The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase

  Unfortunately, Williams was a very common last name. An online search of the telephone directory for his city listed eleven. Seven told him they had no one named Dylan in the family, he had to leave three messages, and one woman hung up on him, claiming that she “gave at the office,” whatever that meant.

  He crossed the last name off the list and marched over to the kitchen drawer where he stashed his candy. After only a second’s hesitation, he popped a piece of grape taffy into his mouth. He still remembered the shock and horror that had gone around the Taffy Room when he tossed that piece back to Max on the first day of the contest. Every time he ate it now felt like an apology.

  His phone rang and he grabbed it quickly, assuming it was one of the families calling him back.

  “Hello?” he said, pushing the taffy to one cheek so his words wouldn’t slur.

  “Philip?” a man’s deep voice asked.

  “Yes, this is Philip. Are you Dylan’s father?”

  “Sorry, don’t know a Dylan,” the man said. “It’s Richard Sweet. Do you have a minute?”

  Philip sat up straighter, even though of course the Candymaker couldn’t see him through the phone. He wished he’d changed out of his pajamas! Usually he put on clothes right away. Only lazy people wore pajamas out of bed, and Philip had no patience for lazy people. He swallowed the taffy. “Of course, sir. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is wonderful,” Mr. Sweet boomed cheerfully. “You all set for the big day tomorrow?”

  Philip hadn’t even thought about it all morning. He really needed to get his head straight. But he answered, “Yes, it’s very exciting.”

  “It certainly is!” Mr. Sweet agreed. “Logan told me you had a visit to the dentist this morning. Everything go okay?”

  “Yes, false alarm,” Philip said, his stomach twisting. He’d have to remember not to lie to people he cared about. He knew he shouldn’t lie to anyone, but that would be asking too much of himself. Cutting it down from five a day to four would be a good start.

  “Glad to hear you got a good report,” Mr. Sweet said. “Did you know it’s not sugar itself that causes cavities but the bacteria that feeds on the sugar left behind on your teeth?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t.” Philip hoped the whole conversation wasn’t going to be about teeth.

  “Yup. So make sure you brush and floss at least two or three times a day.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “Good! The reason for my call—I’m hoping you can come by the factory after lunch today. The final contract is ready for you to sign, and we have a big announcement for you and the other kids.”

  Normally a surprise announcement would be fun, but he’d had enough surprises lately. He wasn’t sure he could take many more. He wasn’t sure about going to the factory, either. Even though after talking to Daisy last night he felt a little better about things, he still didn’t want to be the center of attention. But Philip couldn’t say no to a direct request from the man in charge, and signing that contract was important. “Okay,” he said. “Reggie will take me.”

  “Can you bring your father this time?” the Candymaker asked. “He’ll have to sign off on the paperwork, too.”

  “He will?” Philip asked, his heart sinking.

  There was a pause on the other end. “Philip, your father does know what you’re planning to do with your portion of the profits, doesn’t he?”

  Philip’s silence gave him away.

  The Candymaker’s sigh was long and loud. “All right. I’ll give you the contract to take home, and you can discuss it with him. When the first Harmonicandy goes on sale in a few weeks, this agreement needs to be in place.”

  “Yes, sir,” Philip said, dreading the conversation he’d need to have with his father.

  “Of course, you’re welcome to change your mind. No one but us knows about it.”

  “No,” Philip said firmly. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “All right, son. I’ll see you after lunch, then.”

  The Candymaker hung up, but Philip sat gripping the phone. Son. Mr. Sweet had said it with such affection. Philip knew nothing he could do would undo what had happened at the factory all those years ago. But now he could help make it better. He couldn’t let his dad stop him.

  He finished the omelet Marietta made him (it tasted a lot better than her pancakes, so he didn’t have to lie when he told her so). He still had a few hours before he needed to be at the factory. He checked his phone one more time to make sure he didn’t miss a call from Dylan. No luck.

  On his way to get dressed, Philip stopped by Andrew’s room. His brother must not have picked up any bad habits at college, because his room was as neat and organized as it had always been. A few more books filled the bookcase, and a college sweatshirt lay folded at the foot of his perfectly made bed, but other than that it looked the same as when he was away.

  Philip stood there for a minute, deciding whether snooping around might give him any more clues about their mother’s parents. He’d had all year to snoop through his brother’s room without fear of discovery, and he hadn’t needed to. Now Andrew had been home ten hours and here Philip was, debating right from wrong.

  So on the “wrong” side, people deserved their privacy, and he wouldn’t want someone digging around in his stuff. But on the “right” side, his brother had dangled this really big news about their family and then pulled it back. Or he’d made it up in the first place just to be mean. Either way, if anyone was in the wrong, it was Andrew.

  Mind made up, Philip began to inch forward. He made it halfway to the desk before he stopped again. Did he really think he’d find years’ worth of letters between Andrew and some probably imaginary grandmother? And what if he did? Would he want to know someone who clearly hadn’t wanted to know him for nearly thirteen years? He took two steps toward the door, then pivoted, went right for the desk, and opened up each drawer. Nothing unusual jumped out at him among the school papers and old certificates. He hadn’t really expected it to. He closed the drawers carefully. Well, at least now he could stop thinking about it. It wasn’t even lunchtime, and he was totally stressed out! Even more than usual!

  While he still was uncomfortable with the pull his violin had on him, Philip had to admit that when he played, all other thoughts and worries flew from his head. Since neither his father nor Andrew was due home soon, he decided to risk playing his violin in the middle of the day.

  But when he got down to the storage room, it wasn’t the violin that called to him. He walked straight toward his mother’s boxes. Last night he’d gotten through most of them while searching for his mother’s Chocolate Mint Squares recipe. Now that he had learned so much from Max and the others at the factory about baking, he wanted to make his mom’s special recipe and bring it to everyone to sample. But the only recipe he’d found was one for homemade cucumber face cream, and that didn’t sound very tasty.

  He knelt in front of the last two unopened boxes and began sorting through them. Pretty much more of the same—books, clothes, a deck of playing cards, old makeup, some loose change. The last box contained two photo albums labeled OUR FAMILY. The living room walls used to display a few family photos of them doing regular family stuff, like playing at the beach and posing next to a fountain while on vacation. Over the years they had been replaced with pictures of him or his brother holding up a trophy, and a few of their father shaking hands with important people. If Philip closed his eyes, he could still see his mother in those old pictures, but his memory of her face had grown dim. He put the albums aside, definitely not ready to stir up old memories that had lain safely buried for nearly a decade.

  Under the albums lay some art supplies—half-used tubes of paint, pencils with broken tips, a sketchpad. Reggie had told him once that when she first got sick, his mother took up art to keep her calm. If she’d ever actually completed any paintings, Philip had never found traces of them. He’d also never come across any sheet music for the violin she’d left beh
ind. Maybe she’d only thought about playing it but never actually learned how.

  After he lifted out a small plastic bin filled with Magic Markers and colored pens, only one item remained at the bottom of the box—a black fabric pouch. Judging by the shape and the length of the straps, it seemed made to attach around someone’s waist. Philip started to toss it aside when a thin, dark blue pocket-sized notebook slid out. Could his mother have written the recipe in there? Or had she kept some sort of journal?

  His heart thumped a little faster. What secrets would he uncover if he opened it? All he’d wanted was to find one chocolate recipe to impress his friends with his newly acquired candymaking skills. Now he had uncovered two photo albums and a secret journal. He really wasn’t emotionally prepared for this.

  He tried to slip the notebook back into the pouch, but his fingers seemed to have trouble letting go of it. Should he call Daisy again for advice? She hadn’t been very helpful with the ball of wool, even though that wasn’t what he’d really called about. He didn’t know how to ask her to keep him company while he looked through his mom’s stuff. That was just too weird. And anyway, there was that whole “on fire” thing, so he really shouldn’t bug her again.

  He decided he’d look at the cover to see what his mom had written there. It wouldn’t mean he’d have to open it. He took a deep breath and flipped the notebook over to the front. To his surprise, it wasn’t a secret, hidden journal after all. It wasn’t even a notebook. He was holding his mother’s passport. He’d never seen one up close before, or he’d have recognized it earlier. On the rare occasions when he and Andrew went along on a business trip, their father always held on to all the passports.

  Did he need to know if his mom went to Rome for her eighteenth birthday? Or to Aruba on her honeymoon? He flipped the passport back into the box, picked up his violin, and played until his right elbow ached and all other thoughts flew away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Philip had just put the ice pack away in the freezer when his phone rang. “Hello?” he said, hurrying out of the kitchen, where Marietta was busy making lunch.

  “Can I speak to Philip?” a girl’s voice asked.

  “Daisy?” he asked, surprised.

  “No, I’m looking for Philip,” the girl said. “Philip Ransford?”

  “Huh?” he asked, confused. “Is this Daisy?” It didn’t sound like her, but what other girl would be calling him?

  “No,” the girl said. “It’s Dylan. Dylan Williams. You called my house looking for me?”

  Philip sat down on the closest chair. Dylan Williams was a girl! “Oh!” he said. “Sorry! Yes, this is Philip. Thank you for calling me back. I got your letter.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d ever see it!” she said, suddenly sounding a little breathless. “You must get so much fan mail. I can’t believe I’m really talking to you!”

  “Um…” Philip didn’t know how to respond to that. “Jumping right in, you wrote in your letter that you read my contest essay. How did you get it? I thought it was private.”

  “Oh!” she said, sounding surprised at the question. “Well, I guess it’s sort of private. The winning essay only goes up after the contest has been over for a few months. And only members of the Confectionary Association can see it. My dad works at Fudge on a Stick, so I logged into the network one day when I went to visit him at the store.”

  “Fudge… Fudge on a Stick?” Philip repeated.

  “He’s worked there ten years,” she said proudly.

  “Do they sell other things on sticks? Other than fudge, I mean?”

  “No,” she replied. “Why would they do that?”

  Philip filed the name in the back of his mind so he could tell the others. They’d get a kick out of it, for sure. But for now he had to get to the bottom of the situation. “Let’s get back to my application,” he said. “It’s supposed to be private. Can you go back and delete it for me?”

  “But it’s so beautiful,” she insisted. “I read the winning essay each year, and trust me, yours was the best I ever read. Why would you want to delete it?”

  Philip, although flattered, blurted out loudly, “Because it’s full of lies!”

  The other end of the phone went quiet. Philip closed his eyes and leaned against the back of the couch. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  When she didn’t reply again, he feared she’d hung up. He couldn’t help thinking of something Andrew had warned him about once—that you should never meet your idols, because they will disappoint you. Guess he’d proved that one right.

  “Only the Confectionary Association can take it down on their end,” she finally said, her voice flat. “Why don’t you call and ask.”

  And then she really did hang up.

  Hadn’t Dylan heard the expression If you don’t ask, they can’t tell you no? Philip knew immediately that asking was not an option. If he found a way to pull it down himself, the organization would assume it was a computer glitch. But if he pulled it down once they’d already said no, he would be the prime suspect. Of course, they might just say yes, but he couldn’t take that chance.

  He went back to his room and called Daisy. In the thirty seconds she allotted him, he explained as much as he could of the story and asked if she could hack into the system and delete all traces of his essay. She said he would need to be hardwired into the computer network, but she agreed to have her friend Courtney lend him some kind of gadget that would allow him to do it himself from Life Is Sweet’s central computer. “To be clear,” she added, sounding very distracted, “I’m not advising you to do this, but I know how determined you get. At least this way I won’t have to worry about what you might come up with on your own.” The address of where to meet Courtney popped up on the bottom of Philip’s screen. Daisy signed off by saying, “Don’t get caught. And if you do, forget my name.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  With five minutes to spare, the limo pulled into the empty parking lot at the rear of what used to be the Spring Haven High School before the school moved to a bigger location across town. “Can you give me a hint about what we’re doing here?” Reggie called over his shoulder. “All you’ve given me so far is ‘Reggie, essay, car, now!’ That leaves room for a lot of questions.”

  Philip peered out the rear window. He could see the back of the school on one side and the football field on the other. “You don’t want to know,” he replied. He had given Reggie that answer dozens—if not hundreds—of times in the past. It kept them both safer when Reggie didn’t know the details of Philip’s schemes. Reggie didn’t even know Daisy was a spy, and Philip planned to keep it that way.

  “Fine,” Reggie grumbled. “But it’s not against the law, right?”

  Philip shifted in his seat. “Define against the law.”

  Reggie sighed. “Is it likely to land you or both of us in jail?”

  Philip shook his head and lied. “Definitely not.”

  Reggie pulled into the farthest spot in the lot and turned off the car. “Good. Let’s wait outside. You could use the fresh air.”

  “I get plenty of fresh air,” Philip said, not budging.

  “No, you don’t,” Reggie replied. “Then we’re getting out so we don’t look so suspicious sitting in an abandoned parking lot.”

  “I told you we didn’t need to take the limo,” Philip grumbled.

  “I have to pick up your father from his meeting soon. You know he prefers I pick him up in this car.”

  His dad certainly did like to impress. Philip climbed out and leaned against the car, staring at the entrance to the parking lot.

  “What, you no longer wait for me to open the door for you?” Reggie joked, joining him.

  “I can get back in again if you want me to,” Philip replied tartly.

  Reggie shook his head. “I’m good.”

  They waited for another minute, but no cars turned in. Philip decided if he was the nail-biting type (which he absolutely was not), he would be biting them to the quick at that poi
nt.

  “I need to pick your father up from his meeting in a few minutes,” Reggie said. “Any chance we can hurry this along?”

  “She’ll be here any second,” Philip promised. He checked his watch. She was late. Or she would be in exactly forty-one seconds.

  “I’m glad you’re not swayed by current fashion trends,” Reggie said, glancing at Philip’s wrist. “Most kids today check their electronic devices for the time.”

  “I’m not most kids,” Philip replied.

  “No, you are not,” Reggie agreed. “You haven’t asked, but no, I didn’t find any more letters that talked about your essay.”

  “That’s good,” Philip said. “Shouldn’t be a problem after today anyway. Unless we’re being stood up.”

  “You’re not being stood up,” a girl’s voice said from behind them. They both whirled around to find themselves facing a teenage girl on a huge black horse. She must have ridden across the field and approached them from the back. He should have figured a friend of Daisy’s wouldn’t arrive in the normal fashion.

  She swung down from the horse in one graceful move. She was taller than she’d appeared, with long blond hair that she swept off her shoulders with one hand. He thought he smelled grapefruit.

  He forced himself to stop staring at her hair, which fell in waves almost all the way to her waist. Reggie gave a little chuckle. Philip nudged him with his elbow. “Some privacy, please?”

  Reggie held up his hands and backed away. Philip waited until the car door fully closed again before turning back to the girl.

  “You’re Courtney?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Password?”

  “Password?”

  She took a rolled-up envelope out of her pocket. “I can’t give you this without a password. You could be anyone.”