The Candymakers Read online

  Max handed him a measuring cup filled with some kind of red goo and apparently expected him to do something with it. So he tossed it in the direction of the nearest machine. It didn’t occur to him to hold on to the cup as he did it. He watched with a mix of horror and fascination as the cup bounced off the machine, hit the ground, and sent the red liquid flying. Not his finest moment.

  “Don’t worry,” Max said, “that’s why they call them accidents.”

  “Accidents?” Philip repeated. Was that what everyone thought had happened to Logan? That he’d had an accident? But that wasn’t really the truth of it.

  The others were looking at him. He had to snap out of it and focus. Fortunately, being obnoxious came easily to him, and in no time he had everyone convinced that he knew exactly what kind of candy he was going to make and that it was a secret. Telling everyone that he didn’t trust them not to steal his idea was just icing on the cake.

  “I prefer to win the contest first,” he said when they argued with him. “And then I can control what happens next.” As he expected, they didn’t like that answer. But that was the point. He might have kept the argument going, but for the first time that day, his notebook called to him. He darted over to his station and grabbed his pencil. Musical notes flew across the page so fast he could barely keep up.

  The door swung open a minute later, and Philip didn’t need to look up to know it was the Candymaker and his wife. His cheeks burned as he remembered his short exchange with Logan’s mother in the hallway outside the Taffy Room. Had she told Logan he was crying? He sure hoped not.

  Henry had recognized him as soon as he’d seen him. What if the Candymaker did, too? He kept his head down and hoped they’d leave before he had to talk to them. But then the Candymaker’s wife said, “Nice to see you again, Philip,” and his heart sank.

  He looked up to see the Candymaker striding straight toward him. He held his breath as he waited for recognition to cross the man’s face. Yesterday he’d been worried about being known as the kid who broke our machine and got banned, and now he’d be the kid who caused the Candymaker’s son to get burned and then never came back to play with him. Much, much worse.

  But all the Candymaker said was something about Henry being impressed with his ambition. Philip breathed a sigh of relief. The Candymaker’s wife didn’t embarrass him; Henry wasn’t going to tell anyone what he knew; the Candymaker himself didn’t recognize him. He was free to continue with his new plan, which, now that he thought about it, wasn’t any different from the old plan. His goal had always been to win the contest. The only thing that had changed was the reason why.

  He couldn’t believe his luck when Logan admitted he hadn’t asked anyone at the factory for help with his project. That meant the odds of Logan coming up with anything good enough to win weren’t as high as Philip had previously feared. But time was running out, and the others would soon see that he didn’t have anything.

  So while everyone was already annoyed at him, he figured he’d annoy them even more by demanding that Max put a barrier around his station. That would keep prying eyes away.

  Max sent them off to do research, and when Philip saw that no one was moving, he realized that Miles and Daisy hadn’t the slightest clue about what to make either. He could only hope the other twenty-eight contestants were similarly unprepared. He doubted he’d get that lucky, though.

  He’d had every intention of heading directly to the Marshmallow Room, but somehow he found himself turning the knob on the storeroom door instead. With a backward glance to make sure he was alone in the hall, he slipped in and pulled on the light. No way would the Candymaker leave the door unlocked if he knew the riches it contained. How could anyone be in possession of a Stradivarius and not know it?

  Ten seconds later he was cradling the violin in his hands, mentally playing his concerto on it. He was sure the notes would be so pure, so perfect, they’d set the stars on fire. “What am I talking about?” he asked out loud, shaking his head. He’d been hanging around Reggie too long. The only thing he needed to set on fire was some chocolate.

  But while half his brain was yelling at him for being in here instead of doing research for his candy project, the other half had the brilliant idea of checking the cello case for a bow. He sighed, wishing, as he did every day, that he wasn’t a slave to this instrument. Holding the violin aloft in one hand, he awkwardly brought the cello case to the ground.

  The three rusty latches were a little tricky to open with one hand, but he did it. The cello itself was in even worse shape than the violin. All but one of the strings was missing, and a crack extended halfway across the neck. But beside it lay a bow!

  The hairs were frayed and bone-dry, but it might still work. Unable to help himself, he brought the bow up to the violin. Right as he was about to draw it across the three strings, his eyes landed on a small shiny envelope stuck against the side of the cello case. Could it be? It was! Two extra violin strings! He quickly got to work replacing and tuning the D string. He stuck the extra one back in the violin case for safe keeping. Unable to keep the smile from his face, he raised the bow again just as Miles’s and Logan’s voices drifted past the room. Philip froze and prayed they wouldn’t have any reason to come in.

  Afraid to move, his eyes darted around the room for a place to hide if they did come in. Nothing. He did notice a plastic bin under the sink that he hadn’t seen before, though. It held small plastic harmonicas, brightly colored Super Balls, and wooden yo-yos. The outside of the box said PRIZES.

  The voices passed, and once he could breathe again, he crept toward the box.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A candy harmonica?” Henry repeated.

  “Yes! But not just candy in the shape of a harmonica—my harmonica would really play!”

  Henry didn’t answer right away. He stirred his marshmallow mixture one more time, then his face lit up. “I love it!”

  “Really?” Philip asked. Then he scowled at himself. He sounded like a little boy. “I mean, you think it’s good enough to win?”

  “It could be,” Henry said. “It depends on how well you make it. What ingredients you use, how you create the mold, how you get it to play the right notes… hey, are you okay?”

  Philip was rubbing his temples. “Sure. I’m just great. The fate of the whole factory is in my hands, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Henry turned off the flame and took a notepad and pencil from his desk. “Okay, let’s go through it together. What do you see the harmonica being made of? Hard candy? Gummy candy? Chocolate?”

  Philip thought for a minute. “How about hard candy? Then it won’t melt when you play it.”

  Henry nodded thoughtfully. “That would be the obvious choice, but…”

  “But?”

  “Well, for the contest, the judges are looking for something truly different and inventive. You may have to dig deeper.”

  Philip stared into the pot of gooey marshmallow, willing the ideas to come. A few minutes later, one actually did. He looked up, excited. “What if I made the outside a mix of different kinds of chocolate, with something thicker inside, like a cookie maybe, so it won’t get too mushy after the person starts playing it? And it could come with a tin of something gummy that you could stick into the little openings on the side of the harmonica to create different notes?”

  Henry scrawled down Philip’s suggestions. When he was done, he tucked the pencil behind his ear and said, “Sounds great.”

  Philip grinned.

  “You look good when you smile,” Henry said. “You should do it more often.”

  Philip rolled his eyes. “I’ll get right on that. Now, what’s my first step?”

  Henry held the notepad up again. Before he could answer, Philip’s cell phone rang.

  “Sorry, be right back.” He pulled his phone out of the briefcase and stepped into the hall. He knew by the ring that it was Reggie.

  “What is it?” Philip said. “I’m creating a work o