The Candy Shop War

At the motel, Dart already has the Fuse in a straitjacket in the closet. Seeing this, Eric is eager to tell everything he knows. He says that Mrs. White used the Stargazer map to pinpoint the location of the Fountain of Youth underneath the school. Stott has already found the clue regarding the Haag family, and Dart assumes they must hold the key to unlocking the underground vault. Gary Haag is the school custodian, while Lester Haag lives on the other side of town. Pigeon already knows Gary and volunteers to speak to him while the others drive to Lester’s house.

In the custodian’s office, Pigeon explains the quest for the vault, and Gary admits to having the key. However, he says that any Haag who opens the vault will die, as will everyone else in the Haag family. Gary decides to flee and ties Pigeon up so he can’t follow. As Pigeon calls Nate and tells him to head to Gary’s house, he sees one of the proxy dolls jump out of his backpack. It unplugs the phone and runs away. Pigeon assumes the doll is going to report back to Mrs. White. When he calls for help, someone in the hallway hears him and comes to his rescue.

At the other end of the disconnected call, Nate informs his team that Gary has fled and they must intercept him at his house. When they arrive, the door is open, but Dart is ambushed by the Gusher. The Fuse has somehow been freed and uses his power to ensnare Nate and Summer in ropy tendrils of grass. Eric has also been freed and joins his fellow bully, Denny. They put Dart and Summer in straitjackets and leave Nate tangled in his grass prison when they drive off. The Fuse says they are going to collect Gary Haag at his relatives’ house, but in reality, they’ve already captured Gary. The Fuse tells Summer, “Setting [Nate] free with that misinformation will get Sebastian Stott out of the way. We can’t have the old man meddling, not today” (299).

As soon as he frees himself, Nate charges over to Stott’s house. He explains that they must rescue Gary. His Haag relatives live outside town, and Stott prepares to drive there. As the ice cream truck approaches the house on a narrow country road, the villains appear in their Hummer and force the truck off the road, tipping it over. Stott is injured and must transform into a coyote to keep from dying: “I may be able to travel temporarily like this if it becomes life or death. But I can’t change myself back. I’ll require assistance” (305). He can’t leave the truck and tells Nate that he must now use the Grains of Time.

This magic will give the boy an hour in the past, future, and present. The hope is that he can change the outcome of Mrs. White’s plan. When Nate manifests in the present, he will split into three identical forms so that all of them can work separately to change the course of events before they collapse back into a single identity. When Nate ingests the blue grain that takes him to the past, he becomes the adult man the children saw weeks earlier. Realizing that he can’t change their minds about Mrs. White, he goes to his own house and steals the family car. He then drives this back to the location of the ice cream truck and conceals it in the brush before losing consciousness.

When Nate ingests the red grain, he finds himself in the future in the body of a middle-aged woman. He immediately goes to Pigeon’s house and finds his friend is now an old man. Pigeon explains that he was ambushed. Using the proxy doll, Mrs. White knew every move the children were planning ahead of time. Pigeon is forced to enter the vault to obtain the goblet containing the Fountain of Youth. A curse in the vault immediately ages anybody who tries entering. The Gusher falls dead when entering, and two of the bullies have already aged too, but Pigeon is still young enough to survive retrieving the goblet. However, he transforms into an 80-year-old.

Back at the candy shop, Mrs. White gives Dart the choice of eating the fudge to become her servant, but he refuses, and she kills him. Summer agrees to eat the fudge and turns into a mindless drone like everybody else. Mrs. White is now about 10 years old and completely controls the town. She has plans to manufacture enough fudge to extend her control everywhere. Nate thinks, “His mind was whirling with the information Pigeon had shared. John was dead! Summer was a mindless fudge zombie! Mrs. White had become as powerful as everyone had feared” (323). He has little time left to undo these catastrophes as his trance dissolves again.

Back in the present with Stott, Nate must ingest the yellow grain that will split him into three versions of himself. The three Nates take the family car back to town and discuss how to use their time. “One of us should go to the school to meet up with Pigeon and try to make that turn out better [...]. Another of us should go to the candy shop [...]. We might have a chance to free Summer and John [...]. The last of us should go home and use a Mirror Mint to try to save Trevor” (331). Since Nate only has two Mirror Mints, he will have to stay in the mirror after giving the other mint to Trevor. He assumes his mirror self will be freed when his three identities merge again.

Nate Number One goes back to find Pigeon and tells him they should hide behind the Hummer to avoid being ambushed again when the villains go inside the school. The plan fails, and they are captured anyway. Nate Number Three enters the mirror to rescue Trevor. He explains that he must stay behind and sends Trevor to help Pigeon and his other self at school. Meanwhile, Nate Number One and Pigeon are marched down into the vault, where Nate volunteers to retrieve the goblet and allows himself to age. At the same time, Nate Number Two is planning to smash the window at the candy shop. However, he suddenly finds himself aging. Whatever happens to one of the three happens to them all. His age prevents him from attacking the shop before the spell ends.

The original Nate, still elderly, now finds himself alone in town with three sets of memories in his head. He resolves to go to the candy shop to see how events turned out. He arrives just as Belinda White is about to drink from the goblet. Dart is still alive, and Summer hasn’t eaten any fudge yet. Belinda is now wearing an eyepatch because she has lost one of her eyes due to Summer’s crossbow. She triumphantly welcomes Nate inside to witness her transformation.

When Belinda drinks from the goblet, she turns into a 10-year-old girl but can’t remember who she is. Nate Number One managed to slip the Clean Slate potion into the Fountain of Youth water when he retrieved the goblet. Everyone is stunned, and the entire scheme collapses. The Fuse only worked for Mrs. White because she promised to reverse his decline. He says to Dart, “Far as I’m concerned, this whole endeavor is a bust. If I didn’t think you’d hunt me down, I might take my leave quietly” (352-53). Dart agrees not to track him down, and the Fuse departs. After collecting Stott, Dart reassures Nate that he knows a magician who can reverse the aging spell.

A few days later, everyone meets at Stott’s house for a party. Even Belinda, now Linda, is part of the group because she’s lost all memory of her evil deeds. Stott is still a coyote, and Nate and two of the bullies are still elderly. That night, they are to meet a magician who can reverse Nate’s aging. The others are going to accompany Dart to a Council meeting in Ohio. The spells on Stott and the boys will also be reversed, and some mild punishment will be meted out to the two bullies. Trevor and Pigeon decide to go on the trip to avoid their parents while they’re experiencing white fudge withdrawal.

An elderly magician named Mozag arrives and hands Nate a fortune cookie. When the boy ingests it, he returns to his former youthful self. After Mozag leaves, Dart tells the bullies:

You were just in the presence of arguably the most powerful magician in the world. The spell will hold. And the Council knows its business as well. We’ll get Sebastian back on two feet, find a home for Linda, and restore you and Eric to your proper ages (362).

For their part, Nate, Summer, Pigeon, and Trevor are happy to put the adventure behind them. They eagerly make plans to sell the now empty goblet because Dart promised that they could keep all the money for it.