The Magic Cake Shop (15 page)

Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap
.

A cane tapped at the door.

Emma and Albie froze. Mr. Crackle smiled. “It’s time.” He put down his mug. “Emma, please get the door—after all, I am supposed to be deprived of most of my senses, including the ability to notice a cane tap.”

Emma opened the door.

Maximus Beedy and Uncle Simon hobbled in. Maximus leaned grimly on his cane. Uncle Simon sat in a chair with a thud. “BLASTED PORCUPINE GOT ONTO THE PORCH AND SHED ALL OVER THE SHOES!” he bellowed. “I’M GOING TO HAVE THE HEAD OF EVERY PRICKLY BEAST ON MY TROPHY SHELF, IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!”

Emma choked back a chuckle. Behind her, Albie made a funny sound.

Maximus Beedy glared at the two children suspiciously. “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of the porcupine that paid our shoes a visit, would you?”

“Well, gentlemen,” Mr. Crackle said hastily, “no use chitchatting when I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Let’s get this done with!” He went to the counter and picked up a tiny golden flask. “Here is the Elixir of Delight. I trust you have brought the antidote?”

Maximus Beedy smiled his thin, ugly smile. “Why, yes,”
he said, withdrawing a clear vial filled with a viscous black fluid from his trench coat.

The two men switched bottles. Maximus smiled unpleasantly. “Now drink up, Mr. Crackle, before you lose your eyes,” he said.

Mr. Crackle held the bottle to the light and studied it. He gave it a swirl. His eyes darkened.

“Maximus Beedy, you may have fooled some fellows in your life, but never presume that you can fool an expert baker. I know exactly what is in this bottle, and it is not the antidote. You have given me liquefied poison-dart-frog toes. If I took it, I’d be a goner in three seconds.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?!” crowed Uncle Simon. “We’ve got the Elixir of Delight! Let’s leave these miserable saps, Maximus, and make our fortune!”

Uncle Simon took a step toward the door. A cane whipped up and tapped him sharply on the belly.

Tap tap. Tap tap
.

The cane swished down. It hit the tip of Uncle Simon’s right shoe, then clicked onto the floor.

Uncle Simon yelped and jumped back. “Maximus! What the puffles are you doing?” he yelled.

Maximus Beedy moved in front of Simon, blocking his way to the door. He did not speak. He fixed an icy glare straight into Uncle Simon’s eyes. His eyes did not blink.

Emma shuddered. There was something inhuman about his stillness.

Uncle Simon fell silent.

Maximus’s thin voice floated through the air. “Simon Burblee, you are a complete and utter idiot. No criminal would trust this baker’s word about the elixir. He gave it to us too easily. He did not fight. He did not demand the cure for the poison first. If he is clever enough to make the Elixir of Delight, then he is clever enough to trick us.” He turned to Mr. Crackle. “What kind of game are you playing, Crackle?”

Mr. Crackle lifted one eyebrow. “Game?”

“Aha!” shouted Maximus. “You heard me, which means you’ve found a cure for my poison.” He held up the elixir. “You’re up to something with whatever’s in this little flask, and I intend to find out what that something is.” He turned to Uncle Simon. “You, Simon, must test the elixir.”

“Me?!” squealed Emma’s uncle. “Pig snouts and possum farts. Absolutely not. I’m not going to risk my neck so that you can get filthy rich.”

Maximus’s eyes glittered. “Oh, yes, you are, Simon. Do you remember that box of chocolates I offered you yesterday?”

“The ones I ate with the mashed liver?”

“Yes, the very ones. They were poisoned with a rather nasty concoction that will turn your insides to mud in”—Maximus casually glanced at the clock—“four hours and twelve minutes.”

Uncle Simon went white. He gurgled. He tottered. His hand wobbled out to steady him and landed with a thump on the kitchen counter.

Maximus smiled contemptuously. “I will give you the antidote only after you try the elixir.” He reached into his trench coat and pulled out a gleaming silver box. He opened it. Inside lay a sandwich.

Maximus said silkily, “Simon, I seem to recall you expressing a deep hatred of Brussels sprouts. As for me, I abhor anchovies. I’ve combined both ingredients into this disgusting morsel of food.” He delicately removed the sandwich from the box.

Emma winced as she saw the sandwich stuffing—a purply green mash that was flecked with black and smelled faintly of the sewer.

Maximus plucked the tiny stopper off the elixir bottle. Holding the bottle above the sandwich, he tipped a drop of liquid onto the slimy mess and offered it to his partner. “Eat up! If the elixir works, it will be the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted. If it doesn’t, either our little baker has failed or else he has tricked us.”

Uncle Simon slumped further and looked at Maximus with a horrified gaze.

“Personally,” continued Maximus, “if I were him, I’d love to see you twisted up like a licorice stick, but who knows? Maybe our Mr. Crackle has succeeded. Anyhow, whether or not it works, I’ll cure you of the chocolate poison afterward.”

A horrible stillness filled the room. No one moved.

The only sound was the kitchen clock
tick-ticking, tick-ticking
.

There was one minute left before noon.

Suddenly Uncle Simon leaped up. He snatched the sandwich from Maximus and took one terrible, desperate bite. His bulging jaw worked up and down.

He swallowed.

And grinned.

His grin stretched wider and wider, until all his teeth showed. Bits of anchovy and Brussels sprouts stuck out from the gaps. “It worked!” he shouted. “Maximus, this is better than roasted pigs’ feet! You have got to try it!” He took another enormous bite, then handed the rest to Maximus, who took a tiny nibble from the uneaten end.

The clock chimed noon.

U
ncle Simon gulped. Maximus Beedy swallowed.

They looked perfectly fine.

“Well, Mr. Crackle, it seems you have succeeded.” Maximus took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his mouth. “I detest anchovies, and yet this is the most exquisite sandwich I’ve ever tasted.” He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Now, Simon, as for the antidote to the chocolates … Hold on, what the …?”

Uncle Simon’s head was changing. His skin had gone from pasty white to pale green. Veiny ridges crept up his bloated cheeks and curled around his head. His ears crinkled into round folds in his neck. His eyebrows disappeared into two leafy mounds.

Uncle Simon howled. His green eyes glazed with fury,
and he turned toward Maximus. His howl died with a choke.

Maximus Beedy’s face had turned a scaly silver. His lips twisted into the shape of a beak, and his eyes grew three times their size. His entire head narrowed and sharpened.

In thirty seconds flat, Uncle Simon had turned into a Brussels sprout and Maximus Beedy had become a walking anchovy.

Mr. Crackle coughed. “So that’s what happens when you drink the Elixir of Delight at noon. How interesting!”

“Crackle! You knew about this?!” roared the Brussels sprout.

It lurched toward Mr. Crackle, but before its leafy head could reach him, the anchovy darted forward and grabbed Emma with its fins.

Emma was buried in a mass of smelly fish scales. The fins were horribly sharp. One of them drew up an inch from her throat. She froze.

Maximus’s voice came through the anchovy’s gaping mouth. “Mr. Crackle, I think you should change us back at once. Otherwise, something unpleasant might happen.”

Albie ran toward Emma but stopped short when the fish tightened its fin against her. “Leave Emma alone!” Albie yelled.

Mr. Crackle paled. For the first time since they had started this strange elixir-making, Emma could see he hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do next.

The fin against her throat drew closer. Then Emma felt the razor edge of the fin brush against the hairs on her neck.

Suddenly she had a tiny spark of an idea.

“Mr. Crackle!” she gasped. “Just tell them where to get the cure! Tell them about the flour barrel!”

“What rubbish are you talking about?” hissed the fish.

“Get your fin away from me and I’ll tell you!” Emma waited until the fin drew a fraction farther from her throat before she continued. “Mr. Crackle has a secret place where he stores all of his cures! Why do you think he hasn’t died from that horrible poison yet? He showed me this place. You go down the flour barrel, then”—Emma made her voice a bit louder—“open a secret
door
, and inside are the cures to any problem you could think of!”

Mr. Crackle looked confused. For one awful moment, Emma was afraid he wouldn’t understand.

Then an uncertain smile broke over his face.

“Yes, of course!” Mr. Crackle said. “Come with me, gentlemen, and I’ll get you fixed right up.”

He led everyone to the flour barrel, removed the cover, and flicked the wall switch. A whoosh of air flowed up and over the barrel. The soft glow of the tunnel lamps beckoned.

Mr. Crackle turned to Uncle Simon and Maximus and gestured toward the ladder. “Your antidote awaits below.”

The anchovy snarled, “Crackle, you go down first. Simon goes next, then the boy, then Emma. I’ll go last. Don’t try anything funny.”

Mr. Crackle got into the barrel and started to climb down. Emma watched her uncle flop his leafy arms onto the rungs of the ladder and follow. Albie gave her a quick hug, then dropped down.

The anchovy unwrapped its fins from around her. “Go,” it said.

Emma swung her foot over the edge of the barrel.

Down, down, down.

Emma could hear Uncle Simon swearing as he struggled to descend in the body of a Brussels sprout. The rungs smelled faintly of rotten vegetables.

Deeper, deeper, deeper.

Then they were there.

T
he air was just as cool and the lamps just as friendly as Emma remembered. She clutched Mr. Crackle’s and Albie’s hands. Uncle Simon and Maximus scowled at the enormous door in front of them.

Emma stared at the door’s wrought-iron handle and the breath box. She crossed her fingers.