The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Read online

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Logan stiffen. He was sure his friend thought he was going to talk about what had happened when they were younger, when he thought he’d been banned from the factory. But Logan didn’t need to worry. Philip had a different version of his life story in mind.

  “When I was a little more than a year old, my mother took me to the Life Is Sweet candy factory for its annual picnic. I don’t remember this, of course, but the family photos from that day show a blue sky dotted with puffy clouds, acres of green grass and trees, rowboats on the pond, fields of grains and berries, and a farmhouse with cows and chickens roaming free behind a white picket fence. Then add in boxes of chocolate pizza, cotton candy the size of your head, rubber-duck races, and the Candymaker in his chocolate-smeared apron shaking my hand. When I’m an old man—if I get lucky enough to be an old man one day—that is how I’ll picture the perfect day.”

  The crowd smiled up at him, nodding in agreement, but he was just getting warmed up. He didn’t dare glance at Logan again, or he might lose his nerve. He continued. “Then it got even better. According to family lore, I took my first steps that day, out on the great lawn, while the ducks watched from the pond. My mom was able to catch it on video.”

  Murmurs of “aw” and “so sweet!” trickled through the crowd.

  “The next year we went back, and the next. Our duck even finished in second place that year! I won two bucks!”

  The crowd cheered and giggled.

  “But that was my last visit to Life Is Sweet with my mom,” Philip continued, his voice cracking in just the right place. “She died a few months later from cancer.”

  A shocked hush fell over the group.

  “But here’s the thing,” he said after a respectful pause. “Thanks to the Candymaker, my new friends, the amazing teachers at the factory, and the judges of the candymaking contest, I get to go back there every day now, and every day I get to remember my mom out on that grass, cheering for me not to fall on my face, and every day I get to be grateful for being part of a business whose job it is to add sweetness to people’s lives.” He paused for a second as people wiped their eyes. “I’d like to dedicate this to her.” He reached over to the tray of Harmonicandies and picked one up. He brought it to his lips and blew a strong, clear note that rang through the whole room.

  Then he smiled and said, “Thank you.”

  The room erupted in applause, and Aunt Rosie hugged him for a long time until he wished she would stop. The Harmonicandies were handed out, and from across the room his friends stared at him as though they’d never seen him before. He wasn’t looking forward to hearing what they had to say.

  “Okay, dude, that speech was awesome,” AJ said to Philip on their way back to the RV. “If you ever want a career as an undercover agent, you let me know. You could sell honey to a bee!”

  Miles and Logan weren’t quite as complimentary. Sure, they told him what a great speaker he was, how he’d captivated the room, but Philip knew they were a little scared of him now for how easily he’d lied—mostly because Miles actually said, “I’m a little scared of you now.” They knew his mother had no part of his experience at the factory.

  Logan followed a few steps behind the others. He didn’t know how to explain to Philip how it had felt watching him make up a story in front of a hundred trusting kids and parents. While it definitely took the heat off the Harmonicandy for a little while, how could Philip have played with the crowd’s emotions like that? Hadn’t anyone taught him right from wrong? Maybe they hadn’t.

  But on the other hand, Philip really had lost his mother when he was three, so that part of it wasn’t a lie at all. How could Logan confront him in light of that cold, hard truth?

  At least the speech had everyone focusing on Philip, so he was grateful for that. The bright fluorescent light, which was great at making the candy wrappers sparkle, had made Logan’s scars show even more than usual. Many of the younger kids had looked longer than necessary, until their parents grabbed them away. He knew they weren’t being mean. They were just curious. Still, he’d pushed his hair further over his face than he had in a while.

  He had to admit that some parts of the visit were exhilarating. He’d loved sampling the store’s candies, of course, and meeting grown-ups who told him how the Neon Yellow Lightning Chew or the Oozing Crunchorama had been an important part of their childhoods. The highlight was when Aunt Rosie led the crowd in a rousing rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” on the Harmonicandy. It pained him to think that there might only be two more Harmonicandy concerts.

  As they were leaving, Aunt Rosie had pulled him into another of her tight hugs. “I hope you won’t give up on the Bubbletastic ChocoRocket,” she’d told him. “You’ve got a lot of people rooting for you.” He’d nodded and promised, but he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t want to risk letting people down again if he was never able to make it work. Her last words to him were to tell Henry she was sorry to miss him and that she was looking forward to seeing him at the next Confectionary Association convention.

  “Yeah, a lot of us are looking forward to seeing good ol’ Henry,” Philip had said under his breath as he passed by.

  AJ reached the RV first, but a frantic barking and growling made him stop before he could punch in the final number on the keypad to unlock it. “Everyone stay still,” he warned, looking around for what sounded like a big, scary dog.

  Miles didn’t want to laugh at him, so he calmly told AJ that he didn’t need to worry. It was just their new cat. AJ looked skeptical but unlocked the door anyway. The cat sat at the top stair, barking and narrowing her eyes at whoever dared approach her home.

  “Who needs a guard dog when we’ve got a little fluffy kitty to protect us?” Miles said with a grin. He leaned in to pet her, but she darted past him and down the stairs.

  “She probably just needs to go to the bathroom,” Logan said, but instead of heading to the patch of bushes next to their RV, the cat went right up to Philip and began weaving in and out of his legs.

  “Sorry,” Philip said to Miles with an apologetic shrug. “It’s nothing personal, I’m sure.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Miles replied with a pout. “C’mon, Logan, let’s check whether the results are in.”

  Daisy held Philip back until they were the only ones still in the parking lot. She led him a few feet away from the RV. Aurora stood at Philip’s feet, watching Daisy very carefully.

  “That was some story you told back there,” Daisy said. “So full of emotion and details, one might even think it was true.”

  He laughed. “I assure you, it wasn’t. But thank you for the compliment.”

  She kept eye contact, waiting for him to blink. She’d been trained at an early age to tell if someone was lying. “I’d be inclined to believe you,” she finally said. “Because you are certainly an accomplished liar. But I’ve heard that story before.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only told that story once before. And there’s no way…” His voice trailed off. “Unless…”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I read your essay.”

  “But—but,” he sputtered. “If you could get into the system to read it, you could have just deleted it for me!”

  She shrugged. “You need to learn to work for things,” she said. “Don’t change the subject. The more important issue is why you told that story today after going to all that trouble to hide your essay.”

  He had to admit, it was a fair question. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “That story got me into the contest, so I figured it would take the focus away from the Harmonicandy, which, you’ll have to admit, it totally did.”

  She nodded. It had been a brilliant move. “But then why did you care so much if your essay got circulated?”

  “Before I answer that, let me ask you a question. When you read the essay and heard the story today, did you think it was true?”

  “Well, I would have if I didn’t know your real story. With Logan