by Adam Sidwell
The crowd gasped. The Culinary burst into conversation, some pointing their fingers toward the Mayor, others whispering behind their hands and shaking their heads.
The man in the crowd who had yelled at Guster leapt to his feet. “I knew it!” he cried. “Mayor Bollito will ruin this city before he’s through!”
The woman next to him yanked him down again. She looked afraid.
There were people rising to their feet, yelling. The Baconists were shaking their heads. Some of them were throwing up their hands and arguing with each other. “Boooo!” cried someone in the back row. Others cheered.
The Mayor rose to his feet and stood atop a stool, so he could be seen. His face was creased with anger. “Guards!” he shouted above the crowd. “The accused is a disruptor of the peace and a danger to our Delicious City! I demand he be executed! Guards!”
“You can’t!” shouted Princess Sunday. She rushed to the edge of her box.
Next to her, Mariah looked afraid.
Guster’s bluff had worked far better than he could’ve guessed. He had wounded the Mayor’s pride.
Two of the Mayor’s guards unlocked Guster’s chains from where they were bolted into the ground. Another line of armed guards surrounded Princess Sunday’s box, their spears pointed toward her Cherry Brigade. The ring of Mayor’s guards surrounding the stage of the amphitheater closed in on Guster.
“You should’ve chosen your words more carefully,” said the guard closest to Guster. He smashed the butt of his spear into Guster’s back, knocking Guster forward toward the Mayor’s box.
Guster stumbled. This was bad. This isn’t what he wanted. He’d been trying to prove his innocence. And then, of course, turn the tables on the Mayor. But execution? Could the Mayor really do that? Guster’s knees went weak. He felt like he was going to throw up.
The two guards seized Guster by the arms and yanked him to his feet, standing him up right under the Mayor’s nose.
The Mayor peered down over his rumpled cravat at Guster. His face was growing redder by the second. “You’ll wish you’d held your tongue boy!” he growled. “Whatever anyone may tell you, I am the supreme authority here, and there is no one in this city that can stop me from punishing you to the full extent of the law!”
He drew a long, curved, silver sword from a scabbard at his side. He lowered the blade toward Guster.
Suddenly, a loud whopping noise beat the air. A swirling tornado blew through the stadium. Someone screamed. The guards loosened their grip slightly, and Guster twisted, looking skyward.
Three heavily-armored, dull-green helicopters descended from the sky. They hovered twenty feet above the amphitheater floor. A dozen ropes uncoiled, dropping out of the side of the helicopters, and all at once, a dozen mercenaries in white-and-gray snow camouflage rappelled out of the helicopters, zipping downward like falling stones. They hit the ground hard, and in less than a second, they had unclipped their harnesses and drawn their rifles.
Then another figure, this one dressed in a baby-blue apron, zipped out of the chopper, her arms flailing awkwardly, the bun atop her head bobbing as she landed. She unclipped her harness and put her gloved hands on her chubby hips. Her face was stern, and her eyes looked like they could bore through someone’s skull.
“You have until the count of ten to unhand my son, or there will be consequences like you never imagined!” said Mom with the fury of a lioness.
Chapter 16—The Mom, The Mayor, and The Mercenary
For one full second, nobody moved. Whether from fear, awe, or both, the guards were frozen in place, their jaws hanging open.
“Flatlanders!” the Mayor. He pointed his silver sword. “Eradicate them!”
The guards swung their spear points toward the mercenaries and charged.
Felicity Casa’s men reacted quickly. Pop-pop-pop! They fired, grouping themselves into a tight formation around Mom, then fanning outward toward the Mayor’s guard.
Something whizzed by Guster’s cheek. A tiny dart lodged in the neck of the guard nearest Guster.
The guard fell, his eyes rolling back into his head. Tranquilizer darts. Felicity’s mercenaries had used them before.
The second guard looked up toward the helicopters. He looked scared. Guster took a chance and wrenched his arm free, ducking and running toward the nearest mercenary.
“No you don’t,” cried the guard, swinging his spear outward.
The shaft caught Guster on the side of his shin, knocking him off his feet. He fell onto the cold stone bricks, hitting the ground hard.
His chest and arms hurt from the blow, and he couldn’t see straight. It looked like one of the mercenaries, a thick-necked, broad-shouldered grunt with mirrored aviator glasses, was marching toward him. The Lieutenant. He’d come to save them. But how? It didn’t make sense. How did they find El Elado?
“Get down, Johnsonville!” the Lieutenant shouted. He raised his rifle and fired. Pop! A dart whizzed over Guster’s head, catching the guard behind him in the arm.
The guard swayed, then fell over flat on his back.
Guster rushed past the Lieutenant, putting the line of mercenaries between him and the Mayor’s guards. “Thanks,” said Guster.
“Just here to protect you, sir,” said the Lieutenant, his tranquilizer gun still popping off darts into the line of advancing guards.
Guster didn’t stop there. He scrambled through the soldiers until he found what he was looking for—Mom.
Mom was running toward Guster too. He leapt over the table where the ice cream goblets had stood and threw his arms—chains and all—around Mom’s middle in a big hug. She kissed him on top of the head. Normally, he would’ve been embarrassed. Right now, he didn’t care. He was just glad she was there.
“You’re grounded until you’re 87,” she said.
Guster nodded, his face pressed into Mom’s apron. Her clothes smelled like banana nut muffins. “I know,” he said.
“Your father and I had no idea where you were! We thought you were dead! Or kidnapped! Or getting tattoos!” Her voice was shrill.
Guster’s belly felt heavy with guilt. He’d run away from home. He hadn’t meant to cause her such pain. But he had to do it. Could she see that? He’d left home to keep them safe, but now—now they were all in danger once again.
No matter how hard Guster had tried to evade the monster and keep his family away from it, he had ended up throwing himself right back into its clutches.
“Move!” shouted the Lieutenant. The Sergeant and Private were right behind him, backing toward the edge of the amphitheater farthest from the Mayor’s grandstand. They were still firing into the line of guards.
A handful of Felicity’s mercenaries were pinned to the ground under the guards’ knees. A half dozen of the Mayor’s guards lay prone on the ground.
“We need to get you to safety,” the Lieutenant said.
Guster wasn’t sure where that would be. The Mayor had such a stranglehold on his part of the city. Their best bet was Princess Sunday’s jurisdiction.
“We need to cross the Chocolate River,” said Guster.
The Lieutenant nodded.
“Lead the way,” said the Sergeant.
“Not without the rest of my babies,” said Mom. Zeke and Mariah were running through the battle, dodging spears and guards.
They punched through a line of the Mayor’s guards and circled around to the amphitheater exit where Guster and Mom were hunched low behind the Sergeant and Lieutenant.
Mom pulled Zeke and Mariah into one big hug. “You mean you’re not mad?” asked Zeke.
“Oh, I’m livid,” said Mom. “You can count on never seeing another sunrise again as soon as I get you back home and locked up in your rooms for the rest of your life.”
Zeke swallowed hard. Mariah looked indifferent. She knew just as well as Guster did when Mo
m was making threats she couldn’t keep.
“This way,” said the Lieutenant. He led them into an arched passageway in the outer wall of the amphitheater and through the darkness at a fast jog.
“If we cross the river we’ll be in the Fruitful Streets, where the Mayor has less control,” Guster said. “It’s our best chance.”
“Good. Ms. Casa is in the choppers,” the Lieutenant said. “We’ll rendezvous with them once we find a suitable landing area, and we’ll make a hasty exit, every last one of us.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Mariah.
“Do you have a cooler?” Zeke asked. “We should pack some ice cream to go.”
They emerged from the amphitheater into the butterscotch streets. There were people everywhere, running from the amphitheater, screaming and stumbling as they escaped the battle inside.
“What a wonderful place,” said Mom. She’d stopped in her tracks, spinning to look at the domed houses and storefronts, the chocolate-brick chimneys, the peanut brittle sidewalks, and the translucent, glowing butterscotch streets. “I do wonder if I might get the recipe for that one,” she said, pointing at a petite chocolate peanut butter cottage with polished orange and yellow-shelled candy door.
“Can I suggest that now is not the time Ma’am,” said the Lieutenant. “Ms. Casa is waiting at the chopper, and we’re evading the enemy.”
Mom nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She stumbled forward, her eyes still fixed on the cottage.
The Sergeant pulled her up the street by the arm. They all ran, Guster pumping his legs, chains dangling from his wrists, Zeke and Mariah right behind him. The three of them quickly outpaced Mom. After a few more yards, the mercenaries too were huffing and bent over, trying to catch their breath.
Guster stopped. “The altitude—they’re not used to it. Just like we were when we came.”
“We have to keep them moving,” said Mariah. She grabbed the Sergeant by the hand. Now it was her turn to pull him up the street.
Zeke took hold of Mom.
Guster led them into a narrow alleyway off the main street. They had to try to throw the Mayor’s guard off their tail. They took two left turns, then a right, darting onto streets that led generally in the direction of Princess Sunday’s castle.
“What . . . is this . . . place?” the Lieutenant asked between pants. He rested against a mint-green, chocolate chip doorway.
“You mean you don’t know?” asked Guster.
The Lieutenant shook his head. “Never seen anything like it.”
“Then how did you find us?” asked Mariah.
“Homing beacon. I slipped it into your backpack when I spotted you in New York City. Ms. Casa sent us out far and wide to likely places you might run to. I was lucky enough to find you there in the city.”
So Felicity had been searching for them ever since they left the farmhouse. It made sense. She’d wanted Guster to help her find more tasty treasures. She probably hadn’t bet that he would find an entire city made of ice cream.
“What homing beacon?” asked Guster.
The Sergeant smiled. “Glowing? Red? About the size of a jelly doughnut?” he asked.
“You put that doughnut in my backpack!” said Guster to the Lieutenant. So that’s how it got in there. The Lieutenant must have slipped it in when he bumped into them on the street. Guster felt a stab of embarrassment. If they hadn’t run from the Lieutenant into Bubalatti’s clutches, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
“That jelly doughnut is a Felicity Casa special recipe. Well, combined with our tech, of course. She mixed in some of your Mom’s ingredients so that you wouldn’t throw it away. She wanted it to feel familiar to you,” said the Lieutenant.
“Lucky he didn’t eat it,” said Zeke.
“That is lucky,” the Lieutenant said, “but I think he would’ve stopped when he got to the metal, circuits, and wire bits. We never would’ve been able to find this place without it. Even if we’d known where to look, our GPS started going haywire before we even got close. There’s something about the magnetic fields in these mountains that throws it off. We had to hone in on the signal, or we probably would’ve crashed into the cliffs.”
“Which must be how the city stays undetected,” said Mariah, holding her chin.
They ran back out onto the street. “This way,” said Guster, leading them left up the sloped sidewalk past two hazelnut houses. This was a good sign. The chocolate flavors were thinning out. They must be getting close to the river.
They ran up the streets as fast as the mercenaries could go, huffing the whole way. Mom seemed to have the worst of it. She was breathing hard, and her legs looked like they were moving in slow motion.
Guster grabbed her hand. “I’m proud of you, son,” she said, panting. “I’m just so relieved that we found you.”
But wasn’t she going to ground him for life? Mom was hard to understand sometimes.
“Your father will be very glad to see you when we get to the choppers,” she said.
“Dad’s here?” asked Guster. A knot in his stomach hardened. Could Dad really handle this kind of danger? Last year he’d been safe on a business trip.
“And Henry Junior too,” said Mom. “Dad’s with him. Your father refused to stay home. He insisted on coming to take care of us.”
And who is going to take care of him? wondered Guster.
“Over there!” cried a loud voice from across the street. A trio of the Mayor’s guards rounded the corner, spears under their arms.
“This way,” said Guster, pulling Mom through two wide-open double doors into a massive, red velvet brick building. The words “First El Elado Masonry—All Natural Brickwork” were printed on a sign over the doorway. Mariah, Zeke, and the mercenaries ducked inside.
The interior was cavernous. Two rows of enormous cast-iron tubs twice as tall as Zeke lined either wall. There were stone blocks carved from many flavors of ice cream stacked in piles, each giving off a its own aroma: marbled black fudge, sea salted caramel, and cookie dough.
“This must be where they make the bricks for the city,” said Mariah.
Two men in floppy confectioner’s hats poured sacks full of dark-brown chocolate rocks into one of the iron tubs while a third stirred the tub’s contents with a seven-foot long paddle. A yak pushed a wooden turnstile that turned another set of paddles inside the mixture.
They ran down the center aisle, zigzagging between the stacks of bricks. The Confectioners dropped their sacks and paddles.
“What are you doing here?” shouted the tallest one. “We only make bricks for you if you got the money!”
Guster glanced over his shoulder. The Mayor’s guards were right on their tails. The factory was large enough they should be able to lose them, then find a way out the back.
The Sergeant heaved himself against a pile of cookies and cream ice cream blocks. The Lieutenant added his weight, and the blocks teetered, then toppled over, smashing into the ground and blocking the path behind them.
“My masterpieces!” cried the tallest confectioner. “Those were for the new Town Hall!”
“Sorry,” Guster said sheepishly, shrugging up at them.
They turned between two of the iron tubs, then passed through a narrow doorway into a dark hallway. It opened up into a room dimly lit by a row of small, glowing orange fires. Above the fires, seven iron kettles hung from the ceiling, their contents bubbling and gurgling from the heat. The back wall was made of brick after brick of red velvet ice cream without a window or door in sight. There was no way out.
“Dead end!” said the Lieutenant. He pressed both gloved hands up against the brick walls. “Frozen. Solid.”
Zeke stood on his tiptoes and peered into the bubbling cauldron. He breathed in deeply through his nose. “Mmmmm. Fudge.” He dipped his finger into the mixture.
“Hot! Hot!” he cried, jumping backward, yanking his finger out and wagging it through the air.
“We’ve got to try another exit,” said Mom, turning back toward the hallway. “Or maybe not,” she said, whirling back around.
The three guards stood at the far end of the hallway, blocking the light from the larger factory room. The Lieutenant raised his tranquilizer gun and fired. Pop-pop! Ping!
The guards raised a pair of long metal shields, deflecting the Lieutenant’s darts so that they bounced harmlessly to the ground. One of the guards raised his arm.
“Get down!” shouted the Lieutenant. He dropped to the floor. Guster threw himself against the wall as there was a crack and a flash of sparks and smoke. A bullet zipped by and lodged into the far wall, spraying ice cream chips in all directions.
“Lay down some cover fire,” said Mom.
The Sergeant dropped to one knee next to the door jam and fired off several darts. Mom pulled on a pair of padded oven mitts from the front pocket of her apron. She took hold of the cauldron and lifted it off the hook where it hung from the ceiling. She bent under its weight, then staggered and dumped it against the far wall. It spilled over, pouring hot fudge all over the red velvet bricks.
The fudge hissed and steamed, eating away at the bricks until the ice cream softened into a dark creamy mixture.
Ping! Ping! The Sergeant kept firing.
“One more,” Mom said and lifted another hot fudge cauldron off its hook. She carried it over to the wall and poured it into the soupy hole. The fudge steamed and gurgled, softening the ice cream bricks even further.
“Lieutenant,” she said, pointing to the wall.
The Lieutenant gave the wall a swift kick. It broke, light streaming in through a small hole from the outside.
The Sergeant fired another stream of darts at the guards, who were advancing down the hallway, their shields raised, the darts pinging as they bounced off the metal.
“They’re coming!” the Sergeant said.