Perusina, Perusino, and Franz in Tarapoto

Franz smelled trouble before anyone else saw it.

He stood in the middle of Tarapoto's market, amidst banana trees, pineapple mountains, bundles of herbs, and a stall full of cocoa pods. His nose twitched. Once. Twice. Then he opened his eyes wide.

"Chocolate!" cried Perusino.

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

Then a woman behind the cocoa stall screamed. "The box! My cocoa box 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. There, children 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-blue. With a red fabric ribbon on the mirror."

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

"There!" cried Perusino.

Perusino ran off, jumped into the back seat and shouted: "Follow that!"

The driver turned around in alarm. "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. Small brown fragments lay between the dust, fruit peels, and tire tracks.

"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 check if they were soft," he said, pulling a fruit from his sleeve.

The trail led to a crossroads. Three yellow-blue mototaxis stood there. All had red ribbons on their mirrors.

Perusina knelt down. "Franz?"

Franz sniffed the first one. "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 immediately wanted to tear it open, but Perusina held his hand firmly.

"Slow down."

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 murmured.

The tire symbol led them to a narrow street full of mototaxis. The palm symbol matched 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 faintly of cocoa.

"There it is," Franz whispered.

Between spare tires and toolboxes stood the real wooden box. Beside it squatted a boy with a smeared face, 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 lay 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 away. The wrong box was on its loading area.

"That one!" cried the boy.

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

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

"Intentional!" 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, surprised.

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

Franz licked his nose. "And sometimes run."