Bite-Sized Magic (16 page)

After a moment, Gene and Ning stood up, glanced at each other, then busied themselves brushing off and straightening their clothes.

“I don't think it did anything,” said Gene.

“Yeah, I feel totally normal,” said Ning.

But Rose could see that both of their eyes were glowing a bright shade of green—an ominous, enchanted green.

Gene and Ning noticed the tray with the four remaining cookies on the prep table.

“I think we should just . . . eat the rest,” said Gene, and he dragged the tray toward him.

“That's a great idea,” said Ning, pulling the tray back toward him.

They pulled the tray back and forth in a miniature tug-o-war until finally Ning stuffed the four remaining cookies down the front of his apron.

Gene lunged at Ning and tackled him to the ground, reaching down his collar for the cookies. The two continued to roll and wrestle on the floor.

“Give me those cookies!” Gene screamed.

“Never!” Ning roared.

Gene scratched Ning across the face, leaving three gashes on his cheek.
“Cookies cookies cookies!
”
Gene screeched. Ning looked like he'd been attacked by a panther, but he didn't seem to register the pain at all—he just responded by headbutting Gene.

“Get them away from each other!” Rose said. “They can't feel pain! They're going to murder each other!”

Ty grabbed hold of Ning and shoved him into the Bakers' Quarters, then locked the door. Gene continued to pace around the main area of the test kitchen, snorting like a bull. Finally he rammed into the door of the Bakers' Quarters with his shoulder, over and over again, trying to break it down.

“That door's not gonna hold!” Marge screamed. “We gotta cure these guys! Fast!”

Rose reread the Apocrypha recipe in despair. Because it wasn't actually a recipe, it seemed no one had ever figured out an antidote. She realized she would have to invent an antidote on the spot before Gene and Ning destroyed each other.

Rose tore through the red mason jars they had on hand in the test kitchen, pushing aside jars containing glowing moths and pieces of rainbows and talking mushrooms. “I don't know what to do!” she cried.

“It's like the ginger root pitted brother against brother!” Sage said.

For a quick second, Rose thought of her parents and Balthazar stuck in that hotel room. They believed she could do this.
Think, Rose, think . . .

Then it hit her.
“Brothers,”
Rose repeated. She pulled out a jar that held a round, oval stone that glowed a bit in the center. The jar was labeled
BROTHER STONE
.

“This!” Rose cried, running over to the second vat of chocolate batter. “What do I do with it?”

“Just plunk it in, maybe?” said Sage, and Rose dropped the stone into the well of chocolate and turned on the beaters. “And a bit of ginger for taste,” Marge said, throwing in a fistful of regular old powdered ginger.

As the giant metal paddle churned the batter, the surface became like a shimmering mirror. Rose could see two boys, both with red hair, wearing old-fashioned tunics and knickers, doing a secret handshake, with a lot of laughing and stomping and turning. Then the vision went dark, and the chocolate batter returned to normal, just as Gene managed to break down the door to the Bakers' Quarters.

“Tie them up!” Marge yelled, reaching for some of the twine that Gus and Jacques had used earlier. She tossed a ball of it to Jasmine, who began to run around Gene and Ning in circles until they were tied together, back to back, unable to move—like two caterpillars in cocoons.

“Phew,” Jasmine said after she had tied a double knot and a bow around their waists. Ning and Gene said nothing, just struggled to break free of their bonds, eventually falling to the floor, still and silent.

“Don't try this at home,” warned Marge.

 

After the timer dinged, and after the cookies cooled, Rose thrust a cookie into the mouths of both of the furious men. They chewed and swallowed and seemed to calm down, the green light in their eyes fading to a glimmer and then nothing at all.

Holding her breath, she untied them.

Instead of fighting, Gene and Ning commenced the same secret handshake that the two redheaded brothers had done in the vision Rose saw on the surface of the chocolate. The bakers laughed and jumped and bumped fists, as if they had choreographed the whole thing years before, and when they were done, they gave each other a hearty hug.

“I'm so sorry, Gene!” Ning cried, looking at the scratches on Gene's face and arms.

“I'm sorry, too!” Gene said, pointing to the giant red bump on Ning's forehead. “How could we fight like this? We're family, man!”

“Family!” Ning replied, and he gathered the rest of the bakers into a group hug.

“I love hugs,” Felanie said softly.

Rose carried the Dinky Cake made with Thrumpin root over to a glass display case on wheels. She lifted a bell-shaped cover and placed the Dinky Cake beneath it. On the cart beside it were four other bell jars, under which were a Moony Pye, a Glo-Ball, a Dinky Donut, and a King Thing—samples the team had made while she and her brothers went to see her parents.

Rose surveyed the horrible spoils of her work over the past few days. These five snack cakes, if reproduced, could single-handedly ruin the world.

Then she placed an antidote Dinky in the refrigerator where they'd been storing the antidotes, lest anyone should need one.

“What if every member of the International Society of the Rolling Pin were to eat one of these cookies?” Rose whispered to her brothers.

“It's a good idea,
hermana
,” Ty replied. “But first we need to worry about fixing Mr. Butter, and I don't think the Brother Stone alone is gonna do it. He is seriously whacked. He is bent on world destruction and domination like I'm bent on being adored by women of all continents. And that's saying a lot.”

“The most important thing is to make sure Kathy Keegan doesn't eat any of the magical Apocrypha snack cakes,” said Rose.

At that moment, Gus and Jacques emerged from the windowed room upstairs, Jacques clinging to the fur on Gus's head like a maharaja riding an elephant. They'd gone off for a long nap earlier, exhausted by their role in the day's events. Now the cat leaped up onto the prep table and let Marge pet him.

“The only surefire way to stop
me
from eating a snack is to have me be a different person,” Marge intoned. “That's what I always say.”

Rose pondered this as she looked toward the ceiling. “That's it! No one knows what Kathy Keegan looks like!”

“I do,” said Marge. “I told you. On the short side, with strong hands. Brown hair.”

“But
Butter
doesn't know that!” Rose said. “As far as he's concerned, she looks like the cartoon on the package: a tall lady with a blonde bob.”

“Where are we going to get a tall lady with a blonde bob?” Sage said. “I mean, Ty is so pretty that he could
look
like a tall lady. But he doesn't have a blonde bob.”

There was a desperate pause. Then Melanie surged forward, breaking out of the bakers' group hug and throwing her arms up in the air. “I do!”

Felanie followed after her sister, clutching the top of her head. “So do I!”

Rose looked back and forth between the twin bakers, then raised her eyebrows. “Are you both wearing . . .
wigs
?”

“No,” said Felanie. Then, softly, “Just Melanie.”

“We're not actually identical twins,” said Melanie, her lower lip trembling. “We're fraternal. But we like being exactly the same, so . . .” She turned so they could all admire her chin-length blonde hair. Then she reached up and lifted it off her head. Beneath it was the shadow of dark buzz-cut hair. “My hair is a natural brown.”

Jasmine gasped. Rose could hear Jacques whisper,
“Sacré bleu!
”

“I usually just dye my hair, but I gave myself a terrible haircut last week,” said Melanie, her lower lip trembling. “I was embarrassed, so I shaved it all off and ordered this wig to wear until it grows back.”

Rose looked on in awe as Melanie put the blonde wig back on. Then she glanced at her older brother, who was several inches taller than the twins.

“Ty . . . ,” Rose began, “if you pretend to be Kathy Keegan, we could protect her. We heard what they said at the Society of the Rolling Pin—she's coming
here
, to the Mostess factory!”

“Nuh-uh,” said Ty, holding up his hands in protest. “And besides, how are we supposed to prevent the real Kathy Keegan from showing up?”

While the bakers huddled to try and figure this out, Gus leaped up onto one of the metal prep tables, his tail curled, and leaned forward to Rose. “I can take care of that,” he whispered. “The Caterwaul. It shouldn't be too hard.”

Marge took charge. “Baking team! Dirty up this kitchen so that we can trick Mr. Butter. It needs to look like we have created the most powerful treat yet—the Thrumpin's root–tainted Dinky Cake.” Gene and Ning immediately began flinging the extra chocolate batter on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the kitchen.

Marge set a gentle hand on Rose's shoulder and said, “Rosemary Bliss, you need a nap. You look like you haven't slept in days.”

It's true,
Rose thought with a yawn, even though she'd only woken up a few hours ago. It was barely noon, but the past few days had been beyond exhausting. She reached toward the recipe cards and the jars of Mother's Love, but Marge took them from her, saying, “You leave the tidying up to us. I know exactly what needs to be done with these precious things. Maybe for the first time in my life.”

That was confusing, but Rose was too tired to care. As she traipsed upstairs for a nap, she heard Marge's final command, to Ty. “And you, you handsome boy—you need to be fitted for a dress.”

CHAPTER 16
Skirting the Issue

T
wo hours later, when the sirens and blinking red lights signaled the arrival of Mr. Butter, Rose bolted out of bed, forgetting for a moment where she was.

In her swiftly fading dream, she'd been back in her room in Calamity Falls, and the lights were those of the paparazzi, and she had a moment to relive that morning over a month back when she'd wished it all would go away.

But then, as she came fully awake, she saw the kitchen through the window and remembered where she was. “I wish I were back home,” she muttered, “and everything was back to normal.”

From the dresser top, the cat said, “There you go wishing again. Didn't I warn you about that?” He stood and arched his back like an accordion.

“Sorry,” Rose said. “I forget myself.”

“It's okay,” Gus said. “That was a good wish.” He glanced down. “You'd best get a move on.”

Rose grabbed her baker's hat and bounded down the stairs just as Mr. Butter emerged alone from the entrance in the floor—no golf cart, and no Mr. Kerr. He was wearing a sharp grayish-blue suit with a striped shirt and polished black loafers, and he was as jumpy as a child who knows he's about to get a whole roomful of presents.

He surveyed the wreckage of the kitchen: Gene and Ning both lay on the ground, pressing ice packs to the giant red welts on their foreheads. The door to the Bakers' Quarters lay in two pieces on the floor. And Melanie, having lent her wig to Ty, was revealed to be nearly as bald as Mr. Butter himself. Ty and Sage were nowhere in sight.

“Marvelous!” Mr. Butter said, dragging his finger through the gobs of chocolate dough that covered the prep table and then wiping it clean. “Looks like the new and improved Dinky Cake has done its worst, and so have all of you! What a mess! But all for a good cause!”

He clapped his hands slowly above his head. “You. Are. Heroes!” he announced. “The Mostess Corporation owes you all a huge debt of gratitude.” Mr. Butter walked along the line of bakers, reaching down to where they lay on the floor and shaking each of their hands. “Directrice Bliss. Wonderful. Marge, superb. Jas . . . mine? Yes.” He approached Gene and Ning. “Ping. Steve. Excellent work.”

He arrived in front of Melanie and Felanie and struggled to remember their names. “Blonde Twin One. Blonde Twin Two,” he said. “Good job.” He stared a minute at Melanie's buzz cut. “Blonde Twin Two, wasn't your hair blonde and long just this morning?”

“She got in my way,” Felanie replied without missing a beat. “So I cut off her hair.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Butter. “Development Kitchen Team, you've all worked very hard, but there is little time before Kathy Keegan arrives! She'll be here in an hour! So clean yourselves—you're all a mess!—and we'll begin our celebration very shortly!”

Marge led the bakers toward the now doorless Bakers' Quarters, while Mr. Butter and Rose went to the rolling glass display cart that held the five sinister snack cakes.

“Behold your work!” Mr. Butter said, squinting at the tiny treats.

Rose forced herself to smile, but behind her grin she was confused. The treats didn't look quite
right
. The Dinky Cake was thinner than it should be, and the Glo-Ball was frosted a peculiar shade of magenta that she didn't recall noticing before. The Moony Pye was fatter in the middle like a flying saucer, and the King Thing log was longer than Mostess regulations specified.
Someone messed with these treats,
Rose realized. She opened her mouth to say, “These aren't—”

“Aren't anything that anyone else can claim credit for,” Marge called from behind her. “We bakers would like to give all the credit to our Directrice, Rosemary Bliss!”

“Hip hip hurrah!” the bakers cried again and again and again, and Rose would have been touched if she hadn't been so sickened at the thought of how perfectly evil these snack cakes were. She wiped away a tear.

“How touching,” Mr. Butter said with a sigh. “Now, Miss Rosemary Bliss, I have a special task for you. Your final task as Directrice is to deliver these samples to our guest of honor: Kathy Keegan. She is arriving here this
very
evening. She'll be quite impressed by your win at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands, I think—so impressed that she'll eat whatever you present to her without question.”

“I don't know if I can do that,” Rose said hesitantly.

“I've still got your family up there in that room,” Mr. Butter reminded her, making a fist in front of her face. “They could remain my guests, shall we say, for a
very
long time. As could you!”

Rose looked down at the floor.

“And don't think I won't know the difference between Kathy Keegan eating the perfected snack cakes and some other, previous version of our products,” said Mr. Butter. “You have done a good job so far, Miss Bliss, and you know very well how . . .
influential
our baked goods should be.” He took a deep breath. “If Keegan doesn't start behaving like a lunatic the minute she eats the first bite, then I'll know you've tricked me, and I'll act accordingly.” Mr. Butter's face twitched. “Do we understand each other?”

Rose nodded.

“Now, let's prepare a special platter, shall we?” Mr. Butter said. He reached into the glass domes and grabbed each treat in turn—the Moony Pye, the Glo-Ball, the Dinky Doodle Donut, the King Thing, and the Dinky Cake—and placed them onto a silver serving tray with ornate swirls carved into it like the billowing tails of birds of paradise.

“I'll take
this
tray,” Mr. Butter said. “And you'll give it to Kathy Keegan, and she will love it.”

“I hope so,” Rose said.

She and Marge had a plan, but she wasn't too sure of it. Marge was going to hide the antidote snacks in her purse, and at some point she would find a way to switch them with the sinister snack cakes Mr. Butter had arrayed on the platter. That way, Ty, disguised as Kathy Keegan, would eat the antidotes—which would have no effect whatsoever on him. But he would
act
as though he had become a murderous, easily controlled zombie so that Mr. Butter wouldn't suspect anything.

It wasn't much as plans went, but it was all they had.

Meanwhile, the
real
Kathy Keegan would be safe at home eating pizza bagels on her couch, having been warned away by Gus and the Caterwaul.

Rose heard the sound of distant trumpets.

“What is that infernal noise?” Mr. Butter shouted, his ears perking up. “Who is playing the trumpet? There is a no-music rule on this compound!”

Marge and the other bakers stared at Mr. Butter, bewildered. None of them was playing a trumpet.

Mr. Kerr appeared through the trapdoor in the floor. He stood there on the elevator platform, clutching his chest. “Mr. Butter,” he panted. “Kathy Keegan. She's here.”

“Already?” Mr. Butter moaned, one hand to his head. “She's not supposed to be here for another hour!”

“She's early,” Mr. Kerr panted.

“All right! Come on. Rose, Marge, you pile in the back of the golf cart.” Mr. Butter's knuckles were white as bone as he clutched the silver tray of Mostess Snack Cakes.

Marge winked cryptically at Rose and patted her purse.

“Here goes nothing,” said Rose under her breath.

 

No one spoke as Mr. Kerr drove the golf cart up to the main factory building, where Rose had been briefed when she first arrived at Mostess and where she'd seen the shrine to the Dinky Cake.

“Hurry!” Mr. Butter said, pushing Rose and Marge ahead of him through a pair of stainless steel double doors. “The press has been notified! Everything is about to happen!”

Inside the factory, hundreds of the octopus-shaped robots whirred and pounded and zoomed around, manufacturing the Mostess FLCPs. They moved in perfectly synchronized waves, injecting filling into cakes, sealing cellophane packages around Moony Pyes. The factory was a wonder of mechanical coordination, and it took Rose's breath away.

And then she saw that the robots were controlled by a team of one hundred or so bakers wearing electronic white gloves. As a baker made a gesture, all the robots down the line followed suit.

“Amazing,” Rose said.

“Yes, isn't it?” Mr. Butter snarled. “Come along. We have to be in place before she gets there!”

A plush red carpet had been rolled out along the entire width of the factory floor. Photographers and reporters were stationed on one side behind a thick red-velvet rope, and a band of trumpeters was stationed on the other side.

The photographers snapped pictures as Rose, Marge, and Mr. Butter marched down the carpet to a lavish banquet table that had been set up on a stage directly underneath the little glass room with the Dinky shrine. After a moment, the photographers raised their cameras as the double doors burst open, the trumpets blared, and the orange glow of the setting sun flooded the room.

Rose's eyes quickly adjusted, but all she could see was the silhouette of a tall woman gliding through the double doors and down the red carpet. She almost seemed to be flying. The trumpets blasted a fanfare as confetti cannons exploded behind her in a sequence of loud, colorful booms.

The doors were thrown shut, and suddenly Rose could see the whole scene more clearly: a golf cart was creeping slowly along the red carpet toward the banquet table.

The driver of the cart was a boy wearing black tuxedo shorts, a T-shirt, a chef's toque, and a pair of sunglasses so big that he looked like a praying mantis. He sat back in his seat and drove with one hand on the wheel, his elbow resting luxuriously on the golf cart door. Even with the toque and the sunglasses, Rose would know those pudgy, rosy cheeks anywhere: the driver was Sage.

And standing up in the cart, like it was her own personal chariot of fire, was a tall, lanky woman with red lipstick and blonde hair that puffed out at her ears and then tapered down to a point under her chin. She was wearing a smart navy-blue business suit, the kind you'd find on a secretary of state, and she was waving with just her wrist, like Queen Elizabeth.

“Isn't she resplendent?” Mr. Butter whispered.

Isn't she my older brother?
Rose thought.

The activity on the factory floor came to a halt as the gloved bakers filed in behind the trumpet players, and the robots filed in behind the bakers who controlled them.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Mr. Butter shouted into a megaphone. “Our chief competitor, Ms. Kathy Keegan! She has come here today to discuss a partnership between the Keegan Corporation and the Mostess Corporation—the last two bakeries in America. Please join me in a salute to our esteemed colleague!”

When the bakers raised their white gloves to their foreheads in a salute, the robots standing behind them also saluted in unison with all of the arms on one side of their bodies. There was a subdued ripple of creaks and clanks throughout the room.

Sage stopped the golf cart just short of the banquet table.

Mr. Butter helped Ty step down. “What an entrance!” he said. “Ms. Keegan! My darling, you look like a queen! And so much like the cartoon on your packaging! What an . . . uncanny likeness!”

“You're too kind,” said Ty, barely altering his normal speaking voice. He sounded nothing like a woman.

“What a . . . strong voice you have,” said Mr. Butter. “What a commanding presence.”

“Thank you!” said Ty, folding his hands over a tiny sequined purse that hung over his shoulder. “I love what you've done with this factory. So shiny! All the robots and the gents and ladies with their shiny gloves . . .”

“Thank you!” Mr. Butter said, staring at Ty the way a hungry praying mantis might stare at a housefly. “Those shiny gloves actually control the robots. Efficient little system thought up by yours truly. Team, wave to Ms. Keegan!”

The long row of bakers waved back and forth, and the robot arms clattered and clanged as they waved back and forth in unison.

“What a brilliant system!” Ty said. “It's like a big . . . video game!”

“This allows us to use fewer workers,” said Mr. Butter. “This is our lead baking team, all hundred of them. Each of the factories on the compound employs hundreds of people, and those hundreds of people control thousands of robots. One worker frosts a cupcake, say, and all along the line, the robots imitate his movements.”

“It gives me
chills
just thinking about it,” Ty said with a shake of his padded shoulders.

“You see,” Mr. Butter said proudly, “the idea came to me one night, when—”

Rose coughed, fearing Mr. Butter would go on all day if she didn't stop him.

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Butter said. “How could I forget. Ms. Keegan, this is the esteemed Directrice of our Development Kitchen, Miss Rosemary Bliss.”