The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  She walked in a daze toward the Harmonicandy Room. She wasn’t surprised about the little boy’s mom not being able to care for him for a while. After all, Daisy’s grandmother had pretty much raised her—was still raising her. She knew the adult spies did very important work, and someday she would, too. Protecting identities was their number one priority. She wouldn’t press her mom for more details. She was grateful for what she’d gotten. And at least she finally knew why she always wanted to hug that tree!

  The factory was supposed to be off-limits to picnic-goers, but many of the workers had brought their families in for tours. Daisy got a lot of hellos and high fives, which helped her pull herself out of her own head and be present at this special occasion. As she passed the Taffy Room, Fran whipped a piece of purple taffy at her. Daisy caught it with one hand. “Thanks!” she said, popping it into her mouth.

  “You know there’s always a summer job waiting for you here,” Fran replied.

  Daisy nodded. “I may take you up on that one day!” She got as far as the lobby before her vid com went off again. She answered by saying, “Hold your horses, Philip. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  “No horses,” Grammy replied. “Just a couple of pelicans.”

  Daisy grinned. “Sorry! Hi, Grammy. I see you’re back in your waterfall.”

  “I took your advice and wet my hair. Better?”

  “Much. What’s up? I’m at the candy factory.” It felt so good to be able to say that instead of hiding her visits from her grandmother. Once Daisy had gotten back from the road trip, she’d told her grandmother everything—about the trip, and Paradise, too. She hadn’t seen Grammy in over a month at that point, and she didn’t want to spend the next five years, until she was eighteen, lying. Grammy hadn’t been thrilled, but she hadn’t been surprised, either. In the end all she’d said was “Sounds like a successful mission.”

  “I figured you were at the factory,” Grammy said now. “Unless you’ve installed a chocolate fountain in your bedroom without telling me.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll be brief, since clearly Philip is anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

  Daisy felt her cheeks reddening. Maybe telling Grammy about her friends had been a little hasty.

  “Do you remember that before you left for your mission at Camp Tumbleweed I told you I was considering a big mission for you when you got back?”

  Daisy nodded. She’d been thinking about that recently but had been afraid to ask. She was enjoying her time off. “Mom told me we have a family mission out west. Is that it?”

  Grammy shook her head. “If you take this mission, you’ll skip that one. Marissa or Clarissa will step in for you.”

  A stand-in daughter? “Why wouldn’t I go?”

  “Because you’ve been accepted here.” Her grandmother pressed a button on her screen, and a typewritten letter appeared.

  Daisy’s eyes widened when she read the letterhead. “The Unit? The best spy school in the country? You sent in an application for me?”

  “I did.”

  Daisy couldn’t believe it. “You’d let me go to boarding school two thousand miles away?”

  “It’s not my first choice,” her grandmother admitted, returning to the screen. “But I think it would be good for you to be with kids whose lives are similar to yours. And before you say anything, no, it’s not to keep you away from the candy factory kids. You’d still be home on vacations and for summers, and you’d still get to do some gigs, although you’d get graded on those.”

  Her eyes opened wider. “Graded on missions?”

  Grammy nodded. “The spies who did your Camp Tumbleweed dead drop got an A on the project.”

  “What?! That crazy scytale thing? And the fake bear poop? And the birdhouse?”

  “Yup. Extra points for creativity.”

  “So if I went there, I’d meet them?”

  “Yes.”

  Daisy had a thought. “How old do you have to be to go there?”

  “It accepts boys and girls between ten and seventeen.”

  And maybe mystery brothers, she thought.

  “You don’t have to decide now,” Grammy assured her.

  “That’s good,” Daisy said, relieved.

  “You have till tonight.” Her grandmother winked, patted a pelican on its head, and hung up.

  LOGAN returned to his room after dropping off a gift on Avery’s desk. He’d forgotten to get him a postcard from “someplace supercool,” as Avery had requested (Paradise didn’t have a gift shop!), so he’d painted him a picture of the River of Light with the red-and-green sky above it. On the bottom, he’d written the poem Miles had given him on the trip, about returning home and seeing it—and life—with new eyes.

  He hoped the heat in the Tropical Room wouldn’t make the paint run before Avery got to see it. The painting had taken him three weeks to do, since the paintbrush kept slipping. He found it didn’t help to put something sticky on his hand first, because he had to keep shifting the angle of the brush to paint. Still, he was proud of how it had turned out. It had a lot more detail than the map his grandfather had made, which now hung on his wall next to the painting Daisy had sent at the beginning of summer. His mom had suggested they research the artist—Ava Simon—but they hadn’t been able to turn anything up on her. They decided he had a one-of-a-kind piece of art that was probably worth a lot of money. Not that he’d ever sell it.

  His walkie-talkie crackled, and his father’s voice came through. “They’ve reached a decision! They’re going to call a meeting in a few minutes. Stay tuned.”

  “Roger that!” Logan said, fumbling for the button. Finally!

  Old Sammy—the long-time president of the Confectionary Association—and the other judges and committee members of the New Candy Contest had been in heated debate over the future of the Harmonicandy. As soon as they’d returned from the road trip, Logan, Philip, and Miles had gathered all the people who’d attended the Harmonicandy’s first tasting when it came off the conveyor belt. It wasn’t easy, but they explained how they’d used the old batch of Magic Bar chocolate by mistake, and therefore using the factory’s current chocolate supply would break the contest rules. They couldn’t tell the part about Henry giving Philip the bowl of chocolate, or anything about Paradise, which made it really hard to convince them.

  Openly upset, the Candymaker and Max had insisted that maybe they could find more of the old beans, but Randall was quick to put that argument to rest. He’d been around in the days of the Magic Bar, and something in his eyes told the boys he knew at least a little bit about what had happened back then.

  Once the situation was brought to the Confectionary Association’s attention, they’d agreed that Philip would, regrettably, have to step down as winner, but they had to debate whether or not Life Is Sweet would still have the right to produce the candy. Essentially, every candy company that had sent competitors to the contest would have to agree to it, and that would be very tough.

  Even though no part of the apartment looked out on the great lawn in the back, Logan could hear the cheers and the music through the walls. He’d waited seven years for the picnic, and he couldn’t believe it was finally happening. He grabbed one of his grandfather’s old notepads and slid it in his back pocket. He liked keeping it close. Frank’s original letter had proven true—seeing his grandfather’s trials and errors really did make him feel better. It showed how every time you learn what doesn’t work, you get closer to what does.

  To keep his mind off the Harmonicandy situation, he’d been experimenting with the Bubbletastic ChocoRocket recently. The chocolate-to-gum part was really quite simple—the sugar and gum base (made from chicle harvested from his favorite sapodilla tree) went in the dehumidifier, which pulled out the moisture overnight and turned it into powder. He then added cocoa powder and corn syrup and pressed the mixture into the shape of a rocket. He’d already done those steps for the contest, although not as well. So he could turn the chocolate in