The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (12 page)

Caydon made throwing-up noises. “You had to look in its stomach!”

“Magic fudge,” Lily said. “Isadore!”

“Yes, it’s definitely magic,” J said. “We think Isadore must have used it as a barrier to keep out intruders, and one fool of a rat managed to eat some. Spike!”

“Boss?” Spike’s head popped out of Alan’s pocket.

“Go and talk to your people. Find out EXACTLY where that beast first made an appearance. We have to trace the fudge before it happens again.”

“Righto, boss.” Spike climbed nimbly out of Alan’s pocket and scuttled up to his shoulder. “We don’t want
huge mutant rats all over the place, do we? I’ll soon get to the bottom of—ARRGH!” He suddenly shot up into the air. “What’s going on? Put me down!”

The invisible ghost elephant had playfully grabbed Spike’s tail with the end of his trunk. The shabby rat—still clutching half a chip in one paw—looked so funny wriggling in midair that they all burst out laughing.

“You’re a very cheeky old ghost today,” J said. “I think it must be because you like seeing Lily and Caydon—you were always fond of kids.”

Spike landed back on Alan’s shoulder. “Geez!” he panted. “Which way up am I?”

“When you’ve found the fudge,” J said, “I want the whole area cleared so that we can send a specialist team in.”

“I’ll do my best, boss—but they’re not going to like it. There’s trouble every time you try to close one of our designated tunnels. You might get more rat sightings where you don’t want ’em.”

“Tell them we’ve opened another disused tunnel at the old York Way station. I realize it won’t be easy for you, Spike—try to make them see how important this is. They could be helping to save London from an attack.”

“Do you think we’ve found Oz?” Lily asked.

“Not yet,” said J, “but this is our first real clue.”

Oz and Isadore were having bacon and eggs, the other meal that Oz knew how to cook.

“Uncle Isadore!” His voice echoed in the empty station. “It’s ready!”

“Coming!” Isadore’s voice called back.

Oz set out Isadore’s bottle of wine and his own orange juice. He had no idea how long he had been down here, but he had settled into a routine, as far as this was possible without daylight. And he wasn’t scared of Isadore; sometimes he even had flashes of almost liking the twisted genius. His evil great-great-uncle told some fascinating stories, and though he refused to set Oz free, he was very good about buying things Oz wanted.

Thanks to Oz, he now owned a nonstick frying pan, some Handi Wipes and a set of new tea towels to replace the disintegrating old ones. Oz had even dared to tell him to buy himself some new clothes. “You didn’t make your trousers immortal, and now they’re falling apart.”

Unfortunately, Isadore had no idea about modern
fashions. He had returned from his shopping trip with bright blue sneakers, green tracksuit trousers and an Arsenal shirt, and he couldn’t see why Oz kept giggling at him. “These new styles are extremely practical, and so delightfully comfortable!”

He was wearing his Arsenal shirt now, under his tattered lab coat—he had been working hour after hour in a state of trembling concentration. “Bacon and eggs—how tasty! Will you join me in a glass of this rough yet amenable country wine?”

“I keep telling you—I don’t drink wine. I’m eleven.”

“Of course, of course.” Isadore’s pale face was almost cheerful. “But today we have something to celebrate.”

“Oh.” Oz somehow doubted he and Uncle Isadore would “celebrate” for the same reasons.

“Without being too technical, I’ve managed to blend plutonium-infused butterscotch with a powerful memory chocolate—and jolly tricky it was too!” He was highly pleased with himself. “It means that after supper, I can make a Time-Glass.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a spell our mother invented, for looking back at the past. Talking to you has made it all so vivid—I suddenly longed to show you everybody from the old days.”

“Like home movies?”

“No, no—much better! You’ll be able to feel the past as it happened—I can’t wait to show you Daisy!”

“Oh.” Oz was uneasy. This spell did sound interesting; he liked Isadore’s stories about the firm’s heyday in the 1930s. But what had become of his evil plan? “I thought you were making a ransom demand.”

“That can wait.” Isadore waved the question away impatiently. “You’ll see that I was easily the handsomest—Marcel was weedy and Pierre was fat. At one time he tried to invent a slimming chocolate, but it didn’t work and caused uncontrollable farting—good grief, how we laughed!”

“Uncle Isadore.”

“I can show you in the Time-Glass.”

“Uncle Isadore, you said you were working round the clock to get your hands on the other two molds and make your immortality chocolate. You said the Schmertz Gang had already paid you.”

“There’s no hurry. Now that I’ve got you, I can get those wretched molds any old time.” Isadore picked up his glass and the wine bottle. “Come on, I want to play with my new toy!”

He led Oz through the clusters of dusty furniture to his lab at the very end of the old station. Oz had never been this near it; he stared round curiously. Isadore had installed a long bench and a large sink. There were shelves lined with jars and glass cases filled with gleaming metal instruments.

In the middle of the bench Isadore had propped up
a round silver tea tray (Oz now knew why Isadore had spent the previous evening polishing it). The surface shone like a mirror. A gas flame burned underneath a small pan of something bubbling and out wafted a powerful smell of chocolate.

“Sit on this stool,” Isadore said. “I’ve diluted the mixture in almond milk; it’s safest if you drink it.”

“It’s not dangerous?”

“My dear Oz, you know me well enough by now, I hope—I wouldn’t dream of killing you unless I had to. Now drink the mixture.” He poured the chocolate mixture into an egg cup and put it down in front of Oz. It now smelled of marzipan and Oz drank it in one gulp; it was amazingly delicious.

Isadore knocked back his egg cup. “Now hold my hand and stare into the very center of the Time-Glass.”

Oz took Isadore’s cold, bony hand. The center of the polished tray glowed with a silver fire he could not take his eyes off.

“I know—I know—” Isadore’s hand was trembling. “December the twenty-first, 1936—my Daisy’s first Christmas at the showroom—” With his free hand, he scribbled some numbers in the air. “Five o’clock in the afternoon.”

At first, as the picture formed in the middle of the tray, Oz thought it did look like a two-dimensional home video. Gradually, however, the picture seemed to
rise up around him in three dimensions, and though he never left his stool, he could feel the air of the past on his skin.

It was cold and he was looking through a brightly lit shop window, where three large Eastern kings rode on three magnificent chocolate camels.

“Wow!” gasped Oz.

“Yes, it was an eye-catching Christmas window that year,” Isadore said. “It was my turn to design and make it, and I wanted to beat the chocolate Noah’s ark Pierre had done the year before.”

“You made this? It’s wonderful!” The Three Kings were beautifully detailed, down to the tassels on their chocolate saddles and the curls in their chocolate beards.

“You really like it?” Isadore was pleased. “I must admit, I was rather proud of myself. Daisy said the camels had sweet faces.”

“That’s just what Lily would say,” Oz said. “She can’t eat chocolate animals. Did you get to eat these camels?”

“No, we always presented our Christmas displays to the Royal Family; if I hadn’t turned evil I’d have a knighthood by now. Dear me—why haven’t I done this for such a long time? I’d forgotten how busy we were that year!”

They seemed to melt through the festive window display into the grand and gleaming shop. Christmas garlands
of holly and ivy hung from the ceiling, and the place was crowded with people in old-fashioned winter clothes—Oz saw the glass counter through a forest of hats.

Behind the counter, three young women in white caps and aprons and pink dresses carefully picked up chocolates with tongs and placed them gently into green boxes lined with gold tissue paper.

“Daisy!” sighed Isadore.

He didn’t need to point her out; one of the young women looked exactly like an older version of Lily. It was weird to think this was how his sister would look when they were adults. Isadore stared at her with a drippy expression on his face, but Oz was more interested in the three men who stood at the back of the shop.

Here were the Spoffard triplets—three smart men in dark suits with waistcoats and gold watch chains. Pierre was the stout one, Marcel was actually rather weedy, and Isadore was Isadore.

“The other two girls were good,” Isadore said, “but Daisy was the best—see how neatly she ties the boxes! Were there ever daintier fingers?”

The Isadore in the past was also staring at Daisy. Oz looked closely and saw Pierre’s hand creep into his brother’s pocket.

“Look—” he blurted out.

“The way she finishes the box off with a blob of gold sealing wax!”

Oz decided to keep quiet. In the past, he clearly saw Pierre take something (he couldn’t see what) out of Isadore’s pocket and hide it away in his own. Both in the past and present, Isadore was too busy gawking at Daisy to notice.

In the Time-Glass, the chocolate showroom was emptying. Oz watched the customers leaving with their exquisite boxes of Spoffard chocolates. The Isadore in the past looked at his pocket watch.

The present Isadore said, “In a moment you’ll see me taking all the money into the safe—I had the responsibility because I was the oldest.”

“Only by ten minutes,” Oz pointed out.

“So? Ten minutes is ten minutes. Which of you two was born first?”

“I was,” Oz said. “Mum told me Lily came out about twenty minutes later.”

“That makes you the senior twin, just as I was the senior triplet. Everyone in the business respected my authority.”

“I don’t think Lily respects mine.” Oz smiled to himself, thinking how furious his twin would be if he told her he was her “senior.”

Isadore refilled his wineglass, intent on the sight of his former self taking bundles of coins and bank notes
out of the till. “This is fascinating! I can’t think why I haven’t peeped into the past for so long.”

Far away in the past, Oz saw Marcel and Pierre helping the three young women tidy the shop. While Isadore was bent over the money, Marcel quickly planted a kiss on Daisy’s cheek.

“NO!” wailed Isadore. He swept his Time-Glass off the bench and the silver tray hit the wall with a tremendous clatter. “Now I remember why! Because I haven’t found out how to change the past! And if I don’t get the other two molds I’ll NEVER find out!” He burst into noisy tears.

Oz was getting used to his great-great-uncle’s outbursts and knew they were not dangerous; he would simply spend another night groaning and muttering, until he fell asleep among his empty bottles.

“You saw her, Oz—kissing my brother when my back was turned!”

“They loved each other,” Oz said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“It was disgustingly wrong!”

“Why don’t you just—get over it?”

This was bold, but Isadore was not angry. “You’ll understand when you’re older.” He wiped his eyes angrily with the sleeve of his lab coat. “Now play me a haunting melody, so that I can brood on what might have been.”

“Well, OK—but isn’t that a bit of a waste of time?”

“A waste of YOUR time,” Isadore said. “I have all the time in the world.”

“What about the gang?”

Isadore shrugged crossly. “You keep going on about those people—I’m starting to wonder if you’re on their side.”

“Of course I’m not—but didn’t they threaten to kill you if they didn’t get their chocolate?”

“They can’t kill me. I’m immortal.”

Oz was very tired of this argument. “They can destroy your work. How do you know they’re not going to blow up this place? You’d hate that.”

For the first time, Isadore’s sour face was uneasy. “It’s true, the boy’s right,” he muttered to himself. “I have all the time in the world, but that Schmertz Gang is impatient. Perhaps I should take the next step and make my ransom demand?”

Oz held his breath; it was a huge, vast relief to hear Isadore’s first mention of his ransom.

Isadore drained his wineglass. “You know, Oz, you’re a levelheaded boy. I shall be sorry to part with you—in another life I could have trained you as my assistant. But I have magic chocolate to make.” He went to a drawer and took out an antique fountain pen and a handful of picture postcards. “Which one of these would you choose to write the demand on? There’s a view of the botanical gardens at Ventnor—a
picture of Bugs Bunny—a rather nice Turner sunset—”

Oz was impatient; this man couldn’t even make up his mind about a postcard. No wonder he was such an unsuccessful villain.

“What about this one?” He pointed to a photograph of the Houses of Parliament. “Not too boring?”

“Uncle Isadore, get a grip—you can’t send a ransom demand on a picture of Bugs Bunny! And Parliament’s good—it might be the gang’s target.”

“My dear Oz!” Isadore was impressed. “When I do finally learn to turn back time, I’ll be sorry to wipe you out of existence! That’s an excellent notion.” He unscrewed the top of his pen. “Though I believe their target is actually the Albert Hall.”

“Oh.” Oz kept his voice as casual as possible; he was pretty sure Isadore hadn’t meant to tell him this.

Fortunately, Isadore was too busy frowning over the blank postcard to notice what he had done. “Now, what shall I put? ‘Dear Sir’? ‘To Whom It May Concern’?”

Good grief, Oz thought. “Why don’t you just say what you want?”

“What about this—kindly return to me the two golden molds and the contents of my brother Pierre’s—”

“Too long,” Oz interrupted. “You want to keep it snappy—something like ‘GIVE ME THE MOLDS OR OZ DIES.’ ” It was incredible that he was helping his
wicked uncle to write his own ransom demand—but if he left it to Isadore it would never get done.

“Yes, very good!” Isadore said eagerly. “Admirably pithy and to the point!” He wrote the words very slowly and carefully and added something at the bottom. “HH 6781—that’s the number of the hollow tree on Hampstead Heath where they can find my contact details.” He placed the postcard in a saucer and snapped his fingers. The piece of card suddenly burst into flames and vanished. “You can’t trust the post these days—I’ve sent it directly to Skittle Street.”