“Knock Knock Knock,” the door swung open. “I need to show you something,” I said. Dave followed me and sprinted down the hill and into the forest. Dave and I have lived as neighbors on Cherry Hill Lane since he moved here when he was four. The deeper we got into the forest the less light there was even though the sun was shining very bright.
Then Dave said, “ Uh this is very deep into the forest can you tell me where we are going Ava?”
“We are going to Mac and Maya’s house,” I answered. When we finally got there, they were not home. Their house was covered in vines and the roof was straw though you couldn’t see it on account of the vines. Their house was more of a tiny wooden shack.
Five minutes after we passed Mac and Maya’s house, I showed Dave the pile of chocolate bars on the ground. There were hundreds of them. “Where could they be from,” I asked curiously.
Dave and I looked some more but we were getting hungry for dinner. “Sorry to do this but I am hungry so bye,” Dave said, and I answered “I’ll go too.”
We walked very fast out of the forest and onto the rocky road leading to Cherry Hill Lane. We sprinted up the hill and by the time we got to the top we were dripping with sweat from the night humidity. “Night,” we both yelled to each other.
The next day, Dave and I ran back into the forest and we got to Mac and Maya’s house faster than the day before because the morning humidity isn’t bad. Now that the four of us were together we could cover more ground. We found the pile of chocolate bars and Mac grabbed one and ate one. Then we saw a shadowy figure running through the trees. “Hey,” he said in a gruff voice. The shadowy figure came out from behind the trees “Jhonith Jhonson,” he said, sticking out his hand. I shook his hand and said “Is there a problem Mr. Johnson?” He answered by saying “Follow me.” Then he vanished out of sight into the ground. We followed in the direction he went. Then Maya slipped in the leaves and into a hole and she vanished too. We had no choice but to follow her.
‘WHAAA,” we all screamed because we were sliding down a dirt slide underground in the pitch black darkness. We all went flying out of the slide and onto the ground. When we opened our eyes we saw ooey gooey brown chocolate coming out of tubes and onto a conveyor belt where it changed colors and got a flavor. Jhonith came up to us with Maya following him and said “you kids need to speak with the boss, follow me.” Maya’s face was covered in chocolate and said “this is so good,” with her mouth full of chocolate. We followed Mr. Jhonson down the hall. The floor was white and shiny. There were many doors along the wall. When we got to the end of the hall, Jhonith opened the door and we walked into an office.
Then Jhonith said, “Mr. Drawinton, these kids were eating the pile of candy bars in the forest, what shall we do?” Mr. Drawinton said in his deep voice “Kids, those candy bars shouldn’t have been eaten,” he paused. Mac jumped in and said, “sorry sir, I will never do it again sir.”
“No no no. Those were our mess up chocolate bars. The ones where we misshape it, or color it wrong,” Mr. Drawinton said in a soft caring voice.
“Tasted pretty good to me,” Mac mumbled under his breath.
“Our company’s candy or chocolate needs to be perfect. All I need to say to you guys is, please do not tell anyone,” he said, now acting very serious.
“We won’t,” we all answered quickly.
“What I was trying to say is you guys can come down here any time,” Mr. Drawinton said.
Mr. Jhonson stepped in and said “You guys can have all the candy you want but not the candy on the ground.” Then he ran out the door and down the hall. He came back five minutes later holding a huge basket full of candy and he handed it to us. Then he told us to follow him into the gummy room.
Tap, Tap, Taptap. The gummies came out of shaped tubes onto a plate which was then moved to a bowl which colored them and then a flavor spray. Finally it was wrapped in tiny paper that said the flavor and then “Mr. Drawinson’s GUMMIES!”
We were still in awe when we heard people downstairs. “Can we go down there,” Maya asked. Mr. Jhonson shook his head yes and we followed.
There were many people at stations. They grabbed a stick and put it into a pot that had a liquid inside, it had a color and flavor. Then the workers put them in a tiny fridge. “Ding!” They took the lollipops out and wrapped them in paper.
We walked back into the chocolate room and in the corner we saw each of our favorite candies being made. Mine was RIMMES, the chocolate-covered peanut butter with caramel in the middle. Dave and Mac’s favorites were FROCKO CHOCOS, which were little chocolate balls with a mystery flavor inside. Maya’s favorite was MINNIPOLD’S, which were little chocolates in random shapes and a picture of each to collect. We all went running to the stands and took 10 pieces each as instructed. Then Dave checked the time and said “Uh guys, it’s 4 o’clock, we need to get home.”
We left the factory and ran home. While Dave and I were running out of the forest he said “You know, Ava, if you weren’t here we wouldn’t have found that, so thanks for being my friend!”
“No problem. It’s my job,” I replied. We laughed until we got home.