Perusina, Perusino, and Franz in Tarapoto

Franz smelled trouble before anyone else saw it.

He stood in the middle of Tarapoto's market, among banana trees, pineapple mountains, herb bundles, and a stall full of cocoa pods. His nose twitched. Once. Twice. Then his eyes widened.

"Chocolate!" Perusino exclaimed.

"No," said Franz. "Not chocolate yet. Cocoa. Fresh. Roasted. And... wrong."

Then a woman behind the cocoa stall shrieked. "The box! My box of cocoa is gone!"

Next to the stall lay only a piece of string. The wooden box was supposed to go to the small chocolate workshop on the other side of town. Children there wanted to see how bitter beans turn into chocolate.

"Who had the box last?" Perusina asked.

The woman pointed to the street. "A mototaxi was supposed to deliver it. Yellow and blue. With a red fabric ribbon on the mirror."

Just then, a yellow and blue mototaxi rattled by. A red ribbon fluttered on its mirror.

"There!" Perusino cried.

Perusino ran off, jumped into the back seat, and shouted, "After them!"

The driver turned around in surprise. "Where to?"

Perusino blinked. "Uh. Good question."

Perusina grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him out again. "Wrong mototaxi."

Meanwhile, Franz had his nose to the ground. Between dust, fruit peels, and tire tracks lay small brown splinters.

"Cocoa shells," he said. "The trail goes this way."

They ran across the market, past a woman with bundles of herbs, under palm trees, between honking mototaxis. One turned sharply, and Perusino almost landed in a basket full of passion fruit.

"I just wanted to test if they were soft," he said, pulling a fruit from his sleeve.

The trail led to an intersection. Three yellow and blue mototaxis stood there. All had red ribbons on their mirrors.

Perusina knelt down. "Franz?"

Franz sniffed the first. "Gasoline." The second: "Banana." He stopped at the third. "Cocoa. But not roasted. Fresh."

"Then something was swapped," Perusina said.

A wooden box stood on the back seat. Perusino wanted to tear it open immediately, but Perusina held his hand firmly.

"Slowly."

The box contained no cocoa beans. Only empty, painted cocoa shells. A small symbol was carved into each shell: a tire, a palm, a drop, a gear.

"That's a set of directions," Perusina said.

"Or someone was very bored eating cocoa," Perusino mumbled.

The sign with the tire led them to a narrow street full of mototaxis. The palm sign fit a corner with two tall palm trees. The drop led to a puddle in front of a wash station. And the gear hung as a rusty sign over a small mototaxi workshop.

Inside, it smelled of oil, hot metal, and a faint hint of cocoa.

"There it is," Franz whispered.

Between spare tires and toolboxes stood the real wooden box. Next to it, a boy with a smeared face crouched, holding a cocoa pod in his hand.

"I didn't steal it!" he blurted out. "I wanted to save it."

The boy pointed to a second box. Inside were damp cocoa beans that already smelled sour. "Someone wanted to swap the bad beans. Then everyone would have thought cocoa was disgusting."

Outside, a mototaxi suddenly rattled off. The wrong box was on its loading area.

"That one!" the boy cried.

Perusina sprinted off. Perusino followed. Franz darted under a table, emerged with a wrench in his neckerchief, and shouted, "I'm prepared!"

The mototaxi didn't get far. A mango rolled onto the street. The driver braked. Perusino slipped on the mango, slid across the dust, and landed right in front of the front wheel.

"On purpose!" he gasped.

Perusina grabbed the wrong box. Franz jumped onto the seat and barked so indignantly that the driver raised his hands.

Later in the chocolate workshop, the real cocoa beans cracked in a bowl. They smelled bitter, warm, and dark.

"So chocolate doesn't start sweet at all," Perusino said in surprise.

"No," said Perusina. "First you have to look closely, smell, roast, and wait."

Franz licked his nose. "And sometimes run."