The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase

by Wendy Mass

  After a few hours her pillow buzzed. She ripped off the eye patch. Finally some action! The spot they were watching was technically on camp property, but maybe AJ had seen something through his night-vision goggles/binoculars. (He couldn’t see in the dark as well as she could, a fact that Daisy couldn’t help pointing out whenever she saw him wearing those bulky things.)

  She reached under the pillow and pulled out the fake book with her vid com hidden inside. She never claimed to have left all her gadgets at home. She needed to be able to reach the outside world, and the ear transceiver she usually wore wasn’t meant for long jobs like this one. Most devices wouldn’t get a signal in a place as remote as Camp Tumbleweed, but her vid com supposedly could work at the top of Mount Everest or at the bottom of the ocean. One day she planned to test that claim.

  But now she threw the blanket over her head and made sure it was fully draped around her. A noise canceler was hidden between the thick layers of cotton. Soft and practical.

  She switched on the screen, expecting to see AJ either in his RV or out in the woods. Hopefully he had news on the drop they’d been waiting for. Neither of them had any idea of what the item was for or what it looked like, but their job was to wait for its arrival, follow the instructions inside, and pass it on to the next dead drop, where another spy would retrieve it. Please be good news, she chanted silently.

  But instead of seeing AJ’s familiar face, she found herself peering into a small, well-lit room that she didn’t recognize. Plastic bins and cardboard boxes lined the walls. Clothes and books and general household items were strewn all over the white marble floor. A familiar face popped up in the midst of the mess, and it wasn’t AJ’s.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Daisy groaned. “Philip Ransford the Third!” she said, using her best scolding voice. “I distinctly remember telling you not to contact me unless (A) you were on fire or (B) you were kidnapped and being held for ransom. I can clearly see you’re not being held against your will, although I bet any kidnappers would quickly get tired of you and dump you back home. So that only leaves option A.”

  In response Philip held up a tangled ball of purple yarn with two knitting needles stuck at crooked angles. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

  Ignoring his question, Daisy asked, “Well? Are you?”

  “Am I what?” He tried to yank out one of the needles. There were still stitches attached to the bundle of yarn, so he didn’t get very far.

  Daisy asked matter-of-factly, “Are. You. On. Fire?”

  “Not currently,” Philip admitted. He dropped the yarn onto the floor beside him, then thought better of it and placed it on top of one of the few unopened boxes. “Would it help if I lit something else on fire?” He reached for a box at his feet and tilted it so she could see the contents. Candles of all colors and shapes toppled forward. He began rummaging through it. “I bet there’s an old pack of matches in here somewhere.”

  “Please don’t,” Daisy said. “I don’t want to be responsible for you burning your house down. Your fingers aren’t that nimble. Remember the powdered-sugar incident?”

  “Ruined a perfectly good tie that day,” Philip grumbled, pushing the box away from him and standing up.

  “I wouldn’t feel too bad about that. It wasn’t very nice.”

  He grinned. “You remember my tie?”

  She felt her cheeks warm and hastily replied, “I’m a spy! It’s my job to remember details. And I happen to remember you wore a particularly ugly tie that first day. The second day, too, if we’re being honest here.”

  “Is this one any better?” He tilted the lens on his video communicator (she was now doubting her decision to give him his own device) and held up a blue tie with tiny yellow dots.

  “It’s the middle of the night!” Daisy reminded him in a loud whisper. “Why are you wearing a tie? That’s a little weird, even for you.”

  “My dad dragged me to a fancy dinner thing tonight,” he replied, letting the tie fall back into place. “It was supposed to be for charity, but from what I could see, it was really a chance for him to make some business deals. He did buy me a new suit, so it wasn’t all bad.” He moved the screen farther away and panned down to show off a black suit with silver buttons on the jacket.

  “Okay, enough of the fashion show,” Daisy said, growing impatient. Soundproof blanket or not, she didn’t want to risk getting caught for something unrelated to the mission. “Why are you calling me?”

  Instead of answering, he asked, “Where are you? It’s so dark. Can I guess?”

  “No.”

  “Are you hiding out from pirates, deep in an underground cave?”

  “No.” She considered slipping on her eye patch but didn’t want to encourage him.

  He reached into one of his boxes and lifted out an old-fashioned pink telephone with a twisty rubber cord hanging down. “I’ve got it! You’re in a tunnel, tapping into telephone wires so you can overhear the conversation of someone suspected of selling government secrets. Right?”

  “Yes!” she replied. “That’s exactly it.”

  “Really?” he said, perking up.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. But she couldn’t help smiling back. Even though he’d changed so much and she no longer wanted to strangle him (usually), it still caught her off guard when he smiled. “Plus you’d be the last person I’d tell. You’ve already blown my cover twice!”

  Philip placed the old phone down next to the bundle of yarn. “That’s not really fair to say. You blew your own cover at the factory. With the old spelling-bee thing. I was just playing my violin in the music room, which was supposed to be private, and I walk out to find some random girl who didn’t even go to my school stealing the spelling-bee words I’d studied for a year. Plus I was only nine years old. Can you blame me?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “But I forgive you. It’s not your fault you play the violin so well that I thought someone had left on a recording of a famous violinist. I would have been more stealth if I thought you were real.”

  “I’m just that good.” Philip said it jokingly, but he really was that good. He just didn’t know it, or couldn’t admit it to himself. But Daisy was not planning on feeding his otherwise very healthy ego in the middle of the night. She checked the time on the top of the screen.

  “Philip, I’ve got to go. Why did you really call me?”

  He reached for the ball of yarn and held it up again. “For this. I told you—I need you to tell me what to do with it.”

  Daisy exhaled loudly. “How should I know? Make a sweater or something!”

  He looked at the ball thoughtfully. “Really?”

  “Sure, why not. Knitting is very relaxing. You don’t see too many stressed-out old ladies, do you?”

  “I guess not,” he agreed.

  “Okay, well, good seeing you,” she said. “Gotta go put the last pieces of wire together so I can start gathering all those government secrets.”

  “Wait,” Philip said, moving nearer to his screen. This close up, Daisy could see the red mark under his chin that he got from holding a violin against his neck. He usually tried to hide it, but she could spot it peeking out from his shirt collar. She didn’t know how Philip’s own father hadn’t noticed it all these years when Philip played. From what little she knew of Mr. Ransford, he didn’t seem to pay much attention to anyone unless he made money out of it. She was too busy watching the red mark bobble as Philip spoke to actually hear what he was saying. “Sorry, what?” she asked.

  “I said, are you going to the factory Tuesday for the Kickoff?” Philip repeated. “Everyone’s making a really big fuss about the first Harmonicandy coming off the conveyor belt, like it’s the first time they’ve seen a chocolate bar. Every time I go over there, I can barely get past the chocolate fountain without people slapping me on the back and whooping.”

  “No offense,” Daisy said, “but isn’t that what you like? Having people fuss over you when you win something? I m
ean, you’re the guy who used to wipe down his trophies every day until he could see his reflection in them.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you that,” he said, frowning.

  “Probably not,” she agreed. “But to be fair, you weren’t thinking very clearly. You’d just eaten an entire Gummzilla and a Gummysaurus Rex to help settle Miles and Logan’s bet about which type of giant gummy candy tastes better. You were totally hopped up on the sugar.”

  Philip chuckled. “It was a tie, as I recall.” The red mark bobbled faster when he laughed, but she did her best to ignore it. “Hey,” she said, “wouldn’t you rather they praise you than grumble about you behind your back—you know, like they did when no one liked you?”

  Philip didn’t reply right away. Daisy knew it had been hard for him in the weeks following the contest. Every time they were at the factory, people were pleasant, but no one went out of their way to congratulate him, except Henry and Max, and Logan’s parents, of course. Most of the workers felt too sad about Logan losing to be happy for Philip. Especially when Philip had been so obnoxious during the days leading up to the contest. Everyone would have been nicer to him sooner if they knew what Philip did to save the factory and all their jobs. But no one could ever know that.

  “I’m not so sure,” Philip replied honestly. “I almost preferred it when they gave me the cold shoulder. That’s really what I deserve. Logan was the one who figured out how to hold the whole thing together, and Miles thought of the name, and you made the molds out of that supercool secret spy wax. Even Henry gave me most of the ingredients. It’s not fair that I get all the credit.”

  “Philip Ransford the Third,” Daisy said, nodding appreciatively, “I believe you have officially changed. I hope you don’t go all soft on me, though. I still need someone to argue with. Logan and Miles are way too nice for that.”

  “Don’t worry,” he promised. “There’s still plenty of obnoxious left in me.”

  Daisy grinned. “Glad to hear it. But really, none of us mind that you’re the face of the Harmonicandy. You came up with the idea in the first place. I’m sure Logan would be embarrassed if he got any more attention. And Miles definitely got credit for the name, and now he’s helping with the advertising slogan. I bet Mr. Sweet even offers him a job one day. As for me, a spy’s job is to attract as little attention as possible. It’s much better if I’m left out of it.”

  Philip didn’t look entirely convinced, but his face was now slightly less scrunched up, so she considered her speech a success. “Now go knit a sock or something. I’ve got to go. You may want to consider taking a shower before bed. You look all shiny. And not in a good way.”

  Philip sniffed under his arm. “Meh. Could be worse.”

  Daisy cringed. Boys could be so gross.

  “Over and out,” Philip said. The screen went dark, and she pulled the blanket back off. She barely had enough time to take a gulp of fresh air before the screen buzzed again and AJ’s face popped up. Judging by his rumpled hair and puffy eyes, he must have fallen asleep. Her spirits sank a bit. She always looked forward to being the one to scare him awake with stories about Yeti or Bigfoot being spotted in the woods. But someone, or something, must have beaten her to it. She became instantly alert. She threw the soundproof blanket back over her head and asked, “What is it? Did you discover that Bigfoot is real and he’s at your front door?”

  “Meet me at the Tree of Life, Oopsa,” he said, zipping up his sweatshirt and throwing on a baseball cap. “It’s go time.” He ducked out of view and then back in. “And as cool as that would be, it’s not Bigfoot.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Daisy leapt off her bunk bed and landed soundlessly on the floor. She reached into her cubby for the basket each camper received to store her shampoo, deodorant, brush, and other assorted grooming supplies. She was pretty certain no one else’s toothbrush holder contained a laser that could cut through steel. Or a shampoo bottle filled with a chemical powerful enough to wipe someone’s fingerprints off their fingers. (She had to be careful not to use that one by mistake!)

  She stuffed her supplies and her vid com into a small Camp Tumbleweed–issued backpack, grabbed her sneakers, and tiptoed toward the front door.

  “No, Mommy! I want to do my homework, not play a game!”

  Daisy froze, then relaxed. It was only Amy Lynn, talking in her sleep again. Last night she’d had a whole conversation with an imaginary teacher about the proper use of lay and lie in a sentence. Amy Lynn had never woken up, even though the debate got pretty heated. Daisy (who hadn’t had much formal teaching in grammar) had actually learned something.

  She held her breath until she was sure no one else had awoken, and then she reached into her sweatshirt for her ball of spy wax. In one swift move she rubbed it against the door hinges to stop any squeaks and slipped out into the crisp night mountain air.

  Once clear of the bunk, she slid into her sneakers, flipped up the hood of her sweatshirt, and sprinted toward the thick woods behind the cabins. She knew the dead drop was located a hundred yards due east, but AJ had kept the exact location to himself. She hadn’t minded. Standard protocol dictated that when working as a pair, each spy knew only part of the information. That way, if they were caught, the details of the mission would still be safe. Also, neither could turn double agent and sell the information to the enemy. Not that the two of them distrusted each other. The candy factory gig had proven that even though AJ drove Daisy crazy, he always had her back.

  The sounds of chirping crickets and hooting owls accompanied Daisy as she raced along the camp’s nature trail. She loved this time of night. The skies over Camp Tumbleweed were the darkest she’d ever seen, with only a crescent moon illuminating the landscape. They were so far from any city that no other lights competed with the stars. She made a mental note to ask Miles to teach her something about the constellations when she got home.

  In a few minutes Daisy reached the giant rock that marked the end of the dirt trail, the farthest point that had been cleared into the forest. Campers—some likely long gone and grown up—had covered the rock with friendly graffiti (Camp Tumbleweed 4 Ever, CT Rocks!, Girl Power!, that sort of thing). She climbed up on it to get a better look at the rest of the woods.

  The ground sloped down gradually from where she stood until it leveled out about a hundred yards away. She needed to wait for a signal from AJ before heading down into the woods. Even though she had excellent night vision, they were in the mountains after all, and that meant snakes, sleepy bears that didn’t want to be disturbed, and poison oak (or its cousin, poison ivy). Nothing could ruin a summer faster than poison oak. Except a snake bite. Or a bear attack.

  While she waited, Daisy switched her vid com to the night vision/binoculars setting and looked through the camera hole. It only took a minute to find AJ. He stood about halfway into the valley. He spotted her, too, and waved his arms in a big arc. With his huge night-vision goggles, he looked like a giant bug. She waved back. A few seconds later her vid com beeped. She jumped off the rock, switched the setting to infrared, and pointed it at the ground. After a little sweeping of the area, the device soon picked up the heat trail AJ had left for her to follow.

  She stepped carefully off the path, being sure to keep to the invisible trail he’d laid out. The heat dots would dissolve within a few days, but she should only need to take this trip once. Her vid com would buzz if she strayed too far from the path, so she had to keep the device very steady in front of her. After a while she got into the groove of it and began to feel like a fairy-tale kid following bread crumbs. But these were high-tech spy bread crumbs, and if you ate them, your insides would burst into flame.

  AJ had clearly scouted out this route during the day in preparation for calling her into action. Stepping on a stick could bring a predator running, but she saw maybe one stick every thirty yards. The pushed-down leaves and cleared undergrowth were also signs that he’d worked to make the trek as easy and safe for her as possible. He could ha
ve just left her to bushwhack her way in. She doubted she’d have thought to do the same for him.

  Fifteen minutes and only two branches across the face later, she approached her destination. The tree itself was wide, with exposed roots that ran far out into the surrounding woods on all sides. It looked old and taller than the rest of the trees around it. AJ leaned against it as though hanging out in the deep woods in the middle of the night was no biggie. He looked less bug-like now that his goggles were dangling around his neck.

  “Come here often?” she joked, tucking her device away. Even though the RV was fitted with a camera and microphone that rose out of the top like a periscope on a submarine, AJ couldn’t use it for this mission. Spies spying on other spies when both were on the same side was expressly forbidden and also seriously uncool. She knew he’d had to watch for the drop-off the old-fashioned way. Like, with his eyes. (Plus the superstrong night-vision goggles.)

  “Every day for the last two weeks, in fact,” AJ replied. “But sometime today they finally came.” He pointed his flashlight at a tree about twenty feet away. Someone had drawn a red slash mark on the trunk at about eye level. Once they’d retrieved the item, Daisy or AJ would draw a slash in the other direction. Leaving a signpost at a dead drop was a basic rule of spying and just plain considerate. Still, many spies either got lazy or forgot this step. The fact that these guys had left one showed they were professional.

  “So you’ve been hanging out with the wild animals in the middle of the woods in the dark every night?” she asked.

  “All in a day’s work,” he said. “So do you see it?”

  Daisy began circling the tree, running her fingers lightly over the rough bark, looking for the hollow area. That was the unspoken hiding place at a dead drop. Surprisingly, she couldn’t find one.