The Candymakers Read online

  “A whole ten bucks! Wow, Mmm Mmm Good must be having an excellent year!” They guffawed again until Big Billy began to wheeze and had to take a puff from his inhaler.

  Daisy nudged Logan. “That’s him? That’s Big Billy? He’s, um, not very big. And he’s old.”

  Logan nodded. “Eighty-two, to be exact.”

  “Eighty-two! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  He shrugged. “I told you he wasn’t involved.”

  Daisy mumbled something, probably to AJ, and then motioned for the three boys to come closer. Logan kept one eye on his parents, who continued to greet old friends.

  “AJ thinks whoever Philip’s dad is partnered with will likely be hanging around the judging table, checking out the competition. So we need to keep an eye on anyone asking a lot of questions, especially about the secret ingredient.”

  The others nodded.

  “I just got a text from Reggie,” Philip said. “My father’s sending someone over to the factory today to get the secret ingredient. Apparently the person originally assigned to the job failed in his mission.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Everyone always assumes it’s a guy. Almost all the spies at the mansion are girls!”

  “That’s not really the point of the story, is it?” Philip asked.

  Daisy grumbled.

  Logan grew concerned. He didn’t like the idea of someone trying to get into the factory when no one was around. “What should we do?” he asked. “We can’t let them get it.”

  “They won’t,” Philip said, pointing to his briefcase. “Remember? You gave it to me when we left the Cocoa Room last night.”

  Logan’s eyes widened. “You still have it?”

  “What else was I supposed to do with it?”

  “You were supposed to put it back!” Daisy said.

  “Good thing I didn’t, though, isn’t it?”

  She grumbled again.

  Logan had to ask. “Did you, um, look inside?”

  Philip shook his head.

  “Why not?” Miles asked. “No one could blame you, after all you’re doing to help save the factory.”

  “It just wouldn’t be right,” Philip said. “You heard what Max said that first day. It’s only for candymakers. When Logan turns eighteen and officially becomes one, he’ll be able to look inside. I shouldn’t know before he does.”

  Logan swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

  Philip just shrugged.

  Miles held up his pie box. “So, should we get this over with?”

  They all turned to look at the long table, where kids were still pulling candy out of boxes and lifting it off trays. “Guess we have no choice,” Daisy said.

  Still, no one made a move to head over there. Through the thickening crowd, Logan caught a glimpse of Max and Henry stepping off the escalator, a pile of badges in their hands. “Hey,” he whispered. “Let’s go do it now, before anyone sees us.”

  So they ducked low and hurried over to a table that ran the length of the far wall. A spot had been set aside for each contestant, with a large name card and a white ceramic plate. Seeing his name in big letters made it all feel so real to Logan. The others must have felt the same, because they were all hanging back. Daisy looked particularly bleak. Logan didn’t envy her the task of having to tell the judges she lied about her age in order to get into the contest. Even though she hadn’t lied, they’d agreed that confessing the lie was more believable than saying she didn’t know her age.

  “You know…,” Philip told her. “If you don’t want to tell them about being thirteen, you could just submit the 3G’s. It’s not like you have to worry about winning and messing up the plan.”

  Miles chuckled. “Even when he’s trying to be nice, he insults her.”

  “Actually, he’s got a good point,” Daisy said. “But it doesn’t matter. I didn’t bring the 3G’s with me.”

  “I know.” Philip reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. “But I did.”

  “My 3G’s!” Daisy said, snatching the bag. If possible, they glowed an even brighter green than in the lab.

  Daisy whirled around and plopped the bag on the plate in front of the card that read DAISY CARPENTER. Her face instantly brightened.

  Up and down the table lay candies of all shapes (a starfish! a miniature globe!), sizes (the smallest looked like a cluster of snowflakes, the largest a life-sized boot!), and colors (every one in the rainbow and a few that weren’t, like Daisy’s). Hard candy, soft candy, things made out of milk chocolate and dark and white chocolate and every mixture in between. Some were impaled on sticks. One looked like a lollypop wrapped in bacon! Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be just that.

  The one that Logan kept coming back to was a bowl with different flavors of ice cream, except that the scoops weren’t ice cream, they were candy. It was a great idea, although he couldn’t imagine how they’d package it for sale or how the kid who made it got it to look so real.

  “You may want to arrange your candy on the plate, dear,” Logan’s mom said, startling all of them.

  “Okay.” Daisy hurried back to her spot and tipped the 3G’s out of the bag. They bounced and slid around as she tried to spread them out on the plate. Truly, there was no way to arrange them, nicely or not.

  Mrs. Sweet put her arm around Daisy’s shoulders. “I bet they taste better than they look.”

  “You’d lose that bet,” Philip said under his breath.

  Logan tried not to laugh.

  “And what about yours, dear?” Mrs. Sweet asked Miles, pointing to his name card, next to Daisy’s. “Where are they?”

  Miles looked pleadingly at Logan.

  Logan made himself a quick promise to clean his room every day, then pointed across the room. “Hey, Mom, isn’t that Miss Paulina from Miss Paulina’s Candy Palace over there?”

  “Paulina?” his mom repeated. “She told me she couldn’t make it this year.”

  “I’m pretty sure I just saw her turn that corner,” Logan insisted. “By the restrooms.”

  “I better go see if I can find her,” his mother said, hurrying off.

  Logan felt queasy.

  “Nice one,” Philip said. “I’m impressed.”

  “You’re impressed that I just lied to my mother?”

  Philip shook his head. “No. I’m impressed that you did it so well!”

  Daisy went to kick Philip in the shin, but he darted out of the way before her sneaker made contact. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get the other candy out, and then we still have to submit our recipe forms. AJ wants me to scout out anything—or anyone—suspicious-looking before the contest starts.”

  Logan stared at his spot on the table. How he’d longed for the day when he’d have his own LOGAN SWEET name card at this contest, and now there it was. A black card with his name in big fancy gold letters. He lined up the Bubbletastic ChocoRockets on the plate as nicely as he could, then didn’t want to look at them anymore. “Okay, your turn,” he told Philip.

  Philip lifted the lid of his plastic container and placed the Harmonicandys gently on his plate. “Don’t you think we should test them first?” he asked.

  They all looked down to check them out. The beeswax Logan had suggested brushing on top gave them a nice gloss, and the bright lights hanging over the table really made them shine.

  Daisy let out a low whistle. “They look sooo great.” After a quick pause, she said, “Oh, sorry, AJ. Won’t do it again. He has a headache,” she explained. “He said my whistling went through his skull.” She rolled her eyes. “Teenage boys are so very dramatic.”

  “I don’t think we have time to test them,” Logan whispered as a woman wearing a light blue dress began walking down the length of the table. She was stopping in front of each contest entry, marking something down on a clipboard. Logan had seen this woman at previous conventions. She owned a chain of candy stores, he seemed to recall. The judges were always kept secret until the actual event. One year Log