The Secrets of Ice Cream Success (13 page)

‘
Not at all,
we’re going to need them!’ Randy replied. ‘There are three weeks
before you all return to school and the launch is in just two
weeks. There’s a lot to be done and despite the, err… mishaps, we
will need all the help we can get if we’re going to pull this
off.’

‘
And there’s
the town fair.’ Lucy added, absently flicking though her
notes.

‘
The
what?’

‘
The town
fair.’ she answered Carlo. ‘Didn’t you know about it?’

‘
Oh, heck! I
forgot about that.’ Randy said, looking shocked.

‘
What’s the
town fair?’

‘
It used to
take place every year. Didn’t your Dad ever take you?’ Randy asked.
Carlo shook his head. ‘Well I guess you were too young. There
hasn’t been one for quite a while.’

‘
The thing
is,’ Lucy continued, ‘it will be a major money earner, especially
if the weather is good. So we need to be there as ready as we
can.’

‘
OK,’ Carlo
sighed, ‘when is it?’

‘
29
^th
.’ Lucy answered.

‘
But that’s
the last weekend of the summer holidays!’

‘
Yes.’

‘
In three
weeks?’

‘
Yes.’

Carlo swore.

‘
Carlo! Mind
your language!’ Randy said.

The gang wandered down the high
street, Norton scuffing his feet in the dust whilst Ben absently
tried to stamp on his friend’s untied laces dragging behind him.
Abi and Newton seemed too tired to make much conversation and Carlo
himself just looked mournful as they ambled along in the sun.

Randy had insisted the gang
shouldn’t come into the factory on weekends throughout the summer,
but as the launch drew ever closer Carlo found himself thinking
more on the goings on at the factory than he did about enjoying
what was left of the holidays and today none of the group were in
the mood to enjoy the last of the holiday weather.

‘
I should
resign!’ Newton said for the fourth time, still rankled by his
mistake with the documents. ‘
I
don’t delete files accidentally. I just don’t! I
don’t know what I was thinking!’ he continued, mainly to himself
having realised that the others had given up listening some time
ago, all lost in their own misgivings.

‘
I’m hungry.’
Norton said, to no response. ‘I said, I’m
hungry
!’ he repeated.

‘
We had ice
cream half an hour ago.’ Ben said, incredulous.

‘
S’not my
fault; my Mam says I’ve got a high metal-ball-ism.’

‘
Metabolism.’
corrected Newton.

‘
Yeah, one of
those things. It makes me hungry.’

‘
I saw a
program once where there was this man in space who landed on a
weird planet and there was an alien and it laid an egg inside the
man and he ended up with a parasite inside him and he was hungry
all the time and had to keep eating!’ Ben exclaimed. ‘So metabolism
is like a parasite, yeah?’

‘
No.’ Newton
answered simply.

‘
Oh.’ said Ben
and Norton, both clearly disappointed.

‘
Would’ve
explained everything.’ Ben sniffed returning to trying to trip
Norton up by standing on his shoe laces. A few moments
passed…

‘
I’m hungry!’
Norton repeated to groans from the others.

‘
None of us
are your mother, Norton. If you’re hungry, eat something.’ Abi
answered.

‘
I haven’t got
any money. Ben can you lend me…’

‘
Don’t look at
me.’ Ben quickly answered.

‘
Nor me.’
Newton added.

‘
How much do
you want?’ Carlo asked sighed.

Feeding Norton was a group
activity during the holidays despite the common knowledge that he
received the most pocket money. But as Norton’s Mum kept them all
in sweets, which she stockpiled in huge amounts, they accepted the
occasional need to feed her son.

‘
Just enough
for a burger!’

‘
I don’t know
what you do with your money!’ Abi said, shaking her head as Carlo
handed over a five pound note.

‘
I do.’ said
Ben, mimicking eating a large burger as Norton skipped across the
road to a take-away shop.

‘
And bring me
the change!’ Carlo shouted after him.

The group meandered slowly on
through the town leisurely enough for Norton to catch them once he
had finished his food, but he seemed to appear much quicker than
expected, running after them with a half-eaten burger in one hand,
tomato sauce smudged over is mouth and the pained expression of
someone who had just swallowed too much food too quickly.

‘
Guys!’ he
wheezed, thumping his chest, trying to dislodge his un-chewed
burger. ‘Guys!’

‘
What?’ Ben
asked.

Norton held up is hand asking
for time and pointed to his throat. ‘Hang on…’ he mouthed

Ben rolled his eyes. ‘Take your
time.’

Norton bent over at the waist,
a fairly modest feat, and made some strange gargling coughing
noises forcing Abi to thump him unceremoniously on the back out of
pity, or possibly disgust, dislodging the blockage and allowing an
exhalation of breath that sounded suspiciously like a swear word.
Ben handed him the remainder of the lemonade he’d been carrying and
Norton took a grateful swig. ‘Thanks.’ he gasped, and then
remembering his hurry he continued apace. ‘Guys! Guys!’ he
said.

‘
You already
have our attention, Norton.’ Abi pointed out. ‘What is
it?’

‘
Oh, yeah,
right. Well, you know that man that Carlo told us that Randy had
told him that Lucy had said couldn’t work at the factory ‘coz he
already had a better job?’

Newton, Abi and Ben looked
blank, but Carlo nodded. ‘Neil, you mean?’

‘
Yeah, him.
Right, well… you’ll never guess who’s working at the
take-away!’

‘
Ooh, let me
guess… ’ Ben asked sarcastically.

‘
That can’t be
right.’ Carlo said, walking back towards the take-away. ‘Randy said
Neil had a good job at the car factory outside town.’

The gang headed back to the
shop and peaked through the window. Sure enough Neil was there
serving a customer.

‘
Perhaps he
didn’t want to come back to the factory?’ Ben said as they moved
away from the window.

‘
And work here
instead?’ Abi said. ‘I doubt it.’

‘
And why would
he tell Lucy he was working at the car factory if he was here all
the time?’ Newton asked.

Carlo looked despondent. ‘Well,
I don’t know why he said that, but I wish he had come back. We
could do with him.’ he added. ‘Do you think I should go and talk to
him?’

‘
I don’t know’
Abi mused,’ if he didn’t want to come back then he won’t want you
asking questions, Carlo. Why don’t you mention it to Randy? He’ll
know what to do.

‘
If I see
him.’ Carlo said. ‘He didn’t get back home till really late last
night and headed off before breakfast this morning.’

The following Monday morning
Carlo stepped off his bike at the factory expecting to see Randy’s
car parked in the yard as normal. He had been unusually absent from
home over the weekend and Carlo hadn’t had the opportunity to talk
to him, so when he had awoken to see the car gone already Carlo had
decided to head to the factory early assuming Randy would be there
and they could talk before everyone else arrived for work. However
as he unlocked the smaller entrance hatch within the main gate it
was obvious Carlo was the first one there.

Disappointed, he entered the
factory and made his way to the office he shared with Randy,
rushing the last few steps as he heard the phone start to ring. He
fumbled with the keys to unlock the door and made it to the desk in
time to say ‘Hel…’ when he heard the caller hang up at the other
end.

‘
Damn.’ he
said, replacing the receiver and looking around the office. There
was paper everywhere, unwashed coffee cups and the general feel
that the room had been well used over the weekend, which didn’t
bode well. He was just about to start tidying up the mess when the
phone rang again.

‘
Randy? Are
you there?’ a voice asked before Carlo even had a chance to say
hello.

‘
No it’s me,
Carlo.’ he replied recognising Lucy’s voice.

‘
Oh, right.’
she said, ‘I hoped it was Randy when I heard a voice as I hung up.
Where is he?’

‘
Don’t know.
I’m the first in.’ There was a pause at the other end and Carlo got
the feeling Lucy was anxious about something.

‘
Oh… right.
Well, I’ll be in later anyway, so I’ll talk to him then. OK, Bye,
Carlo.’

‘
Wait! Wait…
Hello?’ Carlo shouted, now concerned at Lucy’s tone.
‘Lucy?’

‘
Hi,
yes?’

‘
What’s wrong?
You sound like there’s a problem.’

‘
Nothing.
There’s nothing wrong, well… not really. Well, actually, err…OK,
perhaps you should talk to Randy about this. I’m sure he’ll be
there soon.’

‘
Talk to him
about what? What’s going on?’

‘
I can’t
really say, Carlo!’ Lucy continued, starting to sound more
stressed, but Carlo was beginning to lose patience.

‘
Can’t say?
Lucy, you’re the Operations Manager and this is my factory! Tell me
what is going on!’ he shouted.

There was a pause at the other
end as a clearly surprised Lucy gathered herself. ‘You don’t half
sound like your Dad when you do that.’ she replied, sounding both
taken aback and a little proud. ‘But you’re right. It’s your
factory and you should know. The issue is that Randy found a
suspicious ingredient in one of the batches. I don’t know how much
you know about what was going on here just before your Dad passed
away, but this is serious Carlo. Talk to Randy as soon as he comes
in. I’ll be there later.’

Lucy hung up without saying
goodbye, leaving Carlo holding the receiver as a feeling of unease
crept over him. After fetching a can of fizzy pop from the vending
machine, Carlo returned to the office and sat down waiting for
Randy. The idea of “suspicious ingredients” in the factory was not
a pleasant one given the history of the company and he now
understood why Randy had been absent for a few days as he would be
devastated to learn of another incident like this having been so
close to an official investigation around the time of Luigi’s
death.

Carlo knew
that whatever the truth behind this new situation, it was highly
unlikely there could be any link to his father and the secret he
revealed to Carlo that fateful day, yet he couldn’t help feel as if
the past was unravelling itself all across his ice cream factory.
Surely…
surely
there couldn’t be a link?

Randy appeared at the factory
twenty minutes later to find Carlo gazing out of the window, lost
in his own thoughts. He sat down across the table from him saying
nothing, before eventually clearing his throat. ‘Carlo, I have
something to tell you…’ he began solemnly.

‘
I’ve already
spoken to Lucy.’ Carlo interrupted, still gazing out of the window,
feeling more tired than he could ever remember.

‘
Ah.’ Randy
said, ‘I was hoping to be the one who told you. What did she
say?’

‘
Not much
really. Just you may have found something in the mix and I should
ask you. She didn’t really want to say that much. What’s going
on?’

‘
Well as you
know, every Friday we take batch samples and test them before
clearing that batch for shipping. It’s normally a formality, but on
this occasion we found something in the last batch of both the
Vanilla and Raspberry Ripple.’

‘
What did you
find?’ Carlo asked, not really sure he wanted to know the
answer.’

‘
Cockroaches
or, more precisely, bits of cockroaches.’

‘
Oh.’ Carlo
said, trying not to look too relieved it wasn’t something related
to his father. ‘So that batch is ruined then?’

‘
Yes…
entirely. We can’t possibly sell it for fear other insect limbs are
found. Sadly, Mr Lumsden had tried some of the Vanilla before we
found the first insect and promptly threw up on Lucy when it was
discovered. It was deeply regrettable.’ Carlo stifled a laugh as
Randy continued. ‘But now we have three issues to resolve. Firstly,
how did this happen?’

‘
Or… who did
it?’ Carlo added. ‘This factory is spotless. It can’t have been an
accident.’ Randy ignored the remark.

‘
Secondly, we
now don’t have enough stock to open as planned, so we will have to
completely revise the launch plan. And replacing that batch is
going to take some extra funds, which I’m afraid we don’t have
right now, further limiting our launch. And finally, and this is
potentially the biggest problem, I’ve double-checked the batch
tests from the week before and there’s a good chance procedural
errors were made during the tests.’

Carlo looked blank. ‘What?’ he
asked.

‘
I think one
of the new guys screwed up again and the previous week’s test
wasn’t completed properly so at least one batch may have been
shipped untested. There may not be anything wrong with it, but
considering what happened this weekend we can’t be sure. But
imagine what would happen if that batch is tainted too and was
sold? The public would never trust us again!’