The Candymakers Read online

  “Here we are,” Max announced, turning his back to the doors. “The jewel in the crown of the Life Is Sweet candy factory. Our pride and joy, the reason our candy tastes like no other—the Tropical Room!” He whirled around and tugged at the door handle, then sighed in defeat. Logan giggled. No one but Avery (and maybe Fran) was strong enough to open the heavy, pressure-sealed door without assistance. Still, he had to hand it to Max for trying.

  Max pretended to glare at Logan, then pushed the red button on the side of the door, which then slid open easily. The humid air rushed out to greet them, a sensation Logan once compared to being hit in the face with a hot, wet washcloth—but in a good way.

  They filed in, moving a bit more slowly as a result of the thick air. “Ahoy there!” Avery called down from the top of the sapodilla tree, where he was extracting chicle to make gum. “Can someone pass up the funnel? I left it down by the bucket.”

  “Sure, Avery,” Logan said, scrambling over the tree’s roots to find the metal funnel. For a second he was tempted to shinny up the tree and hand it to him, but climbing the trees was against the rules. This was one of the hardest rules in the whole factory for Logan to obey. Every day he watched the workers slice the bark in crisscrosses until the yellowy goo (which later would be boiled and purified and transformed into gum) slid down into the cloth bags waiting at the bottom. Once the cuts stopped dripping, they hardened, leaving inch-wide diagonal tunnels on the trunk that were perfect for a boy’s toes to grip on to.

  Logan had to admit, though, that after all the effort the factory had made—going to a real jungle at the equator to get the trees, transporting them here, replanting them, and imitating their natural surroundings well enough to ensure their continued survival—climbing them for sport probably wasn’t the best idea. Under the sapodilla tree was his favorite place to be in the whole factory. When he hugged the tree’s narrow trunk (which, admittedly, he did a lot), he swore he could feel its heart beating.

  Plus it smelled like caramel.

  Without his realizing it, his arms had begun to embrace the tree. Common sense quickly warned him that hugging the tree with the other three watching wouldn’t be a good idea. He quickly disentangled himself and attached the funnel to the pulley system. He then tugged on the rope until the funnel started moving up among the branches.

  “Thanks, mate!” Avery called down as he plucked the funnel from the pulley.

  From his position below, all Logan could see of Avery’s head was the blue bandana he wore to keep the sweat out of his eyes. The glass roof curved so high above their heads that on sunny days like this, the trees looked as if they could disappear into the blue sky of a real jungle.

  A few seconds later, Avery swung his strong legs around a branch and popped his head through the leaves. “Who are your new friends?”

  Logan stepped aside as the others tentatively approached the tree. Neither Daisy nor Philip volunteered their names—they were too busy staring, open-jawed. Avery laughed. “First time in the Tropical Room, eh?”

  Logan nodded, proud that the room would elicit such a response. “These are two of the other kids in the candy competition with me,” he explained. “Daisy and Philip. Miles will be along soon. Max is giving them a tour of the factory.”

  With the help of the harness around his waist, Avery twisted around until he was hanging completely upside down. He extended his hand, speckled with yellow goo, and the two visitors took turns shaking it. Daisy blushed. Philip, however, took out another handkerchief (Logan couldn’t help wondering how many he had in there) and wiped both hands, front and back.

  “Have fun, kids,” Avery said, adjusting his bandana. “Make some good candy. We could use it around here.” He punched Logan good-naturedly on the arm and pulled himself back up the tree.

  After a few minutes of letting them watch the gooey liquid darken as it made its way down the trunk, Max continued the tour of the Tropical Room. Daisy lingered so long at the cinnamon tree, stroking its soft bark and smelling it, that Max had to threaten to continue on to the cocoa trees without her. She tore herself away with a final deep inhale.

  Stepping carefully over the vanilla vines and around the tall stalks of sugarcane, they approached the section of the room where the cocoa trees grew, under an elaborate sprinkler system that rained water on the trees every few hours. It must have just stopped, because the leaves and the reddish purple pods were still dripping. The cocoa trees, shrouded in shade, grew so much shorter than the other trees in the room that the kids could easily reach the pods on the lower branches.

  Logan was about to demonstrate this when he caught sight of Miles trying to untangle a vine from around his ankle. He ran over to help him.

  Once Miles’s ankle was freed, Logan asked, “So what do you think?” He hoped that Miles loved the room as much as he did.

  “S’ti elbidercni!” Miles replied.

  “What did you say?” Logan asked, wondering if Miles had spoken in another language. He hoped not. No one at the factory had taught him foreign languages yet.

  “I meant to say, it’s incredible!” Miles exclaimed, beaming.

  “Glad you could join us, Miles,” Max said, patting the nearest trunk. “This is where it all begins, my friends. A chocolate bar is only as good as the bean it comes from. These trees are cultivated in the finest soil and given the perfect amounts of shade, sun, heat, and rain.” He glanced at his watch and then up at the roof. “In fact, it’s just about time to let in the sun.”

  A minute later they heard a grinding sound high above, as the long metal slats that covered the roof began to slide into grooves on the wall. Sunlight slowly filtered in, streaming through the leaves and sending a shiver of pleasure down Logan’s spine. He saw Miles shiver, too, and it made him wish again that the factory hadn’t stopped giving tours. Everyone should get to experience stuff like this. He’d even offer to lead the tours so no one would have to leave their posts.

  “C’mon,” he said to the others. “I want to show you something really neat.”

  He was about to lead them over to the long rows of drying cocoa beans when Max’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. Max slipped it off his belt, held up one finger for them to wait, and stepped a few feet away.

  “Do you come down here a lot?” Miles asked Logan as they waited.

  Logan nodded. “I like to check on the trees first thing in the morning. The sapodilla’s my favorite.”

  “Are you allowed to climb them?” Daisy asked, glancing back at her beloved cinnamon tree.

  Logan shook his head.

  “Don’t you want to?” she asked.

  “All the time. But only Avery and his crew are allowed. Someday I hope to work on the sapodilla.”

  Philip made a noise that sounded halfway between a guffaw and a sneeze.

  “Are you okay?” Logan asked warily. He hoped another hiccupping fit wasn’t on the way.

  “You’re the heir to an entire candy factory, and all you want to do is drain sap from a tree?”

  Before Logan could think of a response, Max returned with a worried expression on his face. “That was Randall in Quality Control,” he explained. “He’s concerned about the nougat. He said it tastes ‘off.’ ”

  “Off?” Miles repeated.

  Randall had been the factory’s quality-control guy for twenty years, and Logan admired him greatly. Randall’s taste buds were even more finely tuned than his own. If Randall said something tasted off, then it was off.

  Logan silently checked the list of ingredients in nougat—sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, butter, salt, egg whites, and honey. Could there be an egg-quality issue? Their chickens were fed the highest-quality food, and the farmworkers monitored the health of all the animals very closely. Any problems would have been discovered before now. Then Logan remembered something that Paulo in Beekeeping had said a few days ago.

  “I bet it was the honey!” he exclaimed. “Paulo told me the queen of the hive didn’t have long to live. If she die