The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (23 page)

“This is Rosie,” Alan said. “She’s the SMU operative in the bomb squad.”

Rosie was a pretty young woman with short brown hair. She was holding a large brown and white springer spaniel on a leash. “Hi, everyone; this is Norris. He’s here to sniff out any bombs while you three are sniffing out the magic.”

Alan had driven them to Heathrow Airport. It was the height of the tourist season, and they had to wind through crowds of vacationers and piles of luggage to the SMU office behind the green line at Customs. They had all put on white anti-goblin suits and Alan had made them take a couple of test sprays of the anti-goblin spray, to make sure they could act quickly if they had to.

Lily bent to stroke Norris’s smooth round head, thinking he was very sweet; she had expected a police dog to be big and fierce. “Is he magic?”

“No,” said Rosie. “He’s just a normal but very talented sniffer dog. He won’t be scared by a few goblins—and neither will I.”

“Rosie was recruited by the SMU when she caught a load of them in the control tower,” Alan said. His blond head turned scarlet. “As a matter of fact, we’re engaged.”

“Congratulations,” Lily said.

“We met at the SMU Christmas party,” Rosie said, smiling at Alan. “That’s quite a weird occasion—you have to make sure you’re not being chatted up by a ghost!”

“And some of the old ones take their heads off when it gets hot,” Alan added.

“Will you invite any ghosts to your wedding?” Caydon asked. “Can we come?”

Rosie laughed. “You can come, but we don’t want to frighten our families—maybe we’ll hold a private party for all our unexplained friends.”

The door of the office opened. A man came in, wearing the uniform of an airport security guard. He was plump and pale, with a short fuzz of red hair.

“Hi, sorry I’m late.” He held out an SMU card. “Kyle Wickes.”

“You must be the guy who smelled the coffee,” Alan said.

Kyle was staring at Oz, Lily and Caydon. “They’re just kids! Nobody told me they’d be this young!”

“They’ve never met any goblins,” Alan said, flashing a grin at the three children. “But I think it’s fair to say they’ve had plenty of experience. You’d better put on some protective clothing.”

“Oh—right.” Kyle looked nervous, Lily thought; his hands shook as he pulled on the white anti-goblin suit; if he was this nervous before they’d even seen anything, why had he been recruited by the SMU?

She decided to stick close to Caydon. He was still treating everything as an adventure, which was irritating, but his high spirits were very encouraging—no
matter what happened, he was determined to have a good time.

Using unmarked exits and hidden doors, Kyle led the way out of the airport building onto a huge stretch of tarmac. The air smelled of aviation fuel and there was a continuous roar of planes taking off and landing. “Over there is the hangar where the unexplained coffee smell was reported this morning; we’d better start there.”

He set off across the ocean of tarmac toward the nearest aircraft hangar: a vast shed the size of several cathedrals. Lily felt a little silly walking behind him in her white suit, brandishing her can of goblin spray, and was glad nobody was around to see them.

“Ow!” Kyle squeaked suddenly. “Someone touched me!”

They all stopped in the middle of the tarmac. Norris the sniffer dog quietly sat down.

“Get a grip, mate,” said Alan. “There’s nobody else around for miles!”

“I tell you someone touched my ear!”

“It must’ve been the wind,” Rosie said. “The air currents do funny things in these big spaces.”

“I—I suppose so.” Kyle swallowed.

They started walking again.

“Ow! That wasn’t the wind!” Kyle’s plump cheeks were pale and sweaty. “Someone just pinched my bum!”

Caydon and Oz snorted with laughter.

“Nobody’s anywhere near your bum,” Alan said. “Calm down.”

“Sorry—” Kyle took a few deep breaths. “My imagination must be playing tricks on me.”

“I’m surprised they let you in the SMU,” Alan said. “They don’t like us having imaginations.”

Norris let out a sharp yelp.

“What’s up with you?” Rosie gently tugged his leash.

They were entering the great hangar, where huge passenger jets loomed in the half-light. As she walked inside, Lily had a sense of something large moving behind her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and saw nothing. Don’t be silly, she told herself—but she edged closer to Caydon.

“OK,” Alan said. “Where’s this coffee smell, then?”

Kyle took something from inside his white suit. “Go and stand by the wall.”

“What?”

He was holding a gun. “Get by the wall, I said!” His face was white as a sheet and his hands trembled; he took a step back and pointed the gun at them. “Do as you’re told!”

Lily couldn’t help crying out. Rosie grabbed her arm and pulled her to the wall. They stood together in a pale huddle with their hands up.

“You’re working for the other side,” Alan said quietly.
“But it’s not too late to change your mind—put the gun down.”

“It is too late,” another voice said. “You’ve walked straight into our trap!”

Lily turned her head to see a man in a black leather jacket and a black balaclava that covered his face. He was also holding a gun.

“Isadore Spoffard betrayed us,” the man said. “Thanks to him, my brother is dead and my wife is in prison. Thanks to him our plans were ruined. This time nothing’s going to stop us. Wickes—kill them!”

“NO!” yelled Alan.

Frozen with fear, Lily gaped at the traitor Kyle. He raised the gun in his trembling hand—and it suddenly flew across the hangar.

“What was that?” the other man screamed, looking around wildly. “AARRGH!”

Some powerful force whacked the gun out of his hand and he screamed again as he felt his feet lifting off the floor. He rose into the air and was then roughly dropped to the ground. Kyle dropped like a ninepin beside him. The two men lay sprawled on the concrete, absolutely still and weirdly flat, as if something very heavy was holding them down.

There was a long silence.

“I don’t understand,” Rosie whispered. “What—what did that?”

Lily heard a huffing noise and suddenly remembered the day on Hampstead Heath. “It’s EDWIN!”

Forgetting the danger, she ran joyfully toward the flattened terrorists and blindly felt for the invisible ghost elephant who was sitting on them. His skin was wrinkled and leathery; she could smell his dusty, faintly zoo-like smell, and he was wonderfully solid when she flung her arms around him.

“Edwin? I don’t believe it!” Alan started laughing. “Well, I’m certainly glad he’s taken a fancy to you kids—he appeared because he wanted to play!”

“It was Edwin who pinched Kyle’s bum!” Caydon ran over to hug him. “Good for you, mate!”

“And then he saw the guns and saved our lives!” Lily was so happy she was almost crying. “Thanks, Edwin—you’re the greatest elephant in the world!”

“Are those guys dead?” Oz asked. He hadn’t met the ghost elephant, and was transfixed by the sight of Lily and Caydon hugging empty air.

“Probably just badly squashed,” Alan said cheerfully. “I’ll tell the backup squad to bring an ambulance.”

Norris the dog was alarmed by Edwin and tried to hide behind Rosie. Oz went over to Lily, and was thrilled to pat Edwin’s leathery invisible skin. Something like a gentle hand tickled his neck.

“That’s his trunk,” Lily said. “He’s pleased to meet you.”

Edwin left—so suddenly that Caydon nearly fell on
the squashed terrorist. Luckily the two men were still unconscious. Alan handcuffed them and called on his radio for help while Rosie picked up the two guns and put them in large plastic evidence bags.

“Phew,” Lily said. “I’m glad we didn’t die in a freak ballooning accident after all.”

“Alan!” Rosie called sharply from across the hangar. “There’s a real stench of coffee over here—Norris! Down, boy!”

The hangar echoed with Norris’s angry barks.

Alan ran over; the twins and Caydon stopped thinking about Edwin and scrambled for the cans of anti-goblin spray they had dropped during the attack.

Rosie and Norris stood in the shadow of an enormous passenger jet. Norris was barking himself into a frenzy, and Rosie had to hold his collar with both hands to stop him from bolting away. The smell of coffee was so intense it made them all feel light-headed.

A sharp screech rang out through the gloom. Something black scuttled out of the cockpit window and dropped to the floor at Lily’s feet.

For one second they stood gaping at each other; the creature was about twenty centimeters tall and looked like a cross between a bird, a bat, a lizard and a human. It was black all over, with huge transparent ears, long scraggy limbs and a hideous face with an expression of wicked stupidity.

Three more goblins flopped down beside it.

“SPRAY!” shouted Alan, pointing his aerosol.

Lily was rooted to the ground but Caydon and Oz managed to use their cans; the goblins hissed and scattered, vanishing like mist.

Norris wrestled out of Rosie’s grip and shot across the hangar after them.

“Norris! Heel!”

The dog trotted back with something limp and black hanging in his jaws—Lily caught one glimpse of the dead goblin and looked away, shivering.

“Good boy.” Rosie patted him, gently removed the withered, scaly goblin corpse from Norris’s mouth and put it in an evidence bag. “Alan, get the kids out of here—they’ve been planting explosives—this is a job for the bomb squad now.”

“OK, let’s get a cup of tea,” Alan said. “Or hot chocolate—anything but coffee!”

This made them all laugh and Lily’s knees felt less wobbly. Outside the hangar, three black vans were racing across the tarmac.

“Goblins can plant bombs in very tricky places,” Alan told them. “But the bomb squad knows where to look now. Thanks to a dead elephant, we’ve foiled the gang’s plot. I might get promoted for this.”

When they got back to Skittle Street, Mum and Dad were not there.

“I’m afraid they’re at the hospital,” Isadore told them. Lily gasped. “Has the baby been born?”

“No, there’s no sign of the baby yet,” Isadore said.

“But your mother has to stay in the hospital while they monitor her blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat—nothing serious, they just want to be safe. I said I’d stay here to keep an eye on you two.”

“Can we go and see her?” Lily asked.

“Sorry.” Isadore shook his head. “You’re needed here—we haven’t a minute to lose.”

“Is there—is there still a chance?” Oz remembered the terrible vision, and the whole world stood still.

Isadore put his hand on Oz’s shoulder. “It’s today—one of the witches at the safe house told me the date. It will happen today—unless we can change the picture.”

“What picture?” Caydon asked.

Lily didn’t need to know the answer. “What do we have to do?”

“Today lasts until midnight,” Isadore said. “We have until midnight to make my redeeming chocolate.” There were streaks of gray in his dark hair, and gray speckles in his thin black mustache. “I had meant to give you all at least a week of special training—if you’d been my apprentices you wouldn’t even have touched a cacao bean for your first three months. But we don’t have that luxury. It’s now half past four in the afternoon, which gives us seven and a half hours to make the greatest chocolate of my entire career. And I can’t do it without you three.”

“Will it be enough time?” Lily asked fearfully. “What if we mess it up?”

Isadore gave her an encouraging smile. “I wasn’t lying to your father when I said I was an excellent teacher; Mother always said I was the best at training apprentices. You three are going to be my fast-track apprentices—by the time this night is over, you’ll be real chocolatiers.”

Under his instructions, Oz, Lily and Caydon crowded round the kitchen sink to wash their hands.

Caydon muttered, “Is it me, or does he look older?”

“I thought I was imagining it at first,” Oz said, “but Uncle Isadore definitely does look a lot more wrinkled than he did this morning—do you think his immortality’s wearing out?”

Lily dried her hands vigorously. “Let’s hope it doesn’t wear out before we’ve finished.”

In the workshop a charcoal fire glowed red-hot in the fireplace. There was a big pan of raw cacao beans roasting slowly over the flames. Demerara—dressed in a little white apron and starched cap—stood on a chair on her hind legs, stirring the beans with a wooden spoon she held in her mouth. Spike stood on her head, holding his wooden spoon in his front paws (he was also wearing a tiny white apron and cap, which made the rest of him look even dirtier).

“Put these on, please.” Isadore handed them white lab coats and starched white caps. “Oz, take over from the animals and stir the cacao beans slowly. Caydon, take a piece of burning charcoal and start another small blaze in the grate underneath the chocolate stone. Spike and Demerara, go inside the separator and oil the tray. Lily, take this silk cloth and polish up the three molds until they GLEAM!”

It felt good to be doing something and the children and animals threw themselves into their work. The workshop filled with the smell of slightly burnt chocolate cake. Spike and Demerara went inside the metal tank in the corner. Isadore pored over his mother’s moldy notebooks, muttering to himself feverishly, as if learning something for an exam.

When the beans were roasted, they were poured
into the oiled metal tray in the separator. Banging the door shut, Isadore pulled a metal lever and the cylinder began to shake.

“The shell of the roasted bean must be separated from the inside, which is known as the nib—the part that makes the chocolate. Modern chocolatiers are too brutal at this stage; the Spoffard separator merely loosens the husk, which is then removed by hand.” He sighed and glanced at his watch. “It’s fiddly work, but it mustn’t be hurried.”

The shelling was extremely tedious and made their fingernails sore; each nib had to be coaxed out of its husk. They all sat around in near silence, intent on processing a heap of cacao beans that never seemed to get any smaller. Demerara and Spike helped, using their claws and teeth; the bossy cat had worked furiously without a single word of complaint—though she did mutter crossly when Isadore described her and Spike as “the animals.”