No such luck.
It was Daisy’s face they saw first. Even in the near darkness, her yellow hair glowed. “Rats,” she said softly when she recognized them. She kneeled beside the table and put her hands over her face.
“Rats?” Philip echoed. “There are rats in the factory? I didn’t know a rat could sneeze.”
“Cover blown, awaiting instructions,” she said. Or at least that’s what it sounded like to Logan.
“Huh?” asked Philip.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she replied.
“Who were you talking to, then?” he asked. “And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
Logan had heard enough. “C’mon,” he said to Miles, who was still frozen in place, paper-towel roll at the ready. He took Miles by the arm and pulled him forward until they had cleared the table. Above the roaster was a heat lamp, and as Logan stood up he reached over and switched it on. It shed enough light to see everyone clearly now.
Philip gasped and jumped backward, knocking over an entire container of cocoa-bean shells. Some fell onto Daisy’s head and slid down her ponytail, but she didn’t even seem to notice. The rest scattered all around them, bouncing a few inches as they struck the hard floor.
Logan was reminded of when the powdered sugar spilled all over Philip the day before. That was back when things made sense. Now nothing did.
He turned from Daisy to Philip and back again. Daisy looked miserable, her eyes red, her usual smile nowhere to be found. As usual, Philip wouldn’t even meet his eyes.
His voice shaking, Logan asked, “Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Yeah,” Miles added, still holding the paper-towel roll in front of him defensively. “Tsuj s’tahw gniog no ereh?” Then he quickly said, “I… I mean, just what’s going on here?”
Logan watched as Daisy did something that, even years later, he’d have trouble believing. She reached into her ear, dug around, and pulled out a shiny plastic object about the size of a pencil eraser. She placed it on the floor beside her. Then she stood up. “I think we all need to talk.”
“Daisy?” a male voice called out from somewhere. “Daisy? What did you just do?”
Unbelievably, the voice seemed to be coming from the tiny object on the floor. Logan and Miles and Philip all crouched down around it. The world’s tiniest cell phone, maybe?
“Daisy!” the voice barked. “Come back here!”
The boys looked at one another with identical wide-eyed expressions. Logan realized that this was the first time Philip had actually held his gaze for more than a second. Philip must have realized it, too, because in that instant his eyes softened and Logan saw something he’d never expected to see—regret.
“Come on,” Daisy said. “We need to talk somewhere else.” Bean shells crunched underfoot as she hurried from the room. No one else moved. Finally Miles shrugged and headed after her.
Logan and Philip continued to stare at each other. Logan broke the silence. “Why were you trying to steal my father’s secret ingredient?”
Philip opened his mouth, then closed it again. He retreated a few steps and picked up the metal tin, which had been forgotten in all the excitement. Wordlessly, he handed it to Logan.
Logan looked down at the dented old tin clutched tight in his hand. He’d wanted to see inside it as long as he could remember. The corner was scratched and dented, and he wondered if that had happened just now or if it had been that way for years. He knew he could easily pop off the lid, but instead he handed it back to Philip.
“Here. If you need it so badly, you should have it.”
Clearly surprised, Philip didn’t do anything at first. Then he shoved the tin into his jacket pocket. “Daisy’s right. We need to talk.” He said this in a voice much different from the one he’d used with Logan before. Gone was the sarcasm. In its place was something like… respect?
Logan stumbled after him, hardly able to believe all this was happening. How quickly his life had gone from a nice, easy routine to… to… whatever it was now. As the door to the Cocoa Room swung shut behind him and he joined the other three in the hall, he thought back to the words he’d greeted them with only a few yards from this spot. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. He looked at the faces of his fellow contestants and wondered just who he had been entertaining.
CHAPTER TWO
The four of them trudged, not speaking, toward the Tropical Room. Logan had decided that would be the best place to go. It was where his parents expected him to be, plus he always felt safe there and protected by the trees.
As they approached the cafeteria, Philip stopped. “Um, I know this might not be the best time, but I’m really, really hungry. Is there any way…”
“Now you suddenly care about food?” Daisy asked.
“Hey, I haven’t eaten in twelve hours,” Philip said.
Logan sighed and pointed to the ledge above the door. “The key’s up there if you can reach it.”
Philip stood on his toes and reached up. He tried jumping, but his fingers only grazed the bottom of the ledge.
“Oh, I’ll do it,” Daisy snapped.
Philip barely had time to step aside before she leapt into the air, swiped the top of the ledge, and landed with the key in her open palm.
“Wow,” Miles said. “Are you, like, a superhero or something?”
“Something like that,” Daisy replied with a wink.
Logan took the key and opened the door. The lingering odor of food and cleaning supplies greeted him as they entered. Never a great mix.
He’d been in the cafeteria at night many times fetching last-minute ingredients for dinner or attending the occasional after-hours meeting. But he’d never been there without his parents’ knowledge, and never before with friends.
If these were his friends.
He led the group behind the counter and over to one of the huge refrigerators that lined the back wall. “You can make a sandwich from here if you like.”
Philip pulled open the doors of the nearest one and began filling his arms with bread, sliced turkey, a block of cheddar cheese, a jar of pickles, a container of mustard, and, at the last second, a tomato. He plopped it all down on the counter.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were hungry,” Miles commented as he ran his eyeglasses under the sink faucet. Logan wondered how the glasses had gotten chocolate on them, but there were more pressing things on his mind.
Philip stared at the food spread out before him. His face turned pink.
“Do you have a problem with the food selection?” Daisy asked, her hands on her hips. “Because I think I speak for all of us in saying that you’re lucky you’re getting anything to eat at all.”
Philip shook his head quickly. “No, it’s not that. I just… I’ve… I’ve never actually, er, made a sandwich before.”
Logan expected Daisy to have something to say about that, but she didn’t say a word.
“Let me get this straight,” Miles said. “You’ve never made a sandwich before? Like when you put a bunch of stuff between two pieces of bread?”
Philip shook his head.
Miles sighed and picked up the knife. “I’ll help you.”
Logan went into the pantry to collect some snacks. Crackers and juice and gumdrops. He had a feeling they’d all be hungry by the time they were done talking.
Ten minutes later, they were settled on the ground under the sapodilla tree, where Logan had left the sleeping bags and duffels. Philip, although clearly not happy sitting on the dirt in his suit, didn’t complain for once. He had inhaled his sandwich on the walk from the cafeteria and had even grudgingly thanked Miles for making it. It was the nicest thing Logan remembered hearing Philip say to Miles since they’d met.
“I’d like to know—” Daisy began, but Logan held up his hand to stop her.
“I’m sorry, but I should get to go first.” He felt a little awkwar
d saying it, since usually he was happy to listen. But this time was different. They had broken into his family’s factory. He had questions.
Daisy nodded. “Sorry, you’re right.”
Of all the answers he wanted to hear, one was most pressing. “What I want to know,” he said, forcing himself to look Daisy straight in the eyes, “is whether you were just pretending to be my friend in order to steal the secret ingredient.”
“No!” she said hurriedly. “Not at all! And I didn’t steal it—Philip did!”
“Hey,” Philip said, jumping up, his head just barely missing a low branch. “That’s not fair. You would’ve stolen it if I hadn’t gotten there first.”
“Actually,” Daisy said, crossing her arms, “I wasn’t trying to steal it at all.”
Logan frowned. “But Miles and I heard you trying to take it from Philip.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t trying to steal it.” She began pulling on her ponytail the way she did when she got nervous. “I mean, okay, in the beginning I was. But once I knew someone was going to use it to ruin the factory, I was trying to sabotage their plan instead.”
Logan tried hard to follow what she was saying, but it didn’t make any sense. “I don’t understand.”
She began pulling up blades of grass around the base of the tree. “I was, um, how should I put this… planning on mixing in some soap shavings so the chocolate would taste really bad.”
The three boys’ mouths fell open.
“Soap?” Logan repeated. “You were going to put soap in our chocolate? But why?”
Daisy pointed a finger up at Philip, who was pacing back and forth. “So his father wouldn’t be able to sell it to a competitor, or whatever underhanded plan he had in mind!”
Philip stopped pacing. “You don’t know that. You told me someone named Big Billy hired you!”
“Big Billy would never try to steal anything from us,” Logan insisted. “I’ve known him my whole life. And what does he mean by ‘hired’ you?”
“So maybe I’m wrong about Big Billy,” Daisy conceded, ignoring Logan’s question. “But I’m not wrong about someone hiring me to steal it. Someone who calls himself Second Enterprises.”
Philip reddened and plopped down onto a rolled-up sleeping bag. “Yeah, that would be my dad. Philip Ransford the Second. Second Enterprises. He uses that name when he’s doing research on a company and doesn’t want people to know yet who he is.”
Logan turned to Philip now. “So you didn’t know who he’d hired, but you knew your father hired someone to steal the tin? Then why were you trying to get it?”
“I didn’t know about his plan until last night. I figured I had to take it to keep him from getting it.”
“Ha!” Daisy said. “And we’re supposed to believe that? Why?”
Philip hesitated for a second, then said, “The same reason you were trying to make it taste bad. You didn’t want anyone buying the factory, right?”
“Right. So?”
“Well, why is it so hard to believe that I had the same reason?”
“Because you hate this place,” Daisy pointed out. “All you care about is winning the contest.”
Philip hung his head. “I don’t hate this place.”
No one said anything for a full minute. Then Miles spoke for the first time since they’d sat down. “Siht si yzarc! I thguoht ew erew sdneirf! Tub uoy erew tsuj ereh esuaceb enoemos diap uoy!”
“Huh?” Philip asked.
Logan felt a pang of concern. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard Miles blurt out nonsense. What if something was seriously wrong with him?
“I know it seems crazy,” Daisy said, laying her hand on Miles’s arm. “And we are friends, I promise. At least, I hope we are.”
Miles’s eyes widened. “You understood me?”
Daisy nodded. “I know a lot of languages. Including how to speak backward. I can also sign, do Morse code, and decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. ”
Logan turned to Miles. “You were speaking backward?”
Miles nodded, reddening.
“That’s a relief!” Logan said. Then, turning to Daisy, he said, “I still don’t understand. Why would anyone have hired you to steal anything?”
Daisy covered her face with her hands. For a second Logan thought she might be crying. Then she lifted her chin and met their eyes straight on. “Because, as you’ve probably already figured out, I’m a spy.”
Her words hung in the air for a minute. Logan thought back to the tiny device she’d taken out of her ear. That had seemed so strange he hadn’t known what to make of it. But a spy? Daisy?
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re a spy, like on TV? Where you sneak into places and have gadgets and wear fake mustaches?” It all seemed impossible to believe.
Daisy smiled for the first time since the events in the Cocoa Room. A kind of calm seemed to have settled on her, too. “Well, I don’t usually wear a fake mustache, but the rest sounds about right.”
“But how can you be a spy when you’re still a kid?” he asked.
“I was born into it,” she explained. “My whole family are spies.”
Logan and Miles looked at each other in amazement.
“I’ve never told anyone that before,” she added.
“What about Magpie?” Miles asked. “You must have told her. She’s your best friend. Unless… she’s also a spy?”
Daisy pulled at the grass again. “Um, not exactly. She’s gone on some missions with me, but she’s… my horse.”
Philip tried to stifle a laugh but wasn’t very successful. “Your best friend is a horse?”
“Hey, Magpie isn’t afraid to hang out with me because I’m the boss’s granddaughter. And she’s not always trying to get the best missions or be the first to try the newest gadget from Research and Development. She’s always there for me.”
Philip rolled his eyes but let it go.
“So we’re really the only people who know?” Miles asked. “Why did you tell us? You could have made up some story for being in the Cocoa Room. You could have said you were there to stop Philip.”
She pulled at her ponytail again. “I told you because I’ve never had friends like you guys before. Friends who liked me for me, or at least as much of me as I could show you. I figured when everything went sour in the Cocoa Room, I might as well come clean. It’s a relief, actually. I hated lying to you.”
“So you’re not really in the contest?” Logan asked, thinking of all the people who had wanted to get in but didn’t.
“I am,” she replied. “I didn’t really care about winning, though. Not until I saw him.” She gestured with her thumb at Philip.
Philip’s eyes widened in surprise. “Me? Why would meeting me make you want to win?”
“If you must know, it’s because you blew my cover. Twice now!”
“What are you talking about? I never even met you before.”
“Harrison Elementary, three years ago,” Daisy said, her eyes suddenly cold. “Regional spelling bee. You caught me trying to investigate cheating judges. I got reassigned to a dairy farm. I had to milk cows all day to bust up an illegal milking ring. My hands swelled up and I had to keep them in buckets of ice for hours.”
Philip paled. “That was you? But that girl had red hair. And glasses.”
“I was undercover. We need to look different for every job.”
“So you wouldn’t normally wear bright yellow dresses and two different socks?” Logan asked.
Daisy shook her head.
He felt a little disappointed at that, and also a little relieved.
“Well,” Miles said, shaking his head in amazement. “This explains why you two hated each other so quickly.”
“I never hated her,” Philip muttered.
“A real live spy!” Logan said, finally accepting it. “Is that why you’re so strong? And can jump so high? And know all those languages?”
She nodded, leaning against the tree. “I can do a
lot of things. Run really fast, carry heavy things, hold my breath a long time, do advanced calculus. The training is really rigorous.”
“What kind of training?” Logan asked.
Daisy shrugged. “Like I’ve had to run twenty miles in a hailstorm, climb trees with a thirty-pound weight on my back. Things to prepare us for any situation. A few years ago I had to swim across an entire lake underwater. I was supposed to be practicing for a job in Italy where I’d have to swim out to an island without being seen. The gig went to someone else, though.” Daisy grimaced at the memory.
Miles made some sort of gagging sound and went as white as a cloud. “When… when did you swim under the lake?”
Daisy looked surprised at the question. “I’m not sure, maybe a year ago? Why?”
Miles inched closer to her. “Was this at Verona Park, a few miles outside Spring Haven?”
She nodded. “Why do you ask?”
He started to shake all over, like the epicenter of his own personal earthquake.
Logan rushed over to him. “Are you all right?” Miles didn’t seem to hear him. All his attention was focused on Daisy.
“Did you have brown hair then?” he asked.
“Probably,” she said, squirming a little. “That’s my real color. Why are you asking me all these questions?”
Miles continued to shake. Logan worried he was having some sort of fit. Maybe he should use the intercom and get his parents.
“And you ran straight into the water?” Miles asked.
Daisy looked at Logan for support, but he was clueless, too.
“And the bees?” Miles asked, his voice quivering. “What about the bees?”
“I don’t remember any bees,” she said, frowning. “My dad pressed a stopwatch and told me to go, so I got up from the beach and ran in. I held my breath and swam as close to the bottom as I could. I remember swimming under a boat or two, and then I came up on the other side, where my parents and grandmother were waiting. That’s all I remember. Pretty basic training exercise. Why are you ask—”