The Magic Cake Shop (12 page)

Mr. Crackle smiled. “Thank you,” he said. He returned Emma’s squeeze and straightened his long back. “I do believe I’ve got the best assistants any winner of the Supreme-Extreme Master of the Kitchen Contest could choose.”

Emma smiled. Suddenly something in her head jiggled. “Mr. Crackle?”

“Yes, Emma?”

“Do you know someone named Maddie Tinkleberry?”

Mr. Crackle’s eyes lit up. “Last year’s Supreme-Extreme winner? Of course I do! Maddie is a very talented young
woman. She and I once worked on a chocolate soufflé for the Queen of Bavaria’s eightieth birthday. At the last moment, she decided to add tickleberry rose extract to the batter. The soufflé came out quite perfect.”

“Do you know where she is?”

Mr. Crackle wrinkled his eyebrows. “The last time I saw her, she was about to leave for France to search for a rare ingredient—a mysterious kind of berry, I believe. She was in a great hurry.”

Emma swallowed hard. “Mr. Beedy said she made the Elixir of Delight for him and then she disappeared. For months he tried to hunt her down to make sure she wouldn’t tell about the elixir, but he never found her.”

Mabel clucked. “I should have known that Maddie would get herself into a cooking adventure.”

Mr. Crackle frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Maddie Tinkleberry does not like cheaters when it comes to food.” Mabel drew a finger down Mr. Crackle’s list as she scanned the ingredients. “When she created the Elixir of Delight, she must have realized that any mediocre cook with a dose of it would be unstoppable.” Her finger slowly made its way toward the bottom of the list. “My bet is that she’s looking for starberries in France. They have the most curious ability to reveal the true talent of a cook. Starberries turn anything that is not superb into a bland mush, but for a truly delicious creation, they enhance the flavors to an astonishing degree.”

She pushed her glasses firmly up her nose. “I’ve finished
reading your list. It will only take me a few moments to gather these ingredients. In the meantime, why don’t you sit down a spell and take a breather—it’ll do you good before you attempt the recipe.” She turned to Emma and Albie. “You two should feel free to take a look around. But make sure you don’t taste anything. Some ingredients here are delightful in pies but deadly on their own.”

M
abel pushed a comfy chair next to the spice shop’s front counter and gave Mr. Crackle an aspirin. “Sit,” she commanded.

Mr. Crackle sat.

As Mabel bustled off to find the elixir ingredients, she called to Emma and Albie, “Feel free to look around, but remember—if you try anything, you will most likely regret it.”

Emma and Albie wandered into an aisle. There was so much to look at. Emma took a jar of green crystals off the shelf. She saw a label on the cover:
MOON SUGAR
. “So this is what Mr. Crackle puts in his truffles!” she exclaimed.

“Ooooh, look at this one!” Albie said, tapping a bottle filled with golden syrup. “It’s called African billooflower honey. I bet it’d be tasty on crackers!”

Emma reached for a jar labeled
KOOLAKOOLA TREE BARK
. She sat down and twisted off the lid, then reached in to feel the thick, dark chunks of bark. The rough, rich-smelling squares crumbled in her hand.

She wanted badly to take a tiny taste, but she remembered how dangerous ingredients could be. With a sigh, she screwed the lid back on the jar.

As she stood up, she heard a quick, strange sound.

Thump
.

Silence.

Thump
.

Silence.

Albie cocked his ear. “Something’s moving about.”

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
.

Emma and Albie jumped. They followed the thumps to the middle of the aisle. All of a sudden, the shelves ended, leaving a deep, wide space.

Inside the space was an enormous glass jar.

Inside the jar, giant, pink, warty blobs dashed against the glass at terrific speeds. Emma watched as they hit the jar and flattened like pancakes before pulling themselves into blobs again and zinging to the other side.

“Aha! There you are.” Mabel strode down the aisle. “I’ve got all your ingredients but the biddle hegs—oh, you’ve found them!” She popped open the enormous jar and whistled a strange, high note three times.

Three of the pink blobs zoomed out of the jar and landed with a
thump thump thump
in her hand. Mabel neatly tipped them into a box and sealed it. “And that should do it!” She checked a tiny silver watch that dangled
from her slim wrist. “Now, I know Gregor will be eager to get to work on the elixir, but I think we have a few moments for you two to see the best part of this place.” She beckoned to Emma and Albie. “Come this way.”

They followed her to a corner of the shop, where a thick black curtain hung over a doorway.

“Step through, please,” said Mabel.

Through they went.

They were in a pitch-black room. The sights and sounds and smells of the spice shop entirely disappeared. “Close your eyes for ten seconds to let them adjust, then open them,” Mabel said.

Emma shut her eyes, counted, and then slowly opened them. And for the second time that day, she took a small, quiet breath.

She was surrounded by glowing, swirling flecks of colored light. They pooled and eddied softly inside glass bottles, bumping one another with the gentleness of floating bubbles. They looked weightless and very, very fragile.

“They’re lovely,” Albie sighed.

“What are they?” whispered Emma.

“Dust from the aurora borealis. They can only be gathered at midnight at the winter solstice.”

“What do they do?”

“They make anything taste as light as air.”

Emma watched the gleaming speckles shimmer and
dance. She wondered whether she would see anything more beautiful in her life.

“Makes you glad to be alive,” Mabel said softly.

They stood silently, until they heard Mabel say gently, “Time to go.”

Tugging their eyes away, Emma and Albie headed back to the lights and smells of the spice shop.

W
hen they returned to the spice-shop counter, Emma, Albie, and Mabel found Mr. Crackle looking slightly better. As Mabel packaged their ingredients into neatly labeled jars and plastic packets, Mr. Crackle brought over the dessert box. Once the jars and packets had been labeled, he slid them inside.

“Make sure you separate the biddle hegs from the wibbly cobbyseed,” cautioned Mabel.

“What will happen if we don’t?” asked Emma.

“If they touch each other, they form a vapor that turns your head into a pumpkin. It’s painful.”

“Oh,” said Emma.

“Don’t worry, in all the years I’ve known him, Gregor has made only two cooking mistakes,” said Mabel.

Mr. Crackle, who had just finished putting the last ingredient in the box, suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Now, Mabel, there’s no need to talk about the past.”

Mabel’s lips twitched, just slightly. “Suit yourself.”

“What did you do, Mr. Crackle?” Albie asked. “Did you ever give anyone a case of the runs?”

Mr. Crackle sighed. “It was a little more dramatic. I once overestimated the amount of aurora borealis dust I was supposed to put in a chocolate soufflé.”

Albie’s eyes widened. “Is that the same dust we just saw?”

Mabel nodded. “It is a beautiful but dangerously potent ingredient.”

“What happens when you eat too much?” Emma asked.

Mr. Crackle dropped his head. “The fellow who ate the soufflé shrank to the size of a gingerbread man and floated out of the shop. I had to chase him down with a butterfly net and feed him rock candy to put him right.”

“And what was your second mistake?” Mabel’s lips twitched into a full-on smile.

Mr. Crackle looked pained. “Last year I turned all the Supreme-Extreme Masters into fudge Popsicles. I miscalculated how much babbleberry juice to put in the punch for an annual cooking convention.”

“And how long did it take you to turn those Popsicles back into people?” asked Mabel. Her voice was very, very sweet.

“Three days.” Mr. Crackle paused. “I had to share some very secret recipes to calm a few tempers.”

Mabel laughed. “Every person, no matter how talented, makes mistakes. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Good luck, Gregor. Remember: You can get rid of the
poison inside you with a cup of sugar, a cup of pickled cabbage, and ten drops of the Elixir of Delight. I know you hate pickled cabbage, but under the circumstances, I would make an exception.”

Mr. Crackle grimaced. He hitched up the dessert box, and he, Albie, and Emma waved goodbye to Mabel as they swung open the spice-shop door and climbed back up the tunnel to their own world.

T
hey emerged from the flour barrel to find the last rays of sunset disappearing from the kitchen windows.

Albie glanced at the clock. “Yipes! I need to get home—my parents will be worried.”

Mr. Crackle rested the ingredient box on the counter. “Albie, do you think your parents would mind if you spent the night here? We’ll need to start making the elixir early tomorrow if we’re going to have it ready by noon.”

“Well, my dad might ask for some free cookies.…”

“Done.”

“Great! I’ll give them a call.”

While Albie phoned his parents, Mr. Crackle and Emma went to the attic and dug up a sleeping bag and an inflatable mattress for him. After eating a quick dinner, with crème brûlée for dessert, they settled in for the night. Mr. Crackle tucked Emma and Albie in and read them a story from a slim book called
Top Ten Cooking Disasters
. Halfway through a story about a wayward blueberry coffee
cake, he stopped with a jolt. “Well, what an odd sensation. I can’t feel this book anymore. There goes my sense of touch.”

The two children stared.

“Albie and Emma!” Mr. Crackle said sharply. “If your eyes get any bigger, they’re going to pop out of your head.” He flipped a page of the book. “Don’t worry, you two—if I can still turn pages, I can still make recipes. If I go blind, that’ll be tricky, but since the next sense to go is my hearing, you two won’t have anything to worry about. I’ve always been a little deaf anyway.”