rows until they dripped off his chin. When Logan thought about that moment a month later, after so much had happened and so much had changed, it felt like a turning point, with a clear before and after. But at the time it was happening, all he could think about was how unprepared he was to deal with Henry’s reaction. The random thought occurred to him that if they were eating slices of chocolate pizza, Henry wouldn’t be crying. No one could cry and eat chocolate pizza at the same time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Logan shifted from foot to foot. Crying at the Life Is Sweet candy factory was usually reserved for the confectionary scientists after taste-testing a new batch of red-hot chili peppers. Randall went through two whole loaves of bread in one day before giving the final approval to begin production on the new Fireball Supernovas. (To make the candy, which would be labeled For Adults Only, the farmers had cross-bred two kinds of hot peppers to create something so fiery they had to handle it with gloves—and if they wiped their eyes by mistake, well, they’d have to go home for the rest of the day and soothe them with wet cotton balls.) Spontaneous eye-watering was common e
nough, but out-of-the-blue, real-life crying? It had never, ever happened in Logan’s memory. He put his hand on Henry’s arm. “Are you okay, Henry? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Henry only shook his head and continued his silent weeping.

  Sure, Henry was an emotional guy. Everyone knew that. Every time Randall posted the list of new candies that had passed Max’s rigorous testing and been accepted for production, Henry’s eyes would water, and he’d turn away to blow his nose. And last year when the Spring Haven Herald selected Life Is Sweet as the “Best Place to Work” for the fifth year in a row, Henry got so choked up he had to close down the Marshmallow Room for three hours while he sat outside and fed the swans and wouldn’t talk to anyone.

  But now Henry’s tears were getting the collar of his shirt wet and threatening to land on the stack of papers. Logan looked around the room, hoping to find something to distract his friend. He reached across the counter and grabbed two warm marshmallows from the cooling tray. They were still gooey in the center, exactly how Henry liked them. Logan offered them up, but the man’s tears kept coming.

  When Logan was little, Henry used to make the marshmallows talk. The two of them would have whole conversations that way. Logan held up the one in his right hand. He ignored the fact that the marshmallow was leaking and to anyone without scars on their palms would have been really hot.

  “Wut up, marshmallow?”

  He lowered his voice and pretended the one in his left hand was speaking now. “Yo, other marshmallow dude. Wuz up wit you?”

  Logan thought for a second he spotted Henry’s mouth quivering at the corners, but if so the tiny movement had disappeared as quickly as it came.

  Then a flash of bright yellow out in the hall caught Logan’s eye. The candy groupies had arrived! Even though the launch of a new candy was by invitation only, the Candymaker always welcomed a small number of confectionary enthusiasts to attend. These were the people who knew which candy factory in the world made which candy. They wrote fan letters singing the praises of their favorite treats, and if a recipe was tweaked and they didn’t like the new version, they were not shy about letting the factory owners know about that, too. They’d have found a way to get their hands on a still-warm Harmonicandy even if they didn’t have an invitation, so the Candymaker knew enough to open his doors.

  Logan had found his distraction. He popped the marshmallows into his mouth and pointed out to the hall. “Quick, Henry, look at their shirts!” Henry followed his gaze, but only halfheartedly. A large group of parents and kids was heading toward them, all wearing matching T-shirts the exact same shade of yellow as the Neon Yellow Lightning Chew. The words LIFE IS SWEETER AT LIFE IS SWEET ran across their chests.

  “Aren’t those T-shirts great?” Logan asked. “They must have made them themselves.”

  Henry gave a polite nod of his chin but didn’t stop crying. Logan watched in horror as the group turned almost as one and pressed their faces up to the window. He couldn’t blame them, really. Marshmallows were a vital ingredient in so many of their chocolate candies (most famously Some More S’mores), so who wouldn’t want to watch them being made and catch a glimpse of the man who had become something of a legend in the candymaking world?

  Logan knew the groupies weren’t able to see through the one-way tinted glass, and thankfully no one tried the door. They eventually moved off toward the factory library, where Mrs. Gepheart had set up a “Life Is Sweet Through the Ages” display. She was working on a much bigger one for the return of the annual picnic.

  When the threat of interruption had passed, Logan said, “Um, Henry? Are you planning on stopping anytime soon?”

  Henry sniffled and shook his head.

  Logan knew he had to do something to break Henry out of his mood. Something he would never normally do inside one of the candy rooms (and not very often outside of them, either).

  Logan began to dance.

  His arms flailed as he twirled around the marshmallow cooling table, narrowly avoiding the glass jars of raw honey lined up at the base. He hummed and kicked out his legs and glanced every few seconds at Henry, who was finally wiping his eyes with his sleeves. Logan kept dancing, right up until he bumped into a basket of fresh eggs that he hadn’t noticed by the sink. The basket teetered on the edge, and both he and Henry reached for it at the same time.

  “That was close,” Logan said, skidding to a halt.

  Henry steadied the basket and then grabbed a tissue and blew his nose. He sat back down on the stool and took a few deep breaths to pull himself together. “I don’t think you have a career in musical theater,” he finally said. “But thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Logan said, pleased that his distraction had worked. He had to admit that he felt better, too. Maybe he should dance more often. “Can you tell me why you were crying?”

  Henry looked down at Logan like he was sizing him up, deciding how to reply. Logan waited, trying to make his face look like the kind of face people would want to confide in. He feared he probably only looked like he needed to go to the bathroom.

  “It’s… complicated,” Henry finally said. “I should get back to work.” He stood up and straightened his lab coat.

  “Do you want me to leave?” Logan asked.

  “Yes,” Henry said.

  “You do?” Logan took a step backward. Henry was generally a matter-of-fact kind of guy, but Logan hadn’t expected such an abrupt answer.

  “Yes,” Henry repeated. He lifted the stack of papers and notebooks and dropped them into the box. “I’d like you to go back to your apartment and sit down with these. Learn a little more about your grandfather.” He thrust the box at Logan, who saw no choice but to take it.

  “But I already know tons about Grandpa,” Logan reminded him. “He only died a few years ago.”

  “You knew him as a grown-up and your grandfather,” Henry said, ushering him across the room. “Now get to know him as a boy and a young man. People will always surprise you if you let them.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Logan asked as Henry practically shoved him out the door. He tried to wedge his foot back in.

  Henry only shook his head, closed the door the rest of the way, and turned the lock.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Logan hurried down the crowded halls as fast as one could hurry while being weighed down by a fairly heavy box and the possibility of a surprise.

  This time he didn’t mind the nods and greetings that flew at him. No one tried to stop him to engage in conversation about the Harmonicandy or anything else. Clearly a man with a box was a man with a mission. If he’d known this before, he would have loaded up his arms sooner! He made a mental note to remember this the next time he wanted to be left alone.

  He stopped as he neared the chocolate fountain by the front entrance. He had a hunch Miles had just arrived. Admittedly, the hunch was based on the fact that he had just heard Mrs. O’Leary’s tires squealing as she peeled out of the driveway. She had driven him and Miles to Verona Park last week, and he’d dug his fingers into the backseat the whole ride.

  He stood by the fountain and waited for Miles to come in. After a few seconds (which seemed longer thanks to the awkwardness of balancing the box while nodding at people walking by), he rested the box at his feet, ran across the large front entry hall, and grabbed a piece of grape taffy from one of the huge barrels kept there. With the bright noontime sun streaming in through the glass roof, the taffy practically glowed.

  A surge of laughter rose up behind him. The Neon Yellow Lightning Chew group had gathered in front of the long window that looked into the Cocoa Room. Steve and Lenny were each juggling three football-shaped cocoa pods. Then they tossed one across to the other and kept juggling! They’d been working with cocoa pods since they were old enough to hold them without dropping them on their toes. They loved showing off their skills for guests. Usually Logan would stay and watch, too, but that whole man-with-a-mission thing was calling out to him.

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nbsp; He hurried back to his grandfather’s box, feeling a pang of guilt for having left it while strangers were milling about. If he had seen a mysterious box on the floor next to a chocolate fountain, he’d certainly have wanted to peek inside. Until told otherwise, Logan usually figured people felt the way he did.

  Miles still hadn’t come in, but Logan didn’t really find this too strange. He himself often took longer to get someplace than one might expect. Who knew how many interesting things might have distracted Miles along the way? The exhaust pipe from the factory cafeteria let out right above the front door. Maybe the smell of the chocolate pizza had temporarily frozen him in his tracks. Maybe he’d spotted a rare flower or bug or leaf and had stopped to admire or draw it.

  “There you are,” a voice said from behind him. “You must have your walkie-talkie turned off. That’s a first.” Logan hadn’t heard Max approach over the sounds of the group oohing and aahing as Steve and Lenny poured the cocoa butter into the chocolate mixture in perfect swirls. That was one of Logan’s favorite parts of the chocolate-making process, too.

  “I’m sorry,” Logan said, pulling the walkie-talkie off his belt loop. With a little pang of guilt, he flipped the switch to On. When one had been planning to hide, one couldn’t very well be reachable, or what would be the point of hiding?

  “You must come see this!” Max boomed. “The caramel for the first Harmonicandy batch is the most beautiful shade of amber I’ve ever seen. It’s almost a shame to cover it up with chocolate! Randall approved it already, but he can’t stop eating it.”

  Max always got excited when a new product rolled off the assembly line, but the Kickoff of the Harmonicandy had ramped up his excitement level at least five notches higher than usual. His bald head glistened even though the indoor temperature held steady at seventy degrees.

  Logan hesitated. Up till then, the Harmonicandy Room had been considered a construction zone and was off-limits. It would no doubt be crowded with people who would ask the same questions he’d been avoiding all day. But could he turn down the chance to see (and, most likely, sample) one of the most important ingredients in the whole Harmonicandy? The caramel was the glue that held it all together.