Bite-Sized Magic by Kathryn Littlewood

disappear into her backpack, hooked her arm through it, and then climbed into the golf cart.
    â€œOh, and Marge?” Mr. Butter said to the frazzled, chocolate-covered Head Baker. “Marge, honey, clean up yourself and this kitchen. You know how I hate a mess.”
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    Mr. Kerr drove Mr. Butter and Rose between the warehouses for what felt like miles. The rising sun threw its golden color on everything, and Rose felt a bit of hope worm its way through her despair. It was a beautiful morning, and Mr. Butter hadn’t put the recipe into production yet .
    At first, they passed gray box after gray box, like the test kitchen warehouse, but after a while different sorts of buildings began to appear. There was a sleek office building where Rose could see men in the windows scribbling away at drafting boards—the front entrance was in the shape of a giant Mostess cow.
    â€œThose are our graphic artists,” said Mr. Butter. “They weren’t the ones who originally came up with the cow, of course. We’ve hired all new ones. We’re working on some other packaging ideas, something . . . more modern.”
    They passed another office building covered in billboards with Mostess slogans splashed across the front. MAKE THE MOSTESS OF YOUR DAY—EAT A DINKY CAKE! and LAUGH AWAY THE DAY WITH A TEE-HEE!
    â€œWith the right marketing,” explained Mr. Butter, “you can make a person do something they don’t even want to do—such as eat a Dinky Cake. It’s like . . . magic ! But it’s magic that makes money!”
    Rose gritted her teeth and stayed silent. She should never have helped with the Moony Pye recipe. Then again, Mr. Butter hadn’t given her much of a choice. She briefly wished her mom were there—Purdy Bliss would know what to do.
    But on second thought, Rose was happy her mom didn’t have to see what Rose had done. Her disappointment would have been too much to bear.
    â€œAh, here we are,” said Mr. Butter as the golf cart pulled up in front of a building shaped like a wedding cake. “The Mostess pantry, if you will.”
    It was a stack of round floors with tinted windows, each floor progressively smaller than the one below it. Atop the highest, smallest story was a giant statue of a smiling cow. Mr. Kerr drove the golf cart into an enormous revolving door, which rotated until the golf cart was safely inside the lobby.
    Rose thought she had stepped into the future—or someone’s nightmare of the future. Instead of something that looked like the Bliss Bakery pantry, only larger, there were, she saw, men in white lab coats standing at a giant control board in front of an enormous wall of dark-red mason jars. The wall was at least five stories tall, with a rolling ladder that ran along the top—to access the jars from the upper levels, Rose figured.
    â€œThis is what we refer to as the laboratory,” said Mr. Butter proudly. “It is where we store all of our ingredients.”
    â€œIsn’t it more of a warehouse, then?” Rose asked. “You store things in a warehouse. You create things in a lab.”
    Mr. Butter waved away her comment. “You say poe- tay -toe, I say poh- tah -toe. We also do experiments here—how to get the recipes just right, this and that, and more. Plus, laboratory sounds much fancier than warehouse, doesn’t it?”
    Rose couldn’t disagree with that. Instead of arguing with Mr. Butter, she turned her attention back to the wall of jars: There were too many of them to count, but Rose estimated that it must have been at least one thousand. It was hard to see inside the jars, but their contents were bobbing and glowing and growling and screeching.
    â€œDoubtless you’ve realized by now, Rose, that ours is no ordinary factory,” said Mr. Butter. “You probably thought yours was the only kitchen equipped with magical mason jars, but no. We, like you, use