Dash was making a pufferfish face.

His cheeks were puffed up big big big, his eyes were wide open, and his lips were squeezed tight tight, and Ziggy was laughing so hard he almost fell off his chair. Lily was banging her fist on the table: "Stop, stop, I can't take it!" Skye was holding her belly with both hands.

It was a very, very serious contest: who could make the silliest face in the kitchen. And Dash was winning.

"Now I'll do the scared owl!" said Dash, and he opened his eyes even wider, puckered his lips, and snapped his head left and right, super fast.

"AHAHAH!" Ziggy really rolled off his chair for real.

Then something strange happened.

Through the open window came a light light breeze, carrying a very sweet smell. It smelled like strawberry. And chocolate. And something none of them had ever smelled before, but that made you want to smile.

"Do you smell that?" said Skye, lifting her nose.

"Mmmmh," went Lily, closing her eyes. "What a smell!"

"It smells like chocolate," said Ziggy, sniffing hard. "No, strawberry! No, both!"

Dash ran to the window — because Dash was always running, everywhere, super fast — and saw something shining at the end of the garden.

"CHUFFFF CHUFFFF! CHUFFFF CHUFFFF!"

Two golden headlights, a little cloud of steam that smelled like whipped cream, and then there he was: Toby!

The magic train came puffing happily down the garden path, his tracks covered in a mustache of whipped cream that melted slowly in the sun.

"Toby!" shouted Dash, and in a flash he was already out the door. The other three ran after him.

Toby the Magic Train stopped in front of them and with his happy little voice said:

"Hello my friends, so dear and true,
I'll take you somewhere sweet and new!
But the place we visit is feeling blue,
and it needs the help of a friend like you!"

The four children climbed aboard, and Toby set off.

The trip was short and sweet-smelling.

When the little doors opened again, the children found themselves in front of a whole land made of candy.

The houses were made of gingerbread with candy windows. The streets were paved with dark chocolate. The lampposts were pink and blue cotton candy sticks. There were trees with licorice branches and green mint leaves. And in the middle of the town, a big fountain with an ice-cream cup on top.

"Candyland," whispered Skye, her eyes shining.

But something was wrong.

The chocolate streets looked dull, covered in gray dust. The licorice streamers hung limp from the lampposts. The bubblegum balloons, which should have floated colorful in the sky, were all flat on the ground. And the cakes on the stands had a whitish crust that wasn't powdered sugar.

"What is that stuff?" asked Ziggy, touching the top of a cake with his finger. He licked it. And made a terrible face. "YUCK! IT'S SALT!"

At that moment, something fell from the sky. It wasn't rain. It wasn't snow. They were tiny white grains that settled on everything.

Salt.

From the sky of Candyland, salt was raining.

"That's why everything is ruined," said Lily, looking around. "The salt has covered all the candy."

"How sad," murmured Skye.

"Hey! Hey hey hey!"

A round, cheerful voice came from behind a lollipop tree. From behind the trunk popped out a snowman.

But it wasn't just any snowman.

He was round, very round, with a huge belly of soft white snow, two lively coal eyes, a smile made of little pebbles, a red and green striped scarf, and a big orange nose: a nice straight carrot.

And he smelled good. He smelled like vanilla and mint.

"I am Flake!" said the snowman, and he bowed so deep he almost rolled forward on his belly. "And I am hungry... so hungry..." He stopped, his eyes wide open: "...ENORMOUS!"

To prove it, he took his carrot-nose off his face and used it as a little spoon to taste a lollipop from the tree. He licked it, and his face turned into such a silly grimace that Dash burst out laughing.

"This one's salty too!" whined Flake, putting his nose back on upside down. "Everything is salty! You can't eat ANYTHING! And I am SO hungry!"

"But why is it raining salt?" asked Lily.

Flake straightened his nose and sighed, rocking back and forth on his round belly.

"It's the fault of Granita and Pralinè," he said. "The ice-cream twins."

And he told them.

Granita and Pralinè were the keepers of the Great Ice Cream Fountain, the one in the middle of town. Every day they made together the ice cream that filled the fountain, and that magic ice cream kept the sky sweet: candies, sprinkles, and colorful sugar beads rained from the sky.

But three days ago, they had had a fight.

Granita — who was made of crushed ice, all bubbly and sparkly, with a voice bright like a bell — wanted the fountain to make fruit ice cream. "Fresh! Light! Colorful!" she said.

Pralinè — who was made of soft cream, all smooth and silky, with a voice sweet like honey — wanted chocolate ice cream. "Rich! Deep! Cozy!" she said.

They argued, they got mad, and in the end they had built a wafer wall right in the middle of the fountain. Each one stayed on her side. Neither one spoke to the other anymore. And without the ice cream they made together, the fountain stopped, the sky got angry, and it started to cry salty tears.

"And today was supposed to be the Feast of Flavor!" said Flake, with shining eyes. "The most beautiful day of the year! And instead..."

He looked around, heartbroken, and his stomach made such a loud rumble it sounded like thunder.

"I'll take care of it!" said Dash, and off he ran.

Dash was super fast. In a flash he got to Granita's side. He found her behind the wafer wall, all upset, throwing ice balls against the wall.

"Granita! You have to make peace with Pralinè!"

"NEVER!" yelled Granita, and an ice ball bounced off the wall and landed right on Dash's head. "She doesn't understand anything! Fruit ice cream is the BEST!"

Dash shook the ice out of his hair and ran to the other side. Pralinè was spreading chocolate cream on the wall to make it thicker.

"Pralinè! Come on, talk to her!"

"I have nothing to say to her," answered Pralinè calmly, adding another layer of cream. "Chocolate ice cream is superior. Period."

Dash walked back to his friends with slow steps. For the first time, running hadn't helped at all.

"They don't want to listen," he said, sitting down on a cookie step. "Neither one of them."

Lily crossed her arms and thought hard. "The problem is that wall. What if we take it down?"

"I'd eat it!" said Ziggy, who had already come close and sniffed the wafer.

"Yes, but..." said Skye, with her calm, thoughtful voice. "If we take down the wall and they fight again? It would be worse than before."

Silence.

Flake took off his nose and used it to scratch his snowy head, thoughtfully.

Then Dash looked up. "What if... we don't take it all down? What if we just make a hole? A small hole. So they can see each other."

"A hole?" said Lily.

"Yes! We don't destroy the wall, we don't force them to be together. But at least they look at each other. They see each other again."

Flake stopped scratching and his eyes went wide. He looked at his carrot-nose. He looked at the wafer wall. And a huge smile spread across his face.

"My nose is PERFECT for making a hole in the wafer!"

He waddled over to the wall on his round belly, took aim, and — — poked his carrot-nose straight into the wafer.

A round, round, perfect hole, as big as an orange, appeared in the wall.

On the other side, two surprised eyes looked through the hole.

They were Pralinè's eyes.

And on this side, two other surprised eyes looked in.

They were Granita's eyes.

For a moment, neither said a word.

Then Granita saw that Pralinè had a blob of chocolate cream on her forehead, and burst out laughing. "AHAHAH! You have chocolate all over you!"

Pralinè saw that Granita had an ice cube stuck in her ear, and she laughed too. "And you have ice in your ears!"

They laughed together. For the first time in three days, they laughed.

"I missed you," said Pralinè softly.

"Me too," said Granita, even softer.

Skye came close to the hole and said, with her kind voice: "Do you know what would be nice? If you made an ice cream together. Not fruit. Not chocolate. A new one. All yours."

The twins looked at each other through the hole. Granita tilted her head. Pralinè bit her lip.

"A... new ice cream?" said Granita.

"Together?" said Pralinè.

The wafer wall, now with the hole in the middle, didn't seem so important anymore. The twins climbed over it — Granita jumped, Pralinè stepped gracefully — and found themselves in front of the empty Great Fountain.

"I'll put in the fruit," said Granita, and poured in a waterfall of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and pieces of peach.

"I'll put in the chocolate," said Pralinè, and poured in a thick, dark cream that smelled of cocoa and vanilla.

The fountain shook. It bubbled. It gurgled. And then — — a very tall spray of ice cream rose up to the sky. It was an ice cream never seen before: stracciatella with fruit, with streaks of dark chocolate woven through pieces of strawberry and raspberry, all in a color that went from pink to golden brown.

"IT'S BEAUTIFUL!" shouted Flake, and he pulled out his little ice spoon — the one that never melts — to take the very first taste.

He put it in his mouth. His coal eyes got as big as saucers. And then he started to dance.

A funny, round dance, with his belly swinging and his little twig arms spinning like the blades of a mill. He danced and laughed and danced some more, and each step made a little TUMP TUMP TUMP on the chocolate street.

At that moment, the sky of Candyland changed.

The gray clouds opened. The salt stopped falling. And in the dark evening sky, the stars appeared. But not just any stars.

Shooting stars.

Dozens, hundreds of shooting stars crossed the sky leaving golden trails. And each star, as it passed over Candyland, dropped a thin rain of golden sugar that settled on everything, sweet and shimmering, covering the salt and giving the candies back their flavor.

The licorice streamers stood up straight. The bubblegum balloons puffed up and flew into the starry sky. The cakes got their smell back. The cotton candy lampposts shone pink and blue.

The Feast of Flavor could begin.

From every corner of Candyland came the townsfolk: little candies with short legs, cookies that hopped, chocolates that rolled happily. The music started again — a melody played by a little breadstick orchestra — and everyone began to dance.

Granita and Pralinè danced together near the fountain, laughing and splashing each other with ice cream. The wafer wall? Ziggy was eating it, piece after piece, with a satisfied smile.

Flake ate everything he could find: candies, ice cream, pieces of cake, handfuls of golden sugar. His snowy cheeks were smeared with chocolate and his carrot-nose was crooked, but he didn't care. It was the most beautiful day of his life.

Dash watched the party and smiled. Lily put a hand on his shoulder.

"We did it," said Lily.

"Yes," said Dash. "But not alone. The hole idea was a little bit from all of us."

"You thought of the hole," said Skye.

"You said not to take down the wall," said Lily.

"I just wanted to eat it," said Ziggy with his mouth full of wafer.

And they all laughed together, under the shooting stars of Candyland, with their pockets full of golden candies and the smell of an ice cream that had never existed before — and that only existed because someone had had the courage to mix things together instead of keeping them apart.

Toby the Magic Train whistled softly and came close, rocking gently, and with his little voice said:

"A hole in the wall made magic today,
and a new ice cream chased sadness away!
Remember, dear children, wherever you go:
the sweetest things grow when together we grow!"

It was time to go home.

The children climbed on the magic train, waved goodbye to Flake — who was already eating his third slice of cake — and to Granita and Pralinè, who blew kisses of cream and ice crystals.

The trip back was silent and warm. The shooting stars followed Toby in the sky, like a bright escort.

When they got home, it was almost dinner time. The kitchen was just as they had left it: the chairs pushed around from the silly-face contest, the table a little crooked.

Dash sat down and smiled.

"You know what I understood?" he said.

"What?" asked Skye.

"That the best things are made together. Like that ice cream. Strawberry and chocolate alone were good. But together they were... something never seen before."

Ziggy nodded. Then he pulled a golden candy out of his pocket.

"I got one for each of us."

He gave one to Dash, one to Lily, one to Skye, and kept the last one for himself.

They unwrapped them together.

They tasted like strawberry and chocolate.

And like something more that nobody could explain, but that tasted like things made together.