Candy Shop War

by Brandon Mull

  Sebastian Stott

  The Candy Wagon

  Homemade and Brand Name

  Ice Cream · Frozen Treats · Candy

  Nate pocketed his card as Mr. Stott led them toward the front door. “Feel free to contact me if you need anything,” he said. He opened the door.

  “Thanks, Mr. Stott,” Pigeon said.

  “Thank you again for the warning,” Mr. Stott said. “I’m quite fond of my identity.”

  They filed out the door. Nate exited last. “You’ll hear from us again,” Nate promised.

  Mr. Stott winked. “I hope so.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mirror Mints

  Summer and Pigeon crouched beside a white cake box on the jogging path about twenty paces from Greenway Avenue. Summer had purchased a mint-chocolate-chip ice cream cake from the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe earlier that afternoon using money from the little yellow safe on her bedroom shelf. The cake now resided in her freezer, bundled in plastic wrap. The point had not been to get a cake. The point had been to acquire the box.

  A round mirror rested on the bottom of the box, the reflective side facing down. The diameter of the mirror was almost too great to fit, even though the box had held quite a large cake.

  Pigeon had furnished the mirror. In the bathroom that he shared with his younger sisters, a round medicine cabinet hung on the wall. Up until that afternoon, the mirror had served as the front of the cabinet. Now the cabinet had no front, exposing narrow shelves stocked with bandages, bottles, and dissolving tablets. Pigeon had no idea how long it would be before his parents noticed, but he was much less worried about it than he would have been a week ago.

  Summer and Pigeon each uncapped a tube of super glue purchased at the Colson General Store. They squeezed the colorless, gelatinous glue all over the back of the mirror, closed the lid of the box, picked it up, and hastened down the path to Greenway.

  It was Friday evening, and the line of customers at the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe wrapped halfway around the outside of the building. Cars jammed the parking lot and lined the curbs of Greenway and Main.

  Summer and Pigeon skipped the line and pushed their way through the front door with the cake box. All of the tables inside were occupied, with many patrons standing around nibbling at various sweets, but an older couple was just standing up from a square table not far from the door. Summer and Pigeon rushed over and claimed the table before the couple had cleared their napkins.

  Summer positioned herself to at least partially impede a view of Pigeon from the counter. Setting the cake box on his lap, Pigeon opened the top, removed the mirror, and pressed it up against the underside of the table. He held the mirror firmly in place, fingers splayed against the glass, and slowly counted to thirty. The glue was supposed to work instantly, but he wanted to be safe. He kept an eye on the customers standing or sitting near him, but none seemed to be paying any attention to his actions. Carefully he reduced the pressure of his hands against the glass until he was no longer supporting the mirror.

  Pigeon gave Summer a curt nod. He glanced beyond her at the counter, manned by the big round man, the guy with the birthmark, and the dwarf. They looked harried as they took requests, filled orders, and made change, and gave no sign of having noticed him or Summer. Toting the cake box, Pigeon and Summer dodged around the line at the doors and fled the store.

  *****

  The clock radio came to life playing one of the five or six songs that seemed to be incessantly on the air lately, and Trevor pawed at it, slapping the snooze button. His mattress felt deep and soft and his pillow was bunched just right. How long did the snooze button last? Seven minutes? Nine?

  He pushed himself away from the mattress. That was the danger of keeping the alarm clock within arm’s reach of the bed—the snooze button was too tempting. But he had wanted the alarm nearby so he could shut it off quickly. White fudge or no white fudge, he didn’t want to press his luck by awakening his parents. The green digital numbers read 2:16 a.m.

  Trevor put on his shoes and a lightweight jacket. All his clothes were dark. Grabbing his private stash of Moon Rocks, Shock Bits, Frost Bites, and Mirror Mints, he went downstairs. He sucked a few sips of water from the faucet in the kitchen, then exited through the front door, leaving it unlocked.

  He reached the jogging path first and sat down to wait. Hopefully Nate would be sufficiently excited to get himself out of bed. Pigeon had called to report that the mirror was in place.

  Trevor saw Nate walking down the street and waved. Nate waved back. He was carrying the mirror that Mrs. White had given them. Trevor got up. “You ready?” Nate asked as he approached.

  “I’m freaked out,” Trevor said.

  “In and out,” Nate said. “Hopefully it will only take a minute.”

  “You have your candy?” Trevor asked.

  “I’m all set,” Nate said.

  They started down the path. “She’s going to flip out when she finds the teleidoscope missing,” Trevor said.

  “We’ll have to watch our backs.”

  “If we pull this off smooth enough, Mrs. White may not even know we did it. I mean, if the teleidoscope just seems to have vanished, with all the different people who are hunting for the treasure, who knows who she might suspect?”

  “Good point,” Nate said. “We’ll have to try to play it cool.”

  “I left several lights on in my house, in case we need to retreat to our homes inside the mirror realm,” Trevor said. “I never realized how many mirrors we had.”

  “I left my bathroom light on for the same reason,” Nate said. “Most houses will be dark, so I hoped I would be able to find the bright mirror.”

  Trevor tapped the mirror that Nate was holding. “Dressed in black in the middle of the night, we look like we stole that mirror.”

  “Nobody will see us,” Nate said. “We walk along the path, we cross Greenway, and we’re there.”

  The night was dark and silent as they reached Greenway. No cars on the street, no cars in the candy shop parking lot, no people. Trevor and Nate trotted across the street and knelt behind a low hedge that bordered the parking lot.

  “Let’s lean the mirror here,” Nate said, propping it against the hedge so that it faced a narrow alley between the candy shop parking lot and another building.

  “I guess this is as good a place as any,” Trevor said. “You have four mints?”

  Nate counted them out. “One to get into the mirror, one to get out, another to get in, another to get out. Should we do it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who goes first?”

  “I have the flashlight,” Trevor said. He stuffed all his candy in his pockets and placed a Mirror Mint on his tongue. He tapped his knuckles against the surface of the mirror and it rippled, making his reflection undulate. When he pressed his palm against the glass, it flexed inward, wavering less as he stretched it. He bit down on the mint, and his hand passed through the surface of the mirror as if it were the surface of a pond. He wiggled his fingers. The space beyond the mirror felt much colder than the night air.

  Switching on the flashlight, Trevor crawled through the mirror into the darkness. Although the dark space beyond the mirror was bitterly cold, he did not shiver or get goose bumps. Before him, at different heights and in all directions, a multitude of rectangles and ovals interrupted the darkness, the vast majority small and far away. Most were so dim that they were visible only because everything else was perfectly black.

  Turning back to face the mirror he had just crawled through, Trevor found himself staring out at Nate, illuminated by the pinkish glow of streetlights. Although he could see Nate fine, none of the light spilled through to brighten the darkness. Trevor waved, and Nate waved back. Nate put a mint in his mouth and entered, the glass rippling as he passed through. As soon as he moved beyond the mirror, his body lost all color and was visible only as a silhouette against the dim background of the alley.

  “Welcome
to Wonderland,” Trevor said.

  “Is your flashlight on?” Nate asked.

  “Yep,” Trevor said. “I don’t think light shines here.”

  “We can see the mirrors,” Nate said. “Light has to be reaching our eyes.”

  “Sure, but it doesn’t brighten anything—not us, not the ground, not even the emptiness.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing to shine on,” Nate said. “We’re reflections now, which sort of means we’re nothing.”

  “You saw me wave, right?” Trevor said.

  “Sure. But look, I put my arm right next to the mirror, and absolutely no light hits it. I bet reflections are only visible from outside a mirror.”

  Trevor reached out and touched Nate’s arm. “At least I can feel you. And I can see your outline when you’re in front of the mirror.”

  “Touch the ground,” Nate suggested.

  Trevor crouched and ran his hand over the hard, smooth surface. “It’s like glass.”

  “It certainly isn’t dirt or asphalt,” Nate said. “Nothing is quite real here, not the ground, not even the cold.”

  “Isn’t the cold weird?” Trevor agreed. “You feel it, but it doesn’t really get to you, it doesn’t penetrate.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Nate said. “Nothing here is real. We better get going. I can see how people could get lost in here.”

  “If we walk directly away from this mirror, we should be inside the candy shop in about twenty steps,” Trevor said. He placed his hand against the mirror, which from his current perspective looked like a window. “Let me test something.” He gradually pushed harder and harder. “The mirror won’t budge.”

  “I’m telling you, I think we’re close to being nothing in here,” Nate said. “We may be just about the only things in here that can think or move or talk or make a silhouette. It creeps me out.”

  They started taking hesitant steps away from the mirror. “If it’s dark inside the candy shop, we may have a hard time spotting the way in.”

  “We’ll find the mirror,” Nate assured him. “It has to be brighter than total blackness!”

  “I keep thinking I’m going to run into something,” Trevor said.

  “There’s nothing to run into! No walls, no objects, just ground.”

  “What if I run into the back side of a mirror?” Trevor wondered.

  “I guess that’s possible,” Nate said.

  They continued forward. Trevor could not shake the worry that he might whack his face against something in the darkness, but it kept not happening. He paused and looked back at the mirror through which they had entered. “I think we’re inside the candy shop by now,” he said.

  Nate gave no answer. “Nate?” Trevor asked. “Nate?” he repeated more urgently.

  Nate exhaled loudly. “Sorry,” he said. “Try holding your breath. You never run out of air. It seems like you will, but the point where you actually need to take another breath never comes.”

  Trevor held his breath. Nate was right, it felt normal at first, like his oxygen was running out and soon he would need to exhale and gulp down fresh air. But the moment of true desperation never came. “It’s like if we didn’t have the habit, we wouldn’t need to breathe at all.”

  “Find your pulse,” Nate said.

  Trevor felt his wrist, sliding his fingers around, searching for that spot a bit off-center where the pulse was strong. He could not find it. He tried his neck instead, where it was usually easier to find his heartbeat, again to no avail. Finally he pressed his hand against his chest. Nothing. “No pulse?”

  “No pulse,” Nate confirmed. “Our hearts don’t need to beat, we breathe only out of habit . . . no wonder Mrs. White said we could get trapped in here forever.”

  “This is definitely not the place I want to spend forever,” Trevor said.

  “Window shopping until the end of time,” Nate said. “Roaming from mirror to mirror like a ghost.”

  They were talking fairly quietly, but Trevor lowered his voice even more. “You don’t think our voices are carrying through the mirrors, do you?”

  “I doubt it,” Nate whispered. “But we should probably be careful, just in case.”

  Trevor spotted a less black circle floating in the darkness at about the height of his waist. “Do you see that?” Trevor asked.

  “What?”

  “Over here. Follow my voice.”

  “Oh, genius, good eyes, that has to be it.”

  Leaning over the circle, about the size of a medium pizza, Trevor could faintly discern the white and black checkered pattern of the candy shop floor. He could also make out some chrome table legs and chair legs. Trevor placed a hand on the circle. “Feels solid. How should we go through?”

  “Stand on it,” Nate recommended. “Then you’ll land on your feet instead of on your head.”

  “Think it will hold me?”

  “I think we’re nothing right now. It will hold nothing.”

  “Come help me balance,” Trevor said. Laying a hand on Nate’s shoulder, he got one knee up onto the circle, then lifted his opposite foot, and in a moment he was standing on the dim disk. “Should I go for it?”

  “You didn’t see any sign of anybody?”

  “Just our moms trying to break in and steal fudge,” Trevor said.

  Nate chuckled.

  “It looked quiet and dark,” Trevor continued. “I think the only light was trickling in through the windows from the street.”

  “Then go for it,” Nate said.

  Trevor pulled a mint from his pocket and put it in his mouth. The circle became elastic, like he was on a trampoline. Biting down, he instantly dropped through the circle to the tile floor. Raising his arms over his head, Trevor ducked down, worming the rest of himself through the round opening. There was not much room to spare, but he fit. He scooted out of the way so Nate could drop through.

  Trevor had almost forgotten that he was holding his flashlight, until he saw it actually penetrating the darkness of the candy shop. The beam landed on a withered old man wearing a long feathered headdress, making Trevor feel a brief surge of panic before he recognized the figure as the wooden Indian. He switched the light off.

  Sneakers slapped down against the tile floor as Nate dropped through the mirror. To Trevor it looked like a moment from a magic show—a pair of legs wearing jeans sticking out from the bottom of the table with nothing visible above it. It would make a pretty good stage trick.

  Nate shimmied the rest of the way through the mirror, then crab-walked out from under the table. “I can hardly see,” Nate whispered so quietly that Trevor could barely hear him.

  “Should I turn on the flashlight?” Trevor whispered back.

  “Better than stumbling and making a ton of noise,” Nate said.

  Trevor clicked on the light. After how busy the candy shop had been lately, it was peculiar to see it empty. Nobody behind the counter, no patrons. Everything still and silent, with candy everywhere for the taking. “Where should we look first?” Trevor asked.

  “In the back,” Nate said. “Let’s try that table where Mrs. White always sits.”

  After ducking under the hinged segment of the counter, they went through the batwing doors into the rear of the store. The worktables were messy, covered with various candy projects in different stages of development. On one table an oily black snake lay coiled in a cage, on another rested a fancy jade urn, on a third slouched a sack spilling burgundy powder.

  Trevor shone the flashlight beam onto the table with the purple tablecloth. Nate hurried over, knelt, and lifted the tablecloth to look underneath. “Nothing,” Nate growled.

  “Not so loud,” Trevor reminded him.

  The two of them meticulously navigated the room, the flashlight beam slowly sweeping the shelves and worktables. They checked inside crates, boxes, barrels, and jars. They looked inside a spacious closet, a cramped rest room, and behind a door marked Private that led to a long staircase. They even investigated the cage with the
snake.

  “What now?” Nate asked in frustration, after the final cupboard yielded no teleidoscope.

  “What’s up the stairs?” Trevor asked.

  “It’s probably where Mrs. White lives,” Nate said.

  “Do we dare?” Trevor asked.

  “If the teleidoscope isn’t down here, it’s probably up there,” Nate said.

  Trevor sighed. “After we leave, we’ll have no more Mirror Mints. This is our only shot at this. Keep those Shock Bits handy.”