Free The Magic Cake Shop by Meika Hashimoto Page B

falling—the tunnel has a rising jet of air that will buoy you up if you accidentally slip. I’ll go first. After one minute, Emma, you can hop in. Albie, wait a minute more, then follow.”
    He hitched one leg, then the other, into the barrel.
    Emma and Albie heard the
clink, clink
of his feet on the metal bars. After the second hand on the kitchen clock wheeled around, Emma climbed into the barrel.
    Down she went. She could feel the upwind cushioning her feet with every step, but she didn’t quite trust it to hold her.
    The air grew cool, then cold, but the small, cheery lamps lit the way. Emma put her hand out to touch the tunnel wall, which felt like smooth rock. There was nothing to hold on to but the ladder.
    A voice floated up from below. “You’re doing wonderfully, Emma! Just a couple hundred steps more to go!”
    Down.
    Down.
    Down she went.
    The farther down Emma went, the more the plume of air tugged at her. She had to tighten her grip on the ladder’s rungs to keep from being pulled upward.
    Just when her hands started to go numb from clutching the cold metal, her right foot met solid dirt. Shakily, she stepped off the ladder with her other foot.
    She glanced behind her.
    At her feet, a giant circular grate covered an enormousfan silently spinning at a terrific speed. Emma realized that the fan was what created the updraft in the tunnel.
    “Well done!” Mr. Crackle grinned at her, a few feet from the outer ridge of the grate. “Now edge sideways until you’re out of the way of the air current.”
    Emma noticed that the metal rungs of the ladder had shifted sideways, only a few feet above the dirt floor. Carefully gripping the rungs, Emma edged away from the grate, until she was standing next to Mr. Crackle.
    “Whew! That was a bit tricky!” Albie popped up next to the two of them and wiped his brow.
    Mr. Crackle tugged at a switch on the tunnel wall. With a jerk, the enormous fan came to a halt and the blast of air died down.
    Emma let go of the breath she had been holding. She took a look around her.
    Hundreds of tiny lamps lit up a circular underground tunnel. On the tunnel’s outer edge, identical ladders descended to the floor, stretching fifty feet apart and disappearing into the curve of the tunnel.
    Massive oaken doors with wrought-iron handles ringed the tunnel’s inner edge. Perched above each handle was a small pipe that led to a glass chamber filled with loops of metal wire that curled out in all directions. Mr. Crackle led Emma and Albie to a door a few feet from where they had descended. He stopped and fiddled in his pocket, frowning as he concentrated.
    Albie gaped at the door. “That’s fancy!” He whistled. “These aren’t the kinds of doors I’ve ever knocked on before! What’s that funny glass box full of metal stuff for?”

    “It’s a breath-recognition system—aha, here it is!” said Mr. Crackle. He withdrew a green velvet bag from his pocket and tipped it over. A silver key fell into his palm. “Each Supreme-Extreme Master gets a ladder and a specialized door to enter the spice shop.”
    “Why doesn’t the spice shop have just one door?” Emma asked.
    “Security—each door is locked and can only be opened by a Supreme-Extreme Master. To open my door, I turn the lock with this key, then breathe into the pipe. Things click, and the door opens. It’s a piece of engineering I don’t understand, but it works beautifully. By the way, make sure you don’t touch the door. The engineers told me strange things will happen to anyone other than me who does.”
    “What happens?” Emma asked.
    “I don’t have a smack of a clue, but I don’t want you to be the one who finds out.”
    Emma and Albie stood back as Mr. Crackle slipped the key into the lock and turned it twice. He blew into the glass tube, misting the inside. There was a whirring of bolts and locks, and he pulled the door open.
    They stepped through.

E mma’s nose quivered as she inhaled sharp, strange,