The Magic Cake Shop (11 page)

Emma glanced back at Albie. He was still crouched next to the shoes, delicately arranging the prickles in them. “Uncle Simon’s coming!” Emma whispered urgently.

“Give me one more minute!” Albie whispered back. “I’m almost done!”

Emma burst into the house and ran down the hallway. She flung open the living room door just as Uncle Simon was about to open it. He burped in surprise as she bustled in and slammed the door shut.

“Made the elixir yet, brat?” Uncle Simon barked. A small piece of chocolaty meat flew from his mouth and landed on Emma’s shoe.

Emma kicked it off with a jerk. “Not yet. I needed to get the dessert box for Mr. Crackle.”

“Going to make a magical elixir with an oversized box? You must be dimmer than I thought.” Uncle Simon guffawed.

Behind them, Maximus gave a cry of rage. The
spit-and-chocolate-covered meat Emma had flicked had landed on the tip-top of his cane. “Simon! Something foul has just landed on my cane and ruined my afternoon’s worth of polishing! Ugh! It smells like your lunch!”

Uncle Simon arched an eyebrow. He walked over to Maximus, plucked the chewed-up bit, and popped it into his mouth. “Waste not, want not!” he purred.

Maximus’s eyes burned. He lifted his cane and twisted the top gently into Uncle Simon’s enormous gut. “One day, Simon,” he said slowly, “I may cure you of your love of food.”

“Sticky buns and rat rubbish!” snorted Uncle Simon. “Impossible!”

Maximus twisted a little more. “Once we’ve made our fortune, I suggest you watch what you eat. You never know when a little poison might slip into your meat.”

Emma decided it was a good time to make her exit. “Bye, Uncle Simon! See you tomorrow!” She left Uncle Simon and Maximus glaring at each other and darted out of the room. Albie was standing on the front porch with the shoe box. He winked. “All set!”

Emma clasped her hands and shook them high in the air. Then she grabbed the dessert box and slung it onto her back. The two of them hurried back to Mr. Crackle’s, whistling cheerfully all the way.

W
hen Emma and Albie returned to the cake shop, they found Mr. Crackle upstairs, busily clicking away at his rickety typewriter. He tapped a final letter, pulled the paper from the roller, and pocketed it. “All set! Let’s go downstairs and find ourselves a spice shop!”

Mr. Crackle led the way down to the enormous flour barrel. He lifted off the lid and beckoned. “Take a look,” he said.

Emma and Albie peered down. Tiny flickering lamps glowed against a sturdy metal ladder that led down a deep tunnel. The tunnel stretched farther than they could see.

Emma heard a soft click. She turned to see Mr. Crackle with his finger on a little switch attached to the kitchen wall. A whoosh of air came sliding up the barrel.

Mr. Crackle slung the dessert box onto his back. He adjusted the straps, then gave a quick wiggle so the box settled comfortably on his shoulders.

“Okay, you two,” he said. “Down we go! Don’t worry
about falling—the tunnel has a rising jet of air that will buoy you up if you accidentally slip. I’ll go first. After one minute, Emma, you can hop in. Albie, wait a minute more, then follow.”

He hitched one leg, then the other, into the barrel.

Emma and Albie heard the
clink, clink
of his feet on the metal bars. After the second hand on the kitchen clock wheeled around, Emma climbed into the barrel.

Down she went. She could feel the upwind cushioning her feet with every step, but she didn’t quite trust it to hold her.

The air grew cool, then cold, but the small, cheery lamps lit the way. Emma put her hand out to touch the tunnel wall, which felt like smooth rock. There was nothing to hold on to but the ladder.

A voice floated up from below. “You’re doing wonderfully, Emma! Just a couple hundred steps more to go!”

Down.

Down.

Down she went.

The farther down Emma went, the more the plume of air tugged at her. She had to tighten her grip on the ladder’s rungs to keep from being pulled upward.

Just when her hands started to go numb from clutching the cold metal, her right foot met solid dirt. Shakily, she stepped off the ladder with her other foot.

She glanced behind her.

At her feet, a giant circular grate covered an enormous
fan silently spinning at a terrific speed. Emma realized that the fan was what created the updraft in the tunnel.

“Well done!” Mr. Crackle grinned at her, a few feet from the outer ridge of the grate. “Now edge sideways until you’re out of the way of the air current.”

Emma noticed that the metal rungs of the ladder had shifted sideways, only a few feet above the dirt floor. Carefully gripping the rungs, Emma edged away from the grate, until she was standing next to Mr. Crackle.

“Whew! That was a bit tricky!” Albie popped up next to the two of them and wiped his brow.

Mr. Crackle tugged at a switch on the tunnel wall. With a jerk, the enormous fan came to a halt and the blast of air died down.

Emma let go of the breath she had been holding. She took a look around her.

Hundreds of tiny lamps lit up a circular underground tunnel. On the tunnel’s outer edge, identical ladders descended to the floor, stretching fifty feet apart and disappearing into the curve of the tunnel.

Massive oaken doors with wrought-iron handles ringed the tunnel’s inner edge. Perched above each handle was a small pipe that led to a glass chamber filled with loops of metal wire that curled out in all directions. Mr. Crackle led Emma and Albie to a door a few feet from where they had descended. He stopped and fiddled in his pocket, frowning as he concentrated.

Albie gaped at the door. “That’s fancy!” He whistled. “These aren’t the kinds of doors I’ve ever knocked on before! What’s that funny glass box full of metal stuff for?”

“It’s a breath-recognition system—aha, here it is!” said Mr. Crackle. He withdrew a green velvet bag from his pocket and tipped it over. A silver key fell into his palm. “Each Supreme-Extreme Master gets a ladder and a specialized door to enter the spice shop.”

“Why doesn’t the spice shop have just one door?” Emma asked.

“Security—each door is locked and can only be opened by a Supreme-Extreme Master. To open my door, I turn the lock with this key, then breathe into the pipe. Things click, and the door opens. It’s a piece of engineering I don’t understand, but it works beautifully. By the way, make sure you don’t touch the door. The engineers told me strange things will happen to anyone other than me who does.”

“What happens?” Emma asked.

“I don’t have a smack of a clue, but I don’t want you to be the one who finds out.”

Emma and Albie stood back as Mr. Crackle slipped the key into the lock and turned it twice. He blew into the glass tube, misting the inside. There was a whirring of bolts and locks, and he pulled the door open.

They stepped through.

E
mma’s nose quivered as she inhaled sharp, strange, witchy aromas. She looked around and drew a small, quiet breath.

She was surrounded by thousands and thousands of spices. Packed in glass jars on shelves that reached far up beyond her sight, they filled the shop with dusty browns, brilliant oranges, deep blues, cool greens, rich reds, and brilliant golds. Emma had never seen more colors in her life. She saw powders and liquids and jellies and shriveled dried twisted things with sockets that might have once held eyeballs. The ingredients jostled and jumbled her senses, until she couldn’t tell if she was breathing in color or tasting smells.

Emma felt she had just begun to touch the tip of a vast and ancient world. A curl of excitement grew in her stomach as she ran her fingers over the jars, reading and looking and sniffing.

“What do you think?” whispered Mr. Crackle.

“It’s marvelous,” Emma whispered back.

“ Magical,” whispered Albie.

“What’s all this whispering about?” whispered a fourth voice.

With a start, Emma, Albie, and Mr. Crackle jolted around. The dessert box, still strapped to Mr. Crackle’s back, swung into a jar filled with pale yellow grains. The jar plunged to the ground.

Two inches from the floor, a hand shot underneath the jar and brought it firmly upward, back to the shelf.

“Gregor Crackle, mind that thing on your back,” scolded a tiny woman with tortoiseshell glasses and dark red hair. She slid the jar back into place, then turned to her visitors. “You are an exceptionally careful man, and I would expect no less of you while in my shop. I do apologize for startling you. Now, please introduce me to your friends and let me know how I can help.”

“Hello, Mabel. You’re just as to the point as I remember.” Mr. Crackle gingerly unstrapped the dessert box and set it on the floor. “Mabel, meet Emma and Albie. Albie’s my official cutter control person—he keeps the snooty people in line. Emma’s a lovely young lady whose unlovely uncle is forcing me to make the Elixir of Delight. Emma and Albie, meet Mabel, a dear friend who won the Supreme-Extreme Master of the Kitchen Contest a year before I did. She remembers recipes frighteningly well.”

Mabel looked sternly at Mr. Crackle. “Gregor, stop
trying to flatter me. I was born with a photographic memory, that’s all.” Her eyebrows arched. “How the devil did you get your fingers on the Elixir of Delight recipe? If I remember my cooking history lessons correctly, it was buried in the catacombs under Tuptiddy City in AD 18 and no one has seen it since.”

“I received the recipe from a very unpleasant man who poisoned me and won’t give me the antidote until I make him the elixir.”

“You seem remarkably unflustered about being poisoned, Gregor.” Mabel lifted her eyebrows. “What exactly were you poisoned with?”

“Joobajooba extract.”

“Joobajooba extract?” Mabel frowned. “Is it compounded with anything?”

“Powdered wolf fangs and nightshade.”

“Hmm. How ironic.”

“How so?” asked Mr. Crackle.

“The unpleasant man who poisoned you does not have the antidote.”

“What?!”

“The antidote requires the Elixir of Delight.”

“What?!”

“By itself, joobajooba extract is combatable by a simple mixture of sugar and pickled cabbage juice, but if you add wolf fangs and nightshade, you also need ten drops of the Elixir of Delight to properly get rid of the poison.”

“WHAT?!”

Mabel sighed. “Gregor, you sound like a squawking duck.”

“Sorry, but where—How do you know this?”

“I read books. The antidote is in the 1567 edition of
Lugo Looby’s Obscure Poisons and Their Antidotes
. I wouldn’t worry, though. You are a smart and capable baker and should have no trouble making the elixir. Now, let’s see your shopping list.”

Mr. Crackle’s hands shook as he gave Mabel the list. She lifted up her glasses and studied it.

Emma went up to Mr. Crackle. He looked down at her.

Emma took his hands and gave them a squeeze. She said softly, “Don’t worry, Mr. Crackle. You’re the best baker in the world. If anyone can make this elixir, it’s you.”

Albie chimed in, “Mr. Crackle, you’ll be drinking that elixir and getting back your senses faster than a bee on honey. After all, you’re a Supreme-Extreme Master!”