Bite-Sized Magic

by Kathryn Littlewood

“You’re welcome,” Mr. Butter said, smiling. “I aim to inform.”

  Jacques scampered across the table on his hind legs, carrying the rolling pin key over his head like a javelin thrower.

  He was nearly at the other end of the table, ready for Rose to scoop him up into the pocket of her apron, when he was spotted by Mr. Kerr.

  “Mouse!” Mr. Kerr screeched, and he slammed a metal mixing bowl down onto the steel table, trapping Jacques inside.

  Before Mr. Kerr could reach into the mixing bowl, Gus leaped from the top of the refrigerator and landed on the shoulder of his velour jumpsuit.

  “Ahhh! I’m being attacked!” cried Mr. Kerr, who hurled a swift upper jab toward Gus in an attempt to knock the cat off of his shoulder, but Gus had already leaped through the air onto the back of Mr. Butter’s blazer, latching on like a baby koala bear.

  “Get it off!” Mr. Butter cried, and Mr. Kerr ran over to pry the cat off Mr. Butter’s back. Gus immediately jumped onto Mr. Kerr’s head and from there onto the top of the refrigerator. Meanwhile, making it look like an accident, Rose overturned a two-foot-tall stack of metal mixing bowls onto the surface of the prep table. Some landed right side up, some landed face down, and some clattered to the floor.

  When Mr. Kerr turned back to the prep table, he saw no fewer than seven metal mixing bowls overturned on the table. “Which one was the mouse in?” he cried.

  “I don’t remember!” said Rose. And it was the truth—she’d forgotten which bowl Jacques was cowering under. “I guess we’ll wait to see which bowl moves!” she shouted, hoping Jacques would get the hint and nudge against the wall of his metal prison, so she would know which bowl to protect.

  Mr. Kerr impatiently began overturning the bowls. “I’m not waiting around for a filthy mouse.”

  The bowl in front of Rose moved a half inch, and Rose lifted it just enough for Jacques to scamper from beneath it into the pocket of her apron. “Nothing here!” she said, overturning the bowl to show the others.

  Mr. Kerr sent the last of the metal bowls careening to the ground, with no mouse in sight. He huffed over to the golf cart, sat in the driver’s seat, folded his arms, and pouted. “I thought I had it,” he said.

  Gus released himself from Mr. Butter’s back and dashed away into the Bakers’ Quarters.

  “Were you not doing such good work, Rosemary Bliss,” Mr. Butter said dryly, “I would have that cat removed immediately.”

  “No!” Rose cried. “He’s my only link to home.”

  “I understand wanting a link to the place you grew up,” said Mr. Butter, tucking into the passenger seat of the golf cart. “Just make sure I never ever see him again. Keep that beast caged up. And get started on those Dinkies now. We are so close to our dream! When you’re done tonight, there will be a wonderful reward waiting for you.”

  As the golf cart disappeared beneath the floor, Jacques poked his head out of Rose’s pocket. “Merci, Rose,” he said gravely.

  “The thanks are all owed you,” Rose said. “Did you manage to hold on to it?”

  The mouse held up the tiny notched-and-grooved rolling pin. “I’ve got ze key!”

  CHAPTER 14

  Love Is in the Jars

  With one hand on the steering wheel, Ty sped the golf cart through the maze of warehouses, darting away from the occasional oncoming delivery trucks.

  “This is no big deal for me, hermana!” he yelled to Rose over the rush of the wind. “I’m basically a stunt driver!”

  Sage sat in the back, his arms wrapped around a crate of red mason jars, empty save for a bit of heavy cream at the bottom of each. The jars clinked and rattled as the golf cart hurtled along.

  Rose sat in the passenger seat, clinging to the dashboard with one hand and clutching the rolling-pin key with the other. She thought of her mother’s face, tender and heart-shaped, with her wild, curly dark hair that was always tied into a messy bun, like a swallow’s nest in a willow tree.

  Her mother always knew the best thing to do. Was there some way out of this whole Mostess mess that Purdy might be able to see, if only she weren’t locked away like Rapunzel in a tower? After finishing the antidote for the King Things, Rose only had one more recipe to perfect—the Dinky—but the real work of bringing down the Mostess Corporation was just beginning. She didn’t know how she would do everything without her parents’ help.

  But she knew that she had to try.

  If she freed her parents and escaped now, who would stop Mr. Butter and the International Society of the Rolling Pin? No one. It was all up to Rose. First she had to undo the evil recipes she’d helped to perfect. Then she had to find a way to defeat Mr. Butter. And then she could free herself and her family, and maybe together they could reverse the new bakery law. . . .

  “What are you thinking?” Sage asked, nudging her shoulder.

  “That it will be good to see Mom,” Rose said.

  “And to break her out!” Sage replied. But Rose didn’t answer him.

  By then, Ty had pulled up in front of the pastry-bag-shaped hotel, which seemed to rise up straight into the late-morning clouds. Rose, Ty, and Sage tiptoed through the empty lobby, which was so crisply air-conditioned that Rose instantly found her arms covered in goose bumps. The teenage concierge looked bewildered by the reappearance of Sage and Ty.

  “Hello again, Miss Bliss,” he ventured. “I see your guests from the Children with Weird Voices Association are back?”

  Rose cleared her throat. “Umm, yes. It’s actually a two-day tour.”

  “And you’re giving away free mason jars?” the concierge asked, referring to the crate of twelve empty jars that Sage was clutching to his chest.

  “My souvenniiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrs!” Sage roared in his weirdest voice, struggling to keep the jars from dropping. He sounded like a strange cross between an old lady and a newborn baby.

  The concierge just nodded, as if glad his own voice was not so weird.

  When they were all safely inside the elevator, Sage gratefully laid his red glass burden on the floor, and Rose found the small, rolling-pin-shaped indentation in the brass plate next to the button for floor 34.

  She took a deep breath and inserted the key into the small hole and heard that wonderfully satisfying click that keys always make when they fit into a lock. Rose turned the key to the right while pressing the button, and the elevator rumbled and began its ascent.

  “Once we break them out, are we going to go home?” Sage asked as the glass box rose higher and higher over the Mostess compound.

  Ty tapped Rose on the shoulder. “Hermana, if we bust Mom and Dad and Balthazar out of that hotel room, won’t that Butter dude find out? And won’t he think you did it and come after you?”

  “We are going home, and we are going to free them,” Rose answered, gazing out over the warehouses and the small house where Mr. Butter grew up, all of it looking very small in the golden wash of morning. “But only after we ruin this place.”

  “Can’t we just go home?” Sage whined. “Tomorrow night is the inaugural summer water balloon fight in Calamity Falls Square, and I’m going to miss it! I’ve been planning for it all year.”

  “Sage, our hermana is right. Think about it,” Ty continued. “If we escape, they’re gonna zombify that Kathy Keegan cartoon lady, and then they’re gonna ruin the rest of the country. We’re the only ones who can stop them! But we can’t stop them if we let Mom and Dad and Balthazar go.”

  Sage scowled. “But we need Mom and Dad and Balthazar to help us stop them,” he protested. “This is too big for us to do on our own.”

  “No, it’s not,” Rose said as the elevator shuddered to a stop on the thirty-fourth floor. “That’s why we brought the jars.”

  The doors parted, and Rose led Ty and Sage down the plush hallway, past the sleek wooden doors, to room 3405. To Rose’s great relief, the keyhole was shaped like a rolling pin.

  “You ready, Sage?” Rose asked as her younger brother opened the twelve red mason jars.

/>   “I guess so,” Sage said grumpily, opening the last jar and gathering the crate up in his arms.

  Rose turned the key, and the door to the suite swung open.

  Purdy, Albert, and Balthazar were lounging on a plush velvet couch in the living room, staring at a flat-screen TV whose size rivaled those of the screens at the Calamity Falls Movie Theater. They were cackling at a stand-up comedy special and looked very relaxed.

  At the sound of the door creaking open, the three adults whipped their heads around in surprise. Albert leaped over the couch like he was jumping hurdles at the Olympics and threw his arms around Ty and Sage. “My boys! How did you get in? What are you doing here?”

  “I drove!” Ty said. Balthazar, who had sauntered over from the couch with outstretched arms, patted Ty on the back.

  “Good boy,” he said, and Rose noticed a slight glassy wetness in her normally grizzled great-great-great-grandfather’s eyes.

  Purdy scooped Rose into her arms and kissed her cheeks over and over.

  “You’re okay!” Purdy cried. “I can’t believe you’re okay! We were so worried! But where is Leigh?”

  “She’s still with Mrs. Carlson,” Sage said. He broke free of Albert and began capping the twelve open mason jars.

  As Purdy hugged Rose, then Ty, then Sage in turn, the bit of cream sitting at the bottom of each jar whipped and swelled into a pale-pink butter, filled with her love for her children. “What are you doing, Sage?” she asked.

  “I love you, Mom,” he said, and she just squeezed him harder. He twisted the lid on another jar.

  “What’s with the jars, son?” Albert asked curiously.

  “We needed a Mother’s Love,” Sage answered, capping the last lid onto the last jar. “As an antidote to fix the bakers in the test kitchen. They ate the Object of Revulsion and now they want to burn Kathy Keegan.”

  “The Object of Revulsion, eh?” said Balthazar. “That’s a nasty one.”

  “They want to burn someone?” Albert said, alarmed.

  Rose explained everything that had happened that she’d been unable to tell her parents before—about what Mr. Butter had made her do, about Lily’s involvement, about how the International Society of the Rolling Pin intended to enslave the country. “I’ve been making antidotes left and right,” she ended, “but I made all these awful recipes, too! None of this would have happened if I had just refused. But now I’ve helped them.”

  “You couldn’t have refused, darling,” said Purdy, clasping Rose’s hands. “Mr. Butter gave you no choice. He kidnapped you, and he said he would hurt us if you didn’t help him. You did what you had to do. And you did it well.”

  Even though Rose was incredibly upset, hearing that her mother wasn’t mad at her—and actually seemed proud—lifted her spirits.

  “So they have the nasty recipes?” Balthazar asked in a guttural voice. “The Apocrypha?”

  “Yes,” Rose said, “and no. They have some recipes on cards that Lily copied out, but they don’t know the Apocrypha is here. And they’re planning to feed some of the evil recipes to Kathy Keegan. She’s their last competitor, and they’re going to take her out.”

  “I thought Kathy Keegan was just a cartoon!” Albert said, scratching his scruffy red beard.

  “Apparently, she’s real,” Ty replied. “And she’s coming here, and then she’ll be brainwashed into joining Mostess, and when she does, there’ll be no stopping them.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Purdy fretted, rubbing Rose’s cheeks with her soft hands. Then, to Rose’s surprise, her mother simply looked at Rose and said, “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Me?” Rose did a double take. “I don’t know what to do about it! I thought you’d tell me what to do!”

  Purdy and Albert and Balthazar looked at one another with furrowed brows. “Of course we’d love to tell you what to do, sweetheart,” said Purdy, smoothing her daughter’s black bangs. “But we’re trapped here. We can’t help you with the baking.”

  Her head down, Rose mumbled, “I know.”

  “Mr. Butter’s guards check on us a couple of times every day, and you’re smart enough to know that if we disappear, Mr. Butter will find out.”

  “I know that, too,” Rose said. Her chin began to tremble. Her mother knew Rose wasn’t going to rescue her, and Purdy was okay with that. “But how can we just leave you here?”

  “You don’t have a choice, honey,” Purdy said.

  “I don’t know about these two,” said Balthazar, “but I’m enjoying having a little time off. This is the biggest TV I’ve ever seen. Though I have to say, the food leaves something to be desired.” Balthazar plopped back down on the couch and held up a plate filled with Dinkies, Moony Pyes, and King Things. “I don’t know how much longer we can survive without eating. It’s been two days, and we’re pretty hungry. So hurry it up, kiddo.”

  Rose wailed, “But I don’t know how to stop Mr. Butter!”

  “You will figure it out, my love,” Purdy said firmly. “I know you can do it. And you won’t have to do it alone. You have your brothers. They would do anything for you.”

  Rose pulled back and stared imploringly into her mother’s heart-shaped face. Her emotions felt like cookie dough—all mixed up and swirled together. “But what if they win, Mom?”

  “I have the distinct feeling that won’t happen,” Purdy said. She stood and gathered Rose, Ty, and Sage in front of her. “I have very special children. You are good and clever, and you look out for one another. You will be fine.”

  Rose wiped away tears with the sleeve of her white baking jacket. Her mother was right. They would be fine. “I’m sorry you’re not coming with us.”

  “Oh, I’ll be with you the whole time,” said Purdy. “You have the best part of me in those red jars. Use it wisely.”

  Suddenly, a red light over the door began to blink. “Hurry!” Albert cried. “That means one of the guards is on his way up to clear our dishes! You three gotta run!”

  With that, Rose and her brothers gathered back up the jars, put them into the crate, and stumbled out into the hallway, closing the prison door behind them.

  When Rose and her brothers returned to the test kitchen, they found the six bakers on the floor, tied up in a bundle with kitchen twine. Their wrists and ankles were bound, and their mouths were plugged up with cloth napkins. Gus and Jacques were splayed out beside them, panting.

  “What happened?” Rose gasped.

  “C’est horrible! They started saying we reminded them of Kathy Keegan,” Jacques panted. “How I am reminiscent of a cartoon woman, je ne sais pas, but this is what they were saying.”

  “They came after us with knives!” said Gus. “We had no choice but to tie them up with kitchen twine.”

  “How did you even do it?” Sage asked, setting the twelve full jars of Mother’s Love down on the prep table.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Gus replied, swishing his tail. “Let’s just say cats don’t typically run, and I’ve done more running in the past half hour than I have in all my life until now.”

  The bakers snarled and made gurgling sounds through their gags.

  “Luckily, we got enough Mother’s Love in these jars to cure a whole army,” said Rose with a sniffle.

  “Where are Mistress Purdy and Master Albert?” Gus asked. “And where is Balthazar, that gnarly old coot? Were you not able to access their hotel room?”

  “We were.” Rose sighed. “But they couldn’t come with us.”

  “Comme c’est bizarre!” Jacques exclaimed. “Why not? Did they not want to be rescued?”

  “They did,” said Ty, “but we all knew it would compromise the mission to take down Mostess. So they stayed. After we finally take care of Mr. Butter and these crazy Rolling Pin people, we’re gonna spring them loose.”

  “If we blow them out of the water,” Rose said under her breath.

  “Eyes on the prize, hermana,” said Ty. “Let’s pump these bakers full of Mother Love be
fore they tear down the building.”

  The recipe called for a batch of the same chocolate batter they’d used for the King Things of Revulsion, but when it came time to add the Object of Revulsion, Rose instead added a heaping scoop of the creamy pink Mother’s Love from one of the red mason jars. Instantly, the batter smelled like roses and clean laundry and hot muffins just out of the oven.

  “I have a good feeling about this,” Rose said, inhaling the comforting smells of home.

  “I miss Leigh,” Sage said, tears in his eyes.

  “I miss my hair gel,” Ty said, his voice thick, touching his drooping spikes.

  “Come on, guys,” Rose said. “Let’s get this done.”

  They baked the King Things at a heat of six flames for the time of seven songs, and for the first time since arriving at the Mostess Corporation headquarters, Rose and her brothers actually sang the seven songs—Sage insisting on singing “My Way,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” and five other Frank Sinatra songs, all the while performing the Gangnam Style dance. “This is how you dance, bakers!” he cried.

  When the hot chocolate logs were finished and had cooled for a few minutes, Rose and Ty and Sage untied the napkins from the faces of the bakers.

  Marge screamed in a rage. “That nasty cat tied me up! That rotten Keegany cat!”

  Rose shoved the warm King Thing in her mouth. “Here, have some dessert.” Ty and Sage did the same for the other bakers.

  As Marge chewed on the log of chocolate cake, her brown eyes softened and her eyebrows lifted to the heavens. Her chin wrinkled and quivered. “I can’t believe it!”

  “What?” Rose asked.

  “Angels in my stomach!” she gushed. “I feel like someone just wrapped my heart in a warm towel! I feel as if my limbs are made of love and porridge, and my brain is a nest in which only the most beautiful doves make their tender home!”

  “Just a minute ago,” said Rose, “you wanted to murder Kathy Keegan.”

  “Bite your tongue, Rosemary Bliss!” Marge snapped.

  Laughing, Rose untied the twine that bound Marge’s feet and ankles.