The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Logan stiffen. He was sure his friend thought he was going to talk about what had happened when they were younger, when he thought he’d been banned from the factory. But Logan didn’t need to worry. Philip had a different version of his life story in mind.

  “When I was a little more than a year old, my mother took me to the Life Is Sweet candy factory for its annual picnic. I don’t remember this, of course, but the family photos from that day show a blue sky dotted with puffy clouds, acres of green grass and trees, rowboats on the pond, fields of grains and berries, and a farmhouse with cows and chickens roaming free behind a white picket fence. Then add in boxes of chocolate pizza, cotton candy the size of your head, rubber-duck races, and the Candymaker in his chocolate-smeared apron shaking my hand. When I’m an old man—if I get lucky enough to be an old man one day—that is how I’ll picture the perfect day.”

  The crowd smiled up at him, nodding in agreement, but he was just getting warmed up. He didn’t dare glance at Logan again, or he might lose his nerve. He continued. “Then it got even better. According to family lore, I took my first steps that day, out on the great lawn, while the ducks watched from the pond. My mom was able to catch it on video.”

  Murmurs of “aw” and “so sweet!” trickled through the crowd.

  “The next year we went back, and the next. Our duck even finished in second place that year! I won two bucks!”

  The crowd cheered and giggled.

  “But that was my last visit to Life Is Sweet with my mom,” Philip continued, his voice cracking in just the right place. “She died a few months later from cancer.”

  A shocked hush fell over the group.

  “But here’s the thing,” he said after a respectful pause. “Thanks to the Candymaker, my new friends, the amazing teachers at the factory, and the judges of the candymaking contest, I get to go back there every day now, and every day I get to remember my mom out on that grass, cheering for me not to fall on my face, and every day I get to be grateful for being part of a business whose job it is to add sweetness to people’s lives.” He paused for a second as people wiped their eyes. “I’d like to dedicate this to her.” He reached over to the tray of Harmonicandies and picked one up. He brought it to his lips and blew a strong, clear note that rang through the whole room.

  Then he smiled and said, “Thank you.”

  The room erupted in applause, and Aunt Rosie hugged him for a long time until he wished she would stop. The Harmonicandies were handed out, and from across the room his friends stared at him as though they’d never seen him before. He wasn’t looking forward to hearing what they had to say.

  “Okay, dude, that speech was awesome,” AJ said to Philip on their way back to the RV. “If you ever want a career as an undercover agent, you let me know. You could sell honey to a bee!”

  Miles and Logan weren’t quite as complimentary. Sure, they told him what a great speaker he was, how he’d captivated the room, but Philip knew they were a little scared of him now for how easily he’d lied—mostly because Miles actually said, “I’m a little scared of you now.” They knew his mother had no part of his experience at the factory.

  Logan followed a few steps behind the others. He didn’t know how to explain to Philip how it had felt watching him make up a story in front of a hundred trusting kids and parents. While it definitely took the heat off the Harmonicandy for a little while, how could Philip have played with the crowd’s emotions like that? Hadn’t anyone taught him right from wrong? Maybe they hadn’t.

  But on the other hand, Philip really had lost his mother when he was three, so that part of it wasn’t a lie at all. How could Logan confront him in light of that cold, hard truth?

  At least the speech had everyone focusing on Philip, so he was grateful for that. The bright fluorescent light, which was great at making the candy wrappers sparkle, had made Logan’s scars show even more than usual. Many of the younger kids had looked longer than necessary, until their parents grabbed them away. He knew they weren’t being mean. They were just curious. Still, he’d pushed his hair further over his face than he had in a while.

  He had to admit that some parts of the visit were exhilarating. He’d loved sampling the store’s candies, of course, and meeting grown-ups who told him how the Neon Yellow Lightning Chew or the Oozing Crunchorama had been an important part of their childhoods. The highlight was when Aunt Rosie led the crowd in a rousing rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” on the Harmonicandy. It pained him to think that there might only be two more Harmonicandy concerts.

  As they were leaving, Aunt Rosie had pulled him into another of her tight hugs. “I hope you won’t give up on the Bubbletastic ChocoRocket,” she’d told him. “You’ve got a lot of people rooting for you.” He’d nodded and promised, but he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t want to risk letting people down again if he was never able to make it work. Her last words to him were to tell Henry she was sorry to miss him and that she was looking forward to seeing him at the next Confectionary Association convention.

  “Yeah, a lot of us are looking forward to seeing good ol’ Henry,” Philip had said under his breath as he passed by.

  AJ reached the RV first, but a frantic barking and growling made him stop before he could punch in the final number on the keypad to unlock it. “Everyone stay still,” he warned, looking around for what sounded like a big, scary dog.

  Miles didn’t want to laugh at him, so he calmly told AJ that he didn’t need to worry. It was just their new cat. AJ looked skeptical but unlocked the door anyway. The cat sat at the top stair, barking and narrowing her eyes at whoever dared approach her home.

  “Who needs a guard dog when we’ve got a little fluffy kitty to protect us?” Miles said with a grin. He leaned in to pet her, but she darted past him and down the stairs.

  “She probably just needs to go to the bathroom,” Logan said, but instead of heading to the patch of bushes next to their RV, the cat went right up to Philip and began weaving in and out of his legs.

  “Sorry,” Philip said to Miles with an apologetic shrug. “It’s nothing personal, I’m sure.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Miles replied with a pout. “C’mon, Logan, let’s check whether the results are in.”

  Daisy held Philip back until they were the only ones still in the parking lot. She led him a few feet away from the RV. Aurora stood at Philip’s feet, watching Daisy very carefully.

  “That was some story you told back there,” Daisy said. “So full of emotion and details, one might even think it was true.”

  He laughed. “I assure you, it wasn’t. But thank you for the compliment.”

  She kept eye contact, waiting for him to blink. She’d been trained at an early age to tell if someone was lying. “I’d be inclined to believe you,” she finally said. “Because you are certainly an accomplished liar. But I’ve heard that story before.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only told that story once before. And there’s no way…” His voice trailed off. “Unless…”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I read your essay.”

  “But—but,” he sputtered. “If you could get into the system to read it, you could have just deleted it for me!”

  She shrugged. “You need to learn to work for things,” she said. “Don’t change the subject. The more important issue is why you told that story today after going to all that trouble to hide your essay.”

  He had to admit, it was a fair question. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “That story got me into the contest, so I figured it would take the focus away from the Harmonicandy, which, you’ll have to admit, it totally did.”

  She nodded. It had been a brilliant move. “But then why did you care so much if your essay got circulated?”

  “Before I answer that, let me ask you a question. When you read the essay and heard the story today, did you think it was true?”

  “Well, I would have if I didn’t know your real story. With Logan
and the truck and your dad and everything.”

  “But even for a minute, while you were reading it, what were you feeling?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. But she did know. And he did, too.

  “You felt sorry for me,” he said firmly.

  She paused, then nodded.

  He stepped around her to board the RV. “I never want anyone to feel sorry for me except when I’m the one pulling the strings.”

  Aurora sniffed at Daisy, then marched inside after Philip.

  “I don’t think that cat likes me,” Daisy muttered. She lingered by the door another minute to let Philip have the satisfaction of storming off properly. When she got inside, one glance told her that the computer was still analyzing the bean and the bar. This surprised her, especially since Logan had said there were so few ingredients. Must be because the items were so old.

  Miles burst out of the bathroom door. “Yuck!” he shouted.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” she said.

  Miles pointed at Aurora. “Now I know why she didn’t do her business in the woods by the parking lot!”

  “Why?” Daisy asked.

  “She did it in the toilet! And left it there!”

  “Impressive!” Logan said. “Now she just needs to learn how to flush!”

  Daisy laughed. “Hey, Philip, your cat is toilet trained!”

  Aurora was currently curled up on Philip’s lap, gazing at him adoringly. He absently scratched her under the chin as she purred. “Good kitty,” he said. The others watched in surprise. That was the first time they’d seen him show any affection toward the cat. Something must be wrong.

  “Are you okay?” Miles asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, a puzzled expression on his face. “I think… I think my grandmother had a cat.”

  “So what?” Daisy said. “Mine has a ferret, two donkeys, and a pelican. Well, sort of a pelican.”

  “How can someone have sort of a pelican?” Miles asked. “You either have a pelican, or you don’t have a pelican.”

  “Ah, Miles,” Daisy said, patting him on the head. “If only life were that simple.”

  Miles’s brow furrowed, but he turned back to Philip. “So what’s the big deal about your grandmother’s cat? Was it toilet trained, too? Did it bark like a dog? Did it ignore everyone who actually liked cats and only come to you?”

  Philip shook his head, still petting Aurora with a faraway look in his eyes. “I don’t know. When I walked in just now and the cat looked up at me, I got this quick memory of another cat looking up at me, and I think it was my grandmother’s. But I don’t remember knowing my grandmother at all. If she was alive, wouldn’t I know it?”

  No one had an answer. Finally Miles said, “I might have grandparents I don’t know about, too.”

  They all turned to look at him. Daisy was the only person who knew what he meant. “Did you talk to your dad about them?” she asked.

  “A little,” he replied, “but the conversation didn’t get very far.” To Philip and Logan he explained, “My dad was adopted. We don’t know anything about his birth family. Or at least I don’t.”

  Before anyone could comment on what Miles had just said, Daisy blurted out, “I might have a brother.”

  Philip stopped petting the cat as their heads swung from Miles to Daisy. “Seriously?” Logan asked.

  Daisy nodded, glancing down the aisle to see if AJ was in hearing range. He was fiddling with the computer in the lab, so she waved them to the bedroom. Once the door slid shut behind them, she told them what she knew. Which, essentially, was nothing more than the one tossed-off comment from her mom.

  “Can’t you find him?” Miles asked. “With all your high-tech spy stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s not like I have a photo to match up, or anything really to go on at all.”

  “Maybe a memory will come to you like it did for me,” Philip said.

  “Maybe,” Daisy said, not sounding too convinced.

  The door to the bedroom slid open. AJ stuck his head in. “We leave in ten minutes.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and the computer is done analyzing your chocolate.”

  The four of them squealed and lunged toward the door. AJ held up a hand. “I warn you. You’re not going to like it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Four hours had passed since the computer spit out its results, and they’d spent most of that time pacing up and down the aisle in various stages of shock and confusion. According to Daisy, the computer had analyzed the Magic Bar and the bean three times. All three times it had come up with the same results.

  But the results were impossible. So now they were sprawled on their bunks, staring at the ceiling. AJ had recently parked at the campground where they’d be spending the night, but no one paid much attention. They were only vaguely aware that the sky had turned dark and that the scenery outside their small windows had stopped changing.

  “All right, zombie children,” AJ called out as he opened up the slides. They grabbed onto the edges of their bunks as the walls moved.

  “Time to stop zoning out,” he ordered, piling frozen meat, burger buns, and paper plates on the kitchen counter. “We have to deal with the facts at hand. First fact—we need to eat. Second fact—your parents and/or legal guardians will want to hear from you, so tell them something short and sweet about your wonderful event at The Candy Basket. Third fact—we have the next candy store visit tomorrow, and then we will have two days on the road. During that time, Mr. Violin Prodigy over there will try to prove he’s the most talented kid in the nation. One dead drop to complete, one last store to visit, then the long drive home.”

  “But what about the Harmonicandy?” Miles said, leaning over the side of his bunk.

  “What about it?” AJ said. “We’re at a dead end. Even if we wanted to track down those beans, it’s impossible. You know Harvey doesn’t actually have rocket boosters by the wheels.”

  “C’mon, AJ,” Daisy said, dropping lightly to the floor. “You don’t really think that report is correct, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he said. “Our computer system is the most accurate in the world. It’s never been wrong.”

  “Until now,” Philip said, still lying flat on his back, eyes squeezed shut. “Unless you believe this is actually what’s inside that bean?” Without opening his eyes, he thrust out his arm, the report clutched in his hand.

  AJ sighed, taking it. “Okay. Let’s go over this one more time. The analysis of the Magic Bar confirmed exactly what Logan had tasted. It contains two active ingredients—cocoa and sugar. On an elemental level, it is made of magnesium, iron, chromium, anandamide, theobromine, manganese, zinc, iridium, phenylethylamine, and tryptophan, plus glucose and fructose from the sugar.” AJ looked up from the page. “Does that sound like the right chemical composition for a chocolate bar?”

  No one answered. Logan cleared his throat. “I kind of tune out when Max starts talking about the periodic table.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Philip said, even though no one was.

  Miles pointed an anxious finger at the last item on the list. “You’re leaving out the big one.”

  AJ let his arm drop to his side. “C’mon, let’s go outside, get some fresh air. Maybe this will make more sense with clear heads.” No one moved. AJ narrowed his eyes. “That was not a suggestion.”

  Logan followed the others out. While their last campground had been very spread out, this one had trees between each campsite, which provided a lot more privacy. Each site had its own picnic table, fire pit, and grill, and Logan could smell the campfires around them, even if he couldn’t see them through the trees. He hoped AJ had stocked up on marshmallows.

  AJ flipped on Harvey’s outside lights and began heating up the grill while Daisy made a fire with some logs that she’d piled in her arms as if they weighed nothing. Miles was rereading the test results for the billionth time by
the light of a headlamp. He’d taken the miner’s hat from the closet and felt ready to go underground to dig for copper or iron or whatever people looked for in mines. Philip sat hunched over the picnic table, scribbling in his notebook. It was the first time Logan had seen him writing in it since they’d left the factory. He’d thought Philip had finished his original violin composition, but maybe not.

  Logan watched the activity from the steps of the RV. Since learning the test results, he’d kept pretty quiet. If he had to be completely honest, he’d started to miss his parents on a level so deep that it felt like a physical pain in his stomach. The wave of homesickness had begun when Daisy first read the results out loud. He couldn’t help thinking how his parents and Max and Henry should be a part of this—especially when Daisy got to the last line of the results. At first she’d stumbled over the words, clearly not believing them herself. Then she cleared her throat and tried again. “The final ingredient in the bean is… is… a microbe not found on Earth.”

  Stunned silence had followed her words. None of them could suggest any theories that made sense. Miles thought aliens must have brought the beans to Earth; Daisy proposed that the microbe might have been created in a lab; and Philip even dared to suggest that if it had been created in a lab, it couldn’t have been by Logan’s grandfather, so Sam must have stolen it.

  Logan hadn’t really thought the results would show them exactly where the beans came from, but he’d at least expected they would have narrowed it down to their own planet.

  “Are you okay?” AJ called over to him.

  “Not entirely,” he admitted.

  Wordlessly, Daisy handed him a stick with a marshmallow, and he instantly felt better. He joined her by the now-roaring campfire and held it over the flames.

  “Dinner is served,” AJ announced, flipping the last sizzling burger. While the boys chowed down and debated, Daisy took the opportunity to slip back into the RV. She didn’t particularly enjoy sneaking around behind her friends’ backs, but she didn’t want to get their hopes up in case her plan didn’t work.