The Magic Cake Shop (10 page)

Emma and Albie looked up. Mr. Crackle was beaming at them. “You see? You two are crucial to the creation of this elixir! You are the mobbly molds!”

Albie puzzled his eyebrows. “Mr. Crackle, what’s a mobbly mold? And how do you squoil a squid? Or do any of these things in this recipe? It’s all a bunch of made-up verbs and nouns that don’t make sense!”

Mr. Crackle frowned. “Oh dear, I keep forgetting that most people don’t know chef-speak. After spending my entire life using both ordinary and obscure cooking terms, I don’t remember what is and isn’t common English. Here, let me show you something.”

He went to the bookshelf and removed an enormous volume with a wrinkled leather cover. He placed it on the table in front of Emma and Albie. On the front, in gold spidery lettering, was
The Encyclopedia of Eccentric Baking Terms
.

“This book contains rare cooking definitions that have fallen out of practice in the last few hundred years. Take a look at this entry.” Mr. Crackle riffled through the crackly yellowed pages and found the one he wanted.

“
H
uh,” mused Emma. “So that explains why I keep changing my mind about creamed spinach.”

Albie wrinkled his nose. “Creamed spinach—ugh! It’s always horrible. Creamed mushrooms, though—I never know if I’m going to like them from one day to the next.”

Mr. Crackle closed the book and returned it to the shelf. “As you see, both of you have an enormous role in the creation of the Elixir of Delight. Each of you is a mobbly mold while your taste explosion center is still intact. Since the elixir recipe says ‘mobbly molds’—as in more than one—I’m assuming that I need at least two children under eleven to try out this potion, and I figured you two would do just fine. Once we get the potion right, the exact center of your tongue should turn a beautiful, sparkling gold. Now, I think it’s time we got started. Let’s pop downstairs and figure out what ingredients we need.”

Mr. Crackle went to his desk and opened a drawer. After plucking out a sheet of paper and a pen, he motioned for Emma and Albie to follow him to the kitchen.

Back downstairs, he gave Emma the pen and paper. “Could you write down the ingredients I tell you?”

Emma winced. “I don’t have very good handwriting.”

“Pish. My handwriting would make a nun weep. I’m sure yours is better.” Mr. Crackle went to the large cabinet and swung open the doors. He lifted his index finger to the top left and gently moved it across the rows of ingredients. As he contemplated the hundreds of clear, neatly shelved bottles, Emma and Albie stood beside him and looked at some of the typed labels:

“What in flames is
flabbable
?” asked Albie.

“
Flammable
. The
m
on my typewriter wasn’t working the day I labeled my firerock powder, so I had to improvise.” Mr. Crackle paused over a nearly empty bottle. “We need biddle hegs.”

As Mr. Crackle checked the recipe against his stock of ingredients, he called out the ones they needed to
buy. Emma wrote down “biddle hegs, burberry beans, a curled-up squid, gobs of trops, guzzle spleens, skibbly hoppy mead, sogs, the spizzle of a shick shack shree, a tickler’s thread, whingbuzzit legs, and a wibbly cobbyseed.”

She hoped she had spelled their names right.

“
T
hat should do it, except for the spiky hat, which neither the spice shop nor I have,” said Mr. Crackle as he glanced at the recipe a final time. “We’ll have to make it ourselves. Harrumph. I’ll probably poke myself grumpy.”

Emma jumped. “I don’t think so—my parents gave me a prickled hat as a going-away present. It has cactus spines and everything.”

Albie looked aghast. “Your parents gave you that cactus-prickled hat for a
going-away present
?!”

Emma shrugged. “Mom and Dad said prickles are all the rage in Paris.”

Mr. Crackle said slowly and carefully, “Emma, your parents are nitwits.”

Emma smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Crackle.”

“Now then. Let’s get this recipe cracking. Here’s the plan. You and Albie nip off to your uncle’s house and grab your prickled hat. While you’re there, you might as well bring that wooden backpack box you use for your uncle’s
desserts. Some of the ingredients we need must not be squished or they’ll explode. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do to translate this recipe into understandable English. And do please be speedy. I believe I can no longer taste the hint of peanut butter that was sticking on my tongue not a minute ago.”

“We’ll be back in half an hour,” Emma declared.

“Tops,” promised Albie.

They grabbed their coats and hurried out the door as Mr. Crackle went upstairs to consult
The Encyclopedia of Eccentric Baking Terms
.

E
mma and Albie raced down the main street, up the dirt driveway, and into Uncle Simon’s house. As they entered, they heard Uncle Simon and Maximus jabbering away in the living room. Albie tiptoed to the kitchen pantry, while Emma crept to her room. She crouched next to her bed and found the loathsome birthday hat in the darkest, dustiest corner. Gingerly she picked it up and immediately pricked her fingers. Gritting her teeth, she placed the hat into an empty cardboard box. When she exited her room, she found Albie, who had hauled the dessert box to the porch. “Let’s go!” he whispered.

Emma got ready to hitch the box over her shoulders, but suddenly she stopped.

She was staring at a pair of hunting boots and pointy white shoes on the front porch.

Her fingers smarted. Her mind whirled.

She opened the shoe box full of prickled hat. She
carefully broke off a couple of spines and dropped them into Uncle Simon’s boots and Maximus Beedy’s shoes.

Albie gave a quiet giggle. “That’ll get them hopping.” He peered into the shoes. “Hang on—those prickles won’t do any pricking lying flat. Let me spike them up a bit.”

Emma grinned. “I’ll keep an eye out,” she whispered.

“Will do,” Albie whispered back.

Emma crept over to the living room window and took a quick peek inside. She saw Uncle Simon lounging on the couch in front of the television, stuffing himself with mashed liver and a box of chocolates. His bulging eyes were riveted to a show on meat marinades. Maximus Beedy perched stick-straight on a chair next to Uncle Simon. With one hand he dipped a small cloth into a jar of polish for his cane. As Maximus turned the cane, it reflected the sun onto the television screen.

Uncle Simon snapped, “Beedy, if you don’t stop moving that blasted cane and interrupting my program, I will move it somewhere where it won’t be so shiny. Like the
garbage disposal
.”

“Obviously you have no sense of style, Simon,” Maximus hissed. “This cane is made out of the finest rare metals brought up from the bowels of the earth. I polish it with a combination of crocodile wax and the tears of small orphans. Most people would sell their grandmothers for a cane this lustrous.”

Uncle Simon finished his liver and chocolate with a
gulp. “Lustrous or not, it’s bugging the nose hairs out of me.”

“Which wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Maximus sneered.

Uncle Simon stood up. “Maximus, you are becoming a most unwanted houseguest. I do hope your little scheme doesn’t take much time,” he snarled, “because if it does, the only thing shiny you’ll have is a shiner of a dented eye.” He shuffled toward the door. “I’m going to check my rabbit traps. When I get back, you had better be done polishing your cane.”