The next day after school, Candace headed over to The Zone. Martha had left a message on her phone asking if they could meet and talk about Sugar Shock at four. Candace decided to take advantage of the hour she had to hunt for Becca. She found the other referee at her post in the Muffin Mansion.
“Long time no see,” Candace said to Becca, giving her a quick hug.
“I know! I was beginning to think you had found another muffin supplier,” Becca teased.
“Never!
“What can I get you?”
Candace looked at the vast display of muffins for a moment before making up her mind. The Muffin Mansion always had a huge variety of muffins available. In the spirit of Halloween, though, most of their muffins looked monstrous. Some were hideously deformed, others were gigantic, one type had nodules on either side that reminded Candace of the bolts on the neck of Frankenstein’s monster. There were orange muffins, black muffins, and muffins with fake spiders on top.
“I’ll try the pumpkin spice.”
“A seasonal specialty,” Becca said. “Excellent choice. Can I interest you in a specialty butter to go with it?”
“What is a specialty butter?” Candace asked.
“It’s this new thing we’re trying out. We unveiled it at the end of September,” Becca explained. “We have created several specialty butters that can be paired quite nicely with certain muffins.”
“And specialty butters are better than butter butter?”
“Absolutely. For example, I recommend pairing the pumpkin spice muffin with the cinnamon butter.”
“Oh, that does sound good,” Candace said.
“And it is.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.”
Becca put her muffin in a bag along with a little container of butter and a plastic knife. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“Some advice would be helpful,” Candace admitted.
“Well, you’re in luck. I just got off work like ten seconds ago.”
“What do I owe?” Candace asked, reaching for her purse.
“It’s on the house. I still don’t eat my daily free muffin,” Becca said.
“Sorry, I can’t hook you up with sugar anymore,” Candace said.
“It’s not your fault. Let’s go someplace we can talk.”
They found a quiet bench in the park where they could talk undisturbed. Candace pulled her muffin out of the bag and started munching. “Wow! You’re right, the cinnamon butter really makes this.”
“Told you,” Becca said, grinning. “I worked on that one myself.”
Candace wondered briefly how she managed to do that without tasting anything with sugar in it. She decided to let it go. She had other things she wanted to talk about.
“So, what can I help with?” Becca asked.
“I guess I just needed someone to talk to. Life has been . . . frustrating lately.”
“And so, naturally, I’m the first person you thought of,” Becca joked.
Candace smiled. “Yes, actually. I consider you a friend, and I thought you could be more objective than Tamara or Kurt or even Josh.”
“Okay, I’ve got my objective hat on,” she said.
Candace took a deep breath.
“I feel stuck in a way. I have all these questions, and every time I try to get answers I only come up with more questions.”
“Can you give me an example?”
Candace laughed bitterly. “I had a meeting with the school’s guidance counselor. I was hoping he’d help me sort out what college I’m going to go to. Instead, he questioned that I should even be going to college. He told me I never applied myself at anything.”
“Ouch.”
“Then I had the accident in the maze, and suddenly I’m back to cart duty. It’s like I keep taking gigantic steps backward.”
“Did you ever consider that maybe you are where you are for a reason?” Becca asked.
“There’s a reason for me being behind a cart?” Candace asked skeptically.
“Probably. Remind me some time to tell you how I came to work at the Muffin Mansion. It’s a long, strange story. It taught me that everything has a purpose.”
“Okay.”
“So what else you got?”
“I’m stressing about Kurt. Things just don’t look good down the road. I’m not sure how compatible his goals and mine are.”
“I know what your problem is,” Becca said.
“Really? Tell me.”
“You’re going through a fall time in your life.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fall, like the season, like right now. Fall is the transition period between summer and winter. Summer is fun and carefree and cheery. Winter is also beautiful, but it’s harder, not as carefree. You’re no longer a child, and you’re not really an adult yet. You’re going through a transition, just like the seasons.”
Candace thought about that for a minute. It made sense.
“What can I do about it?”
“Stop fighting it. You can’t recapture your past anymore than you can speed up your future. Stop lamenting summer and stop trying to hurry winter. Just enjoy the fall.”
“So, what should I do about Kurt?”
Becca gazed at her, smiling and benevolent. “Only you can choose how to truly live and enjoy the fall. Tell yourself what to do.”
“I’ve spent so much time thinking about a possible future with Kurt that I’ve never spent time and effort on our present.”
“And one thing is for certain, if you don’t put forth any effort in the present, there is most certainly no future.”
Candace shook her head. “What are you, the Yoda of The Zone?”
“I like to think of myself more as Captain Jack Sparrow.”
“Yeah, but you make more sense,” Candace laughed.
“Only sometimes,” Becca said with a smile. “Just remember, crazy people often see the truth more clearly than sane ones.”
“Thanks, Becca.”
Candace glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a meeting with Martha. I should go.”
“Have fun.”
Martha had told Candace she would meet her in front of the castle. Candace left Becca and made her way to the History Zone. She arrived at the same time as Martha.
“I’m so glad you made it,” Martha said, looking both happy and relieved.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Candace said.
“Follow me,” Martha said. She turned and walked down one side of the castle and then stopped.
“What is it?” Candace asked.
Martha pointed at the wall.
Puzzled, Candace took a closer look. Where Martha was pointing the bricks formed a particular pattern that looked almost like a door. Martha pressed her thumb against a brick next to the others and suddenly part of the wall opened inward.
Candace gasped in amazement. Martha stepped through, and Candace followed her. They were in a small room with a stairway on the right and an elevator on the left. Martha headed up the spiral stairs and Candace followed her.
When they reached the top, there was a massive wooden door barring the way. Once again Martha pressed her thumb to a brick next to the door and it too swung open.
Candace stepped inside. It was as if she had just entered a fairy tale. There were a dozen couches done in rich royal blue fabric with gold fleur-de-lis on them. Through an archway, Candace spotted a long table that probably could seat forty comfortably.
There were more openings to other rooms that became visible as she followed Martha deeper inside. Martha sat down on one of the couches and motioned for Candace to do the same. The couch was the most comfortable she had ever sat on, and she felt instantly at home.
“Welcome to one of the six Comfort Zones here in the park,” Martha said.
“Wow! What are these places?” Candace asked.
“They’re used mostly as corporate lounges. Sponsors and key employees are given access to them during their trips to the park. They also serve as meeting spaces for private events. And, occasionally, they serve other specialized purposes.”
“And what purpose is this one serving?” Candace asked.
“This is command headquarters where we can plan out every last detail of Sugar Shock,” Martha told her.
Candace felt her eyes bulge. “Here, seriously? We get to work in here?”
“Yes. On the way out, I’ll key your thumbprint into the doors so that you can come up here without having to hunt me down. Once Sugar Shock is over, of course, we’ll take your thumbprint out of the system. Go ahead, have a quick look around.”
Candace stood up and quickly toured the rest of the Comfort Zone. There was a small room with a couple of cots in it.
Another room held vending machines. There were also a couple of restrooms. She wondered briefly if Sue was responsible for cleaning them, or if there were other janitors who took care of the Comfort Zones.
Candace returned to the main room. “Where are the other Comfort Zones around the park?” she asked.
Martha shook her head. “We try to keep that quiet. I’m sure, however, that if you did some digging you could figure that out.”
Candace nodded.
“Now, I don’t have a lot of time right now, but I wanted to get you started thinking on a couple of things. We can meet again tomorrow night.”
“Okay.”
“We’re going to need to recruit referees to work during Sugar Shock. Everyone works Halloween night, so working during the day on Halloween is strictly voluntary. Now, you’re going to find that most people aren’t going to want to volunteer. Be creative. Beg if you have to. We need at least seventy referees to pull this thing off.”
“How many do we have now?” Candace asked.
“Two.”
“Two?”
“Two,” Martha affirmed.
“Two plus us?” Candace asked.
“Nope. Just us. You and I are it.”
“Oh, my.”
“Welcome to the Sugar Shock team,” Martha said grimly.
They spent another ten minutes talking before Martha had to go. True to her word, though, she keyed Candace’s thumbprint into the system. As they walked out the secret door in the castle, Candace felt a thrill. It had to be one of the best secrets in the world, or, at least, in The Zone.
Martha took off and Candace thought about leaving. Then she thought about her conversation with Becca and decided to try and hunt down Kurt first.
As it turned out, she found him in the Locker Room, having just come off his shift. “Hey, got a few minutes to talk?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Oh.”
“If you’re heading toward the parking lot, though, I’ll walk with you.”
“Okay.”
They left the Locker Room and headed for the parking lot.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No, not really.”
“Which is it? No, or not really?”
“It’s just getting frustrating. It feels like we never see each other,” Candace complained.
“Well, the good news is that will all change next year,” Kurt said.
She cocked her head to the side. “How?” she asked.
“I figure you can attend community college with me. That way we can spend time on campus together. Eat at the cafeteria. Maybe we can even take some classes together,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment without speaking. She had no intention of going to community college. He looked so enthusiastic, though, that she didn’t know how to break the news to him. If it hadn’t been for her nagging over the summer, he wouldn’t be going to college at all.
She bit her lip. “Maybe,” she said. She was a coward. Worse than that, she was a liar. She knew she should tell him the truth, but she didn’t know how to do it without offending him. “Of course, pretty soon you can transfer to State,” she said, hoping he would get the hint.
It turned out the hint was far too subtle. “After we get all our prerequisites out of the way, maybe,” he said. “Then again, I’m thinking maybe just an associates degree will work for me. I’m not sure I need to go to all the trouble to get a BA.”
And once again they were sailing into the dangerous territory called the future. Every time Candace compared her life goals with Kurt’s, nothing ever seemed to match up. Sure, just a few days before she had told Josh she had no idea what she wanted to be, but she knew that a BA was the jumping off point to any kind of job she might want.
She thought about pressing Kurt further, asking him what he was thinking of getting a degree in. Maybe then she would have something to say. She still thought he would make a great history teacher, but she knew he couldn’t do that without at least a BA and a credential.
“So, how’s the umpiring going?” she asked.
“Good. Only a couple of incidents so far,” he said.
“Like what?”
“A player hyperventilated in the maze, and it took awhile to calm her down enough to get her out of it. Another woman flailed her arms around and smacked her boyfriend in the face. She split his lip and there was some blood to clean up.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah. We had to shut the maze down for fifteen minutes while we dealt with that. Then, of course, there’s the ghost.”
“The ghost?” she asked, unsure which maze monster he was referencing.
“Yeah, the one that’s haunting the theme park,” he said.
“You don’t seriously believe there’s a ghost,” she said.
“I do. Lots of weird stuff has happened this year, and it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“A ghost makes sense?”
“Yeah. I mean, Sunday night one of the walls in the maze toppled over all by itself.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” Candace said. He certainly hadn’t mentioned it at dinner the night before.
“Yeah. Fortunately it happened five minutes before park opening. The crazy thing was the screws that were holding the wall in place were just missing. I had been in the maze for fifteen minutes before it happened, and I didn’t see or hear a thing.”
“Someone’s just pulling a prank,” Candace said.
“I don’t think so.”
Candace didn’t believe in ghosts. It seemed, though, like Kurt did. One thing was for sure. There definitely was something going on at The Zone, and she’d bet anyone a month worth of pizzas that it wasn’t supernatural.