The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase

  She seemed surprised by the question. “I guess I just meant that iridium is one of those minerals that they think came to Earth from space in meteorites. Like when that asteroid or comet wiped out the dinosaurs, one of the ways they figured it out was by dating all the iridium found buried at this huge crater site, and it was the same time period when the dinosaurs went extinct, sixty-six million years ago.”

  Philip felt his heart begin to beat faster. Logan grabbed on to one of his arms, and Miles the other. “Are you saying,” Philip said slowly, “that if a plant or something has iridium in it, that plant would have had to grow somewhere a meteorite had landed?”

  She nodded. “I think so. You can find an impact site with—”

  “A metal detector!” Miles said.

  Ally nodded.

  “Thank you for the science lesson,” Logan said. “We should let you go. You have lots of fans.” He pointed behind them at the line of fifth graders holding autograph books and pens.

  Ally blushed in the dark when she saw them. “Okay, that’s a little weird.”

  Unable to help himself, Miles threw his arms around Ally. Logan and Philip joined in. “Um, thanks, guys?” she said, peeling herself out of the group hug. “It was great meeting you, too.”

  Philip straightened up first, and they all hurried back toward the rows of chairs. “I’ll deny that hug happened if questioned.”

  “Me too,” Logan said.

  “Not me,” Miles said happily.

  AJ and Daisy were walking toward them. “That girl Mia told me to tell you good luck at the competition,” Daisy told Philip. “She said if any of the judges have synesthesia, you’ll win for sure once they hear you play.”

  “That’s nice, but listen,” Philip said. “We have to tell you something really important.”

  Daisy felt a shiver run through her. Had the boys picked up the final test results while she and AJ weren’t looking? She felt like it was her job to tell them what she found, and they knew already? She searched their faces. They seemed flushed, but in an excited way, not a totally freaked out way. And anyway, the results couldn’t have arrived, since they’d had to turn off everything that carried an electric current. She relaxed a tiny bit. “What is it?” she said cautiously.

  Logan answered. “Do we happen to have any metal detectors lying around?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I know it’s back here somewhere,” AJ muttered, digging through the storage room. Since it was too late to find a campground, they were parked for the night in the back of a giant superstore that allowed RVs to stay over, probably in the hopes that the passengers would go in and buy stuff. Which, if AJ couldn’t find the metal detector, was exactly what they’d have to do.

  Aurora wandered in with one of AJ’s socks in her mouth and plopped it at Daisy’s feet. “Seriously?” Daisy said. “You want me to play fetch with AJ’s smelly old sock? Didn’t anyone tell you you’re a cat?”

  “My feet do not smell,” AJ said without turning around.

  “I can smell them from here,” Daisy said.

  “Hey, why do you have a pair of stilts?” Miles asked, pulling out anything that might be shaped like a metal detector. “Planning on going undercover in a circus?”

  Daisy glanced at the stilts fondly. “AJ once had to shoot me out of a cannon at the state fair.”

  AJ nodded, his head stuck in a box filled, oddly enough, with sock puppets. “Good times.”

  “Yes, they were,” she agreed.

  “I found it!” Miles shouted. He held up the very high-tech-looking metal detector with a computer screen by the handle and a gold coil on the end. It had been wedged between a skateboard and an inflatable pillow in the shape of a sun. This was a strange room.

  They rejoined Philip and Logan, who were currently arguing over what their next step should be. They were comparing Daisy’s notes with the information on iridium and meteorites that Philip had jotted down in the margins of a brochure he’d picked up at the ceremony. It advertised something called a Messier Marathon at the campground where those Team Exo kids lived.

  “So, what have you got?” AJ asked. “And I don’t need to point out how far past your bedtimes it is.”

  Philip answered first. “We need to look for meteorite impact sites within a hundred miles of their hometown of Brookdale, which is likely where they would have gone camping. Then we go there, use the metal detector to pick up any traces that might be left, find the hidden valley, and find the tree. The end.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Daisy said, hopping onto the trampoline for some much-needed exercise. “But if cocoa beans grow only in tropical weather, how could the tree be anywhere within even a thousand miles?”

  Philip shook his head. “I don’t know. But Evy definitely didn’t make it seem like they traveled to the equator.”

  “What about that microclimate effect Ally was talking about?” Miles asked. “Where the telescope was located had a cold and clear microclimate, but what if there could be a tropical one, and that’s where the beans grew?”

  “I may not know a huge amount about the world,” Logan said, “but Brookdale is only about an hour away from Spring Haven. If there was some kind of tropical oasis anywhere nearby, I think we would have heard of it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Miles said, “but Evy mentioned hiding things in plain sight. Maybe that’s what she meant? It’s right in front of us, but we don’t notice it?”

  “I never really agreed with that theory,” Philip said.

  “Wait a minute!” Miles suddenly shouted. “What if the tree has been in the Tropical Room all this time? Doesn’t get more ‘in plain sight’ than that!”

  Logan shook his head. “Not possible. I know every inch of that place. Plus Henry wouldn’t have sent us on the road.”

  Miles sagged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Logan patted him on the shoulder. “Good thinking, though.”

  AJ stood and stretched. “Look, we all need to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.” He plucked the brochure from Philip. “I’ll do some research tonight.”

  Daisy started laughing. “Look at your cat, Philip. She wants you to play fetch.”

  “For the millionth time, she’s not my cat. What is that in her mouth?” He reached down and wrestled what appeared to be a small twig from between Aurora’s sharp teeth. He held it up and turned it around. The bark had come off, and the smooth wood beneath looked like it had been carved, with small humps and indentations along one side.

  “Strange,” Miles said, taking it from him. “It almost looks like a big key. Where did she find it?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Philip said. “Outside, I guess.”

  “She hasn’t been outside in a while,” Miles said, mesmerized by the odd stick.

  Logan wasn’t paying much attention to the discussion about the stick. He was busy thinking about the only thing he hadn’t told the others—the information Evy had whispered to him when she hugged him, about Sam’s use of the beans one other time. It probably didn’t mean anything, but then why did she whisper it just to him? Should he tell them anyway, though? Was his loyalty to her and to the memory of his grandfather, or was it to his friends? Couldn’t it be to both?

  Logan shifted his attention back to his friends, and that’s when he finally took a real look at the stick. “Hey, that looks familiar,” he said. “I thought it was in my suitcase.”

  “You carry sticks in your suitcase?” Philip asked.

  “Just the one,” Logan replied, taking it from Miles.

  “I must have missed that on your mom’s packing list,” Miles joked. “It’s cool, though. I can see why you wanted to bring it.”

  “Actually,” Logan said, turning the stick over in his hands, “I just grabbed it to have something from the factory grounds. I didn’t get a chance to look at it too closely. She can play with it, though.” He tossed the stick back down to Aurora, who reached for it with her paws.
AJ snatched it up first, though.

  “This isn’t a stick,” he said. “It’s a map!”

  “What?” they all replied. Daisy stopped jumping.

  “Where did you find this?” AJ asked Logan.

  Logan thought back to his search. “I think it was by some trees, down by the picnic tables. Yes, it was right before I ran into Miles.”

  “Strange place for something like this to turn up,” AJ said. “Primitive people used to carve maps of their local geography onto wood—coastlines, usually.” He held the stick up for them. “On this one, these bumps look like hills or some other natural formation, and these two long lines indicate the edges of the property, and then this little nick would mean water, like a stream or a brook.”

  Miles gasped. “Could it be a river?”

  “I don’t see why not,” AJ said.

  Miles flew over to the drawer where he’d stashed his stuff and dug to the bottom to find the Map of Awe. “Look!” he said, spreading it out next to the stick. Now it was everyone else’s turn to gasp. The features on the map lined up exactly with the carvings on the stick!

  “I don’t understand,” Daisy said. “Logan found this random stick, and it happens to match this map perfectly?”

  Miles shook his head. “The stick isn’t random. When I was going through Sam’s box, a few kids were playing around there and they tossed in some sticks and rocks. I must have tossed that one out with the others, and Logan found it!”

  As they looked from one item to the next, there was little doubt that must have been what happened. Daisy asked what they were all wondering. “Could this be where the beans are?”

  “There aren’t any cocoa trees on the map, though,” Logan said, peering at it. “And really, that picture could describe anywhere.”

  “I’ll compare the geography to satellite photos,” AJ said, “and then cross-reference it with reports of meteorite findings. Although if I had to guess, most of those aren’t noticed or reported. There didn’t happen to be a return address on this box, did there?”

  Logan and Miles looked at each other. “There was,” Logan said. “I don’t remember it, though.”

  “I didn’t even look,” Miles admitted. “But I’ll ask my parents to check. No, wait—they’re away for a few days, celebrating not having to take care of me!”

  AJ turned to Logan. “You said you did get a look at the address?”

  Logan nodded.

  “Okay, if you’re willing, I can help you remember. Everyone get ready for bed, and then we’ll give it a try.”

  “You expect us to sleep when all this exciting stuff is happening?” Miles asked.

  “I do,” AJ said. “I plan on running for chaperone of the year.”

  “I’d vote for you,” Logan said, patting him on the shoulder.

  Half an hour later they were all tucked into their bunks, showered, teeth brushed. The cat had been fed. AJ turned out the lights, then sat on the floor between the bunks. The streetlights from the parking lot glowed yellow through the window shades. In her upper bunk Daisy rolled over to face the wall. She threw her noise-canceling blanket over her head and turned on her vid com. The message light from the outside lab had been blinking for an hour, but she’d been ignoring it. She couldn’t do that forever, though. It was time to hit Play.

  “You’re not going to hypnotize him, are you?” Miles asked. “This kid in my class’s friend’s brother once went to a birthday party in River Bend, or Willow Falls, where a hypnotist made this boy cluck like a chicken every time he heard the word balloon. That kid’s probably still clucking!”

  “No hypnotizing,” AJ promised. “I just want you to think back to when you first saw the box. Of all the senses, smell is a very strong memory jogger. What did the room smell like?”

  “I hope you weren’t in the bathroom when you got the box!” Philip said. AJ shushed him, but the others giggled.

  “Marshmallows,” Logan said. “And butter and vanilla.”

  “Good,” AJ said. “Focus on the smell, and put yourself back in the room. Feel the seat you were sitting on, feel the box in your hands, see the color of the ink on the address. Do you remember what you were thinking when you saw it?”

  Logan nodded in the dark. “I remember thinking that it was strange that Henry claimed it was too smudged to read, because it wasn’t. Guess now I know why he said it. He really couldn’t read it.”

  “See yourself looking at the address and thinking about what you just told me. What else do you remember?”

  Logan thought. “I remember thinking that I didn’t know anyone who lived near there. And then I thought maybe it was a present from Daisy.”

  “Great, okay, we’re getting close. Now try to put yourself right back inside your body when you were looking down at the address. Pretend you’re reading it for the first time.”

  Logan squeezed his eyes tighter and tried to focus on each line of the address. There were only two. He tried to glide his eyes past the numbers. It was the town and street that mattered most. Suddenly it was right there in front of him. He could see the address! It wasn’t a street—it was a post office box! He lurched up in bed, his head skimming the bottom of Philip’s bunk. “I’ve got it!”

  Miles shouted, “Yay!” Philip snored. Only silence came from Daisy’s bunk.

  Without talking, AJ turned on his vid com and handed it to Logan. The screen lit up, so he could see well enough to type in the dark. He typed in what he remembered, hoping it was accurate.

  “Great job,” AJ said. “You get some sleep and I’ll get to work.” He tucked away the vid com and headed toward his bedroom. As he passed by Daisy, he saw she had a noise-canceling blanket over her head. Even though he couldn’t hear anything, he had the distinct impression she was crying.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Daisy stumbled up to the Control Center and crawled into the passenger seat. “What time is it?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “Why are we driving in the dark? Did you sleep at all? Did you find out anything? Where are we going?”

  “Are you going to just keep asking questions,” AJ asked, “or do you actually want me to answer any of them?”

  “Answer.”

  “Okay, then. The time is five thirty in the morning. We’re driving in the dark because we have a long way to go, and we’ll have the road to ourselves for a little while. I slept about four hours. Yes, I found out lots of stuff. And as for where we’re going, we’re going to find those beans, and we’re going to cure Logan’s scars and restore Henry’s eyesight.”

  Now Daisy was wide awake. “We are? You believe it, then? You’re such a skeptic. I saw you roll your eyes in Evy’s dressing room.”

  “Saw that, did ya?”

  She nodded. “What changed your mind?”

  He pointed to his nose. “I took a bite of the Magic Bar. I can smell now.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “No! Really?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s amazing!” she said. “And a relief. I was afraid I’d have to send you off to a farm where all the broken-down spies go.”

  “Funny,” he said.

  She grinned. “I try. But seriously, that’s great.”

  He glanced sideways at her, then back to the dark road. The sky hadn’t yet begun to lighten. AJ took a deep breath. “Daisy, I need to say something. I know you got the official test results back last night, and you learned for sure that I’m not your brother. I know you were crying about it, but you don’t need to worry. I’ll always have your back, and you can always hide my toothbrush.”

  Daisy focused on the white lines on the road. A minute passed before she spoke. “You’re right,” Daisy said. “You’re not my brother. And you’re right, I was bummed about it. But that’s not why I was upset last night. One of the pairs I tested really did turn up a positive match. The computer didn’t give us false information.”

  AJ let up on the gas. “Are you serious?”

  Daisy nodded. “Trust me, I freaked o
ut, too. I have news that will literally change the lives of people I care a lot about. Maybe you and Grammy and my parents were right. Getting involved with friendships outside the mansion is dangerous.”

  “Well, it’s too late now, Oopsa. You’re in deep. When are you going to share the results?”

  Daisy sank down in the seat. “I was thinking maybe you could? You have that whole charm thing going on.”

  AJ laughed. “Nice try.”

  “Yeah, figured that was a long shot.”

  They rode in comfortable silence for another half hour. The rearview mirror gradually began to glow with reds and oranges as the sun rose behind them. Daisy read a book, did some yoga in the back bedroom, wrote to Courtney and Grammy. The boys didn’t start waking up until close to nine, by which time the highway had turned to back roads and then to dusty lanes that spit up brownish-red dirt at them. They didn’t pass many other cars or people walking, but those they did pass always did a double take. Daisy had rejoined AJ upfront. “Um, Harvey’s kind of attracting a lot of attention, ya know?”

  “I agree,” AJ said. “I’ll pull over soon. We’re almost there.”

  Miles shuffled up to the front and plopped down in the seat behind Daisy. They’d just entered a small downtown area with a few shops, a gas station, and a restaurant or two. He shaded his eyes from the sun. The colors looked muted in this town—the awnings over the shops, the posters in their windows. Maybe it was the bright sun that did it, but everything looked old. He could swear a tumbleweed rolled by. “Where are we?”

  “We’re at our first stop of the day,” AJ said. He made a right turn past a tiny post office and drove a few blocks down the street before pulling into the parking lot of a small playground with a pond, two ducks, and a rowboat moored to a metal pole.

  “Hey, Miles,” Daisy said, “remember when you were allergic to rowboats?”