Bite-Sized Magic by Kathryn Littlewood Page A

special ingredients.”
    So Lily had betrayed all the family secrets. Rose had figured as much, but it was still mortifying to hear it said so plainly by Mr. Butter.
    â€œYes, we too use magic,” Mr. Butter said, rubbing the top of his perfectly bald head, “but unlike the Bliss family, we maximize the effects of the magic through the power of technology.”
    Mr. Butter moved to the giant control board and picked up a megaphone. “Mr. Mechanico! We need more Moon’s Cheese. Enough to produce ten million Moony Pyes!”
    Just then, a lavender-colored robot whose shape could only be described as “octopus-esque” floated through the air and hovered above Rose’s head. Its mechanical arms writhed and clinked as it moved, like eight strings of metal cans. “At your servissssss,” the thing whispered through a silver-mesh metal grill.
    â€œHere is the recipe,” Mr. Butter said, holding out the card with Rose’s notes on it. One of Mr. Mechanico’s segmented arms clanked and telescoped, reaching down toward Mr. Butter. With a strange slurping noise, the card stuck to one of hundreds of tiny suction cups underneath the mechanical tentacle. The robot curled the tentacle under its belly and appeared to swallow the recipe card whole.
    â€œReceived,” said Mr. Mechanico. His voice was higher than Rose would expect from a flying octopus robot. It sounded frighteningly real, like a human voice.
    â€œWhere are they going to get all that Moon’s Cheese?” Rose asked. “What is Moon’s Cheese, anyway? I mean, I know it’s a magical ingredient, but what is it?”
    Mr. Butter slapped Mr. Kerr on the shoulder and laughed. “‘What is Moon’s Cheese?’ she asks! She never heard about Moon’s Cheese! Oh, these poor country bakers. Why don’t you explain, Mr. Kerr?”
    Mr. Kerr knelt down next to Rose on one massive knee. His head was as thick as her entire body. “The moon,” he said in his deep voice, “is made of cheese .”
    Rose tried not to giggle. “Mr. Kerr, with all due respect, I believe the moon is made of rock.”
    â€œNope! It’s cheese ,” said Mr. Kerr. “A green cheese, actually.”
    Gus curled his whiskers with his paw. Rose could tell that he also disagreed.
    â€œIt isn’t actually cheese,” Mr. Butter said, correcting Mr. Kerr. “Not in a made-from-curdled-cow’s-milk sort of way. Rather, it’s a cheese-like substance with powerful magical properties. These magical properties have been known to descendants of Filbert and Albatross Bliss for quite some time, due to the occasional piece of broken moon rock crashing onto Earth. But no one has had the technology to harness the magical properties of Moon’s Cheese on a grand scale—until now, that is.
    â€œMr. Mechanico,” continued Mr. Butter. “Why don’t you show Miss Bliss the cheese video.”
    Mr. Mechanico reached over to the control board with one of his tentacles and pulled a red lever. The giant closet of red mason jars parted down the middle, revealing a movie screen as tall as the building itself. Mr. Mechanico pressed a series of buttons, and a video started to play of a trio of octopus-shaped robots making grilled cheese sandwiches over an open campfire. A faint soundtrack of classical music played softly.
    â€œNo,” said Mr. Butter, exasperated. “The other one.”
    Another series of pushed buttons and a new video came on the screen—this time it was of another octopus-shaped robot dipping a crouton into a pot of fondue.
    â€œThe other one, Mechanico!”
    A third video clicked onto the screen—a view of the moon through the windshield of an approaching spaceship. The moon grew larger in the image as the ship drew closer to the moon’s surface, and Rose could see that it wasn’t the dull-gray rock she’d expected. Instead, it seemed