The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  “Wow,” Miles said, carefully lifting the bean from Logan’s palm as though it were the most precious item in the world. “That’s powerful stuff.”

  Logan nodded. “I know.”

  “What does this mean for us now?” Philip asked. No use pretending that the Harmonicandy wasn’t his first priority. “Even if this was the same chocolate used for the contest, we don’t know where to get more beans. I’m pretty sure we can’t make thousands of Harmonicandies out of that one.” He pointed to the small bean Miles was rolling around in his hand.

  “It was definitely made from the same chocolate,” Logan said. “But even if we found the beans, we couldn’t use them.”

  “Why not?” Philip demanded.

  Logan knew his explanation wouldn’t be good enough, but he had to try. “Because the beans themselves are too… special. It’s like they’re almost not supposed to be in a chocolate bar. I think I didn’t pick up on it in the original Harmonicandy because there were so many other ingredients, and some of our own dark chocolate went in there, too.”

  Philip scoffed. “We can’t use it because it’s too good?”

  Logan knew he wasn’t making much sense. But how could he explain the feeling he got when he ate it? He looked to Daisy for help. She’d been very quiet through all this.

  “Let’s wait to see what the results are from the test,” she said. “For all we know, the beans came from Timbuktu, and there’s no way we’d find the source anyway.”

  Philip scoffed again and crossed his arms. “That’s not even a real place.”

  “Sure it is,” Miles replied. “It’s in West Africa at the southern edge of the Sahara desert.”

  “No cocoa trees in the desert,” Logan reminded them. “To grow properly, cocoa trees need to be within ten degrees of the equator in a humid, tropical environment.”

  “People say Timbuktu when they just mean a really faraway place,” Miles explained. “Nothing to do now but wait, I guess.”

  Logan patted down his pockets, wishing he’d brought some poems to stock in there. He could use some inspiration right then. Miles saw him frown. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  He’d long ago told Miles about his tradition of keeping a poem in his pocket. “You wouldn’t happen to have a poem lying around, would you?”

  Miles placed the bean back in its bowl on the counter and retrieved the card Jade had made him. He tore out a piece of paper from his notebook and quickly copied down the poem Arthur had written. He handed Logan the paper. “This is sort of poem-ish.”

  “It’s perfect,” Logan said. He read it over twice and then stuck it in his pocket. He actually felt a little calmer.

  The RV pulled into the parking lot of a giant superstore, and AJ took up eight spots along the edge of the lot. As soon as the engine cut off, the four of them jumped up and raced over to the lab.

  “Hold on,” AJ said, popping up and stepping in front of it. “We have fifteen minutes until we’re due at the candy store. Before you do anything else, you need to change into your clothes, and it wouldn’t kill anyone to brush their hair.” When no one moved from the counter, he said, “Seriously. You’re still wearing your pajamas. And I think Miles has honey on his chin that’s two days old.” AJ peered more closely at Miles. “With cat hair stuck to it.”

  Miles covered his chin. The rest grumbled but followed AJ’s orders. Five minutes later they were back, dressed in their finest, hair quickly brushed or combed. Then they had to wait another three minutes because Philip had put on his suit and tie, and they told him he was way overdressed and made him change. He insisted on keeping the tie. He didn’t expect them to understand.

  With only seven minutes left, they had to work fast. Daisy pulled out a drawer beneath the bookshelf that the others had assumed was just storage. They should have known better. The “drawer” contained ten slots of various sizes along with a keypad. Daisy had already sliced off a piece of the Magic Bar, and now she placed it inside one of the slots. She dropped the bean into the next one. She relayed the commands to the computer to both analyze and compare the two objects’ chemical compositions and to trace their origins. Plastic covers slid over the slots, and the objects disappeared from view.

  “And now we wait,” she said, sliding the drawer carefully back into place.

  “For how long?” Miles asked. All this waiting for answers did not come naturally to him.

  “For about two hours,” she said, looking at her watch. “That gives us exactly one minute and sixteen seconds for you to tell us how you knew the combination to the safe.”

  Miles puffed up his cheeks and blew out the air. The others waited expectantly. Rats. Of course they hadn’t forgotten.

  “One minute, nine seconds,” Philip noted.

  “All right, all right,” Miles said. He stepped over to a small drawer in the wall next to the laundry machine. Since this drawer was an actual drawer and not a high-tech laboratory in disguise, he’d been using it to hide the materials he’d taken from Samuel Sweet’s box. He returned to the group with the map.

  “Thirty-eight seconds,” AJ warned.

  “Hold your horses,” Miles said. “This is delicate work.” He carefully unfolded the map and laid it down on the counter. The others gathered around. “There,” he said, pointing to the rock. “Look at these lines. They’re not cracks in the rock. They’re really numbers.”

  “I don’t understand,” Logan said to Miles. “It’s really cool, but why would you have painted numbers on a rock, and then how could you possibly know they’d open the safe?”

  Miles shook his head. “I didn’t make the map. It was in your grandfather’s box. I don’t know why he had it, but he must have decided to use the numbers hidden in the rock when he chose a combination for the safe. I’m sorry I didn’t just show it to you sooner. I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

  “It’s okay,” Logan replied. “None of us know what to think.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Philip said. “I think plenty of things, like that this Map of Awe doesn’t look all that awe-inspiring… a little water, a few trees, a couple of rocks? And there’s no X.”

  “No X?” Logan asked.

  “You know, X marks the spot, like where you’d dig for treasure. There’s no X.”

  “Not all maps are treasure maps,” Miles said as patiently as possible. “Most just show you where you are, or how to get there.”

  Philip shrugged. “This one doesn’t seem to do either of those things.”

  Miles felt himself getting angry and started to silently count backward from ten, the way his mom had taught him when he was younger and frustrated at not understanding a word in one of the books he was reading. Why was he defending Sam’s map? It’s not like he knew any more about it than Philip did.

  “Hey, I realize not much is cooler than a mysterious map,” Daisy said to AJ, who had been leaning over their shoulders. “But don’t we have to go?”

  AJ forced himself to stop studying the map on the counter and turned around. He frowned. “Not with you looking like that.”

  The boys didn’t see anything wrong with the way Daisy looked, even though they were still getting used to seeing her with her normal brown hair. Daisy rolled her eyes, but she marched to the back room and closed the door. They heard her open the disguise closet. When she emerged five minutes later, she wore a soccer uniform, complete with cleats and a ball under one arm. The raised letters on her shirt spelled out CHESTERFIELD CHEETAHS.

  The boys all opened their mouths, but Daisy held up a hand. “Before you ask, this way I’ll look like a normal kid from”—she looked down at her shirt—“Chesterfield, who came to the store before her soccer match. This is a publicity tour, after all, and there’s nothing a spy hates more than having people take their picture and publish it.”

  “Why does AJ still get to look like AJ, then?” Logan asked.

  In response, AJ pulled a baseball cap out of his back pocket and stuck it on his head.
A mass of brown curls spilled out from under the cap, totally hiding his short blond hair. He stuck a pair of large mirrored sunglasses on his face.

  “Nice,” the boys said, nodding in approval.

  “But wait,” Logan said as they filed down the stairs. “How did you get the name of the town on your shirt so fast?”

  “Easy,” AJ said, locking the door behind them. “I used the 3-D printer to make the letters and then glued them on last night.”

  “How domestic of you,” Philip said. “You can add those skills to your long list of accomplishments the next time you need to convince someone to trust their kids with you.”

  “And I shall!” AJ said with a grin.

  The tinted one-way windows of the RV filtered out a lot of the sunlight, and it took everyone except AJ (who had his sunglasses) a minute to stop squinting. Actually, Daisy only pretended to squint because she didn’t want the boys to feel inferior.

  “We never really talked about what we’re going to tell people today,” Logan pointed out as they followed AJ in the direction of the candy store. “Aunt Rosie, the owner of The Candy Basket, is really nice, and—”

  “Wait, the owner is your aunt?” Miles asked.

  Logan shook his head. “She just calls herself Aunt Rosie.”

  “I know someone like that,” Daisy muttered. She didn’t miss Aunt Jess at all. And she was pretty sure Aunt Jess didn’t miss her, either.

  “As I was saying,” Logan continued, “she’s supported the factory since the early days. How can we promote the Harmonicandy when there might not be one?”

  “That’s easy,” Philip said. “Haven’t you heard the expression Fake it till you make it?”

  “Um, not really?”

  “It’s about creating your own reality,” Daisy explained. “Take it from someone who lies for a living. When you want something to happen for you, pretend it already has. The more committed you are to the illusion, the more real it starts to feel. Others believe it, and then you start to believe it yourself.”

  Philip nodded in agreement, but Logan and Miles exchanged a doubtful look. Anything that felt like lying would be hard for them. Logan made a decision. “How about we stick as close to the truth as possible, and lie more by what we don’t say, rather than what we do say.”

  “You’re giving me a headache,” Philip said. “But whatever. We can try it your way.” Lying by not lying, he thought. Interesting!

  “One more street,” AJ said. “Then we turn left at the corner and we should see it.” They found themselves in a little town square not much different from downtown Spring Haven. Large trees lined the streets, their branches forming a canopy of leaves over the road. For Logan, that canopy was his favorite thing about visiting Aunt Rosie’s store. He hadn’t been in a few years, but seeing the branches reaching toward each other as if they were embracing always made him feel like he was in some amazing storybook. His pace slowed as they neared the final corner. Could they really pull this off?

  “You know what?” Philip said. “I bet we’re making a much bigger deal about this whole thing than the stores are. They’re used to salespeople and factory owners coming by to hype their products. Our visit is probably like any other day for them.”

  That thought lifted Logan’s spirits. “Maybe you’re right. We can just be friendly and chat with Aunt Rosie and her staff while they eat the Harmonicandies that Max shipped yesterday. We’ll get in and get out and move on.”

  “Sounds good!” Miles said, relieved. He and Logan high-fived. Then they turned the corner, and any hope that the visit wouldn’t be a big deal flew from their heads.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Imagining a larger-than-life cardboard cutout of yourself propped up on a sidewalk in a strange town is a lot different from actually seeing one. Since before that moment Philip had done neither, the whole thing was quite a shock. Someone had used the picture from after he won the contest—the same one on the posters under his bed—blown it up, and mounted it on thick cardboard. The cutout version of Philip held a sign that read COME MEET ME AND MY FRIENDS AT The Candy Basket TODAY AT NOON!

  “Who’s that handsome fella?” Daisy joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  Philip only stared. His own eyes stared back at him. The person in the picture felt all too familiar and like a stranger at the same time. Even though he was smiling in the picture, it gave him the creeps.

  “Look, someone drew a mustache on you!” Miles said. “Just kidding, they didn’t.”

  “So there’s a giant cardboard cutout of you,” Daisy said, pushing him forward. “Just brush it off. It doesn’t mean they’re going to make a big deal about you inside the store.”

  “Pretty sure that does.” Philip didn’t have to point out the crowd of excited kids hovering outside. It was impossible to miss.

  “That’s him!” a little boy shouted. “The inventor of the Harmonicandy! He’s here!”

  AJ put his arms out protectively in front of Philip just as the little boy flew at him. Philip stumbled backward. Logan and Miles watched the whole thing with wide eyes. Word of their arrival must have reached inside the store, because Aunt Rosie ran outside, her long white hair flowing behind her, arms wide open.

  “Children! How lovely to see you!” She gave Logan a big hug and shook hands with everyone except Daisy, who hung back and blended into the crowd. “We’re so very happy to have you here!” AJ kept the crowd at bay while Aunt Rosie led them into the store. Harmonica music played through the speakers. Everywhere they looked, towers of candy displays nearly reached the ceiling. Logan easily spotted every one of Life Is Sweet’s products, with a whole section reserved for different colors of Sour Fingers. For whatever reason, The Candy Basket sold more of those than any other store in the country. They still had their plaque on the wall for selling the very first Snorting Wingbat, too. This was a special store, and being there gave Logan a warm feeling all the way to his toes.

  The store also stocked a hundred different varieties of nuts, and candies from other factories that he hadn’t seen before, like an anatomically correct frog that you dissected and then ate! He spotted a display marked SCHOOL SUPPLIES that consisted of candy pencils, notebooks, and erasers. Pizza-flavored bubble tea swirled around in a giant pitcher. The wrapper on a candy bar simply named HOT boasted that its jalapeño filling would make smoke come out your ears. Logan wasn’t sure he believed that, but he’d have to bring one home for Max to sample.

  “Hey, try this,” Miles said, pulling Logan over to a table marked FREE—TRY ME. He popped a caramel-filled pretzel into his mouth. “Yum!” Logan tried one, too, followed by three more.

  Daisy broke away from the crowd that surrounded Philip and found Miles and Logan. No one was taking pictures yet, so she figured it was safe. “I’ve never been in a store like this!” she told them, her eyes darting around in wide circles.

  “Have you ever actually been in a candy store at all?” Miles asked.

  She thought for a minute and shook her head. Before she could say anything else, a girl with two long braids and braces came running up to Logan. “Do you ever see Daisy Carpenter, from the candymaking contest?” she asked in excited bursts.

  Daisy began inching away toward a rack of foot-long strands of multicolored licorice.

  “Um, yes, she pops up now and again,” Logan said, trying hard not to glance in Daisy’s direction.

  The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Can you tell her I think the 3G’s should have won!”

  “Um, sure,” Logan said.

  “Thanks!” The girl giggled shyly and ran back to her mom.

  “You have a fan!” Miles said when Daisy sidled back toward them, licorice draped around her shoulders.

  “How’d she know about my Green Glob of Goop?”

  “Word in the candy business travels fast,” Logan said. “And the 3G’s was pretty legendary in its awfulness.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t that bad!” Daisy said. “It tasted like a summer’s day, remember?” />
  “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” Miles said. “At least you know your disguise works.”

  “My disguises always work.” She took a bite of the licorice. It tasted like she imagined a rainbow would taste—airy and soft and sweet. It would go well paired with the 3G’s.

  Aunt Rosie’s voice came over a microphone. “Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our very special guests! In a moment we’ll be handing out samples of the Harmonicandy, winner of the annual New Candy Contest! You’ll get to try it weeks before it hits stores!” She gestured at the table behind her, where two employees were using gloved hands to unpack the candy bars from the cooler, since they weren’t wrapped.

  The crowd cheered.

  “But first I’d like to invite Philip Ransford to say a few words, if he doesn’t mind.” She stepped aside and held the microphone out to him.

  Philip figured this was coming. He’d have to do better than at the Kickoff. As he walked up and the kids cheered and the parents clapped politely, he knew that the crowd would be expecting him to talk about the Harmonicandy—how he came up with it and how excited he was for its upcoming release. But they were supposed to avoid talking about it. He looked around the store at all the loving parents holding their kids’ hands or bouncing their kids on their knees, and he knew just the right story for the occasion. It would mean making up lies worse than many he’d written in his notebook, but lying to avoid lying about the Harmonicandy made it seem less bad.

  He took the microphone and looked out on the happy crowd, the brightly colored candies that filled the room, and Aunt Rosie herself, who had pink and blue cotton candy strands stuck in her hair. He took a deep breath.

  “Candy makes people happy,” he began, letting his eyes sweep the room. “It adds a little touch of sweetness to our days, when sometimes life really isn’t all that sweet. I want to share a story with you, about the part candy has played in my own life.”