“I don’t know,” Guster said. “But, whoever he was, he knew that the egg was supposed to be used in the One Recipe.”
“I suppose it makes sense that the priest didn’t recognize the eggbeater,” Mariah said. She’d carefully cleaned all of the mud away, so that it gleamed like it had after the first time he’d washed it. “This beater is old, but it’s not that old. And it sounds like no one has been back to Peru to claim the egg since The Great White Chef saw it there, five centuries ago.”
“Until now,” said Guster.
“Until now,” Mariah echoed, a grin spreading across her lips. Guster had the funny feeling that she saw this as a kind of game. They had almost died. At least she wasn’t mad at him.
“If we could just figure this out,” Mariah said, pointing to the carving of the bear. Seventy-four degrees, thirty-one minutes, nineteen degrees, one minute, read the inscription underneath the symbol. It just didn’t make any sense. Though it probably didn’t matter anymore anyway — Mom would probably never let them go adventuring again.
Braxton turned around from his captain’s chair in the cockpit. “If I may be so bold, Mrs. Johnsonville — I’m not usually in the habit of asking questions, especially to Ms. McStock — but some villain with a machete tried to attack you back there. And I don’t take too kindly to that, especially with these youngsters around. If you’re in trouble, I’d like to be of assistance.”
Guster was grateful for the old man. Braxton had saved them, and the least they could do was tell him what was going on.
Mom wiped her tears and sat up straight. “Very well, Braxton. You have been extremely helpful, and proven yourself as a friend. It is only right that you know exactly why we are on this journey,” she said. Mom explained everything that had happened to them since they met the Master Pastry Chef in the Patisserie. Mariah piped in, adding details here and there, while Guster remained silent, hoping that no one would mention that it was his particular tastes that had sent them to the Patisserie in the first place, or how he’d kept the eggbeater when Mom told him to throw it down the well.
Mariah showed Braxton the eggbeater and the symbols carved on the handle. “And this next one is a bear,” she said.
When they got to the part about the priest and the orchard, Zeke told the rest. “And then this old mummy came out and was moaning, and there were like fifty chickens that attacked us, and Guster grabbed the egg while I fought them off using all my karate black belt skills.”
Zeke had only ever made it to orange belt, but that didn’t matter now. Zeke had saved Guster, and that made Guster wonder if maybe ol’ Zeke liked being his brother after all.
Braxton took a long look at the eggbeater. “Hmm,” he said, and stared out the front of the cockpit for a long time, flying the plane in silence. “Now Madam, I am not one to offer advice, but I would be doing you a disservice if I did not mention that going back to the farm at this point would be dangerous. Or going anywhere, so it seems. I’m afraid that the only way out of this bubbling stew may be to somehow get to the bottom of it.”
Guster felt his tongue tingle. He knew that after what had just happened to them, Mom was unlikely to allow any more adventuring. But at this point, she didn’t have many options.
“Is there anyone who might know something about that eggbeater of yours?” asked Braxton.
Mom stared for a long time at nothing, her lips tight, her face hard. “Yes, there is one person,” she said. “Felicity Casa.”
***
It was noon when Braxton brought the plane to a halt on the airstrip in Lovelock, Nevada. The airport was almost as empty as the one near the farmhouse in Louisiana, except for a lone tumbleweed blowing across the runway. There was nothing for miles but small shrubbery, gritty sand, and a tiny gas station that looked like it was closed. It was deathly hot. At least we’re back in America again, thought Guster, though that is where they’d last seen the Chef in Red. He could be anywhere. They would have to be on guard.
“Lovelock, where they love to lock you up!” said Zeke as they stepped off the plane.
“You should definitely save that joke for Felicity,” said Mariah.
“You’ll have to write her a fan letter, Zeke,” said Mom. “You and everybody else are going to stay behind with Braxton.”
“But Mom! I’ve never been to prison before!” shouted Zeke.
Mom smiled. “Let’s keep it that way,” she said.
“Do you think that Felicity Casa is really the Felicity that the Master Pastry Chef was talking about?” asked Mariah.
“I don’t know, honey, but we’re going to find out.”
Braxton called a cab, and a few minutes later, it pulled up next to the hangar. Mom opened the door. “Guster, you’re coming with me,” she said.
Guster looked up from the tar melting in the cracks in the sidewalk. He felt his face flush. She’d taken the eggbeater from Mariah, and now she’d probably give him a lecture about it on the car ride over. They got in the cab.
“Lovelock Maximum Security Prison, please,” said Mom. The cab driver sped off. They drove on Interstate 80 for a few miles until they turned off the freeway and headed down a crumbly road between two mountains. Guster wondered why people would ever live out there, in the dry, lifeless desert, when he remembered that they weren’t doing it by choice.
Mom was staring out the window, silent. There was no doubt she was still upset with Guster. Any second now she would probably tell him how if he would just obey, the whole family wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now, or that he was eleven years old now, and he should know better than to lead his little brother into danger. The usual Mom stuff. Instead they rode without speaking. I didn’t want to hear a lecture now anyway, thought Guster. Somehow though, silence was worse.
The cab rounded another hill, and there, on the other side, was a giant cement wall, twenty feet high, topped with barbwire and a dozen guard towers. The words “Lovelock Maximum Security Prison” were spelled out in gigantic red and blue neon letters that flickered on a sign posted out front. The driver stopped the cab next to a white guard booth in front of a huge iron gate.
A guard in a drab gray uniform stepped out from the booth. He pulled his gun belt up around his portly middle as he did so.
Mom rolled down the window. “We’re here to visit a prisoner,” she said.
“Visiting hours don’t start for twenty minutes,” said the guard gruffly.
“That’s fine, we’ll wait,” said Mom.
The guard pushed a button and spoke into an intercom. In a moment, the huge iron gates swung slowly open. The cab drove through the open gate into the outer courtyard of the prison.
After filling out forms and showing identification and insisting that Guster’s health depended on seeing Felicity, Mom and Guster were ushered out of the lobby by a burly guard with a shiny badge into a secure hallway. “You’re lucky ma’am,” said the guard from under his huge handlebar moustache. “We don’t usually let unknown visitors see celebrity prisoners like this, but no one has been to see Ms. Casa at all. My guess is her fans just gave up on her. I don’t blame ’em if you ask me.”
The frowning guard took out his night stick and tapped a metal detector with it. “Through here, please,” said the guard. Guster recognized the freestanding doorframe and blinking lights — he’d seen one before on TV.
“Go ahead, Honey,” Mom said. Guster didn’t like being called ‘honey’ in front of strangers, especially big, sweaty prison guards. Still, it was better than the silent treatment. He passed through the metal detector without a single beep.
“Your turn, ma’am,” grunted the guard.
Mom stepped through. The metal detector flashed red and beeped wildly as soon as she was under it.
“No metal objects!” roared the guard. “Let me see what’s in your pockets!”
Mom smiled innocently. “Oh, you mean this?” she asked, and pulled the eggbeater out of her apron. Guster was glad she was the one carrying it.
The guard took out his nightstick, and rapped it in his hand, eyeing her suspiciously. “Ma’am, why would you try to sneak an eggbeater into a prison?”
Mom turned on the guard. “Because I’m a mother, young man, and these are the tools of the trade. No matter how tough you may think you are, you had a mother once too, and you would be smart not to forget it,” she said, shaking her finger at him and shoving her face at his. The guard took one bewildered step backward.
Guster had never seen Mom reprimand an adult like that before. “Um, okay. Right this way then, Ma’am,” said the guard sheepishly.
They came into a small room with a glass wall that was divided by partitions into private booths, kind of like Guster had seen at a bank once in New Orleans. Mom sat down next to the glass divider and he took a chair beside her.
“I’ll get Ms. Casa right away, Ma’am,” said the guard.
In a few minutes, a lady about ten years older than Mom, with blond hair cut like a picture frame around a flawless, aged face, teeth that shined like porcelain toilet bowls, and paint-by-numbers makeup came out of a door on the other side of the glass wall. She wore a bright orange jumpsuit with numbers stitched over her right breast and an orange floral pattern embroidered across the collar. A small black ball and chain earring dangled from each ear. Except for the grim expression on her face, she looked exactly like Felicity Casa, the Czarina of Chocolate on TV. She was perfect as a painting. Guster wanted to laugh. Weren’t prisoners supposed to be hard-as-nails scary? Then again, Guster didn’t worship her homemaking. He worshipped her cooking.
Felicity sat down on the other side of the glass divider and stared at Mom. “Ms. Casa, I’m delighted to meet you in person,” said Mom, smiling. She had clearly been looking forward to this.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” Felicity said in a voice polished enough for radio. She turned to go.
“But Ms. Casa…” said Mom.
Felicity waved her hand. “I’m not interested in talking with anyone I don’t know right now,” she said.
The smile left Mom’s lips. She set the eggbeater down on the counter in front of her with a thud, like it was a pair of aces. “I don’t think that matters one way or another,” she said.
Felicity gasped. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“A fan. But more importantly, a friend,” said Mom.
Felicity stared at Mom, dark circles hanging from under her eyes. “I don’t trust fans,” said Felicity. “I trust friends even less. Trusting friends is what got me here.”
“Then you don’t want to know where I got this?” asked Mom.
Felicity sat back down. “You got it from Renoir, a Master Pastry Chef operating out of a small patisserie in the French Quarter of New Orleans.” Felicity scowled. “My network of informants is spread far and wide, even if you people put me in here.”
“What happened to him?” asked Mom.
Felicity studied Mom for a full minute. The wrinkles in her forehead disappeared for a moment, then snapped back. “Poisoned, by the Cult of Gastronimatii,” she finally said . So that’s why he’d kicked the bucket right in front of their eyes, thought Guster.
“Who?” asked Mom.
“The Cult of Gastronimatii,” said Felicity. “A 500 year-old order of chefs dedicated to preserving the purity of cuisine. Perhaps you’ve seen them? Aprons trailing in the wind like dragons, toques pulled low over their eyes, the smell of spice pungent in the air?”
“Yes! They attacked us on two separate occasions!” said Mom.
“And you escaped?” said Felicity. She did not seem convinced.
“Yes,” said Mom.
“Really…” said Felicity, seeming to question how likely that really was.
“What do they want?” asked Mom.
“You are in over your head, aren’t you?” Felicity laughed, exposing her toilet-white teeth. “They want what any Evertaster wants. Flavor that is pure, unpolluted by foul history, tantamount to perfection! A perfect combination of ingredients, blended in ecstasy! They don’t want to eat, they want to taste!
“Since the Renaissance, they’ve met in secret, drawing up their plans, gathering strength, initiating those few they deemed worthy into their ranks.”
“Are they chefs?” asked Mom.
“So much more!” said Felicity. “They are guardians. Protectors of flavor. They despise the simple or distasteful things that the common people eat. To them, we are scavengers. To them, if it is not perfect gourmet, it is filth! And they will not tolerate their world being filled with filth, lest it mix with the pure flavors! They seek the few dishes that will please them, then they protect them like they were endangered species — preserving them from extinction.”
“So they love food,” Mom said.
“No! They will kill for food!” hissed Felicity.
“Like assassins.”
“Close enough.”
“Then we’ll go to the police,” said Mom.
Felicity laughed. “Do you realize how easily the police can be swayed by a couple dozen fresh gourmet Austrian donuts? The Gastronimatii can give people exactly what they need. They know the power of taste and they wield that weapon with more skill than anyone.”
“Then what do they want?”
“To find it. They are searching, and they can never be satisfied — not until they get it — the one they have been seeking since it was first invented, five hundred years ago.”
“What?” asked Mom.
Felicity leaned forward, her nose almost touching the glass, “The Gastronomy of Peace!” she said. “The One Recipe! Don’t you see? Why is it that every chef for centuries has been cooking, experimenting, inventing, breaking new ground? They are all seeking the same thing! The greatest dish on Earth! And now you hold the instructions to make it in your hand!”
“Why would Renoir give it to my boy?” asked Mom.
“Why indeed?” Felicity asked, staring at Guster.
Guster squirmed in his chair. If he hadn’t been so insistent on getting something new and delicious to eat that night, Renoir would never have given him the eggbeater.
“It’s just a recipe,” said Mom.
Felicity shook her head. “The Gastronomy of Peace is much more than that. It is the recipe. Haven’t you seen my program?”
“Recorded every episode,” said Mom.
A faint smile seemed to cross Felicity’s face, but then it was gone. She had called it by the same name as the Master Pastry Chef — the Gastronomy of Peace.
“Then you know what great lengths people will go to in order to eat the perfect meal. You know that you cannot underestimate the power of food.”
“I suppose, but —” said Mom.
“Then imagine a dish so delicious, so complete and perfect, that anyone who tasted it would have all their sorrows washed away, all their regrets and burdens forgotten. All their hate would be replaced by ecstasy, their sadness with joy.”
“But it’s just food,” said Mom.
“No! It’s cuisine!” said Felicity.
“I just can’t imagine it,” Mom said.
But Guster could imagine. He had believed in the One Recipe ever since the Master Pastry Chef had first told him that it existed. It only made sense that it would be as powerful as Felicity described.
“Have you ever tasted it?” asked Mom. Guster was wondering the same thing.
Felicity cackled darkly. “Of course not! No one ever has! There are only a few who even know what the One Recipe will make! And most of them died hundreds of years ago. Not even the Gastronimatii know.”
“Then how can you know that what you say is true?”
“Because I believe in perfection,” said Felicity. “And because I believe in the legend of Archedentus.”
“Who?” asked Mom. The name sounded regal, like it was someone very, very important.
“Only the most gifted chef that ever lived and the creator of the Gastronomy of Peace.”
The Great White Chef, thought Guster. The one the priest was talking about. “He made the eggbeater,” said Guster.
“Not quite,” said Felicity. “He lived over five hundred years ago, and that eggbeater was made at the beginning of the last century, but it contains his recipe.” Which is why the priest didn’t recognize it, thought Guster.
“So why do the Gastronimatii want it so badly?” said Mom. “To taste it for themselves!” said Felicity.
“Then why don’t we just give it to them?” Mom asked.
“So no one else can have it?!” cried Felicity.
“We’ll make them a copy!”
“And how will you copy the ingredients?” asked Felicity.
Guster knew she was right. That egg had been hard enough to get. Getting whatever else was on the list could be next to impossible.
Felicity shook her head. “I’m afraid that you don’t understand the power of this recipe. It was said that Archedentus could create a rabbit stew with a red wine sauce so delicious, it made cowards fight for their nation. He made soups so divine that one taste of it, and men and women would fall in love. The Gastronomy of Peace, his most powerful recipe ever, has the power to wipe away mankind’s sorrows and present him with that which he has always sought: peace.”
Pictures of Archedentus’ creations swirled through Guster’s head. If only he could taste just one of them! He sighed. And to have his greatest creation of all — Felicity stared at him. Was he that obvious?
“It sounds so wonderful, but —” said Mom.
“Imagine! Presidents, kings, and tyrants dining on the most exultant cuisine possible, then forever dismantling their war machines,” said Felicity, glancing at Guster. “Madam, the Gastronomy of Peace is not a selfish quest to satisfy the cravings of a boy. It is the quest to end all war upon the Earth.”
“All that from one little recipe?” said Mom.
“Yes, from one little recipe.”
“Then what can I do?” asked Mom.
“Make the Gastronomy of Peace!” Felicity said. “If you don’t do it, who will?”
Mom was silent. She pushed the eggbeater toward Felicity.
“If only I could,” said Felicity. She pressed her hand to the glass, as if trying to grasp the eggbeater.
Evertaster Page 9
