by Adam Sidwell
Guster peered down at the crowds outside the castle gates. “They loved her. Even the ones from the Chocolate Crescent,” he said to Mom.
“There is a new feeling in this city,” she said, huddling into her baby-blue parka. “I think you are a part of that, Guster.”
Dad hitched up his pants around his belly button. “Guster, I’m glad you did what you did back there on the castle walls,” he said. “Your mom and I talked about it. You knew something that we didn’t. We think you made the right choice.”
He’d run away from home; he’d broken so many rules. “Does that mean I can go to camp when we get back?” he asked.
Mom’s bun bobbed as she shook her head. “Oh, no. That’s going to have to wait until next year. You’re still grounded until then.” He could tell she meant business, but she still hugged him.
***
In the late afternoon Guster stood atop a broken section of the castle wall. Zeke and Mariah were with him. Two out of three Casa Industries helicopters were parked outside the drawbridge, but the third was gone. Felicity Casa and her mercenaries were nowhere to be found.
Guster needed time to think. There was so much to absorb after everything that happened there.
The haze and smoke from the battle still lingered in the thin mountain air. Through it, Guster could make out a place where the aqueduct had broken, its ice cream masonry shattered by cannon fire and blown outward like a broken artery.
Glistening red strawberry sauce pumped out the side, flowing in spurts, tumbling down in a strawberry waterfall and splashing onto the butterscotch streets. It pooled there and then gurgled its way down the sloped street, branching into crimson, shining fingers that flowed across the hard candy cobblestone and over the bank into the Chocolate River.
Guster was drawn to the river. He peered out of over the castle ramparts. It was such an accidental combination. What if the flavors blended wrong? What if the ratios were off? It was a disaster waiting to happen.
But the strawberry didn’t disappear like he thought it would. Instead, it swirled and wound, spiraling into little whirlpools that danced downstream in the chocolate. They formed a perfect tapestry of red and brown.
A little girl, no more than five years old, saw what had happened and turned toward the bank. She bent on one knee, then pulled a tiny ladle from her pocket and dipped it into the river.
People stopped to stare. Shocked at first, then curious, they stopped to watch.
She brought the ladle to her lips and sipped.
The crowd on the river banks grew, staring and whispering to one another as if unsure of what they’d seen.
Then the little girl turned, her face beaming like a tiny sun. “Delicious!” she said in a voice so clear Guster could hear it way up on the castle ramparts. “It’s so delicious!”
There was a murmur of excitement. Two more children dipped their spoons into the new river and tasted its chocolate-strawberry swirls. Then the grownups followed, until the entire riverbank on both sides was lined with the men, women and children of El Elado dipping their spoons—once each—into the flow to taste a flavor they had never known.
At last. Strawberry and chocolate together. It was complete. El Elado could hardly be the same.
Zeke and Mariah climbed to the ramparts and stood by Guster.
“Woah,” said Zeke, staring over Guster’s shoulder at the strawberry-chocolate confluence below. “Just think, now they can have strawberry with chocolate chunks, and fudge blueberry, and cherry chocolate cheesecake. And peanut butter and chocolate!” He put one arm around each of Guster and Mariah’s shoulders, and sighed. “Peanut-peach-chocolate-apple-caramel-butterscotch cookie crumble berry. I’ve got so many plans for this town.”
Mariah looked crossways at him. “I’m pretty sure you just made that up, Zeke,” she said. She was smirking just a little, and Guster was almost certain she was trying not to show how amused she really was.
But Zeke was right about one thing: El Elado was free now. It had been held back for too long by its barriers. Now those were gone.
Guster could only imagine what new, groundbreaking desserts might come out of the city in the years to come. It was a new day for the Delicious City. A renaissance of taste.
The Chancellor mounted the rampart behind them, his green and yellow robes flowing in the breeze. Gaucho and two of Princess Sunday’s guards were with him. The Chancellor held Princess Sunday’s scepter in both hands.
“Guster Johnsonville,” said the Chancellor, clearing his throat and standing beside Guster. The guards snapped to attention. “As you know, we don’t put much stock in sons and daughters here in El Elado. Perhaps that will change soon. But that means we don’t have royal bloodlines either. Our royalty is appointed here according to a chain of promotion within the ranks.”
The Chancellor straightened his robes. “The Culinary has debated long about this and has come to the conclusion that, seeing as all those whose positions were next in line for the throne have either been imprisoned for crimes against the City or fled, it seems only appropriate in this circumstance to offer you, by the authority invested in us, to be crowned Prince Guster Johnsonville of El Elado, and ruler of the Delicious City.” He offered the scepter to Guster with both hands.
Guster could not believe his ears. He turned to look into the Chancellor’s eyes. They were sincere.
“Me? The Prince of El Elado?” asked Guster.
“Yes,” said the Chancellor. “We need a ruler now. You’re new here, but after everything you’ve done, I can’t think of anyone more qualified for the job.”
Guster looked over the grand, majestic city. It was the city of his dreams. He could do so much. He could help them rebuild.
Mom and Dad were loading their things into one of the choppers. Henry Junior was back at home with Braxton. Mariah and Zeke couldn’t stay here forever.
“This could all be yours,” said the Chancellor, sweeping his hand over the city with its ice cream shining golden in the sun.
Ruling El Elado sounded nice. It really did. But Guster had other places to go. There were things to do. “It’s an honor sir,” he said. “But I’m needed at home.”
The Chancellor bowed to Guster. “Very good sir. I won’t say that I’m not disappointed for us, but I will say that I understand. It’s been an honor to have you in our ranks.”
Guster returned the bow.
“You know what that means then, Gaucho del Pantaloon,” said the Chancellor.
Gaucho’s eyes grew wide with amazement. He pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “Did I ever mention to you that I am the Protector of the Yummies, Guster Johnsonville? Yesterday, I was sixteenth in line for the throne. But as of this minute, I am number one!”
He let out a high-pitched, quiet scream of joy. “Tomorrow, I will be crowned prince of El Elado.”
The Chancellor handed the scepter to Gaucho. Gaucho took it.
Suddenly, the little conquistador stood taller, his arms straight at his sides, his mouth drawn into a determined line, Princess Sunday’s scepter in his right hand.
The two guards kneeled. “Your Majesty,” they said.
. The Culinary had arrested the Mayor. He was in jail. The Baconists had fled the city. Now it was Gaucho del Pantaloon’s chance to set things right.
Gaucho had a good heart, and he cared for El Elado with such a deep devotion. With the right friends to help him, he could lead El Elado to a bright and delicious future.
“Then the Delicious City is in good hands,” said Guster. He bowed, dipping his head low to Prince Gaucho del Pantaloon. “I wish you well. May wonderful tastes always find you.”
“And you, Guster Johnsonville,” said Gaucho, bowing back.
The deep thumping of the third helicopter’s blades beat the air outside the castle walls. The time had come. Guster, Mariah, and Zeke descended
the steps and crossed the drawbridge. Mom and Dad were waiting there for Felicity’s helicopter to touch down.
The blades twisted slowly to a stop, and the whirlwind subsided until they could hear each other speak again.
“You went ahead and did it, didn’t you?” asked Guster as the side door of the chopper slid open and Felicity stepped out.
“We can’t leave an artifact of such culinary significance up here to rot in these mountains,” she said. The enormous Shield of Seasons lay on the floor of the chopper, wrapped with thick padding and secured with wide, yellow ratchet straps.
Felicity and her mercenaries had the manpower and the will to move it. They weren’t asking for Guster’s approval. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have stopped them.
He lifted the padded cover. The shield had softened slightly next to the heat of the choppers engines. It was soft to his touch. “The cold cave kept it frozen,” said Guster.
Felicity smiled. “That’s right. It’s not made of stone at all,” she said.
Guster sniffed it. Cookie dough. It was a giant sugar cookie, all rolled out and stamped with inscriptions, then frozen to keep it preserved.
“It’s never been baked,” said Felicity. She caressed it with one finger. “Leaves me to wonder.” She looked at Guster. “You do realize this is just the first clue in a mystery of much larger significance?”
Guster opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. He did not know what the Shield of Seasons was meant for. Only that it was likely something Archedentus wanted him to find, and that the symbols carved there had to have some kind of significance. Beyond that, he realized, he was woefully ignorant. It might as well have been a slab of Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
“Guster, this shield fits into a picture larger than any of us had realized or even suspected. The Gastronomy of Peace was just the catalyst to open up this world. It’s what brought you here after all.” Felicity said. “What else remains to be found? Can’t you see it? There’s more for us to do. We need you.” Her perfectly mascaraed eyes were intense but pleading.
Guster considered this. “Then the shield stays with us,” he said. “I want it in our barn, where Mariah, Mom, and I can decipher it.” He was sure about this much: he couldn’t let it out of his sight.
Felicity’s face turned calm and cool. “Very well,” she said. “So it will be.”
She turned to the waiting chopper and twirled one finger in the air. “Rev ‘em up boys!” she shouted. “Let’s get this payload back to Home Sweet Home.”
The pilots started the engines, and the rotors churned slowly until they picked up speed. The Lieutenant helped Mom, Dad, Guster, Mariah, and Zeke aboard. Guster gripped the metal handholds on the chopper wall tightly and looked out over the Delicious City as they lifted off the ground and rose into the air.
It was a good place, El Elado. As the chopper flew away, Guster could see the walls, the strawberry fields, and the butterscotch streets shining and glistening like gold in the sun. The City of Gold. The City of Taste. A place where legends were true.
Guster settled back into his seat with Mom on one side and Dad on the other. Mariah and Zeke sat across from him. There was another place that he longed for now, and it wouldn’t be long until they got there—home, with the familiar smells of fields and woods and Mom’s kitchen, all just waiting for him to return.
He could almost taste it.
If you love
Evertaster: The Delicious City,
Keep reading for a look at the prequel to Evertaster: The Buttersmith’s Gold
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Chapter 1 — Torbjorn and Storfjell
Almost every historian you ever meet will tell you that there is nothing Vikings love more than blueberry muffins. Blueberry muffins with blueberries shining like gems atop the muffin’s golden crown. Blueberry muffins with little bubbles of succulent blue juice that burst in your mouth when you sever their skin with your teeth. Blueberry muffins for breakfast, blueberry muffins for lunch, blueberry muffins for supper next to your clan’s roaring fire in the longhouse.
Most historians would tell you that’s what Vikings love most. Most historians would be wrong.
“You boys sure seem to love muffins more than anything!” said Braxton. The old pilot had seen it all in his day – kangaroo rodeos, bees on bicycles, and even a fish who could shoot – but never ever in his whole life did he expect to be stranded on board a wooden ship in the middle of the sea with a pair of humongous Vikings.
And now that pair had laid aside their horned helmets and were shoveling blueberry muffins into their mouths by the fistful.
“Oh yah! ha ha!” laughed the larger of the two Vikings – his name was Storfjell – with a deep, rumbly laugh that shook his mountainous belly. Golden-brown muffin crumbs fell from Storfjell’s mouth into his silvery beard. He was at least eleven feet tall, with a pair of silver braids that must have been woven from moonbeams. “What you are saying is a common mistake! We are loving blueberry muffins very much! But you know what we are loving even more?” Storfjell said between mouthfuls.
Braxton’s watery eyes twinkled. The cows mooed. “I could venture a guess,” he said. If it weren’t for these two Vikings, alive and thriving in the modern era, unknown to the rest of the world, Braxton might still be stuck on a remote island in the Norwegian Sea. Still, as strange as it all was, he had a feeling he knew what they were going to say.
“Blueberry muffins are delicious to eat of course, but it is this, the Golden Fortune of our Herds – that is the best thing to taste in all of Midgard!” said the Viking named Torbjorn. Torbjorn was the smaller of the two – he was still ten feet tall and broad as an ox. He heaved a heavy wooden barrel upright and slid it across the deck of the ship to the mast where they sat. He pried off the lid with his battle axe and dipped the edge of the blade into the soft, golden butter inside. “It is butter that we Vikings love all the best!”
Butter – creamy, rich and smooth. I wonder what the encyclopedias would say about that, thought Braxton. The way these boys drank down their butter, you’d think their butter was the treasure that launched the Viking Age itself. He watched their herd of cows pushing at the oars. A question began to form in Braxton’s mind. There was something he had to know. “I know you love your cows and treat them right. I know you feed them on fresh clover,” said Braxton. “But what is it that makes your butter so special?”
Storfjell smiled, his long silver mustache turning upward with the corners of his mouth. He looked quite pleased that Braxton would ask. “This is a good thing you have wondered, but it is not my story to tell.” He pointed to his brother Torbjorn. “You must ask him, and he will tell you that and many things.”
Torbjorn scooped out another mound of butter and smeared it all over the heap of muffins still left on the table, then pounded the lid back onto the barrel with the butt of his axe. He was usually the jollier of the two Buttersmiths, but now, all of a sudden, he grew quiet. “It is an ancient tale,” he said. “One that begins with our fathers and their fathers’ fathers, so many times ago, before the ships could cross the great sea, when there were fewer people on the land, and when kings were rare indeed.”
Braxton took another bite of his muffin. The butter washed down his throat. He settled back against a barrel. It was a long way to land, and this was the tale he’d hoped would get told.
“In those days, our clan churned the butter in wooden churns by hand. It was a very tiring work.
“In those days, our clansmen did not live past 40 winters old. If he did not get a knife in his back, or a battle axe to his teeth, old age would surely find him.
“My father’s father’s father, very many fathers ago, was also like me named Torbjorn. Also his brother, like mine, was called Storfjell,” said Torbjorn. His words went up and down in his sing-songy voice as he spoke. With the fresh
muffin warming Braxton’s belly from the inside, and the creamy butter melting through him and coating all his nooks and crannies, Braxton began to hear Torbjorn’s words as if they were a dream. This is the story that Torbjorn told.
Chapter 2 — Smordal
Many centuries ago, young Torbjorn Trofastsonn of Smordal knew quite well that the tastiest thing in the whole world was butter. Creamy, rich and smooth. Butter was the reason his clan invented blueberry muffins in the first place – they’d needed something to smear it on. Butter was their lifeblood. Butter was the warmth in their hearts, the horns on their helmets, the tips of their mustaches.
Butter was also their greatest secret.
Torbjorn hoisted an oversized basket full of steaming hot muffins into his arms and tottered down the gangplank onto the sandy shore of Viksfjord, the merchants’ village. He and his clan had sailed from the open sea into the fjord this morning, where he and his brother Storfjell had helped Father and the bovines row the final twenty miles to the sand.
He did not mind the work. He was large for only 13 winters old. Smaller than the biggest boulders, but larger than most respectable rocks, Torbjorn was already 8 feet tall. If five sheep stacked themselves on top of each other, he could stare the fourth one straight in the eye. He was from Smordal, and Smordaler were known for their tremendous size – not to mention their good humor.
“The streets of Viksfjord are filled with much peril,” said Father. He stopped Torbjorn at the bottom of the gangplank and grasped him by both shoulders. “Go to find the money-clutching merchants in the village center. They will trade with you behind closed doors. Make your trade, then leave. Do not be seen. It’s the Buttersmith’s way.”
It was the first time Torbjorn would bargain for himself, but Father didn’t need to tell Torbjorn what to do. He’d seen the men come and go on trading trips dozens of times. And Torbjorn was a Smordaler through and through – it was in his blood.