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By the time that Hans-Peter, the postone His room was empty The postmaster's wife had packed away the toy soldiers, stored the clothing in alphabetized, labeled boxes, and repainted the walls

19 Long Hours in the Laboratory

Coed now that he had Nanny to tend Ruth, began to spend hours each day in the experimental laboratory in one of the mansion's turrets He had always been happiest in the lab, where he couldsearch for the next hugely successful candy, the thing that would rival Lickety Twist and add more billions to his fortune

He had to admit, privately, that it was easier to do his experiments with his wife still buried in the avalanche and now, clearly, long (he sniffed at the thought) dead She had insisted on tidying the lab all the tiht he had coht--just the right combination of nuts and chocolate and caraerly the next one: the containers washed and dried and put away (bowls to the left of cartons, pans before pots, stirring spoons arranged by size) and his scribbled notes about proportions taken out with the trash With a sigh, he would begin again:But his efforts had seeedy, he had lost his enthusiasathered dust for years Noith renewed vigor, he washed everything, unpacked new ingredients, and began again

Carefully he h the closed door of the lab, he could hear the cheerful, busy sounds of the household: the children playing, Nanny scrubbing and cooking, Baby Ruth giggling in her playpen, the cats (for the Willoughby cat hadabout and pouncing on iinary mice

Happily he chopped soer in for a taste, thought it over, and decided that it had been a mistake He remembered now that the chocolate should coat the outside of the candy bar; the nuts should be mixed with the caramel on the inside He threay the chocolate-and-nuts ain

Belonstairs, he heard the oven tinal He could picture Nanny, in her flowered apron, leaning down and opening the oven door to peer inside at whatever fine-s for dinner Oh, if he were not such a decent e behind affectionately as she bent over

Shaking his head to rid it of such ihts, he stirred the freshly an to war knife and went to work on some walnuts When they were reduced to small bits, he sprinkled theer, and tasted No, he thought They should be pecans, not walnuts He sighed, but it was not a sigh of frustration; it was more a little breath of happiness and creativity (coht of Nanny, below in the kitchen), and he began again

Of course, he thought, although the perfect coredients was essential, still (as he had explained to the children) he would need the perfect name for this new confection He would have it printed in blue, he thought No: red He would have it printed in large red letters on the wrapper of the candy bar

Choco-nut? Pecan-o-choc? Silly na pecans The naredients, he realized His previous success had started with a --lick had become Lickety-Twist This candy bar, with all its caraht Chewy-Gooey That had a ring to it

He pictured in his mind a child at a candy counter "I want a Chewy-Gooey"

"I want three Chewy-Gooeys" He could ierness hich buyers would place their orders

He frowned and poured the chopped pecans into the fresh pan of ood idea to refer to gooey-ness It ht make parents nervous They would think about cavities and dental bills

Frohter and Nanny's cheerful singsong voice: "Patty-cake, patty-cake! Baker's ined the infant's delighted snition

The boy had hiked happily to the next village, yodeling a bit as he walked the path, waving now and then toan occasional flower Here in the open hills he found that the sound of the cowbells, which had previously caused his head to ache, was now a charreen blossolanced upward at the towering peak whose shadow fell across his own village and thought with a surge of pride of those brave clih a neighbor's binoculars once and seen the the sheer icy cliffs There was talk of putting their outlines on a postage sta National heroes, they were, those stiff shapes with their ropes and axes One had been there for h the boy could not see this froures had now joined that illustrious group Quick-frozen as Popsicles, crampons on their heads like crowns, their Birkenstocks and Bermuda shorts stiffened into museum-quality artifacts in the clear, thin air, Mr and Mrs Willoughby had becohby, and their children were true orphans--and heirs--at last