The Candymakers

  Miles reached out to touch a horse, which still had flecks of gold and red on its mane. “I don’t remember it from the picnic,” Miles said. “But it’s… it’s really cool.”

  Suddenly Logan realized why Miles had reacted so strangely. He slapped his forehead. “Duh! You’re allergic to merry-go-rounds! You told us at lunch yesterday, and I totally forgot. Sorry!”

  “It’s okay. I think I’m getting over my allergy.” Turning away from the merry-go-round, Miles said, “We’d better get back.”

  This time they ran around the cornfields, not through them. Logan let Miles set the pace, let him lead them all the way to the back entrance of the factory. Before they went in, though, Miles surprised him by ducking over to the bush where the butterfly chrysalis hung. They bent down to look.

  At first Logan didn’t see it. He moved some leaves aside and then realized he couldn’t see the glossy white clump hanging among the branches because it was lying on the ground, broken open.

  He’d missed it. Again. Logan scanned the nearby bushes for signs of black, yellow, and red wings but could find none.

  “I’m sorry,” Miles said softly.

  “It’s okay,” Logan said, trying to hide his disappointment. “There’s always next year, right?”

  “Right. And I’m sure you’ll see him around here soon. Sometimes things can be right in front of you and you don’t see them. Then suddenly you do.”

  “You think so?”

  Miles nodded.

  Logan wasn’t so sure, but he hoped Miles was right.

  By the time they got up to the apartment, both sets of parents were there to greet them.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Logan told his mom as he tried to ignore the cramp in his side from running.

  “Actually, you’re right on time,” Miles’s dad replied. “We got here early.”

  Miles’s mom looked just as Logan would have guessed. She was short, with dark, straight hair and glasses, which made her look smart, just like Miles. She had the same tired circles under her eyes as her husband.

  His mom outdid herself with the meal. She had prepared six different dishes, all from ingredients produced at the factory. And for Miles’s dad, his own personal chocolate pizza. The man seemed so happy, Logan thought he might ask to move in! Then a thought occurred to him. “Mom? Can Miles sleep over tonight? Since we have to leave so early tomorrow and everything?” He turned to Miles and said, “I mean, if you want to.”

  Miles nodded eagerly. They waited for both sets of parents to answer.

  “We’d love to have Miles stay,” Logan’s mom replied. “I’ll make sure to give him a big pancake breakfast before the contest.”

  “Miles is allergic to pancakes, Mom.”

  Miles’s parents lifted their eyebrows, and Miles gave a weak smile.

  “Oh. Well, I’m sure I can find something else,” Logan’s mom said.

  “So can I stay, Mom?” Miles asked.

  His parents exchanged a glance. “It’s okay with us,” his mom answered. “But what about pajamas? And clothes for the contest?”

  “He can borrow mine,” Logan said. “I have some stuff that’ll fit.”

  The Candymaker raised his glass of cocoa. “To new friendships,” he boomed.

  “To new friendships,” the others repeated, clinking glasses.

  Then the Candymaker asked, “Do you want to take your sleeping bags to the Tropical Room and sleep down there?”

  Logan’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? But it’s not my birthday!”

  Everyone laughed. “The night before the big contest is a special occasion,” his father said. “Just make sure you two get some sleep. You’ll want to be sharp tomorrow.”

  Logan could barely sit still for the rest of the dinner, which seemed to drag on and on. Seriously, grown-ups found the most boring things to talk about, although judging from the laughter and refills of cocoa, they must not have thought so. He and Miles kept sharing frustrated glances.

  Finally Miles’s dad said, “Thank you for this lovely meal. I’m afraid if we stay any longer I may need another chocolate pizza!” He pushed back his chair, and the others followed.

  “It was our pleasure,” Logan’s mom assured him. “We don’t have visitors very often.”

  An awkward silence fell, making Logan even more anxious to get moving. Finally Miles’s mom stepped over to Miles and gave him an extra-long hug. Miles eventually pulled away, clearly embarrassed.

  After another ten minutes of small talk at the door, during which Logan thought he might scream, the O’Learys finally left. Logan’s mom went with them so they wouldn’t get lost.

  As soon as the door clicked closed, his dad said, “Well, what are you boys waiting for? Get going!”

  Logan didn’t have to be told twice. In five minutes flat, he yanked down two sleeping bags from the hall closet and filled a duffel bag with pajamas, toiletries, towels, snacks, a battery-operated alarm clock, and two flashlights. “I’m ready!” he announced, slinging the bag over his shoulder.

  Miles slipped his backpack over his shoulder and tucked a rolled-up sleeping bag under each arm.

  “Do you want to take a walkie-talkie with you?” the Candymaker asked, holding one out.

  Logan shook his head. “We’ll be fine. If I need to reach you, I’ll use the intercom.”

  “What if we need to reach you? ” the Candymaker asked. Then, seeing Logan’s pained expression, he laughed and said, “Okay, we’ll leave you alone. Be good. And no climbing the trees, or I’ll never hear the end of it from your mother!”

  “Don’t worry,” Logan assured him. “We’ll see you in the morning.” Before the Candymaker could issue any more orders, Logan and Miles hurried out the door.

  “Have you ever slept in the Tropical Room before?” Miles asked as they made their way through the darkened factory. Small lights set into the ceiling shed enough light to see by, but only barely. They had to watch their steps carefully.

  Logan nodded. “Each year on my birthday, but never without one of my parents.”

  As they turned the corner by the lab, they nearly bumped into Logan’s mother on her way back from showing Miles’s parents out. “Don’t forget to turn off the rain,” she reminded them. “Or you’ll get a wet surprise in the middle of the night.”

  “I won’t,” Logan promised, although he totally would have forgotten if she hadn’t said something.

  “You sure you have everything you need? Toothbrush? Your aloe?”

  He’d forgotten the aloe but could get more from the aloe plant. “Mom, I’ll be fine.”

  “All right,” she said, reluctantly. “And no—”

  “I know, no climbing,” he said.

  “That’s right. And if you’re not back up by seven in the morning, I’ll come get you.”

  “Thanks,” Logan said, pushing Miles forward. “Gotta go!” he called over his shoulder. He could tell without turning around that his mom was watching. This would be his first night apart from them.

  A little while later they passed the library, and this time Miles pressed his face right up to the glass. “You’re so lucky,” he said earnestly. “A whole library inside your house.”

  Of all the things Logan felt lucky about having in his house, the library fell very low on the list. “Why do you like books so much?” he asked.

  Miles answered without taking his face away from the window. “You never know what you’ll learn when you open one. And if it’s a story, you sort of fall into it. Then you live there for a while, instead of, you know, living here.”

  Logan couldn’t understand why anyone who lived where he did would feel the need to live anywhere else. But he supposed if you didn’t live in a candy factory, you might feel differently.

  Miles finally peeled himself away from the window, and they continued down the long corridors. As they got farther away from the main section of the factory, the lights grew dimmer. But even in total darkness, the rising heat would have told them th
ey were nearing the Tropical Room. Logan stopped to fish the flashlights out of his bag. He handed one to Miles.

  “Hey, can I ask you something really weird?” Miles said as they continued, the flashlights illuminating their way.

  “Sure.”

  “If you could climb the tree without getting caught, would you?”

  “I don’t know,” Logan admitted. “If I did, I’d probably wind up slipping and falling and get caught anyway as they carted me off to the hospital. Why?”

  “Well, I know this is terrible… but I really want to stick my hand in the chocolate fountain. I’ve wanted to ever since I saw Philip do it.”

  Logan laughed. “Why didn’t you just say so? Let’s leave this stuff here and go over there now.”

  Miles hesitated. “I kind of need to do it alone.”

  “Oh,” Logan said, surprised. “Are you sure?”

  Miles nodded. “It’ll only take two minutes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get our stuff set up inside.”

  They knocked flashlights, and Miles headed back the way they’d come, shining the beam on the floor ahead of him. Logan waited until he’d turned the corner, then pushed the button to open the Tropical Room door. He made sure the setting for the automatic rain was securely in the OFF position and turned on the row of lights.

  One by one, the trees lit up until the room was so bright, it might as well have been broad daylight outside. He fumbled with the switches a little and managed to dim the room until it looked like dusk settling over the treetops. Before they went to sleep later, he’d lower the lights even more, along with the temperature.

  He was able to get all their stuff underneath his favorite sapodilla tree in one trip by rolling the sleeping bags with his feet. He laid down the duffel and slid Miles’s backpack off his other shoulder. It dropped to the ground, nearly weightless. Logan stepped toward the tree, the urge to put his arms around it as strong as ever.

  But as he stepped, his foot snagged on something, and he looked down to investigate. A zipper on Miles’s backpack had gotten caught on his sneaker. He yanked at it and succeeded in not only freeing the zipper but opening the backpack a few inches in the process. Something soft and bright orange peeked out. A big stuffed animal, maybe? Is that what Miles had been carting around with him everywhere?

  He quickly zipped the bag closed without exploring any further. He’d never want Miles to think he had been snooping.

  He started unrolling the sleeping bags when it dawned on him that a lot more than two minutes had passed. What if Miles had gotten lost? Or his flashlight battery had burned out?

  Grabbing his own flashlight, Logan set out. He’d assumed he would meet Miles along the way, but he reached the fountain without running into him. Strange. He turned to look around, and his right foot slid out from under him. He caught his balance before he fell. Turning his flashlight beam at the floor, he saw the smear of chocolate his foot had made.

  “Aha!” he said out loud. He felt like a detective searching for evidence. Wherever Miles had gone, he had definitely been here.

  Logan was about to retrace his steps to look for more clues when he saw movement and a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward its source and found himself facing the long windows of the Cocoa Room. His first thought was that he’d found Miles. His second thought was that no way would Miles be inside the Cocoa Room without him. At least he didn’t think he would be.

  He clicked off his flashlight and ducked down just in time, as the other beam of light scanned the area outside the window. When whoever was in there turned away, Logan lifted his head slowly until he could see inside again. The flashlight beam was now focused on the cabinets against the wall by the bean grinder.

  Another sudden movement caught his eye. Someone was crouching, low to the ground, a few feet behind the person near the cabinet. The only people besides his father and Max who had after-hours access to this room were Steve and Lenny. As dedicated as they were to their jobs, they rarely showed up at night. Why would they be using flashlights? Or crouching?

  And why would the person with the flashlight be standing in front of the cabinet?

  The cabinet! That could only mean one thing. Someone was stealing the Candymaker’s secret ingredient! But who? Why?

  It was up to him to find out.

  PART TWO

  MILES

  CHAPTER ONE

  Miles’s dad stuck his head out the window. “Mom wants to leave for the factory in ten minutes.”

  Miles nodded. “Ll’i eb thgir ni.”

  As always, his father waited for a translation. If he’d just spend a minute going over the words, he could figure it out. After all, it was his dad who had bought him his first book on the subject—How to Write in Code and Make Up Your Own Language. In the last year he’d made up three fairly serviceable alphabets (the foundation of every language) and taught himself to say words backward.

  “I’ll be right in,” Miles translated with a sigh.

  He waited for his father to disappear back through the bedroom window, but instead he climbed out, all sharp elbows and knees, and made his way across to Miles with careful steps.

  Most parents might have had something to say about their son sitting out on the roof for hours each day, but this section over the garage inclined only slightly, and a fall wouldn’t be very far—seven feet eight inches, to be precise. Miles had measured it once by hanging a tape measure off the edge. He figured that if he did topple off somehow, he might break his arm, but he’d escape serious harm.

  “You’re not going to talk backward around the other kids, are you?” his father asked warily, sitting down next to him.

  Miles tried to look serious. “You don’t think it would be a good way to make friends?”

  His dad shook his head. “First charm them with your theories about the afterlife, then unleash the backward talk on ’em.”

  “Got it. Afterlife first, neht drawkcab klat.”

  After a moment’s silence, his dad said, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  Miles nodded again, hugging his knees tight. “I know. But I don’t want to let Mrs. Chen down.” Mrs. Chen knew him perhaps better than anyone else. She was the children’s librarian in town, and he’d spent half his life inside the library or on the benches outside.

  “She’d understand,” his father said. “She only told you about the contest because she thought… well, she thought….”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. I know why she did it. She thinks it will bring me back to the land of the living. She thinks I’m still dwelling on it too much.”

  Dwelling. Miles repeated the word to himself. It was a strange word. But he loved words, and he loved strange words best of all. D’s and w’s rarely hung out next to each other. And any word with a double l in the middle—like yellow and ballad and idyllic and, well, dwelling, had a special appeal. So even though the word meant “spending too much time thinking about something negative,” he still liked it.

  “I have to agree with her,” his father said. “It’s been over a year since the day at the lake. You need to get out there and do things again, the way you used to. But I only want you to do this if you want to.”

  Before Miles could answer, a yellow, black, and red butterfly landed silently on the edge of the roof. Neither he nor his dad moved as the butterfly lazily flapped its wings. A minute later, just as silently as it had arrived, it lifted off again. Miles had seen butterflies up close before. But never one with red in it. And never on the roof.

  He watched the now butterflyless spot for a moment. He knew that after something stressful or traumatic happened, you were supposed to stay away from things that reminded you of the event so that the emotions you had worked so hard to overcome wouldn’t overwhelm you. The black and yellow of the butterfly’s wings reminded him of bees, and bees were one of the things he wasn’t supposed to dwell on.

  He knew his dad was waiting for an answer. He did want to participate i
n the contest. He loved candy of all kinds (even more than words and languages, and he loved those a lot). The thought of getting to see how some of his favorites—like the Gummysaurus Rex and the High-Jumping Jelly Beans—were made was undeniably exciting. He’d been to the factory a few times before, back when they held an annual picnic, but he’d never been inside.

  And he had to admit, he was curious to meet the Candymaker’s son, who everyone knew rarely left the factory grounds anymore. Yes, he wanted to go. But he didn’t want to forget about the girl either. Of course, forgetting wasn’t really an option. She went everywhere with him. He had created his whole afterlife so she’d have a safe place to live, and his head was always churning out new additions to it. Just that morning he’d enrolled her in a dance class. Girls liked dance classes. Or at least he hoped they did.

  Would the girl want to go to the candy factory?

  His dad put his hand on Miles’s shoulder, as though reading his mind. “Not letting yourself live your life isn’t going to change anything. You know that by now.”

  “I know,” he replied. “It’s just…” Miles bit his lip. He had promised himself (and his parents and Mrs. Chen, the librarian) that he wouldn’t ask that question again—why couldn’t I have done something?

  The answer never changed anyway. It was always something like you were too far away and it happened too fast and we can’t always control everything and, the one he hated the most, maybe it was a trick of the eye.

  “Well, then,” Miles said, getting to his feet. “Looks like I’m off to Life Is Sweet.”

  His father nodded approvingly. “I think I’ll enjoy the view from here for another minute. I’ll look forward to a full report later.” Then he added, “And some chocolate.”

  Miles laughed. His father liked candy almost as much as he did. “I’ll try my best. They might frown on thievery on my first day.”

  “I have faith in you,” his dad called out as Miles propelled himself through the window, landing on his bed with a bounce.