The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  Then he thought about the contents of the box. As much as he wanted to learn about his grandfather’s early ideas, did he really want to spend a sunny summer afternoon sorting through them? Pulling apart delicate objects like newspapers was a task he usually avoided at all costs. Max tapped his foot and Logan decided. The contents of the box had sat for more than fifty years. They could wait a little longer.

  “I’ll be right there,” Logan promised Max. “Miles just arrived. I’m sure he’ll want to see the caramel, too.”

  “The more the merrier,” Max said, walking over to the group of visitors, who were now arguing about whether you could eat raw cocoa beans straight from the pod. (You could, but they tasted like dirt until fermented and roasted.)

  Logan began to use his foot to push the box behind the fountain, then hesitated. He undid the flaps, pulled out the letter addressed to him, and resealed the box. He shoved the letter deep into his pocket, pushed the box the rest of the way out of sight, and then ran to the front door. More cars were parked in the visitors’ lot than he’d seen in years. And this was the day before the big day!

  Miles sat on the front stoop on top of the old-fashioned tin milk jug that had been there forever. Logan had been right; Miles had indeed found something to distract him—a book. The jug, with its flat top, made a perfect seat for a boy.

  Miles held his book (How to Make Your Own Alphabet) right up to his face and hadn’t noticed Logan yet. Even though Logan was eager to see the caramel, he had learned that Miles entered another world when he was reading. So Logan sat down on the stoop beside Miles, pulled his knees to his chest, and waited for his friend to finish.

  This close to the jug, he could tell that some work had been done to it. After decades in the sun, the large white M-I-L-K across the middle had faded, and the letters hadn’t been legible for years. But now they were brighter and more distinct. The paint must have been touched up, along with the picture of a cow below the word. He leaned closer. Yes, it definitely looked fresher and newer.

  Logan wasn’t really surprised. The whole factory had been swept, scrubbed, waxed, and polished. Even the red brick walls had been power washed and regrouted. The brass and steel and glass had already sparkled; now they all gleamed. His mom had become a bit obsessed with how everything would appear to the guests, pretty much from the second they’d learned their factory would be the one producing the Harmonicandy. The rules didn’t specifically state that the honor (and a large percentage of the profits!) of producing the candy would go to the factory that had hosted the winner, but that’s what had happened every year so far.

  Miles gave a little gasp and burst out laughing.

  Logan grinned. “That must be a really funny book!”

  “Gnipael sdrazil!” Miles shouted. He jumped straight up, tripped over the milk jug, toppled backward off the stoop, and landed faceup in the rosebushes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was the faceup part that saved him.

  “Ouch!” Miles yelped as the factory nurse pulled the last thorn out of his thigh with her tweezers. Logan winced along with him. He had paged the nurse on his walkie-talkie as soon as Miles landed in the bushes. She’d run outside immediately, proving Logan’s point that she never had much to do.

  A few dabs of ointment later, Miles was deemed good to go. “Stay out of the bushes,” the nurse warned, rolling up her first-aid kit.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Miles said, pushing up his glasses. His cheeks were red, and Logan didn’t think the flush had come from the sun.

  “Sorry for startling you,” Logan said once they were alone. “I know how wrapped up you get in your books. I’m like that sometimes when I’m watching at the Cocoa Room window. An hour could go by and I’d swear it was a minute.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Miles said, rubbing the back of his leg. “I shouldn’t have been sitting there in the first place. I mean, I could have broken that old milk can thingy.”

  “I’ve sat on it for years,” Logan assured him, “and it hasn’t broken yet. Dad says they made things sturdier back in the day.”

  A dark blue spot was starting to spread from the pocket in Miles’s tan shorts. “Um, Miles?” Logan said, pointing to the spot. “I think your pen broke when you fell.”

  Miles looked down at his shorts. “Rats,” he said. “That was supposed to be a surprise.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bottle. Not a pen after all. Logan recognized it right away, even though he hadn’t seen one in years. “That’s disappearing ink!”

  Miles looked up in surprise. “You know about this?”

  Logan nodded. “My grandfather used to love those kinds of tricks. Explodable cigar, a pen that shocks you, itching powder.” He hadn’t thought about that in a long time. He smiled at the memory of his grandfather sprinkling itching powder down the collar of Avery’s shirt on his first day at work in the Tropical Room. Avery tried so hard not to squirm. Finally he leaned up against a cinnamon tree and rubbed his back up and down while trying to act natural. Logan would never forget the tiny strips of cinnamon bark wafting all around him in curly brown rings. Avery hadn’t forgotten it, either; he brought it up each year on Samuel Sweet’s birthday when all the workers gathered on the great lawn to share their favorite memories of Logan’s grandfather.

  The ink had gotten all over Miles’s hands now. “Looks like it’s cracked down the side,” Logan pointed out.

  Miles went over to his backpack, which had been propped against the porch step, and pushed the small bottle into a side pocket. He wiped his hands off on his shorts and grinned. “Good thing it disappears!” The original spot on his shorts was already almost gone. “Hey, you don’t see my book anywhere, do you?”

  Logan had a gift for spotting anything out of place, or missing, or extra. This talent came in very handy when helping out in the candy rooms and sometimes outside the candy world, too. It took him only a few seconds to spot the corner of Miles’s book between two raspberry bushes on the other side of the porch. He reached for it. “Too bad you didn’t fall off on this side. Instead of getting thorns in your legs, you could have had a snack.”

  “I’ll get it!” Miles said, darting in front of Logan. He quickly stuffed the book into his backpack. Logan stepped aside, a little hurt. Had Miles just assumed he’d drop it? He didn’t drop everything.

  “Want to hear something interesting?” Miles asked, heading inside the factory as though nothing weird had happened.

  Logan took a few seconds longer than usual to answer. They were standing in front of the statue of Samuel Sweet before he nodded.

  Miles whispered so the guests still milling around the front hallway wouldn’t hear him. “Turtles can breathe through their butts.”

  Logan looked at him. “Is that really true?”

  Miles nodded and grinned. Logan grinned back. The weird feeling about the book slipped away. “Hey, I have something to show you!” he said, remembering his grandfather’s box.

  “Okay, but then I have to get to the Advertising Room,” Miles said. “Sabrina and the others are going to pick the final slogan today.”

  “This won’t take long,” Logan promised. “You’re gonna love it.”

  Thankfully, the box seemed undisturbed. Miles leaned over Logan’s shoulder as he opened it. “This is my grandfather’s old research and stuff from when he was young,” Logan explained. “An old friend of his I’d never heard of before sent it to me.”

  Miles was already eagerly digging through the contents.

  “Wow!” he said in an awed whisper. “Notebooks and journals and newspapers and maps. Maps, Logan, maps!”

  “Glad you like it,” Logan said, pushing the box toward Miles.

  Miles’s eyes glowed as he looked up from the box. “Really?”

  “You can pull out the highlights for me. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

  Miles closed the box back up and clutched it to his chest. “Mine, all mine.”

  They both laughed. “Th