The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  They gathered around as AJ rattled off a list of features of the RV, in no apparent order. He spoke quickly and pointed instead of leading them around. “First, the front section containing the dashboard and the driving area is called the Control Center. That is where I will mostly be and you should rarely be. Next, the laboratory, computer, laser printer, and 3-D printer are hidden behind the bookshelf. Off of the bedroom is the bathroom. There are two toilets. One has a fake bottom with an escape route. The other is, well, a toilet. Be sure you know the difference. Inflatable rafts will extend out from all sides of the exterior in the unlikely event that we’re submerged in water.” He pointed above their heads. “A long-distance periscope with a high-powered microphone rises from the sunroof, allowing us to see and hear very far away.” He pointed behind him toward the kitchen. “That closet next to the oven converts into a holding cell in case we have to detain anyone.”

  The boys’ heads swiveled fast from place to place, trying to take it all in. AJ pointed at the entertainment center. “A built-in satellite antenna lets us pull in television signals from around the world. Video games are all built into the system. The jump pad behind the couch doubles as a trampoline, which is off-limits while the RV is in motion. There is one shower, and I expect you will each use it once a day, turning the water off as you wash so we don’t run out. I will post a schedule. The kitchen and laundry rooms are self-explanatory. Once we’ve stopped for the night, you can explore. Just remember not to touch anything if you don’t know what it does.”

  “Is there a machine on the wall that can give you food whenever you want it?” Miles asked hopefully.

  “There sure is!” AJ said.

  Miles’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s called a refrigerator.”

  Miles’s face fell. “Not exactly what I meant.”

  AJ patted Miles on the shoulder. “When our Research and Development department figures out how to combine molecules in such a way as to create the perfect ham-and-cheese sandwich out of thin air, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”

  “Tell them about the safety features,” Daisy prompted.

  “Okay,” AJ said. “In case of unexpected impact, air bags will inflate on both the inside and the outside of the vehicle. It will feel like being embraced by a very puffy cloud.”

  “Not that,” Daisy said impatiently. “I meant how the tailpipe can release an oil slick or a stream of nails or a thick white smoke if someone’s chasing us.”

  “Seriously?” Miles asked, wide-eyed at the thought of it. “Harvey is, like, a superhero!”

  “Why would someone be chasing us?” Logan asked.

  “Spies have to be prepared for any development,” Daisy explained. “Which reminds me, this little trip isn’t only to visit candy stores to promote the Harmonicandy. AJ and I have to complete a dead drop. That means we have to drop off a package and wait to make sure it’s retrieved.”

  “Are you saying we’ll get to go on a spy mission?” Miles asked, grabbing on to Logan’s arm.

  “Definitely not,” AJ said firmly before Daisy had a chance to answer. “You shouldn’t even know that much.” He shot Daisy a scolding look. “But while we’re on the topic of detours, if you have any other stops I’ll need to make, let me know ahead of time so I can build them into the route.”

  With a push of the button hidden inside the climbing wall, AJ converted the bunk beds back into cabinets. They all held on as the sides of the RV moved inward and the ceiling lowered. It was just as cool in reverse.

  Daisy watched AJ slide into the driver’s seat. She’d begun to think she didn’t know AJ as well as she thought she did. First he had agreed to help Henry—someone he barely knew at all—by taking on the huge responsibility of bringing four kids on a week-long road trip, and now he was offering them a chance to make other stops? What had gotten into him? Whatever it was, she liked it!

  If she could do anything at all? She’d try to find the mystery brother. If he even existed. She had no idea where to begin, though, or how to explain it to the others. How could they understand not knowing your own family?

  Miles plopped down at the table, his heart thumping. He glanced quickly at Logan and then down at the floor. He wanted to tell them about his hope that he could help with Logan’s scars somehow, but how could he come out and say that? He also wanted to find out more about where his father came from. And he wanted to find some geocaches! But most pressing of all, he needed to find out what Samuel Sweet’s contract meant.

  Philip could tell by the way Miles was bouncing up and down in his seat that he was thinking about something exciting. Other than doing whatever it took to save the Harmonicandy, Philip couldn’t help thinking of his brother’s comment about having a grandmother out there somewhere. Was this his chance to find her? He’d have to tell them about the talent competition, too. No one else said they had any other agenda. Could he really ask for two stops that only had to do with him?

  Logan could practically see the gears turning in his friends’ heads. What were they plotting? All he wanted to do was figure out how to save the Harmonicandy. That was more than enough for him.

  Daisy cleared her throat. “So as I was saying, we’ll have to make a small detour. For, um, the dead drop.” She couldn’t get out the brother part yet; it was too weird.

  “I have one, too,” Philip said, sitting down across from Miles. He couldn’t bring himself to mention looking for his grandmother. It was just too random, and anyway, he never talked about his mother and didn’t really feel like starting now. He’d tell them the easier thing. “There’s this Nation’s Most Talented Kid competition in a few days. It was the only way I could come on the trip. My father signed me up.”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow. “Will you be juggling fire blindfolded while speed-solving a Rubik’s Cube?”

  He sighed. “How could I use my hands to juggle and solve the cube at the same time?”

  Daisy grinned. “That’s why you’d be the nation’s most talented kid! Okay, so we’ll have two detours. That’s not too bad.”

  “Make that three,” Miles said. “I, um, have to find a few things, but I don’t know where they are yet.” If anyone asked, he’d just say he meant geocaches. He wasn’t ready to tell them the other stuff yet.

  “Four,” Logan added. “We have to figure out where the chocolate came from that we used in the competition. How can we promote the Harmonicandy if there’s something wrong with it? Not that I have any idea where to start.”

  Philip took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He couldn’t keep it to himself anymore. In a voice nowhere near as steady as he wished it were, he said, “I might know something about it.”

  Miles stared at Philip. Whatever he knew was obviously hard for him to admit. He needed to come clean, too, even if it would upset Logan. He took a deep breath and said, “Me too.”

  Philip looked at him with surprise, and also a little bit of gratitude.

  Logan plopped down next to Miles, unsure what to think. How could they know more about this than he did? They couldn’t even taste a difference.

  “Wait,” Daisy said, looking at each of them. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with the Harmonicandy?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Philip went up to the front to fill AJ in on the detours. He figured he’d get a hard time about having to be in that contest, but all AJ said was, “I bet you’ll rock it.” Philip thought he probably would rock it, but his bragging days were behind him. He dawdled up in the Control Center, not quite ready to go back and spill what he knew to the others.

  “The view up here is pretty cool,” he observed, determined to keep the conversation light. They were perched up high over the road, and the large curved windshield almost made him feel like he was outside. And seeing the great outdoors from indoors was his preferred way of seeing it. AJ looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “You really want to talk about the view?”

  Philip gazed ou
t the window. “Guess not.”

  “Well then, if you don’t have anything else to say, this is my area, remember?”

  But Philip wanted to stall a little longer. “Well, actually, I do have one more thing. Why did you agree to take us on the trip?”

  AJ glanced in his side camera and expertly steered the RV onto the highway. He kept his eyes on the road, but Philip knew AJ had heard the question. Stretching his arms over his head, Philip leaned back in the comfy passenger seat. “Take your time,” he said languidly. “I could hang out up here all day just enjoying the view. And the company, of course.”

  AJ gave a grunt of annoyance. “Fine. I’m still trying to figure that out myself. That’s your answer. Sorry it’s not a better one.”

  Philip shrugged and stood up. “It’s not so bad.”

  “Logan’s about to start,” Daisy told Philip as he slid back into the booth. Her hands were poised over the screen on her vid com. “Unless you’d like to tell us what you know first?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, I’m good.”

  Daisy looked up at Logan expectantly as she lowered her hands to the tabletop. A virtual keyboard lit up the surface. She began to type on it! All three of them jumped back.

  “Whoa!” Miles exclaimed. “How long has it been able to do that?”

  “It’s a new modification,” she said. “Yours doesn’t have it yet.” A few seconds later she had three vid coms piled in front of her. She sighed. “I’ll load it on them later. Can we focus, please?”

  Logan tried to think of the best way to explain it. Describing how something tasted was always difficult for him. In the end, they’d just have to trust him. “When I tasted the Harmonicandy this morning, it was… wrong,” he finally said, trying not to be distracted by Daisy tapping on the tabletop. “The chocolate we used for the contest had a richer, deeper kind of taste to it.”

  “So what’s the big deal?” Daisy said. “You’ll just fix it for the next batch.”

  Logan shook his head. “There’s no more of the original chocolate. The contest rules state that the final product has to be exactly the same as the one submitted to the contest, and all the ingredients have to be easily available to anyone.”

  Daisy tried to make sense of what he was saying. “I spent a lot of time in the Cocoa Room with Steve and Lenny. They make all the chocolate from the beans in the Tropical Room, right? And then the chocolate gets pumped into all the different rooms. So why would the Harmonicandy be any different?”

  “The milk chocolate base that we use is always the same, that’s true. But then most of our chocolate candies are mixed with some percentage of either dark, bittersweet, or white chocolate. Those come from smaller batches made in each individual room. But in this case, even the base was… wrong. That’s just the only way I know how to describe it.”

  “Did you guys notice this, too?” Daisy asked Miles and Philip. Both shook their heads.

  “But Henry did,” Miles said. “He told us he’d tasted the original once before—like, decades before we made the Harmonicandy.” That comment hadn’t seemed too important at the time, but now it hung in the air, refusing to be ignored.

  Daisy jotted down Henry’s comment. A lot of drama had unfolded at Life Is Sweet while she’d been riding Magpie! “And no one else noticed?” she asked Logan. “Not Randall, or Max, or even your dad?”

  Logan shook his head. “They hadn’t tried the original one, remember? There wasn’t time to share it with anyone.”

  “Well, Henry must have tried it, or he couldn’t have noticed the difference,” she pointed out.

  “He said he did,” Logan agreed. “But I can’t picture when it would have been. As soon as the samples cooled down, we put them right into the van. And then there wasn’t any left after the contest. It’s all very strange.” He looked at Miles and Philip. “Can you guys think of when Henry might have tasted the Harmonicandy?”

  Miles and Philip looked down into their laps. Daisy knew they were both hiding something. She’d known it since they walked onto the RV. And the fact that they didn’t glance at each other told her they each had their own secret. It wasn’t lost on her that only that morning she had resigned herself to not being a part of the boys’ lives anymore. And now here she was, putting clues together to help them, like she was on one of her missions. Except unlike her missions, working on this mystery was her choice.

  “So that’s pretty much all I’ve got,” Logan said. “I don’t know where the other chocolate came from or how we wound up using it, but if we don’t find it again, the Harmonicandy is over before it even begins.”

  Philip knew Daisy would turn her laser-focused gaze on him next. He would be ready. He was ready. He’d tell her what he knew—or thought he knew. Simple as that. He drummed his fingers on the table. Once he had made up his mind about something, he didn’t like to wait.

  “All right, then,” Daisy said, satisfied that Logan really didn’t know anything more. “Let’s let Philip talk before he explodes.”

  Philip took a deep breath and told them about his memory of Henry switching the bowls before the contest. When he got to the part where Henry had said, “You can thank me later,” Logan and Miles audibly gasped. It looked as if the color leaked out of Logan’s face, making the pink scars on his cheek stand out even more. Philip’s stomach twisted. Should he not have told them? What choice did he have?

  Logan stared at Philip as he tried to process what he had just heard. Henry? Henry gave them the chocolate that they used for the contest, but pretended not to have any idea what had happened? And at the end made it sound as though he was doing them a favor? A favor?

  “But… but why would Henry do that?” he choked out.

  “I have no idea,” Philip said.

  “Anything else?” Daisy asked Philip, who quickly shook his head.

  Miles slid out of the booth and retrieved his backpack from where he’d tossed it on the couch. If he hadn’t seen the scenery passing by on either side, he would swear they were standing still. But they weren’t standing still. With every mile, they were getting farther from home and family and normalcy and heading somewhere entirely other.

  He returned to the booth and pulled out the burned contract. Wordlessly, he placed it down in front of Logan.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We, the four signers of this contract, do hereby solemnly swear never to reveal the location of the special beans, nor how Samuel Sweet came to be in possession of them. If questioned, we agree to say we don’t remember any details about our time spent there. We promise to uphold our vow to help keep the valley hidden, whatever that might take in the future. This contract binds us together for life, both in friendship and in secrecy. We have been given a great gift, and we hereby agree to repay that debt whenever possible, anonymously, asking nothing in return. Once this binding contract is signed and sealed, it shall be destroyed.

  They all looked up from the document. Daisy let out a long whistle and shook her head. “That does not look good for Samuel Sweet.”

  “Where did you find this?” Philip asked.

  Miles had forgotten that Philip didn’t know about the box. “Randall found Logan in the Marshmallow Room and gave him a bunch of old papers and journals from when his grandfather was younger. I found this contract in the box with some other… interesting stuff.” That other stuff would have to wait.

  Logan felt sick to his stomach. “Did my grandfather really do something sneaky to get some special beans? Maybe even… illegal?” No one who had known his grandfather had ever said a bad word about him. Smart, driven, kind, generous, funny. Those were the words used to describe Samuel Sweet.

  Philip knew a thing or two about being sneaky. “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” he warned Logan. “People do things for a lot of different reasons. Obviously your grandfather isn’t around to ask, and without knowing whose names are under the scorch marks, we might never know what went on.”

  “But what would even make a bean speci
al?” Logan asked. “So special it was worth hiding?”

  Miles dug into his pocket. He held open his palm to show them the marble-shaped blue bean. “Maybe like this?”

  The RV immediately filled with the scent of chocolate. Philip waved his hand in front of his face. The smell was overpowering. “I bet AJ can smell that up in the Control Center,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t put money on it,” Daisy muttered.

  Logan inhaled deeply. The smell instantly calmed him, and he felt the tightness in his stomach loosen a little. He had smelled that exact smell before. But where? The factory had been gearing up for the Kickoff by increasing its candy production, so the smells had been pouring out of every candy room for weeks. It could have been any of them.

  “It’s obviously a cocoa bean,” Philip said. “At least it smells like one.”

  “If you’d paid any attention at all during our tour of the factory,” Daisy scolded, “you’d know cocoa beans turn brown in the roasting process. They don’t turn bright blue.”

  “Okay, so maybe it’s not roasted,” Philip said.

  Miles shook his head. “It has to be roasted, or else it wouldn’t smell like chocolate yet.”

  “I know that,” Philip snapped. Then he muttered, “Sorry.”

  Logan used the side of his hand to slide the bean from Miles’s palm onto his own, where he cupped it so it wouldn’t roll off. It felt heavier than he’d expected it to, which was a little weird. “Sometimes the wet bean might actually look a little purple,” he told them, “but it’s only that color right when it comes out of the pod and hasn’t been processed yet. This one must have been fermented and dried and then roasted.” He frowned. “But then why isn’t it brown?”

  “Maybe someone dipped it in paint,” Philip said. “Or used food coloring to dye it blue.”