The Chocolate Touch: Chapters 1–7

His father, when he didn’t have to hurry to town, spent hours telling John interesting things about baseball, beetles, birds’ nests, boats, brigands, and butterflies.

Boiled candy, cotton candy, licorice all-sorts, old-fashioned toffee, candied orange and lemon slices, crackerjack, jelly beans, fudge, black-currant lozenges for ticklish throats, nougat, marrons gláces, acid drops, peppermint sticks, lollipops, marshmallows, and, above all, chocolates—he devoured them all.

"No, John,” the doctor reproved him., "A healthy little boy who didn’t eat too much candy would kick harder than that.”

"Chocolate all the time,” John replied emphatically. "Chocolate’s best, that’s all. Other things are just food. But chocolate’s chocolate. Chocolate—”

John was wandering along in the direction of Susan’s house, absentmindedly looking down at the sidewalk, when his eye was suddenly caught by a dully gleaming, silvery gray coin lying right in his path.

He was imagining the taste of the chocolate-covered almonds and chocolate fudge on the other side of the glass when he noticed a man in a white apron standing behind the counter and beckoning to him.

"Don’t just stand there in the doorway, John,” the man called heartily. "Come on in and get some fresh, sweet, creamy chocolate. There’s a special sale today.”

"Go ahead then. Help yourself,” the storekeeper said, pointing to a heavily laden show table piled high with large cellophane-wrapped candy boxes, all exactly alike.

"She wouldn’t mind,” John said hastily, and blushed.

By the time she got there he had already filled the spoon. Then, without any coaxing, he emptied it into his mouth.

John put on his bathrobe and slippers and ambled to the bathroom. His sister, Mary, was still brushing her teeth, and he had to wait until she finished.

As soon as it touched his front teeth, he noticed a delicious sweetness in his mouth, a taste of the best kind of chocolate. He pushed the brush to and fro, and the taste seemed to grow stronger. He removed the brush. The bristles were brown.

Spider was in the grade just above John’s and was one of the meanest and slyest boys in the whole school.

He licked his lips and sighed contentedly.

John put the dollar about halfway into his mouth and reluctantly bit it.

As soon as she appeared in the doorway, all the chattering and scuffling stopped.

He pressed his foot down on the fountain treadle, and a stream of clear, ice-cold water spurted up from the silver nozzle in the white enamel basin.

Quickly stopping the flow, John looked with dismay at the shallow puddle that had formed and was now draining away in the basin of the fountain.

John usually scorned skipping rope. He preferred hide-and-seek, tag, F.B.I. and spies, kick the can, or any other good, exciting game.

"You wouldn’t like it,” said John, who was beginning to feel sorrier for himself than he had ever felt before. "I think it’s getting worse,” he added reproachfully.

"If you don’t believe me,” John retorted, "just you give me that skipping rope and I’ll prove it.”

John, alone, walked slowly in the throng hurrying along the corridors to the school cafeteria.

Enviously John noticed a boy at a nearby table suck at straws dipped in a milk bottle that was dull with frost.

The cherries must taste good. They must be thirst quenching!

The thought of four pieces of chocolate cream pie now suddenly made his stomach feel as though he were on a roller coaster—an uneasy, flibberty-jibberty sensation. John shuddered.

He also took a half pint of milk, a thick-crusted whole-wheat roll and a cool pat of butter, a tumbler of water with ice cubes clinking against the glass, and a dish of fresh fruit—slices of orange and grapefruit and banana and grapes.

He took a small piece of potato chip, tilted back his head until he was looking straight up at the ceiling, and dropped the morsel straight down into his throat.

Then he became aware of a shocking novelty that he hadn’t noticed at breakfast.

At the rim of each glass there was a small semicircle of opaque brown; the bowl of his spoon and the prongs of his fork had become brown.

As John watched, horrified, the areas of magic chocolate slowly spread until at last the glasses and cutlery were all solid chocolate.