The Secrets of Ice Cream Success (21 page)

‘…
and now he’s
not here.’ Ben added with a smile, as Herbert scanned the area and
realised Norton had disappeared.

‘
Look, I
wasn’t really gonna thump him. He was just in my way, is all.’
Herbert said, reaching behind and trying to find the car door
handle.

Having known Ben since the age
of four Carlo recognised some of the signs on show and groaned,
realising that Ben may take things a step too far. Not an
aggressive lad by nature, Ben’s protective attitude to his friends
and family had led him to many similar situations down the years
and while the usual refrain of “Well, he started it” may often have
been true, it carried less weight now the boys were older with Ben
expected to restrain his urge to jump to the defence of those he
cared about by bouncing the aggressors head off the pavement.

It had been some time since
Ben’s last brush with combat when he had jumped in to stop a number
of older students who were teasing Carlo not long after Mr Leodoni
had passed away. The heated dressing down Mr and Mrs Teesdale had
received from Ben’s Head teacher, Mr Gorman, who had been fully
prepared to bring the police into the matter, had been passed down
the line to Ben who was left in no uncertain terms that he was on
his last warning and had taken it to heart enough to let his
reputation do the talking for him during a confrontation rather
than his fists.

Unwilling to let his friend
undo all that good work and walk into more trouble on his account,
Carlo stuffed the recently retrieved folder into Norton’s hands and
crept onto the pavement to make it look like he was merely
wandering down this street and happened upon this strange
scene.

‘
Ben!’ Carlo
called. ‘Hello, mate. Fancy meeting you here.’ he said having
jumped up from behind a car farther down the street.

Herbert span around looking
thoroughly confused by the continuous appearance and disappearance
of these insufferable people outside his house during lunch. ‘Bah!’
he exclaimed in frustration, throwing his hands in the air, ‘What
are you doing here?! I’m getting sick of this!’

‘
Now, now,
Herbert. Play nicely.’ Ben said, just as Herbert took as step
towards the advancing Carlo.

‘
Why are you
Leodoni fools bothering me? Just leave me alone!’

Carlo, who was fully intending
to extract his friend from the coming fight and leave, suddenly
felt irritated by Herbert’s claims that he was the victim. ‘Hey,
you’re the one that was in “MY” factory earlier staring at me and
acting all big behind Hill! You’re the one who throws threats my
way whenever you see me!’

‘
Well you lot
at Leodoni’s are idiots, that’s why! Mr Hill’s the best man in
town. The Leodoni’s have always been fools!’

‘
Now, hang on
a second!’ Ben said, stepping forward, making Herbert slide up
against the black car. ‘What sort of thing is that to say? How
would you know anything about the Leodonis? You’re 17! Admittedly
you’ve obviously eaten a lot of ice cream in your time, but that
doesn’t make you an expert on their family history!’

‘
Mr Hill and
my Uncle have told me all I need to know!’ Herbert shouted back.
‘Nothing but a bunch of losers! And I would never eat a Leodoni’s
Ice Cream…unless I wanted to be sick!’ he added, sounding pleased
with the insult.

Unexpectedly an irate moon
popped up from behind the car and launched itself towards the
argument. ‘How dare you say that about our Ice Cream!’ Norton
shouted, ‘How dare you!’

Ben and Carlo looked at each
other in genuine surprise. Whilst their friend often talked big, if
there was the slightest suggestion of personal danger he normally
steered away from confrontation at all costs in favour of cowering
behind something, yet it seemed Herbert had crossed a line. You
could clearly say what you wanted about Norton, but woe betides the
man who slandered Norton’s Ice Cream!

Herbert was clearly dumfounded
as this irate apparition appeared before him having only
disappeared moments before. Carlo bounded across to intercept his
friend who, despite Ben’s presence, was in danger of saying
something that would get him punched, while Ben was trying not to
laugh at his friend’s indignation.

‘
You lot are
nutters, y’know! No wonder you went out of business. Who would buy
stuff made by mentalists!’ Herbert said, fumbling for the door
handle of the car.’

‘
Yeah? YEAH?’
Norton screamed trying to break free of Carlo’s grasp. ‘Well I bet
we sell more ice cream than you!’

‘
I bet you
don’t!’

‘
I bet we
do!’

Carlo pulled Norton away in an
effort to halt what had descended into a fairly pointless shouting
match when suddenly an idea occurred to Norton which, as always,
was voiced as soon as it was formed without any prior vetting.

‘
The town
fair!’ Norton shouted, struggling out of Carlo’s arms. ‘The town
fair! I bet we sell more ice cream than Hill’s at the town
fair!’

This suggestion stumped
everyone until Ben started nodding in agreement. ‘Yeah.’ he said,
putting his arm around Norton’s shoulders. ‘I bet we do!’

‘
Woah, hang on
a second lads.’ Carlo said, stepping in front of his friends.
‘Think about it. We haven’t even launched. What are you
doing?’

‘
Haha! Scared,
Leodoni?’ Herbert smirked.

‘
No we’re not
bloody scared! You’ll see!’ Norton started again, heading back
towards Herbert, with Ben behind pulling his t-shirt to slow his
progress.

‘
What’s the
bet, then?’ Herbert asked.

‘
The loser
gets dunked!’ Ben shouted abruptly, remembering the previous
night’s newspaper where a dunking machine had been mentioned as one
of the attractions at the fair. ‘Whoever loses sits on the machine
while the other company gets a turn each to throw a ball and try to
dunk him!’

‘
Done!’ said
Herbert, getting into the car. ‘Prepare to be dunked,
losers!’

‘
Yeah, well,
prepare to…’ but Herbert slammed the door, started the engine and
sped off before Norton could think of something he should prepare
for. ‘Gah! You stupid… Herbert!’ he finished lamely.

The three boys turned to leave
but stopped sharply as they noticed someone stood at the front door
of Herbert’s house looking thoroughly confused. ‘Hi, Mrs
Fitzherbert.’ the friends chorused together before speedily walking
towards their bikes.

‘
Eeeh, Norton
lad. I didn’t know you had it in you.’ Ben said, laughing as they
pushed their bikes away.

‘
Of cause you
did.’ Carlo added, ‘Every flavour and lots of it.’

Ben laughed even more as Norton
grumbled. ‘No one makes fun of good ice cream!’

‘
Are you
deranged, boy?!’ Mr Leodoni shouted, floating around Carlo’s room
in circles having just heard the full account from the boys. ‘What
if we lose?’

‘
Carlo gets
dunked.’ Ben replied, with a shrug. ‘Big deal.’

‘
Big deal? BIG
DEAL? This isn’t just about being dunked! Here we are attempting to
restart the bloomin’ company and you two cut a deal that could well
brand us as “The Losers” on the first bloody day! It’s a marketing
disaster!’

‘
Ah.’ Ben
said, as he saw Luigi’s point. ‘Yeah, there is that.’

‘
Dad. Can you
stop spinning please, you’re making me dizzy.’ Carlo said, throwing
bags of crisps to other four, one passing through his father’s
stomach as he orbited the room in agitation.

‘
It might not
be as bad as that, who’s really going to know?’ Newton asked,
opening his crisps. ‘I mean, is Herbert really going to tell Mr
Hill?’

‘
You think
this might all just be forgotten?’ Carlo asked, feeling
relieved.

‘
But what if
it’s not?’ Mr Leodoni added, floating down to hover next to Carlo
and looking mournfully at the crisps as Ben absentmindedly offered
him one.

‘
Then we go on
the offensive.’ Abi said, sitting up straight and looking at the
others. ‘We make a big deal about it. Tell people. Call the papers.
Make posters.’

‘
It will
generate more publicity for the launch.’ Luigi acknowledged. ‘But
again, what if we lose?’

‘
Simple.’
Carlo said, looking resolute. ‘We don’t lose!

The gang crunched on their
crisps thoughtfully and Carlo could tell that at least two of them
were thinking of ways to cheat.

‘
Fairly.’ he
added. Ben and Norton groaned.

‘
Hang on a
second.’ Ben said, sitting up. ‘What about the folder?’

‘
What folder?’
Norton asked, his mouth full of crisps.

‘
The folder we
followed Herbert to get, you muppet!’

‘
Oh, yeah.’
Norton said with a shrug.

Carlo fished the folder from
his bag having forgotten about it on the journey home, too involved
with talking about the coming town fair. He opened it up and
withdrew a sheet of paper looking at one side then flipping it over
before crumpling it up with an audible sigh.

‘
Empty,’ he
said.

‘
So Mr Hill
took the evidence out before we got it?’ Norton asked, retrieving
the paper Carlo had thrown on the floor in frustration and
inspecting it just in case.

‘
Nah, he can’t
have.’ Ben said. ‘We saw him get out of the car empty
handed.’

‘
So Herbert
took it?’ Norton asked.

‘
No one took
it, Norton. There was never any evidence.’ Carlo said,
despondently. ‘It was a hoax.’ He picked up a pillow and pulled it
over his face, shouting into it in frustration.

‘
Ah, and we
still don’t know who spiked the stock.’ Norton
exclaimed.

‘
I think
you’re missing the point that Carlo has just picked up on.’ Newton
said, leaning forward.

‘
What point?’
Norton asked, trying to keep up.

‘
Mr Hill
claimed he had evidence of a contamination that no one outside of
this room, Randy, Lucy and Lumsden knew about, but there was no
evidence.’

‘
And…?’ Norton
asked, no longer in the mood to make the leap himself.

‘
It proves
Hill was involved.’ Luigi supplied. ‘He’s trying to shut us down
before we’ve even opened!’

Having joked about Herbert
being the perpetrator behind the spiked ice cream since it was
discovered, finding Mr Hill was actually involved had somewhat
shaken Carlo. A disgruntled former employee or lone idiot who
didn’t like him was worrying, yet plausible. But finding that Mr
Hill was in some way connected with the tampered batch was a
personal attack that Carlo found hard to accept.

Randy had
taken the news of the “blank evidence” as a sign of some sort of
misunderstanding and had suggested he personally try to work it out
with Mr Hill, but Carlo had requested some time to think on it.
Whilst Randy may not truly believe that Hill’s were out to shut
down Leodoni’s forever, Carlo had no doubts that this was the case.
Having called Mr Hill’s bluff regarding the evidence all Carlo
could do was wait to see if Mr Hill really did say something to the
authorities or press, but with the knowledge that the proof as
brandished by Mr Hill was fake, Carlo’s main thoughts were
surrounding the wider implications. But the only plausible answer
he could come up with was that Hill’s
merely didn’t want the competition another large manufacturer
in the town would present, although his father never missed the
opportunity to suggest there was a more personal motive, though he
could never say what it was. But as Luigi liked to point out, no
matter what foolish games Mr Hill was playing regarding the fake
evidence, someone did still tamper with the goods!

In the meantime, the factory
had become a hive of activity as the town fair and Leodoni’s
re-launch approached with Lucy running a tight efficient factory
floor that had Carlo both impressed and immensely thankful for her
experienced control. The rest of the gang however were focussing
solely on the bet that Norton had made with Herbert, with Abi
especially taking it as a personal objective to make sure they
won.

‘
What was it
you called it, Carlo? Assessment?’

‘
Appraisal.’
Carlo corrected, as they all sat in Mr Leodoni’s old study, which
had now been re-named the War Room.

‘
That’s right,
appraisal.’ Abi said.

‘
I don’t get
it.’ said Norton.

‘
During one of
these appraisal thingies you’re supposed to tell your boss what you
want to do for the rest of the year.’ she continued, looking at
Carlo, who nodded.

‘
Well, not
exactly, but sort of.’ he acknowledged. ‘Randy said it was called
“setting work related goals.”

‘
Well, there
you go. My goal is to crush Herbert underfoot!’ Abi said with a nod
of finality. ‘I want it to be added in my contract.’

‘
No, I’m not
sure that sort of thing is supposed to be in there. It’s supposed
to be about your work performance. He called them stretching
targets.’ Carlo continued, trying to recall what Randy had told him
despite not truly understanding it himself.