The Secrets of Ice Cream Success

A. D.
Hartley

“
The Secrets
of Ice Cream Success”

(Original
short story featured here as the Prologue)

© A. D.
Hartley, 2006

“The Secrets
of Ice Cream Success”

© A. D.
Hartley, 2014

This edition
of “The Secrets of Ice Cream Success” was published at Smashwords,
2014

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Prologue

Leodoni’s Ice Cream
Factory

The Last
Leodoni

Luigi Leodoni’s
Diary

The Squat
Dictator

A Good Reason to
Cancel Social Engagements?

Cockroach
Ripple

The Last
Leodoni?

Carlo Takes
Control

Luigi Leaves the
Factory

The
Evidence

Gardener’s Gunge
Tank

Herbert’s
Revenge

The Secrets of Ice
Cream Failure

What I Did During My
Summer Holidays

…
Carlo coughed
violently and dropped the ice cream cone he was filling as his
heart skipped a beat, leaving a flow of Leodoni’s Vanilla Ice Cream
to pour leisurely onto the floor as he scrabbled to pick up the
cone and switch off the ice cream machine at the same
time.

‘
Oh, damn…
damn, sorry. I’ll get you a new one.’

As he stood up and reached
across to get the customer a fresh cone, he noticed that the vision
of young loveliness he had been watching; the vision that had only
moments earlier made a complete fool of him; had got into the car
with her boyfriend and vanished, leaving one rather exasperated
customer and quite a large mountain of his father’s best ice cream
melting happily on the floor of the van.

‘
Bloody hell,
Carlo! What are you doing?’ his father asked, turning in the
driver’s seat, where he had been lightly snoozing, to see the mess
on the floor.

‘
Sorry Dad, I
wasn’t concentrating. I’ll clean it up.’

‘
No, no. You
just serve the gentleman, I’ll get that.’

After the customer had departed
and the spillage cleared, Luigi Leodoni climbed back into the
driver’s seat, undid the latch that locked it and swivelled around
to swing his legs onto the dashboard.

‘
So what were
you thinking about?’ he asked his son, closing his eyes and
settling back in the seat.

Carlo finished wiping down the
counter and hopped up onto it. ‘What, when?’ he said, stifling a
yawn.

‘
When you
decided to waste some of my best merchandise.’

‘
Oh, right.
Nothing really.’ he said, glad his father hadn’t noticed him become
so flustered because of a girl.

‘
Well, next
time you get distracted by nothing, do me a favour and switch the
machine off first.’

Carlo grunted and pulled his
legs around to stick them out of the serving hatch. It wasn’t even
eleven o’clock yet. He was extremely bored and it was starting to
get very hot. He looked out over the moors stretched before them,
the odd walker scattered here and there on the paths that ambled
their way through the bracken and heather. ‘Why couldn’t we go to
the beach? All the other vans went to the beach. It would be cooler
there.’

‘
Because,’
Luigi replied in the tone of a frustrated teacher talking to an
intelligent but wilfully awkward child, ‘that’s where all of the
other vans have gone.’ He nodded as if his point could not be more
final.

‘
That’s what I
said!’ Carlo laughed.

‘
Exactly!
Look, if all the other vans from town have gone to the beach as
well they’re all going to be competing for the same customers,
whereas here…’ he waved his hands to take in the entire vista of
the moors, ‘we have the customers to ourselves.’ Luigi grinned at
his own shrewdness and gave a quick burst of “You Are My Sunshine”
from the speaker on top of the van to emphasise his point. Carlo
just looked around at the entirely customer free
landscape.

‘
Besides,’ he
continued, settling himself down in his seat, ‘Neil sent John and
the other vans to the beach today. I’m not stupid. We’ve got the
coast covered from Redcar to Whitby.’

‘
I should have
hopped on Uncle Randy’s van when I had the chance.’ Carlo muttered
quietly enough so his father wouldn’t hear him.

After a few minutes he heard
slightly deeper breathing from his father signifying that another
nap had commenced. Carlo pushed himself out of the serving hatch
and landed with a soft thud on the gravel of the car park. He began
to wander around aimlessly; occasionally kicking at pebbles and
watching the dust swirl up around his feet merely for something to
do. This was the fourth day of Carlo’s summer holidays and he was
probably the only twelve-year-old already wishing for the
monotonous familiarity of school. Even double history lessons with
Mr Short-Bottomley, the Terror of First Period Fridays; an ancient
man widely regarded as having solely prevented the invasion of the
Nazi army through bellowing alone, would be better than this.

To make matters worse he knew
that right now every one of his friends would be enjoying
themselves more than him. Newton was in Egypt with his parents, who
considered it more of a cultural education than a holiday, and had
spent the previous 2 months reading every book on Egyptology he
could find. Norton had been disappointed to discover through
Newton’s research that the Egyptian Pharaohs did not, in fact, have
a crack squad of Ninja Jedi Mummies at their disposal, though even
Newton had to agree that just because they weren’t mentioned in the
books did not mean they didn’t exist. But Norton’s already slight
interest in all things pyramid shaped disappeared and he declared
Egypt a “boring” country full of dust and bones that didn’t even
show his favourite show “TechnoThunderBots” on TV. Carlo had left
the room to avoid the onrushing argument just as Newton had started
to wave the books around incredulously under Norton’s nose.

Norton himself was in France
visiting his grandmother. Carlo had already received a text
complaint decreeing France to be “pants”, the issue stemming from
not being able to plug in his games console as France’s power
sockets were “weird and wrong”. That Norton’s father had resolved
the problem within the hour by buying an adapter hadn’t seemed to
calm his ire. Carlo hadn’t replied to the text. He never did. His
father had bought him a mobile so they could stay in touch, but he
barely used it as he was always with the only people he was ever
likely to contact.

‘
You always
know where I am, Dad. It’s not as if I go anywhere other than Abi
and Ben’s, Newton’s or Norton’s house.’ he had said.

‘
Humour me.’
Luigi had replied.

Carlo wished he was at Abi and
Ben’s house instead of in the van. Even though they hadn’t
travelled anywhere for the summer holidays, he knew that they would
most likely be splashing in the fields behind their home; perhaps
fixing the tree house, playing in the stream or generally getting
muddy enough for their parents to raise comment.

‘
Customer,
Dad.’ Carlo sighed wearily, seeing a man and young boy emerge from
a newly arrived car. ‘Dad! Customer!’ he said again more loudly as
he clambered back into the van through the passenger
door.

‘
I’m up, I’m
up.’ Luigi answered, stifling a yawn. Standing, he gently pushed
his son out of the way as the man and boy reached the van. ‘Good
morning. What can I get you?’

‘
Erm… two 99’s
please and… Harry, what did you want kiddo?

‘
A twister.
God! I just told ya’ Dad!’

‘
Ah, of
course, and a Twister please.’

‘
No problem.’
Luigi said, his hands moving with the speed and grace of someone
who had been filling ice cream cones for over thirty years. ‘Pass
me a Twister please Carlo, thank you. Right, that’ll be £2.50
please.’ He said handing over the ice creams. ‘Thank you very much.
And remember, there’s a reason Leodoni’s is the creamiest!’ he
finished primly.

As the customers returned to
their car, Mr Leodoni resumed his place at the driver’s seat whilst
Carlo hopped back up onto the counter, trying not to grimace too
much at the awful catchphrase his father used at the end of every
sale.

‘
Why Ice Cream
Dad? You could have done anything, why this?’

‘
Your
Grandfather made Ice Cream, Carlo. You know that.’ his father
answered without opening his eyes.

‘
Yeah, but you
left Italy to get away from him. You called him a tyrannical maniac
with an iced confection obsession.
YOU…
said that he would have given
Mussolini a run for his money!’

‘
But that’s no
reason not to take up the family business.’

Carlo threw his dad a disgusted
look as another car pulled up in the lay-by. Carlo knew that his
father had set his heart on him joining Leodoni’s after leaving
school. He wasn’t exactly thrilled by the notion; being twelve any
thought of work seemed an awfully distant event, he certainly
didn’t want to upset his family, it was just… ‘Let me just survive
the summer first.’ he mumbled under his breath, letting his
thoughts drift away.

‘
Hmm, what was
that?’ Luigi asked

Carlo looked
around and noticed a pretty young girl about his own age leave a
group of walkers and set off towards the van. ‘I said,
customer
, Dad.’ he
improvised as the familiar sense of dread that arose every time he
was faced with talking to a girl began to surface. Luigi stretched
out and theatrically pulled his cap further down to cover his
face.

‘
You get it,
son. I’m going to have a little kip. Ooh what a tyrant I am, ‘must
get it from my Dad!’ he said, smirking to himself.

‘
Dad!’ Carlo
whispered as loud as he could, ‘Dad!’ But it was too late; the girl
was already at the counter. Having humiliated himself in front of a
member of the opposite sex once already that morning, he had no
intention of doing it again. “
Relax,
Carlo
.” he thought before turning around
with a rather queasy grin fixed in place to find a face staring
back at him that had not so much been dusted with freckles as
dipped in the freckle pot.

‘
Err, excuse
me. Can I have two cones please, one with a lemon-top?’ she said
whilst fiddling in her pocket to find some money.

Carlo nodded and started to
fill two cones from the ice cream maker whilst trying not to look
directly at the girl. ‘Th… That’s £2.10 please.’ he stuttered,
passing over the ice creams.

Handing over
the money, the girl looked up and smiled sweetly at him. She smiled
at him.
AT HIM!
He had to take the chance; he had to talk to her. For once in
his life he must take a risk. “The Motto” he thought. It may be
stupid, but it always worked for his Dad. “
Do it, Carlo. Do it…
”

‘
There’s a
reason I’m creamy, you know.’ he garbled, regretting it almost as
soon as the first word had left his mouth. The girl gave Carlo a
puzzled glance and turned hurriedly back towards the car, looking
dubiously at the ice creams.