The Secrets of Ice Cream Success Read Online Free

picture of his mother on
the shelf behind the desk and next to that another photo of Carlo
sat on his father’s shoulders laughing. Everything about this place
reminded him of his parents. But he couldn’t understand why this
wasn’t a comfort to him. He just knew that he hated everything
about the factory.
     
    ‘ It killed
them!’ he had said to his friends not long after his father’s will
had been read.
    ‘ No it didn’t,
Carlo.’ Newton reasoned, ‘Your Dad was killed in an accident and
your mother was ill. It wasn’t the factory. ‘
    Carlo just shook his head in
disagreement. How could he possibly tell them? How could he ever
explain that his parent’s deaths were so intrinsically linked with
the factory? He would never be able to tell anyone the secret
ingredient of Leodoni’s vanilla ice cream and therefore he could
never tell anyone what had started the argument that culminated in
his father’s death. His own sense of guilt made his head feel like
bursting whenever he thought about it.
    ‘ It was the
factory.’ he repeated.
    ‘ Well, what
are you going to do with it?’ Abi asked.
    ‘ Uncle Randy
can have it. I don’t want it.’
     
    ‘ Your father
left the company to you.’ Randy said a few days later when Carlo
had repeated his thoughts. ‘It was as much a surprise to me as it
was to you, but we’ve had to deal with your father’s wishes as best
we can with all the legal entanglements that involved.’
    ‘ I know, Uncle
Randy. And I appreciate it, but I just don’t want the factory. It’s
difficult to explain.’
    Mr Fox stared at the young man
intently. Although “Uncle Randy” had been a huge part of Carlo’s
young life for as long as he could remember, the two years since Mr
Leodoni had passed away had brought them much closer together and
Carlo had been glad his guardian didn’t push the matter of his
rejection of the factory too much.
    ‘ Your Uncle
Luca rang again this morning.’ Randy had told him. ‘He and Franco
are keen for you to join them now the school holidays are starting.
They wish you would reconsider moving to Italy with them. They’re
your family, they would look after you.’
    ‘ I don’t know
that side of the family. I’ve never even been to Italy. I want to
stay with my friends.’ Carlo stated bluntly.
    Randy had given Carlo a very
warm smile, saying, ‘When I took you in I said you could stay as
long as you want and I meant it.’
     
    Carlo left his seat in his
father’s office and moved around the desk to look at the document
Randy had left. It was very long and contained many words that he
had never even heard of. He tried his best to skim through it but
got lost in a whirl of legal jargon and long sentences. Eventually
he dropped into his father’s chair in disgust. A few minutes later
Randy walked back in to the office with two cans of lemonade and
put them on the desk.
    ‘ That bad?’ he
asked looking at the rather forlorn expression on Carlo’s
face.
    ‘ I don’t
understand a word of it!’ Carlo replied. ‘It’s a different
language. You’d have to be a genius to understand it. It’s probably
how Newton writes all his letters to his pen pal; “Dear fellow
genius from Canada. E=MC 2 and stuff like that. Rah rah
rah. The melting point of rabbits is five million pencils. I had
beans for tea. Yours in Scientific Discovery. Newton.” Carlo
mimicked before banging his head down on the table.
    Randy laughed and pulled the
document towards him. ‘It’s not that bad. It just says that you
want to relinquish control of the factory and hand it over to me.
In return a percentage of the profits will be placed into a trust
every year until you are twenty one when you will be able access
the trust but all other ties with the company will be cut. It’s
what we talked about; basically I’m buying the factory from you and
paying for it over a period of four or five years.’
    ‘ Well why
doesn’t it just say that then?’ Carlo mumbled from