The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase

  Then he thought about the contents of the box. As much as he wanted to learn about his grandfather’s early ideas, did he really want to spend a sunny summer afternoon sorting through them? Pulling apart delicate objects like newspapers was a task he usually avoided at all costs. Max tapped his foot and Logan decided. The contents of the box had sat for more than fifty years. They could wait a little longer.

  “I’ll be right there,” Logan promised Max. “Miles just arrived. I’m sure he’ll want to see the caramel, too.”

  “The more the merrier,” Max said, walking over to the group of visitors, who were now arguing about whether you could eat raw cocoa beans straight from the pod. (You could, but they tasted like dirt until fermented and roasted.)

  Logan began to use his foot to push the box behind the fountain, then hesitated. He undid the flaps, pulled out the letter addressed to him, and resealed the box. He shoved the letter deep into his pocket, pushed the box the rest of the way out of sight, and then ran to the front door. More cars were parked in the visitors’ lot than he’d seen in years. And this was the day before the big day!

  Miles sat on the front stoop on top of the old-fashioned tin milk jug that had been there forever. Logan had been right; Miles had indeed found something to distract him—a book. The jug, with its flat top, made a perfect seat for a boy.

  Miles held his book (How to Make Your Own Alphabet) right up to his face and hadn’t noticed Logan yet. Even though Logan was eager to see the caramel, he had learned that Miles entered another world when he was reading. So Logan sat down on the stoop beside Miles, pulled his knees to his chest, and waited for his friend to finish.

  This close to the jug, he could tell that some work had been done to it. After decades in the sun, the large white M-I-L-K across the middle had faded, and the letters hadn’t been legible for years. But now they were brighter and more distinct. The paint must have been touched up, along with the picture of a cow below the word. He leaned closer. Yes, it definitely looked fresher and newer.

  Logan wasn’t really surprised. The whole factory had been swept, scrubbed, waxed, and polished. Even the red brick walls had been power washed and regrouted. The brass and steel and glass had already sparkled; now they all gleamed. His mom had become a bit obsessed with how everything would appear to the guests, pretty much from the second they’d learned their factory would be the one producing the Harmonicandy. The rules didn’t specifically state that the honor (and a large percentage of the profits!) of producing the candy would go to the factory that had hosted the winner, but that’s what had happened every year so far.

  Miles gave a little gasp and burst out laughing.

  Logan grinned. “That must be a really funny book!”

  “Gnipael sdrazil!” Miles shouted. He jumped straight up, tripped over the milk jug, toppled backward off the stoop, and landed faceup in the rosebushes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was the faceup part that saved him.

  “Ouch!” Miles yelped as the factory nurse pulled the last thorn out of his thigh with her tweezers. Logan winced along with him. He had paged the nurse on his walkie-talkie as soon as Miles landed in the bushes. She’d run outside immediately, proving Logan’s point that she never had much to do.

  A few dabs of ointment later, Miles was deemed good to go. “Stay out of the bushes,” the nurse warned, rolling up her first-aid kit.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Miles said, pushing up his glasses. His cheeks were red, and Logan didn’t think the flush had come from the sun.

  “Sorry for startling you,” Logan said once they were alone. “I know how wrapped up you get in your books. I’m like that sometimes when I’m watching at the Cocoa Room window. An hour could go by and I’d swear it was a minute.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Miles said, rubbing the back of his leg. “I shouldn’t have been sitting there in the first place. I mean, I could have broken that old milk can thingy.”

  “I’ve sat on it for years,” Logan assured him, “and it hasn’t broken yet. Dad says they made things sturdier back in the day.”

  A dark blue spot was starting to spread from the pocket in Miles’s tan shorts. “Um, Miles?” Logan said, pointing to the spot. “I think your pen broke when you fell.”

  Miles looked down at his shorts. “Rats,” he said. “That was supposed to be a surprise.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bottle. Not a pen after all. Logan recognized it right away, even though he hadn’t seen one in years. “That’s disappearing ink!”

  Miles looked up in surprise. “You know about this?”

  Logan nodded. “My grandfather used to love those kinds of tricks. Explodable cigar, a pen that shocks you, itching powder.” He hadn’t thought about that in a long time. He smiled at the memory of his grandfather sprinkling itching powder down the collar of Avery’s shirt on his first day at work in the Tropical Room. Avery tried so hard not to squirm. Finally he leaned up against a cinnamon tree and rubbed his back up and down while trying to act natural. Logan would never forget the tiny strips of cinnamon bark wafting all around him in curly brown rings. Avery hadn’t forgotten it, either; he brought it up each year on Samuel Sweet’s birthday when all the workers gathered on the great lawn to share their favorite memories of Logan’s grandfather.

  The ink had gotten all over Miles’s hands now. “Looks like it’s cracked down the side,” Logan pointed out.

  Miles went over to his backpack, which had been propped against the porch step, and pushed the small bottle into a side pocket. He wiped his hands off on his shorts and grinned. “Good thing it disappears!” The original spot on his shorts was already almost gone. “Hey, you don’t see my book anywhere, do you?”

  Logan had a gift for spotting anything out of place, or missing, or extra. This talent came in very handy when helping out in the candy rooms and sometimes outside the candy world, too. It took him only a few seconds to spot the corner of Miles’s book between two raspberry bushes on the other side of the porch. He reached for it. “Too bad you didn’t fall off on this side. Instead of getting thorns in your legs, you could have had a snack.”

  “I’ll get it!” Miles said, darting in front of Logan. He quickly stuffed the book into his backpack. Logan stepped aside, a little hurt. Had Miles just assumed he’d drop it? He didn’t drop everything.

  “Want to hear something interesting?” Miles asked, heading inside the factory as though nothing weird had happened.

  Logan took a few seconds longer than usual to answer. They were standing in front of the statue of Samuel Sweet before he nodded.

  Miles whispered so the guests still milling around the front hallway wouldn’t hear him. “Turtles can breathe through their butts.”

  Logan looked at him. “Is that really true?”

  Miles nodded and grinned. Logan grinned back. The weird feeling about the book slipped away. “Hey, I have something to show you!” he said, remembering his grandfather’s box.

  “Okay, but then I have to get to the Advertising Room,” Miles said. “Sabrina and the others are going to pick the final slogan today.”

  “This won’t take long,” Logan promised. “You’re gonna love it.”

  Thankfully, the box seemed undisturbed. Miles leaned over Logan’s shoulder as he opened it. “This is my grandfather’s old research and stuff from when he was young,” Logan explained. “An old friend of his I’d never heard of before sent it to me.”

  Miles was already eagerly digging through the contents.

  “Wow!” he said in an awed whisper. “Notebooks and journals and newspapers and maps. Maps, Logan, maps!”

  “Glad you like it,” Logan said, pushing the box toward Miles.

  Miles’s eyes glowed as he looked up from the box. “Really?”

  “You can pull out the highlights for me. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

  Miles closed the box back up and clutched it to his chest. “Mine, all mine.”

  They both laughed. “Th
at’s settled, then,” Logan said. He was about to tell Miles about the caramel when his walkie-talkie buzzed and Max’s voice came through.

  “How’s it going, boys? We’re not getting any younger down here! Unless Miles wants to keep playing in Mrs. Sweet’s prized rosebushes?”

  Word traveled fast in the factory! Miles shook his head, reddening. “I’ve had plenty of thorns for today, thanks.”

  Logan pressed the Talk button and said, “Sorry, Max! I’ll be right there.”

  Dwarfed by the pack on his back and the box in his arms, Miles hurried down the hall. Now he was the man with the mission.

  “I’ll save you some caramel!” Logan called after him just as three chimes sounded over the factory loudspeaker. An announcement was coming on. Logan’s mom’s voice soon rang through the air.

  “We hope all our guests are having a very sweet time at Life Is Sweet today! Visiting hours are now over for the day, so please make your way toward the front or back doors. We have a lot of preparation to do for the Kickoff tomorrow, when the first Harmonicandy enters the world! We hope to see you all outside on the great lawn at noon!”

  Logan grinned as soon as he realized what his mom had just said. The public wouldn’t actually be there—in the room—when the Harmonicandy rolled down the belt! It would be a private moment after all, with no one whispering how it should have been the Bubbletastic ChocoRocket instead. The crowd would be waiting outside for the official presentation and sampling. Feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted off him, he ran all the way to the Harmonicandy Room, high-fiving anyone who reached out for him (and one person who, he was pretty sure, was waving to someone behind him).

  “I’m here!” he shouted as he pushed open the door. His dad, Max, and Randall stood behind the long conveyor belt that stretched from wall to wall. They stopped sorting through the stacks of cooking supplies laid out on the belt and broke into wide grins. Logan’s jaw dropped. He began turning around the room. The bright lights danced down upon the new brass and copper candy machines, some that reached nearly to the ceiling. Ingredients bubbled in large vats and small pots on burners at three different cooking stations. A jazzy tune played on what could only be a harmonica, the music filtered through small speakers built into the walls. This was most definitely the only room with harmonica music!

  But even with all there was to see (and hear), the thing that hit him the strongest was the incredible smell. Philip once joked that Logan had a nose like a dog, a species well known for being able to distinguish different odors easily. It was true that smelling and tasting went hand in hand, so it stood to reason that if Logan was good at one, he’d be good at the other. But someone didn’t need to have Logan’s heightened abilities to notice this scent.

  The room smelled like a combination of all the other candy rooms, and yet like something totally different at the same time. The shortbread cookie that formed the basis for the Harmonicandy gave the room a savory smell, more like food than candy. He picked up the earthiness of the dark chocolate, the salty, buttery sweetness of the caramel, the hint of vanilla. It was an irresistible combination. A lump formed in his throat. He had been a part of bringing this into being!

  The door opened behind him, and Henry walked in. His eyes widened. He inhaled deeply, and his chin began to quiver. Uh-oh. A second later came the waterworks. After all that work to get him to stop crying and now it was starting again! At least this time Logan knew the cause. And truly, he couldn’t really blame the man.

  Seeing Henry cry made Max start crying. Then the Candymaker joined in. That did it; Logan was done for. They all huddled together and sobbed and beamed at each other and laughed and sobbed some more.

  That was how Logan’s mom found them when she walked in. “Oh dear,” she said as she took in the scene. The men (and boy) quickly pulled apart and wiped away any remaining tears with their sleeves.

  Then they all started talking at once. Max and the Candymaker eagerly showed Logan and Henry where the Harmonicandy molds would go, how the chocolate would be piped in from the Cocoa Room and funneled directly to the enrober, how the wrappers would be affixed. Logan’s attention kept flying from place to place as he turned around in circles again, making himself dizzy with the wonder of it all.

  Finally Max brought out the copper pot with the caramel in it, and everyone gathered around in a circle. Logan could see why they had been so excited about this particular batch. The deep amber-brown color, the brittle candied edges, the swirl of the cream, the tiny dots of salt—it looked perfect. The Candymaker handed everyone a spoon. They all clinked them together in the air, then reached in for a taste.

  It may have been the best batch of fresh caramel Logan had ever tasted. And he’d tasted a lot of caramel. He knew what this meant—and so did the others. If the rest of the ingredients came out this well, the Harmonicandy was going to be huge.

  With a glint of rebellion in their eyes, they all dug their spoons back in, fully ignoring the factory’s rule against double-dipping. Laughter bubbled up inside them, and soon spoons were flying in and out of the pot as gooey strands of caramel dripped onto chins and splattered onto walls. At one point Logan’s spoon slipped from his fingers and into the bowl. He didn’t mind—more to lick off!

  Then the door swung open and everyone froze, like kids caught by Mom with their hands in the cookie jar.

  “I was told you wanted to see me?” Philip asked. Then he took one look around the room, dropped his briefcase with a thud, and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Logan remembered Daisy saying that musicians were, by their very nature, dramatic. They “felt their feelings” more strongly than regular folk. They had to, in order to translate emotion into musical notes and the notes back into emotion. He could now say with certainty that her theory was correct. He had seen Philip pitch fits before. He’d seen him shout, he’d seen him shut down, he’d even seen him cry. But this current outburst topped all of those.

  Philip’s eyes were so wide Logan couldn’t imagine how they were staying inside his head. He kept opening and closing his mouth, clearly at a loss for words, which was unlike him. Finally he wiped his eyes and shouted, “All this! Everything! Me! It’s real!” He gestured wildly around the room, pointing in turn at the conveyor belt, the Harmonicandy molds (where each stainless-steel tray had slots for forty candy bars), and the enrober, which would coat each harmonica with a stream of chocolate. He spent a full five minutes craning his neck back and pointing at the tubes that, as of tomorrow, would be filled with the Harmonicandy’s special blend of milk and dark chocolate.

  It took four spoonfuls of caramel and a really tight hug from Logan’s mother before Philip calmed down. Then he instantly began peppering the grown-ups with all kinds of questions. Had the machinery been properly tested? Were the molds to the exact specifications from the blueprints? Would the cleaning supplies be all-natural? How many Harmonicandies would be produced in a day? Was that too many for Quality Control to handle, or did they plan to hire more staff? And about a dozen more questions Logan would never have thought of, including one to the Candymaker about the price per unit versus per carton, and the profit margin after advertising and distribution costs. Logan had never thought about that last part in his entire life.

  Exhausted, Philip finally slumped on a stool in a corner of the room, taking deep breaths as if he’d just run the length of the factory. (Although the only time Logan had seen Philip run was when Max had sent them out to the chicken coop to collect some eggs, and a rooster had taken a liking to Philip and chased him clear across the field.)

  “Satisfied?” Henry asked Philip kindly.

  Logan had noticed over the last few months that Henry and Philip had built a special friendship. It didn’t make Logan jealous—that was an emotion he had no real experience with. He just found it interesting and wondered what it was about each of them that drew them together so easily, since they were such completely different people.

  “For
now,” Philip replied. “I’m sure I’ll have more concerns within the hour.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing them,” Max said with a grimace.

  The Candymaker stood off to one side and spoke into his walkie-talkie for a moment before clipping it back on his belt. “Miles will be joining us in a few minutes,” he announced. “Once he arrives, we have some very exciting news that will affect all our young candymakers.”

  Logan snapped his attention away from Philip. “Really?” Another surprise! And one for all of them together! This day had definitely taken a turn for the better.

  His dad patted Logan on the shoulder. “We wanted to tell Daisy in person, too, of course, but when we called her house this morning, her grandmother said she was out of the state for a while. I hope she’s somewhere fun. A lovely girl. So spirited.”

  “She’s at sleepaway camp,” Philip volunteered.

  Logan tried not to laugh. If he ever needed lessons on being able to lie on a moment’s notice, he would go to Philip. The idea of Daisy doing something as normal as going to camp, making art projects, and singing campfire songs with a hundred other girls was hilarious. Whatever secret mission she was on would be a lot more exciting than that. Before his dad could ask any more questions about Daisy that they wouldn’t be able to answer, Logan decided to change the subject. “What’s the surprise?” he asked. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.” For good measure, he added, “Pleeeeeease?”

  The Candymaker only shook his head. “Patience, my dear boy, patience.” Patience, like jealousy, was a character trait Logan spent little time entertaining. And who knew how long it might take Miles to get there. The boy was easily distracted. Logan turned to his mother. She could usually be relied on to cave in.