The Candymakers Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2010 by Wendy Mass

  Illustrations by Steve Scott

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.lb-kids.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: October 2010

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-18050-4

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  SPRING HAVEN HERALD

  THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

  PART ONE: LOGAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PART TWO: MILES

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PART THREE: DAISY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  PART FOUR: PHILIP

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PART FIVE: LOGAN AGAIN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE NEXT DAY

  For my mom,

  who never kept candy in the house,

  thus ensuring

  I ate it every chance I got

  “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”

  —G. K. Chesterton

  Congratulations,

  Future Candymakers!

  YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED TO COMPETE IN THE ANNUAL NEW CANDY CONTEST

  Sponsored by the Confectionary Association

  The Following Participants from Region III will Report to the Life Is Sweet Candy Factory Two Days Prior to the Contest:

  Logan Sweet

  Miles O’Leary

  Daisy Carpenter

  Philip Ransford III

  SPRING HAVEN HERALD

  BREAKING NEWS

  The results are finally in from the Confectionary Association’s annual new candy contest. Thirty-two 12-year-olds from around the country were invited to create a brand-new candy to enter in this highly respected hundred-year-old competition. According to insiders, the competition was particularly fierce this year. The contest day was marked by surprises that rocked the very foundation of the candy industry, including the shocking news that one of the country’s most celebrated candy factories will close its doors. The winning candy will soon be available nationwide. However, the factory that will manufacture the winning candy has not yet been decided.

  THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

  Once there were four children whose names were Logan, Miles, Philip, and Daisy. Each of them had recently turned twelve, and although none of them knew it yet, their lives would never be the same.

  You might ask, what makes them so special that their essays were selected over hundreds of others? Why do they each want to win the contest so badly they are willing to risk everything?

  Perhaps it would be best to show you.

  Let’s start with Logan, since he is the Candymaker’s son, after all. But don’t think he has an edge in the contest just because he was born smelling like chocolate.

  Logan has the hardest task, for he must be your eyes and ears. Pay close attention to what he tells you about the others—and himself—and what he doesn’t.

  The others will get their chance, too, but it’s only fair to start with Logan because if it weren’t for his father’s generous invitation to help prepare the others for the contest, Miles, Daisy, and Philip wouldn’t be standing outside the Life Is Sweet candy factory right now, wondering if they should knock on the huge wooden door or just let themselves in.

  PART ONE

  LOGAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Logan didn’t have to open his eyes to know that morning had arrived. The sweet smell of cotton candy wafting into his room worked better than any alarm clock. He rolled over so his nose nearly touched the air vent.

  You might think that if your bedroom were inside a candy factory, your bed would be shaped like a lollypop. But Logan had gotten rid of the lollypop-shaped bed last month when he turned twelve—it had become uncomfortable not being able to bend his knees while he slept.

  Logan loved the start of a new day, when the air was thick with possibilities (and, in his case, with the smell of chocolate, caramel, nougat, and spun sugar). The breeze through his open window brought the room to life. The pages of his comic books rose and fell as if they were taking deep breaths. Paper drawings on the walls fluttered. The fur of his stuffed dragon rippled, making it appear to be moving very quickly without actually moving at all.

  Logan focused his attention on his breath, as he did first thing every morning. He breathed in and breathed out. With each breath he recounted the things he was grateful for. The new day. Being here to enjoy it. His parents. The factory. All the people who worked there.

  In… out… in… out. He matched his rhythm with the familiar hums and whirs of the candy machines powering up for the day. The sizzle of licorice root on the stove made him pause, mid-inhale. Soon his mother would start scraping cinnamon bark onto the oatmeal she made each morning, and he always liked to be in the kitchen for that part.

  “So what are we gonna do today?” his dad sang outside Logan’s door.

  “Make some candy!” Logan replied automatically, his voice still scratchy.

  “And why are we gonna do it?” Without waiting for Logan to answer, his father continued the chant as he did every morning. “To make the whole world smile!”

  To make the whole world smile, Logan hummed to himself as he hopped out of bed to dress. All the factory workers wore white collared shirts and tan pants (those who worked outdoors wore shorts). Logan didn’t officially work for the factory yet, but he wouldn’t think of wearing anything but the official uniform during the day.

  Plus all his play clothes were in piles on the floor. Truth be told, most things in Logan’s room were in piles on the floor. His parents had long since given up asking him to clean it. Who could spend time cleaning when there were so many exciting things to do right outside the door?

  To his surprise, he heard his mother beginning to scrape the cinnamon bark already. He turned to look at the clock on his desk. They usually didn’t eat breakfast for another half hour. Then his breath caught in his throat. The other contestants in the Confectionary Association’s annual New Candy Contest would be arriving any minute! How could he have forgotten? But even as he asked himself that question, he knew the answer: having three other kids spend two whole days at the Life Is Sweet candy factory was so out of the ordinary, so different from his usual routine, that he hadn’t really believed it would ever