The Magic Cake Shop (7 page)

“Where is Simon Burblee?” the man asked in a cold, thin voice.

“He’s upstairs. Are you a new steak deliveryman?” asked Emma.

The man gave Emma a withering look. “Child, do not ask stupid questions.” He swept past Emma and called out, “Simon Burblee, show yourself this instant!”

Heaving and thumping were heard upstairs, and the weighty bulk of Emma’s uncle came waddling down the stairs. In his left hand he carried an enormous piece of chocolate cake, while his right hand gripped a giant mug of milk. He swigged the milk and latched his jaws onto the cake. He caught sight of the visitor and stopped.

A twisted look of delight came over his face. “Why, if it isn’t Maximus Beedy! I haven’t seen you since we shot tree sloths on our hunting trip three years ago! How are you? And what are you doing here? I thought you were in Tuptiddy City extracting scorpion poison for the School of Assassins!”

“I was, until I found something I couldn’t pass up. Wait until you hear what I’ve discovered,” said Maximus Beedy.

Uncle Simon looked at Emma. “Get back to work, you detestable slug. I don’t want a speck of grime on my toilet seat.” With that, he and Maximus Beedy disappeared into the living room.

Emma hesitated, then tiptoed over to peer through the keyhole.

“… the time when you shot that baby zebra? I thought I would die laughing,” Uncle Simon chortled.

“Good times,” Maximus Beedy said curtly. “But even
better times are ahead of us if you just shut your mouth for a moment and listen to what I have to say.”

Uncle Simon stopped laughing abruptly. “Go on,” he said, his voice dripping with greed.

Maximus Beedy perched fastidiously on the edge of the couch. “I was in the catacombs underneath Tuptiddy City hunting for scorpions,” he began. “But there was another reason why the catacombs interested me so much. They hold the skeletons of famous rulers, including Emperor Fuddlykoo of the twelfth century.”

Uncle Simon gulped down his milk and burped. “Fuddlykoo? Wasn’t he the one who kept offing his chefs?”

“The very one.” Maximus rubbed the top of his cane. “Fuddlykoo had a fickle sense of taste coupled with a bad temper, and most cooks didn’t last long in his kitchen. One day he would gobble up pickled spiders’ toes, and the next day he couldn’t stand them. On Monday he’d stuff himself stupid with roasted pheasant eggs, while on Tuesday the smell of them sent him into convulsions. No one is sure why. I suppose he was picky.”

“Extremely picky,” snorted Uncle Simon. He thrust a blobby hand into his pocket and pulled out a lint-covered licorice stick. “Candy, Maximus?”

Maximus shuddered. “No.”

“Suit yourself.” Uncle Simon gnawed at the licorice, lint and all.

Maximus pursed his lips, then continued. “Fuddlykoo lopped off six hundred and twenty-nine heads before he
hired a pastry chef named Alexus Mastivigus. Mastivigus was the most talented baker in the world, but that wasn’t what kept his head off the chopping block. He had supposedly created an elixir that would make any food taste irresistibly delicious. When Fuddlykoo died, Mastivigus buried the elixir recipe with him. Since I was already going to the catacombs underneath Tuptiddy City on business, I went to investigate. I found this hidden among Fuddlykoo’s remains.”

Through the keyhole, Emma saw Maximus reach into his coat pocket and remove a scroll made of ancient, yellowed parchment. He handed it to Uncle Simon.

There was a silence. Then Emma heard Uncle Simon say, “Maximus, this is a recipe for your mother’s chicken casserole.”

“Sorry, wrong one.” Maximus dug back into his pocket and pulled out another scroll. He handed it to Simon.

After several moments, Emma heard her uncle’s voice. “Bah. I can’t understand any of this. And, anyway, it won’t work. Nothing in the world can make any kind of food instantly delicious.”

“Aha! I thought so too. But just to be sure, I sent the recipe to some very talented bakers, promising them fame and fortune if they made the recipe correctly. All but Maddie Tinkleberry failed.”

“Maddie Tinkleberry?
The
Maddie Tinkleberry? The winner of last year’s Supreme-Extreme Master of the Kitchen Contest?”

“The very one,” replied Maximus Beedy. “She managed to get it precisely right. I meant to dispose of her afterward so she would never be able to make the potion again—after all, you can’t have gallons and gallons of this stuff around or it becomes worthless—but a day after she gave me the potion, she disappeared.” Maximus looked down and swung his cane in a slow circle. “I searched the world for her for eight months, but she never turned up. Then I realized that she probably knew I was hunting for her. If she replicated the elixir and tried to sell it, I’d immediately pinpoint her whereabouts. And if she has to lie low for the rest of her life, then the elixir and the money it can make is all mine!”

Through the keyhole, Emma saw Maximus Beedy take a small glass bottle from his coat. It couldn’t have held more than a teaspoonful.

“Behold the Elixir of Delight, the most valuable liquid in the world!” crowed Maximus. “With it, you will charm the taste buds of anyone you please. One drop will adapt to suit the taste of every man, woman, and child.”

“You don’t mean …”

“Ah, yes, but I do. You can put a drop in a pile of sawdust and people will knock each other over to eat it.”

“Which means they’ll be willing to pay for it …” Uncle Simon’s eyes glimmered.

“Yes, Simon, yes! You catch my drift! It is very simple. We set up a cake shop in this town, throw together flour, water, and food coloring so it looks something like cake, add a drop of elixir, and presto! You can charge any price—anything you want—and people will pay. It will taste like heaven to them, only better.”

“But that bottle doesn’t hold enough to spit in—”

“We don’t need much to get rich. This bottle is good for two hundred servings. We’ll charge a horrendous price and bankrupt this rich old town, then head south for the rest of our lives!”

Uncle Simon’s voice suddenly turned suspicious. “Maximus, you are my best friend, but you do have a reputation for being horribly greedy. Why are you letting me in on this scheme?”

“My dear Simon, if I told you it was out of the goodness of my heart, I would be lying, and you would know it,” Maximus said. “So here’s the real reason. I need someone respectable enough to run a pastry shop. Of all my friends, you are the only one who is not in jail, on the run, or trying to conquer Greenland. If you’re up for it, we’ll buy a shop tomorrow, and within the month we’ll be millionaires!”

Emma heard her uncle’s triumphant drawl. “What a splendid plan. Of course I’m up for it. I’ve been hoping to rid myself of my maggot of a niece without losing the money her parents pay me to babysit her. With this elixir, I’ll get rich and throw her out! Hooray! No more nasty kid on my hands! Whoopee!”

It was at times like this that Emma hated her uncle most.

“Simon, we’ll need a safe place to keep the elixir and the recipe.”

“I have just the spot. Bring them over to my gun cabinet. I’ll store them between the A-Bolt Stainless Stalker and the Savage 10GXP3.”

“Simon, you and I are going to cheat the pants off this town and get rich, rich, rich!”

As the two men cackled, Emma quietly retreated from the keyhole and tiptoed up the stairs.

E
mma returned to the bathroom and scrubbed furiously with the toothbrush as she thought. She came to three conclusions:

If only I could make one of them drop the elixir bottle and smash it to bits
, she thought.
Then they’d have to make the recipe all over again, and it sounds like no one can do that
.

Finished with the toilet, she threw the toothbrush into the trash and walked to the sink. She turned on the water and began to lather her hands with a bar of soap. Suddenly
the soap slipped out of her hands. She tried to grab it before it fell, but the bar slid past her fingers and dropped to the floor. As it hit, it broke in two.

As Emma picked up the pieces, an idea occurred to her.

Soap!

Slick soap!

Coat the bottle with soap and whoever picks it up will be sure to drop it!

Excitedly, Emma rinsed off her hands and charged into her room to form her plan.

T
hat night, after Uncle Simon and Maximus had gone to bed, Emma slipped on her pajamas, then quietly opened her closet door and pulled out a metal hanger.

She unraveled the thin line of steel that coiled around itself to form the hook and smoothed out the bends, making a long, straight wire. Using a rubber band, she attached a small piece of cloth to one end.

Then she sat down and waited.

Midnight passed. Emma didn’t move.

At one o’clock, she was still sitting.

Two o’clock passed. Outside, the wind blew softly.

At three o’clock, when even the owls had flown back to their trees and settled in for the night, Emma finally stirred. She gently picked up the hanger and silently crossed the room. She twisted the doorknob and, inch by inch, pulled the door open.

Barefoot, she treaded softly down the hallway and into the kitchen. Moonlight glimmered through a window
above the sink. She could see the dish-soap bottle resting near the faucet. She gathered up the soap and headed to the living room.

She was about to open the door when she heard something shift on the other side of it.

Emma pressed her eye to the keyhole and saw Maximus Beedy lying stiff-straight on the living room couch, arms crossed, like a slumbering vampire.

Well
, Emma thought.
This will be interesting
. She took a deep breath, steadied her trembling hands, then cracked open the door.

Maximus didn’t move.

Emma moved slowly toward the gun cabinet, fixing her eyes on the sleeping figure, looking for any sign of waking. There was none.

After several minutes, Emma reached the cabinet. It was tall and wide and wooden, with four glass doors. Inside were the stacks of guns her uncle owned. The weapons gleamed black in the pale cabinet light.

Emma crouched and scanned the bottom ledge of the cabinet. She spotted the bottle immediately, tucked between two large rifles. It was some two feet below the keyhole of the leftmost door.

Emma opened the soap bottle and dipped into it the piece of cloth attached to the hanger. She pushed the cloth through the keyhole and fed the wire through, until the cloth just touched the top of the bottle. With patient, delicate strokes, she moved the wire so the soapy cloth
brushed each side of the bottle, creating a layer of invisible slipperiness. She then pulled the wire until the cloth slipped back through the keyhole.

She had done it! Whoever picked up that bottle would be sure to break it! Emma grinned and turned to go.

Her grin vanished.

Someone was turning the doorknob.