Bite-Sized Magic

by Kathryn Littlewood

  The suspended room was empty except for an illuminated glass pedestal, on top of which sat a glass dome. Inside the glass dome was a small hemisphere of chocolate cake, stuffed with white pastry cream. She recognized it instantly as a Dinky Cake.

  “Why do you have an entire room devoted to a Dinky Cake?” she asked.

  “It’s not just a Dinky Cake,” said Mr. Kerr, squinting his dark eyes.

  “Beneath this hallowed dome,” Mr. Butter began, like he was delivering a sermon, “lies the very genesis of the Mostess Snack Cake Corporation. Our empire was built on the Dinky Cake. Each year, the average person in the United States devours upward of seven pounds of Dinkies.”

  “Ugh,” said Rose, remembering the way some of the kids at school used to gobble up the cakes in two bites. “So, why is this one in a jar?”

  “This,” Mr. Butter said, once again lifting his glasses and wiping his eyes, “is the first Dinky Cake we ever made. And it’s every bit as fresh as it was the day it was manufactured by my grandfather back in 1927.”

  Rose was horrified. The Dinky Cake was almost a century old—it should already have rotted away. “That’s vile.”

  “It’s sensational,” Mr. Butter spat, pressing his spindly arms close to his sides. “It’s the power of preservatives—something your homespun cookies lack. Two days after you bake a cake, it dries out and winds up in the garbage. But with preservatives, each Dinky is guaranteed to be as delicious as the day you bought it, no matter when you eat it. The cakes are, in a way, immortal.”

  Gus, who was staring at the Dinky, began to heave.

  “Oops! My cat has a hairball!” Rose cried as she whisked Gus out of the room and placed him gently on the catwalk, where he continued to dry heave. “I would like to leave now,” he said quietly so that only Rose could hear him.

  “I want to go home, too,” said Rose, equally quiet. “But we have to find a way out of here.”

  “We want you to go home as well!” said Mr. Butter, who had stepped out of the glass Dinky shrine just in time to hear Rose. “But there is work to do first, so now we are going to bring you to our main test kitchen. It’s the happiest place on Earth.”

  “I thought that was Disneyland,” Gus whispered.

  Mr. Butter put his thin arm around Rose’s shoulder. “Your mission, which you’ve already accepted, will be to perfect the recipes for our five key products. After that, you will be absolutely free to go. With our thanks, of course.”

  “Of course,” Rose said with a gulp. “Perfecting a few recipes should be easy.” She looked at Gus.

  But the cat only shook his head and sighed.

  CHAPTER 3

  FLCP

  Outside the main factory building, Mr. Butter and Mr. Kerr ushered Rose and Gus into the back seat of a golf cart.

  “Now we are off!” Mr. Butter shouted. “To the place where the magic happens!”

  “Magic?” Rose repeated. Were there kitchen magicians here? No, that couldn’t be . . . could it?

  “A figure of speech,” Mr. Butter said. “I’m speaking, of course, of the magic of industry!”

  “Oh,” Rose said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  From her backpack, the cat whispered, “Spare me, please.”

  Mr. Kerr drove the cart past dozens of box-shaped warehouses, all painted a lifeless gray. Rose looked up the alleyways between the warehouses and all she could see were other warehouses, as if she’d entered a labyrinth of gray blocks from which there was no escape. The buildings were so tall and so close together that even the late-afternoon sun failed to penetrate to the ground below, and the streets of the Mostess Snack Cake Corporation were dark as night.

  The sun would be setting in an hour or so, and she knew that her parents would have officially started worrying that she hadn’t returned. She considered hopping off the cart and making a run for it, but in which direction? The buildings seemed to go on forever.

  “How many buildings are there?” Rose asked, trying to seem casual.

  “More than one hundred seventy-five units in this compound alone,” Mr. Butter answered proudly. “Then there’s our other production facility in Canada. That one has only one hundred twenty-five buildings.”

  After what seemed like a long drive, Mr. Kerr stopped the cart in front of a gray warehouse with a giant 67 painted on the side. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his suit jacket pocket and spoke softly into it. “Marge, FLCPC landing, over.”

  Suddenly, a part of the warehouse wall lifted into the roof, like an automated garage door, and Mr. Kerr drove the cart through the opening. The door closed behind them, locking the golf cart into a pitch-black, air-conditioned box.

  When the floor underneath started rumbling, Rose realized they were in an elevator. After a minute, the car emerged on the floor of a giant kitchen with rust-colored linoleum tiles on the floor, stainless steel prep tables, and a row of top-of-the-line ovens.

  The perimeter of the room was lined with every conceivable kitchen appliance: restaurant-sized stand mixers, deep fryers, toasters and blenders, salamanders and broilers, stainless steel pots and pans, and a rack containing twenty spatulas of various sizes and colors.

  Rose gasped. She didn’t like being brought here against her will, but she certainly didn’t mind the kitchen itself. It was almost perfect—the only thing missing was a secret pantry of magical blue mason jars like they had back home.

  “Quite something, isn’t it?” Mr. Butter asked. “This is our test kitchen.”

  He snapped his fingers, and a row of men and women in white lab coats, aprons, and chef’s toques marched in from a small door at the far corner of the room labeled BAKERS’ QUARTERS. In perfect unison, the six bakers filed in behind the row of metal prep tables and stood at attention.

  The six bakers were all nearly the same height—that is, on the shorter side, just about as tall as Rose herself. And they were all round. You might not notice it if you were just looking at one of the bakers, but seeing them all together in a row, it was clear they all were alike in one way: they were all overweight.

  Also, they were smiling. Not like genuinely happy men and women, but more like people whose mouths were being stretched up at the sides by invisible fish hooks.

  “Why are they so round?” Gus whispered, cradled in Rose’s arms. “They look as though they might roll away with just one push.”

  “Shh,” she replied. “I don’t know.”

  Mr. Butter sauntered over to the prep tables and leaned in close. “A spot.” He smiled, pointing at the perfectly clean stainless steel surface. “Someone missed a spot.”

  Then he snapped his fingers.

  One of the bakers gasped, ran to the back wall, and grabbed a fresh towel and some spray. He hurried back to the table and scrubbed vigorously at the spot.

  Mr. Butter pulled a magnifying glass out of his pocket and peered at the tabletop. “Better,” he said. Then he stood straight again, cleared his throat theatrically, and addressed Rose. “These are our very best bakers, specialists in every facet of the creation of our great line of products. They now all answer to you, Rosemary Bliss.”

  “Um, okay,” Rose said. The bakers’ eyes swiveled from Mr. Butter to Rose. One on the end farthest away from her audibly gulped.

  “And this is our Head Baker, Marge.”

  The woman standing closest to Rose had round pink cheeks and short brown hair that peeked out from beneath her chef’s toque. Her lips were as plump as maraschino cherries, and her nose was as round as a tiny cupcake. The pockets of her apron bulged with paper and recipe cards.

  “I’m Marge, and I’m in charge,” she said. “Let me introduce you to our specialists. This is Ning, he’s our Icing Tech.”

  Ning, a gentleman with a black crew cut, pointy eyebrows, and a large mole above his lip, gave Rose a salute.

  “This is Jasmine, our CTM—Cake Texture Modifier,” Marge said, moving down the line. Jasmine, a woman with two long black braids, nodded, and the wide grin plastered
across her face grew even wider. “The texture of a cake is, as I’m certain you know, the most important thing.”

  “Next we have Gene, our VP of Fillings, both marshmallowy and fruity.” Gene had a brown mustache and long, curly hair that he wore tied back in a hairnet.

  “And down at the end there,” said Marge, “we’ve got the twins, Melanie and Felanie. Nut Chunk and Sprinkle Maestros, respectively.”

  At the end of the line stood two young women with short blonde hair and freckles. They waved to Rose and smiled so widely that Rose could see their gums.

  These people are smiling, thought Rose, out of fear. They were all terrified of Mr. Butter, she realized.

  “That’s it,” said Marge. “That’s the gang.”

  “And this,” announced Mr. Butter with a flourish of his bony, fishy-white hand, “is Miss Rosemary Bliss, your new FLCP Director.”

  “She’s a lot younger than the last one,” said Marge, then rushed to add, “but worthy of our respect all the same!”

  Rose furrowed her brow. “FLCP? What’s that? It sounds like the noise Gus makes when he gets a hairball.”

  The bakers began to titter good-naturedly.

  “FLCPs,” said Mr. Butter, “are the things we bake. The products. Dinkies, King Things, all of them—they are all different types of FLCPs: Food-Like Consumer Products.”

  “Food-like?” Rose repeated.

  “Because of the mix of preservatives and chemicals we use in our delicious treats, the government has classified them as Not Food, but Food-Like.” Mr. Butter shrugged as though he were talking about a minor embarrassment. He winked at Rose. “But you and I both know that the government makes mistakes all the time, don’t we?”

  Rose thought about the wrongheaded law that had closed down the Follow Your Bliss Bakery and nodded. “We sure do.”

  Marge came around behind her and spotted the gray furball nestled in Rose’s arms. “Wow! A cat!” she cooed, lifting Gus out and cradling him like an infant. “There is nothing I love more on this sweet, sad dumpling of a planet than a funny-looking, alien-eyed, fat cat with crinkled ears.”

  Gus wore a look of sheer contempt as he gazed into the eyes of the round-headed baker.

  “No cats in the kitchen,” said Mr. Kerr, pulling Gus from Marge’s arms and dropping him back inside Rose’s backpack. She heard the Scottish Fold sigh deeply over the ratchet of the zipper.

  “Do I start baking now?” Rose asked, eager to get this whole charade over with so she could return to her family. They’d be worrying, she knew.

  “That’s the spirit!” said Mr. Butter. “But no. It’s too late today. You’ll start in the morning.”

  “You expect me to sleep here?” Rose asked, outraged. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Mr. Butter gritted his teeth, but said cheerfully, “If you are to perfect the five recipes in the five days we’ve allotted you—”

  “Five days?!” Rose repeated, shocked. She had expected to spend a few hours here at the most—not days.

  “It’s not enough time for an average baker, I know,” Mr. Butter said, stroking his lip, “but are you not the great”—he coughed into his hand—“Rosemary Bliss? The youngest baker to win the Gala blah blah blah?”

  “It was the Gala des Gâteaux—”

  “Yes, I know what it was called. I said ‘blah blah blah’ to show you that I am not impressed. As I was saying, to make the most of the five days until . . . well, the five days we have allotted you, you will live here. Your bedroom is up those stairs there, in the office that overlooks the FLCP Development Kitchens. Tomorrow you’ll get started, and Marge and the team will execute your marvelous ideas. The team is always here. If you have an inspirational dream and come up with something brilliant at three in the morning, just wake Marge, and the team will rally behind you.”

  “The bakers all live here?” Rose asked, looking around uneasily.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Butter. “They sleep right back there, in the Bakers’ Quarters. Where else would they live?”

  “In town, maybe? With their families?” Rose offered.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Butter, laughing as though Rose had told a funny joke. “Goodness, no. We are in recipe crisis here, Rose, and recipe crisis requires round-the-clock attention. What are families and homes when there are snack cakes to perfect? Nothing! The only thing that matters—to me, the Mostess Corporation, and to you—is that these recipes be perfected.” He dropped one of his bony hands on her shoulder; it was like having a bag of hangers draped across her back. “The bakers won’t be going anywhere until our little problem is solved. And neither, for that matter, will you. Good night, Rose. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  Rose climbed the spiral stainless steel staircase in the corner of the test kitchen, which led to a room suspended from the corner of the ceiling. She could hear Gus snoring from inside of her backpack, so she knew he was okay.

  The room had glass walls and looked out over the test kitchen like a fishbowl on a shelf, with Rose the fish. Marge had turned off the lights and the bakers had returned to their quarters at the back of the kitchens. Rose’s room had a single, tiny window to the outside world, just one foot square, above the bed. Through it, June twilight filtered in and glinted on the prep tables in the darkened kitchen below.

  The room was filled by a twin bed with a white duvet, a metal desk and desk lamp, and a little wooden dresser. Past a door on the back wall was a white-tiled bathroom, complete with little monogrammed towels. MOSTESS spelled the red thread. Sitting on top of the desk was a glass of milk and a few dry-looking biscuits. Dinner? Rose thought.

  Rose breathed deeply—the room had an oddly familiar smell, though she couldn’t place her finger on it. Was it the faintest whiff of old perfume? A faintly flowery hint of . . . she couldn’t recall where she knew the scent from. Maybe it was just the trusty old smell of a bakery?

  White curtains were tied in bunches in the corners of the room; Rose untied them, covering the glass walls for privacy. Then she unzipped her backpack and Gus tumbled out onto the bed.

  “Ah!” he said, waking up from his nap. “Are we home yet?” He glanced from side to side, then sat back and curled his tail round his feet. “I was hoping this place was all a bad dream.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Rose said. She took a biscuit and broke it in half, popping one of the pieces into her mouth and giving the other to Gus. Then she took a swig of milk.

  “It’s okay, Rosie,” the cat said between bites. “We will triumph! Are we not cats? Are we not the slyest, smartest, most surprising foes in all of creation? Are we not—”

  “You’re a cat,” Rose said, frowning. “I’m a girl.”

  “A technicality,” Gus said. “My point, though, was simple. We shall get through this. We have each other.” He yawned.

  Rose cracked open the window above the bed and stuck her head out. The room was pretty high up. All she could see were the tops of other warehouses. They seemed to go on forever. On the very edge of the horizon was a barbed-wire fence. There’d be no escaping through this window.

  The sky was a dark purple, the color of a summer plum, with little rivulets of bright orange winding their way through the deep clouds. Her parents would definitely be panicking by now. They would notify the police, they would search Calamity Falls, they would find her bike outside Stetson’s on Sparrow Hill, and Devin Stetson would tell them she had made her final delivery at around three that afternoon. They would know she’d been missing ever since.

  Rose gave a trembling sigh. She just wanted to go home. She missed her sister and her parents, Balthazar and Chip—she even missed her brothers! “I wish I’d never made that wish,” she muttered. “To stop baking. Then none of this would have happened.”

  “This isn’t happening to you because of a little wish,” the cat said, “so don’t go beating yourself up over it. Just get a good night’s sleep. That’s a cat’s solution to everything, you know: sleep. The right thing to do i
s always obvious in the morning. Oh, and by the way—had you considered sharing your milk?”

  Rose stared at the half-empty glass. “I’m sorry, Gus. How rude of me.” She tipped the glass over on the floor and let Gus lap up the rest of it with his tongue.

  “Oh no,” Rose moaned, staring at her clothes. “I don’t have any pajamas.”

  “Neither do I,” Gus said, looking up at her. “But you don’t see me complaining about it!”

  Rose rolled her eyes and went to the dresser and tugged open the drawers. They were stuffed with white linen pants in all sizes, white chef’s coats, white chef’s hats, and boy’s underwear.

  “Seriously?” she said, holding up an unopened package of briefs. “I have to wear these?”

  Gus did his best to twist his head around so that he could clean his back. “Ugh! Out, out, spot! I’ve been cleaning since we got here, and there is still flour stuck in my fur.”

  Rose sat down again on the bed, right next to Gus. The two of them huddled against each other, and Rose thought about what her family would be doing right about now if she’d been at home.

  Leigh would have been pulled out of her filthy pants and T-shirt and been loudly unhappy until she was zipped up into her pajamas. Sage would be using the head of Rose’s desk lamp to create a spotlight, and then performing in its beam, telling the jokes he’d written and then raising his hands to quiet the nonexistent audience. Ty would be making plans for what he called “the Grand Finale”—the stunts he hoped to pull off during the last week of school. And her parents . . .

  It was too much. Rose blinked back tears. She knew her family wouldn’t be doing any of these things. They’d all be awake, so worried about Rose they’d be unable to eat dinner, let alone sleep. She had to find a way to contact them.

  Through the curtains, Rose gazed down at the shadowy appliances looming in the test kitchen and looked in vain for something she could use to get help.