Bad Blood

by Carly Anne West

  “Whoa, I’m joking!” I say, and Enzo laughs, but Trinity still looks more traumatized than I am.

  I’m not going to lie. It feels pretty great to have friends who actually think I might hate them.

  It almost feels good enough for me to forget that we’re going to a factory that’s completely surrounded by the woods they left me in. Almost.

  “Oh hey, I nearly forgot, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” says Enzo as we get off the bus, but the second Trinity gets too far ahead, I’ve lost him again.

  The factory road is set far from the wilds of the forest, though I can’t help but feel I’m developing some sort of phobia of trees. But once we leave the bus and go inside the factory, it’s a completely different world.

  For one glorious moment, we aren’t thinking about how lame it is to be on a field trip with elementary-schoolers. We aren’t worried about strategically placing ourselves in line so we can be close—but not too close—to our crushes. We don’t care about what we look like, what we smell like, what we sound like. We’re in the midst of candy. Glorious, cavity-making, blood sugar–rising, ecstasy-inducing candy.

  There’s a moment of silence.

  Then it’s madness.

  “All right, all right, everyone!” hollers Mr. Donaldson, and for the most part, we get it together again. Enzo puts himself as close to Trinity as possible without looking completely desperate. I try to time the movements of the factory workers to see how difficult it would be to slip into the tasting room. Mya and Maritza and Lucy link arms so they don’t get separated in the crowd. Trinity takes notes.

  “And over here is the taffy pull,” says the tour guide who could just as easily be guiding us through the Smithsonian for as seriously as he takes the Golden Apple legacy. He is suited in head-to-toe Golden Apple paraphernalia, which until today I didn’t know existed. I’m guessing no one did. There’s a red vest and matching red pants, a pin-striped suit jacket with piping along the collar. His black shoes shine so brightly under the factory floor lights, I have to look away. But the best thing about our guide—aside from his folksy name, Mr. Pippin—is his apple-shaped beret. The little loop at the top of the hat forms the stem of the apple, and this man is all business about his beret and every other part of him.

  “Children, this way please. Single file, please. Children!” he calls to us, making me cringe each time.

  He’s ushering us through the chocolate room, and I’m so blissed out right now, I can barely keep my head together. A quick look at the “children” around me tells me I’m not alone. You can almost smell the euphoria.

  “Hands at our sides, please,” says Mr. Pippin over the hum of the cocoa nib grinder. I actively have to keep from drooling.

  Mr. Pippin takes us through a winding maze of upper-level corridors, identical doors leading to offices and back-office departments, each alive with the hustle and bustle of the daily activities of the factory.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, “We’ll be back to the fun part in a moment.”

  When we emerge from the corridors, we’re standing on a metal balcony overlooking the main factory floor. Hundreds of workers in plastic hair nets and gloves sort Golden Apples along a giant conveyer belt, moving with enough speed to fill—

  “—five hundred boxes of Golden Apples a day,” says Mr. Pippin. “Yes, young lady in the back?”

  I hear Maritza’s voice shout confidently over the noise of machinery.

  “What sort of profit margins are you operating on?”

  Mr. Pippin takes a moment to absorb her question. To be fair, I think we all do. All except for Enzo. He looks entirely unsurprised.

  “What a … what an advanced question from such a young mind!” says Mr. Pippin, though he doesn’t sound impressed so much as annoyed.

  “Have you measured transverse flexibility in the rigidity of the conveyer belt?” asks Lucy.

  “Um … well, we—”

  “Is your maintenance schedule open to the public?” asks Mya.

  “Oh, good point. That would give great insight into the margins,” Lucy agrees enthusiastically.

  Mr. Pippin blinks at Mr. Donaldson. “Sorry, how old did you say—?”

  “Why don’t we save our questions until the end of the tour?” says Mr. Donaldson, sounding so exhausted I wonder how he’s still standing.

  I’ve never seen a person look more relieved than Mr. Pippin.

  “Excellent idea. Yes, questions at the end, children.”

  And away we go to the “History Room,” which is basically a room filled with old, framed pictures and newspaper articles, and a handful of pedestals scattered through the middle of the room housing old candy wrappers under glass cases.

  The origins of the Golden Apple dynasty.

  “And over here, you’ll see how it all started,” says Mr. Pippin, his reverence for the Golden Apple Origins almost religious.

  The origins, as it turns out, are actually kind of interesting. Apparently, Golden Apples started as a mistake, when Florence Dewitt (or Gammy Flo, as Mr. Pippin calls her, which earns him a collective eye roll) accidentally poured chocolate over her truffles too soon, making the chocolate melt in with the caramel instead of forming a hard coating over it. When she came back to check on the truffles, they’d all melted into little pools in shapes that looked like apples.

  From there, Gammy Flo, like so many other accidental entrepreneurs, started selling her Golden Apples out of her kitchen, at bake sales, the county fair. Along came the Tavishes, this über-rich family who thought Gammy Flo was sitting on a gold mine, so to speak, and dumped a bunch of money in her lap. The Golden Apple Corporation was born, and presumably, Gammy Flo died happy and rich.

  The Tavishes suddenly became very important in Raven Brooks, as most rich people who make towns richer do. Mr. Pippin talks about them like they’re important, too. He acts like they invented candy. Like, candy in general.

  Enzo appears beside me and elbows me deep in the ribs.

  “This is what I wanted to tell you about,” he says.

  “You want to tell me about boring old people with lots of money?”

  “Kind of, yeah.”

  Mr. Pippin clears his throat at the interruption, and Mr. Donaldson mimes a lip zip from the side of the room at us.

  “Now, if you’ll come this way, I think the next room—our Vision Room—is what you’re all going to be most interested in seeing,” says Mr. Pippin, and I have my doubts.

  As the rest of the group files out of the room obediently, I linger: a framed headline from one of the articles hanging on the wall has caught my eye.

  “Make waves,” I mutter to myself. I know who the article is talking about before I even reach the end of the headline.

  Sure enough, there in the first paragraph is mention of Roger and Adelle Peterson, and their Very Important work at the university, paid for in large part by the Very Important Tavish family.

  On the brink of fiscal disaster, the university study—itself a mystery but for the highest level of involvement—has been revived by a sizeable donation from local benefactor the Tavish Society, a charitable foundation developed and maintained by the illustrious Tavish family.

  Says Raven Brooks University President Beaumont M. Reginald, “We’re exceedingly grateful to the Tavish Society for their generosity and dedication to scientific advancement.”

  I keep scanning the article for another mention of my grandparents, but all references to the study keep their names conspicuously absent from the record.

  Instead, my eye is drawn to another article farther down on the time line—this one with the headline “Golden Apples Get a Second Chance.”

  Known for its philanthropic spirit, the Tavish Society has announced a donation to rebuild the Golden Apple factory after the destruction of the first factory. While the cause of the fire that reduced the first factory to rubble has been ruled inconclusive, rumors of arson persist as witnesses still claim to have seen two shadowy figu
res fleeing the scene shortly after the first flames were reported. The Tavish Society’s donation came under scrutiny, given that the owners of the factory are the very same Tavishes who run the charitable organization.

  I’m so absorbed by the article on the wall, I jump about a foot when I feel a hand close around my wrist.

  It’s Mya, and she looks more frightened than me, but for a completely different reason.

  “You need to see this.”

  She drags me into the Vision Room, and it’s a vision all right.

  The first thing I notice is the tracks. Three-dimensional roller-coaster tracks twist and turn across the walls of the room, climbing high and dipping low, a small robotic train moving across the ties with surprising speed. It zips along its track as the younger kids—even some of the older kids—watch with open mouths and wide eyes.

  The next thing I see is the garishly painted canopy, scaled to size like the rest of the contents of the room, draped over an amphitheater not unlike the one in Germany where my mom and the other dancers used to perform. There’s a scaled model of a concession stand, a ticket booth, a prize booth. There’s a model of a carousel, its top just as brightly painted as the canopy. There’s a Ferris wheel. There’s a fun house and a spinning ride.

  I look around at the way every single pair of eyes sparkles at the possibility of this magical amusement park, Golden Apple–themed and set right here in every Raven Brooks kid’s backyard.

  Filled with dread, I turn to Mya, who looks right back at me the same way. There’s no question about it now. No dismissing the words of the grocery store lady Mrs. Tillman, or the contracts and blueprints in my dad’s office that he and my mom both tried to hide. There’s no denying exactly why it is we’re in Raven Brooks.

  “He’s going to build another one,” says Mya quietly, so quietly that even if the room wasn’t buzzing with palpable excitement, I would have still struggled to hear her.

  All I can do is nod. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that she’s overreacting, jumping to conclusions. But here’s the truth, an entire room dedicated to it, laid out in scaled-model form for us to take in the entire vision of the Golden Apple Corporation.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, my eyes soon fall on a collage of photographs mounted to the far wall, surrounding the words A LEGACY OF INNOVATION. To my horror, prominently featured in the Vision Room is a tribute to Dad’s amusement park designs, his most daring and terrifying rides pictured with joyous parkgoers, their arms raised, their faces frozen in screams as they travel the course my dad built for their enjoyment. It should be something I’m proud of. Mya and I should be relishing the attention placed on our dad and his accomplishments.

  Instead, I watch every ounce of color drain from Mya’s face. I feel the tips of my fingers go cold, then numb. Because each of those parks has a disaster tied to it, from the fun house at Bosco Bay to the flume ride at Fernweh Welt.

  At the head of the room, Mr. Donaldson leans into Mr. Pippin’s ear, and Mr. Pippin’s eyes grow to the size of quarters.

  “Attention! Attention, children!” Mr. Pippin says, I guess to all of us? “It appears we are in the presence of genius!”

  “No,” Mya whispers.

  “Please don’t,” I mouth.

  But it’s too late.

  “Not only is the famous Theodore Masters Peterson heading up the design of the Golden Apple Amusement Park, but his son and daughter are right here among us!”

  I know Mr. Pippin is expecting everyone to ooh and ahh the way he does, but what happens instead is every head turns to Mya and me, confused as to why Mr. Pippin is so excited, and why Mya and I look so pale.

  Mr. Pippin laughs. “Now, don’t worry. We won’t ask you to reveal any secrets about the big ride,” he says.

  At first, his mention of secrets is all I can focus on. The word ricochets off the walls of my brain, and I’m pretty much just wishing it would knock me unconscious.

  Then the rest of what Mr. Pippin said sinks in.

  “Big ride?”

  “Well, of course,” says Mr. Pippin, turning his gaze to the rest of the room, clearly happy to once again have a captive audience.

  “We’ve asked Mr. Peterson to create a very special ride, something one of a kind that only visitors of the Golden Apple Amusement Park can enjoy. And Mr. Peterson has accepted that challenge. He’s sworn to secrecy until opening day, of course.”

  “Of course,” I whisper.

  Mya looks like she might faint, and I discretely hold on to her arm to keep her steady. Not sure who’s going to keep me steady, though.

  Then, Maritza swoops in to save us from the weight of this new burden.

  “Will the secret ride be a large part of your marketing strategy?”

  “And how will safety checks be made public?” adds Lucy.

  Some of the color returns to Mya’s face as Mr. Pippin’s own face turns sort of purplish.

  “I really don’t know,” he says, sounding defeated.

  “Oooh, could we talk to your head of engineering?” says Lucy as they corner Mr. Pippin with the enthusiasm only weirdly smart elementary-schoolers can possess. Whatever embarrassment we have to endure in this moment, at least it’s clear Mya has truly found her people.

  I’m just starting to wonder if I have, too, when Enzo stumbles toward me, tipping one of the display pillars and catching it before it goes crashing to the ground. From the corner of my eye, I see Mr. Pippin gasp dramatically.

  Trinity joins us from across the room.

  “Did you show him yet?” she asks Enzo.

  “Just getting to that,” he says, pulling a piece of paper with a frayed left edge from his pocket and unfolding it on the floor while we crowd around it. It appears Enzo has gotten over his inability to function around Trinity. I can’t help but feel a twinge of pride at the part I played in that.

  “Take a look at this,” he says to me, pointing to a black-and-white picture of some stuffy-looking people I now recognize as the wealthy members of the Tavish family.

  “Hang on, did you … is this from a textbook?” I say, recognizing the distinctive page border from Mrs. Ryland’s geography class. “Did you deface school property?” I chide him, tsking and shaking my head slowly.

  “In pursuit of a greater good. Would you get serious for a second?”

  I nod. “Boring old people. Got it.”

  Enzo gives me a look. “Not at the picture. What’s next to the picture.”

  I crouch to the floor with him and skim the text beside the photo. Sure enough, I quickly catch sight of my own last name.

  One ongoing study, funded by the Tavish Society and facilitated by husband-and-wife-geological/meteorological-sciences team Adelle and Roger Peterson, aims to shed light on the unexplained magnetic properties detected in various latitudes of their hometown. While little is known about the study or its methodology, the fact remains that private donors are increasingly relied upon for scientific advancement.

  I shrug. “Okay, so my grandparents are textbook-famous.”

  “Who’s famous?” Mya asks, making her way over to see what we’re all crowded around. Lucy is still chatting up Mr. Pippin, but Maritza is close behind.

  “Your grandparents,” says Trinity, and Mya’s eyes shift to me.

  “According to Enzo, they were working on a project no one knows about thanks to money they got from old people,” I say.

  “You ripped that out of a textbook?” asks Maritza, scandalized.

  “Would you forget about the textbook? You’re missing the point,” Enzo says to Maritza, to me, to the room in general because at the moment, he’s clearly the only one connecting the dots.

  “Do you know what the copyright on that book is?” he says.

  “Um, no. But I take it you—”

  “Nineteen sixty-one,” Enzo interrupts me. “Don’t you see what that means?”

  “That our textbooks are in desperate need of updating,” says Maritza.

  “No, I mea
n yes, but what it really means is that for the first time ever, we know what your grandparents were working on and when!”

  Enzo looks around, waiting for all of us—or even just one of us—to understand the significance of his discovery. We are all failing him.

  He sighs. His shoulders fall. “By nineteen sixty, your grandparents had gone completely off the grid. People rarely even saw them. Everyone knew they were working on something big, but no one knew what that was.”

  He slaps his index finger down on the textbook page. “But someone knew. The Tavish Society.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Oh?” Enzo says, indignant. “That’s it?”

  No, that’s not it. Not even close, but I can’t exactly say that this isn’t how I wanted to find out about my grandparents … with a crowd around to witness it. If they were hiding something, and it sure seems like they were, it’s a fun mystery to everyone else. To me, it’s one more secret to protect.

  Because even if I could learn every one of my grandparents’ secrets, I’m starting to feel more and more like I don’t want to. If I could go back to that day at Fernweh Welt and run the opposite direction of the flume ride, I would. There are some things that you can’t unsee. Some horrible secrets that you’re better off not knowing.

  So instead, I say, “It’s cool, Enzo. I mean, what you found is super interesting. But it’s not like anyone’s gonna be able to figure out what my grandparents were doing thirty years ago.”

  Instead of turning Enzo off the idea, though, this only fans the flames under him.

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” he says. “It is interesting because a whole bunch of other weird stuff was going on around the same time that your grandparents were working on their secret project.”

  My stomach drops to the floor. I look over at Mya, and she’s looking like she wants to find the emergency brake on this speeding train, but what are we supposed to do? Enzo’s already full throttle on this. I guess when you’re a person who has nothing to hide, you can get excited about mysteries.

  “And,” Enzo says, because apparently he’s not done obliviously ruining my life, “I brought the idea to my dad, and he wants me to investigate and write up a piece for the Banner!”