Bite-Sized Magic

by Kathryn Littlewood

  “What’s going on?” Sage asked.

  “It’s supposed to be a warehouse for magical ingredients,” Rose said as she saw that the outside of the laboratory was fully illuminated, like the exterior of a museum at night. “I’m not really sure why all these people are here.”

  A red carpet now led from the street up to the front entrance, where hundreds of men and women in chef’s toques, aprons, and pristine white cooking outfits were filing through the front door.

  Above, two giant banners sported the glowing rolling pin logo that Rose recognized from Lily’s recipe cards. Another cream-colored banner spanned the entire width of the second tier of the building. It read ANNUAL CONFERENCE.

  “Whoa!” Rose whispered. “It must be a meeting of the International Society of the Rolling Pin!”

  “Isn’t Aunt Lily one of them?” said Ty. “Do you think she’ll be there? Ugh. I shudder at the thought of her, despite how stunning she is.”

  “I don’t think she’ll come back here,” said Rose. “She didn’t return after she lost the Gala, and that’s why they kidnapped me. And even if she does show up, we have no choice. We need Capsules of Time to make the bakers stop being zombies, and we need the key to floor 34 at the hotel. I think both are in there.”

  “Come on, dude,” said Sage. “Don’t you want to hear their evil plans?”

  “I don’t know if I do,” said Ty, crossing his arms and staring up at the dark, cloudy sky. “But I sure don’t want to stay out here in the thunderstorm, so I guess I have no choice. This rain is really harshing my hair.”

  Rose and her brothers pulled on chef’s toques and tried to blend in with the crowd of hundreds who had wormed their way through the front doors and into the lobby.

  The laboratory was decorated with lavish arrangements of candy and cupcakes and a giant device that made donuts. While the audience watched, rings of dough were deep-fried, scooped out of the oil by robotic hands, rolled down a chute, and sprayed with chocolate, sprinkles, or powdered sugar, before finally dropping down a slide onto a platter.

  A stage and podium had been set up in front of the control board. Mr. Mechanico and the men in the hard hats were nowhere to be seen, but the five-story-high cabinet of red mason jars glittered in the bright lights.

  Rose pulled Ty and Sage through the crowd toward the circular ramp that spiraled upward around the central courtyard. The ramp was darkened, and the three of them were able to creep up to the second tier without being noticed. They tiptoed up and around until they were near the top of the building, looking down on the crowd in the lobby.

  Below, a tall woman wearing a purple sequined gown and white satin gloves took the stage. She had long, wavy hair that was perfectly black, save for two streaks of white on either side of her face. She reached beneath the podium and pulled out a rolling pin made of glimmering gold. Immediately, a hush fell over the crowd.

  A giant black video screen descended from the ceiling. On it were the words INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE ROLLING PIN.

  “Good evening,” said the woman. She had a deep voice with a thick accent that made each of her vowels stretch like kneaded toffee. “I am Eva Sarkissian, your president!”

  Everyone erupted into applause.

  “Thank you,” Eva Sarkissian continued. “We decided to hold our annual meeting here at the Mostess headquarters because the Mostess Snack Cake Corporation has done the most in the past calendar year to advance the interests of our organization.”

  The crowd clapped and cheered.

  “The Mostess Corporation, under the leadership of distinguished Society member Jameson Butter, has made great strides in the arena of irresistible sweets for adults, children, senior citizens . . . even newborn babies! Who is responsible for tooth decay?”

  “We are!” the crowd cheered.

  “Obesity?

  “We are!”

  “Sugar rushes?” Eva asked.

  “We are! We are! We are!” A mixture of applause and gentle weeping broke out in the crowd. Some of the men bowed, and the women curtsied.

  “In the history of the United States, no one has done more to advance our cause than Mr. Jameson Butter,” Eva Sarkissian said. “Thanks to the secret support of his Mostess Corporation, we have at last succeeded in getting Congress to pass the Big Bakery Discrimination Act!”

  Rose gasped in horror. “Of course the Society is behind that insane law!”

  “Shhh,” Ty whispered.

  “Thanks to this law,” Eva continued, “our competition is out of business. Our agents—such as the Mostess Corporation—no longer have to compete with small bakeries for the taste buds of the American people.”

  The crowd roared its approval.

  “Correction,” Eva said tenderly, cutting them off. “Almost all of our competition is out of business. A single other thousand-plus employee bakery remains, and it is the only thing standing in the way of Mostess’s—and our—total magical sovereignty over this nation. I am speaking, of course, of the insidious Kathy Keegan Corporation.”

  A loud chorus of boos floated up from the audience as a cartoon drawing of Kathy Keegan popped up on the video screen. She was depicted as a spritely woman with red cheeks and short blonde hair. She held a piping-hot pie and wore a blue apron.

  “No one knows what the real Ms. Keegan looks like,” said Eva, “but we know her products, don’t we? They boast that Keegan Kakes are made using only natural ingredients, made by a network of smaller bakeries. Her customers are loyal, her cakes are wholesome.” The boos nearly drowned Eva out, but she silenced the room with a sharp rap of the rolling pin. “In other words, Kathy Keegan must be eliminated.”

  “I thought Kathy Keegan was just another big industrial factory,” Rose whispered to her brothers. “I didn’t know she employed small bakeries to make her stuff.”

  Eva raised the Golden Rolling Pin. “Here to discuss the problem of Kathy Keegan and her devilish wholesomeness is our proud host, Mr. Jameson Butter.”

  Mr. Butter took the podium, and Eva handed him the Golden Rolling Pin. The audience applauded.

  “As you are aware, we have spent the past six months perfecting our five key recipes,” Mr. Butter said, adjusting his white silk handkerchief in the pocket of his impeccably starched black tuxedo jacket. “For all too brief a time, Mostess employed the talented and beautiful Lily Le Fay, one of the only masters of the dark recipes contained in the fabled Bliss Cookery Booke. Unfortunately, after her surprising loss at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands this year, she chose not to return to our employ.” He cleared his throat. “She disappeared and took with her the magical expertise we so desperately needed.

  “But there was another baker at the Gala who caught our eye, one with a true understanding of the principles of kitchen magic. She was kind enough to come join us in our work. Thanks to her efforts, in three days, we will have achieved the impossible! Five perfectly addictive recipes! And thanks to the Big Bakery Discrimination Act, there will be no other baked goods on the market! Nothing and no one will be able to stop us!”

  “Brava!” shouted a man who looked suspiciously like a famous opera singer.

  “No one, that is, except for Kathy Keegan.” Mr. Butter coughed, pushing his glasses further up the skinny bridge of his nose. “But we have a plan to take care of her, too. Kathy Keegan has already accepted an invitation to visit our factory in three days’ time for a joint press conference. There we will each try the other’s baked goods as an act of friendship . . . and our first customer for our perfected recipes will be none other than Kathy Keegan herself!”

  The room twittered with confused murmurs.

  “Once she has eaten these treats,” Mr. Butter explained, “she’ll become a Mostess-obsessed zombie! And then we will take over her business and destroy it!”

  The audience erupted into wild applause.

  “Oh no!” Rose said to her brothers in a harsh whisper. “We have to warn Kathy Keegan!”

  “I thought you said she
wasn’t real!” said Ty, whispering just as harshly. “And you told us you wouldn’t do her commercial because the Kathy Keegan Corporation was run by a group of businessmen!”

  “I guess I was wrong,” said Rose. “If she’s real, we have to save her, or there’ll be no one left to fight against Mostess.”

  Mr. Butter handed the Golden Rolling Pin back to Eva Sarkissian, who smoothed the folds of her sequined gown.

  “Now, Jameson has generously invited us all on a tour of this laboratory facility this evening, where he has recently acquired all of the magical ingredients used in Albatross’s Apocrypha. If you’ll all make your way up the ramp toward the top of the building, the tour will commence.”

  Cheerful chatter filled the room as the crowd filed up the curving ramp, toward where Rose, Ty, and Sage were crouched on the second floor. Mr. Butter and Eva Sarkissian led the pack.

  “We have to get out of here!” said Sage.

  “Where?” Ty wheezed.

  “The only way to go is up,” said Rose, leading her brothers farther up the spiral ramp.

  They ran as fast as they could, until they finally reached the top floor, where the ramp opened up onto a short hallway with three doors. One was a bathroom, one was marked LABORATORY: EMPLOYEES ONLY, and the other had a sign that read DONUT HOLES.

  “What do you think this is?” said Ty.

  “It can’t be what it says it is,” Rose said, placing her hand on the knob. “Who’d save donut holes?”

  She wrenched open the door and was thrown back against the wall by a torrent of sweet, deep-fried balls of dough. If not for her hand holding tight to the knob, and Ty holding tight to her other hand, and Sage clutching Ty’s leg, the three of them would have been swept away.

  Thousands upon thousands of little balls of vanilla and chocolate and fruit-flavored dough came tumbling out from behind the door, an endless stream as high as the doorway and as wide. There were plain donut holes and glazed donut holes and holes that were bright with powdered sugar. They flooded out the open door and bumped down the ramp with a long, low rumble, like raging whitewater rapids.

  “Hold on!” Rose cried as she felt Ty’s grip loosening. His hand slid and he caught the strings of her apron.

  After a good five minutes, the rush of donut holes had thinned to just an ankle-high trickle, and they were able to get back to their feet.

  “I didn’t expect so many,” said Rose. “And why would they just be piled behind a door?”

  “Who cares why they’re here,” Sage cried out. “They’re here!”

  He reached for a powdered donut hole and popped it into his mouth at the very same time that Rose said, “Sage, don’t eat those!”

  “Why can’t he have one, hermana?” Ty asked.

  “Because,” Rose said, “they’re probably old. Years and years.”

  “Hmm,” Sage said between chews. He licked his lips. “They taste like they were made yesterday!”

  “The power of preservatives,” said Rose as Sage stuffed a couple dozen of the donut holes into the pockets of his khaki shorts.

  “Sage!” Rose said, thinking of the tank of preservatives back in the test kitchen. “Stop! You don’t want to eat those!”

  “I’m starving,” said Sage, continuing to munch on the donut holes. “We haven’t eaten a proper meal in days. You know what Mrs. Carlson’s cooking is like!”

  “Es la verdad, hermana,” Ty said, shrugging. “That means, it’s true, sister.”

  By that time, the tsunami of donut holes had rolled down to where Mr. Butter, Eva Sarkissian, and the rest of the Society of the Rolling Pin were making their way up the ramp. They heard the donut holes before they spotted them—“What is that noise?” sang the opera singer—but by then it was too late. They were engulfed.

  The crowd was too thick and the ramp was too narrow. The donut holes filled the space from wall to wall at chest height. “Mama mia!” sang the opera man, until he was overwhelmed by the flood. The Society members disappeared under the donut hole deluge, screaming and shouting as they were all pushed and rolled back down the ramp.

  From the top floor, Rose, Ty, and Sage peeked down and watched as the raging river of guests and donut holes flooded out across the ground floor. “So embarrassing!” someone cried. “So delicious!” someone else shouted back, his mouth full.

  “Come on,” Rose said, thinking again of her parents. “We have no time to lose.” She pulled her brothers through the door marked LABORATORY: EMPLOYEES ONLY. “We have to find those Capsules of Time before Mr. Butter finds us.”

  CHAPTER 12

  On the Wings of Squirrels

  Rose shoved Ty and Sage inside the dark laboratory, which fortunately was unlocked, then followed, bolting the door behind her. The only light in the room came from the dim glow of the various red buttons on the control board, and from an occasional crackle of lightning, visible through a skylight far overhead.

  Rose could hear the incessant pounding of the rain on the roof and the humming of the control room. She could barely make out the imposing, deep-sea form of the octopus-like Mr. Mechanico, who appeared out of nowhere, his eyes glowing a dim red.

  The robot floated toward Rose and her brothers. “Directrice Bliss,” he said. “Good evening.” He rippled all eight of his segmented arms, which clicked and clacked in sequence like rows of stainless steel dominoes.

  “What is that thing?” Sage asked.

  “I could say the same of you,” Mr. Mechanico replied. “I am Mr. Mechanico. I am in charge of Red Mason Jar Acquisition and Organization here at the Central Laboratory. And who might you two be?”

  Sage cleared his throat and adopted a clipped, guttural German accent. “We are the German ambassadors to the International Society of the Rolling Pin, of course. I requested that Directrice Bliss give us a private tour of this laboratory.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Mechanico, his glowing eyes taking in Ty’s spiked hair and Sage’s cargo shorts. “I was confused because you are both dressed like low-level employees at a country club.” Mr. Mechanico turned to Rose. “Directrice Bliss—how may I help you this evening?”

  Rose was on the verge of asking for “Capsules of Time,” when Mr. Mechanico said, “You are perfecting the Dinky Doodle Donuts, are you not?”

  “That is correct,” Rose replied, thinking furiously. Mr. Mechanico knew way too much about the recipes she was working on; if Rose asked for the Capsules of Time straight out, he might suspect that she was concocting an antidote. Best to distract him.

  “I have come up with a bold change to the recipe,” she told the robot.

  “Yesssss?” he said in his monotone voice, floating lower. “Tell me which ingredient you require, and I will fetch it for you. As well as help you calculate the correct proportions for your recipes.”

  “I need . . . ,” Rose said, thinking furiously. Where would she find a big enough distraction for the robot assistant? The dark room flashed electric blue from the crackle of the thunderstorm outside. “Lightning, Mr. Mechanico. I need lightning.”

  “A bold choice, indeed.” The robot’s red eyes seemed to glow even redder. “This will not be a problem. I can get you some fresh lightning right now.” He raised his eight arms and the tips glowed at the same time as an ear-splitting whistle sounded from a steel mesh speaker grill under his eyes. “Time to get to work!” he said.

  Slots in the wall opened, and five other octopus-like robots drifted into the room and set to work. Surprised that Mr. Mechanico didn’t question her further, Rose strolled over to the rows of red mason jars, her hands behind her back, reading the labels as quickly as possible. BASILISK GAZE. HEART OF A COMET. INCHWORM OF LOVE. TOEJAM OF DESTRUCTION.

  Eew, Rose thought after reading the last one. Definitely not what she was looking for.

  “You have such a big collection!” she called over her shoulder.

  “The greatest in all the world.” Mr. Mechanico floated away to a control board, making a series of tiny clicks
and clacks as he moved. It was packed with large, glowing labeled buttons. One read ROCKET LAUNCH. DEFENESTRATION PORTAL read a second. ARMED RESET and COUNTDOWN read a third and fourth. Around him, the other robots hovered just over the floor, as if held up by invisible strings.

  “There are too many of them, hermana,” Ty whispered, grabbing her arm. “If they turn on us, we’re—”

  “Shhh!” Rose said, pulling herself free. “I’ve got a plan. Sort of.” She continued along the row of jars. Where were the Capsules of Time?

  BLEAKEST TIME, read another jar, in which sat a tiny little man as big as her fist, who appeared to be weeping into his hands. SOARING SQUIRRELS read the next jars, each of which held little balls of fur. KRAKEN SCALES seemed to be in the next, though all she could see was a massive clawed fist flexing again and again. It seemed to rise right through the bottom of the jar. Rose shivered and moved on.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Mechanico pressed a fifth button on the control panel, this one marked ELECTRICITY HARVEST. Rose stopped in her tracks as the room filled with a screeching noise: Thirteen long metal rods telescoped down into the room from a ring around the skylight, just as thirteen antennae extended from the roof into the thundering sky.

  Mr. Mechanico and the other five octopus robots gathered red mason jars—two to each robot, except for Mr. Mechanico, who held three. They floated into a loose circle around the convergence of the thirteen antennae and raised the open mouths of the jars. “This may take some time,” he said.

  “This is, um, very kind of you,” said Rose. Ty shot her a glance, as if to say, What does lightning have to do with Capsules of Time?

  “It is no problem whatsoever,” said Mr. Mechanico. “We happened to be running low on lightning.”

  “Whoa!” Ty said, stepping back and pointing a finger at Rose. “Your hair! It’s standing straight up!”

  “It is?” Rose said. Ty’s hair looked perfectly normal—then again, Ty’s hair always stood straight up. But as Rose checked her reflection in the darkened skylight, she saw that her hair was standing straight on end, like the fluff surrounding a dandelion. Weird.