The Sunday Delivery Service, page 6
Pem, who’d so far discarded most of the idea slips she’d read, suddenly yelped out in excitement. ‘Hang on, hang on! I think I might have found the best suggestion so far. What do you all think about jam roly-poly pudding? It used to be one of my favourite desserts as a child.’
‘What’s jam roly-poly?’ Bramwell asked.
‘Ooooh, it’s absolutely delicious!’ Pem replied, licking her lips. ‘A steamed suet pudding rolled up with jam and served with plenty of custard.’
‘And it’s something that’s unique to the British Isles,’ said Pandora enthusiastically. ‘Something that competitors from other countries would never come up with.’
‘That settles it!’ said Dotty with a nod. ‘We better get to work on the recipe. Who fancies coming down to the creamery to help me and Mam?’
‘ME!’ came a chorus of replies from the Shalloos and the Brocks.
‘Is that OK, Amos?’ Pem asked Grandy Brock. ‘We won’t be taking your children away from their duties at the menagerie?’
‘No, no, that’s fine,’ Grandy Brock replied with a wink. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to manage without them for once. Serafina can help me anyway.’
Excited at the prospect of spending the afternoon making ice cream, the children made to move, when something suddenly caught Pandora’s eye. ‘Hang on, I think we might have missed one of the suggestions,’ she said, fishing around in the bottom of the ballot box. Taking out the final paper slip, she began to read.
A sudden gasp slipped from between her lips.
‘What is it, Mum?’ Dotty asked. ‘Another good one?’
‘It’s . . . it’s nothing,’ backtracked Pandora, trying to hide the slip of paper. ‘Just a silly suggestion, that’s all.’
But the woman’s face was as white as a sheet, and her hands were trembling.
‘Come on, Mum, show us what it says,’ said Dotty. She snatched the slip from her mother’s grasp and began to read the handwritten note aloud to the rest of the group:
This is a warning.
Do not, under any circumstances,
enter the Golden Udder Awards.
Pull out of the competition immediately.
If you ignore this demand,
there will be serious consequences
for you and your family.
‘That’s . . . that’s horrible!’ said Orinthia, not quite believing what she’d just heard. ‘Who would write something like that? It’s not another one of your practical jokes, is it, Grandy Brock?’
‘What? No!’ he blurted out. And it was clear from the old man’s incredulous stare that he was telling the truth.
‘I bet it was grumpy Mr Parsons, the greengrocer,’ said Kipling, jumping to conclusions immediately. ‘He’s always moaning about things. And Orinthia, didn’t you say that he’d been complaining about the music coming from the Penny Lick the other day?’
Orinthia nodded. It was true of course, but surely not even Mr Parsons would go to such vengeful measures?
‘It’s obviously just a silly prank,’ said Pandora with a meek laugh, trying to brush off the children’s concerns. ‘A wind-up, that’s all.’ She looked to her wife as if to say, Isn’t that right?
‘Exactly,’ said Pem. ‘Nothing to worry about . . .’
But there was a nervous wobble in the Welsh woman’s voice and a look on her face that made it quite obvious that she didn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. Grandy Brock’s expression was identical, and Orinthia felt her skin tighten with prickles.
‘Mum, I’m scared,’ said Dotty, her usual upbeat demeanour now one of terror.
‘Me too,’ said Séafra. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to you all. Maybe you should pull out of the competition.’
‘Absolutely not!’ Pandora replied, snatching back the slip of paper and stuffing it into her apron pocket. ‘As I said, this is just a silly prank and we shan’t be bullied into anything!’ She clapped her hands together as if it were the end of the matter, but not before glancing once more in her wife’s direction. ‘Now, I want you all to go along to the creamery with Pem and work on the recipe for the new flavour like we said. And promise me that you won’t give this silly note another thought, OK?’
Dotty nodded reluctantly, and gave her mum a big squeeze. ‘OK.’
‘Good. Now off you go. I want you to come home with the best jam roly-poly ice cream you can make!’
The children headed off across the village green, but still shocked by what had just happened, Orinthia couldn’t help but take a final backwards glance at the Penny Lick. It was then that she realized that instead of following them, Pem had in fact hung back to talk to Pandora and Grandy Brock.
‘Come on, Rinthi, hurry up!’ shouted Suki from up ahead.
‘I’ll catch up with you!’ Orinthia called back, pretending to tie her shoelace in order to watch what was going on. ‘I won’t be long.’
The three grown-ups were deep in serious conversation, their faces forlorn and their postures rigid. They were obviously having one of those ‘private talks’ that adults liked to have when something wasn’t right. Orinthia watched intently as Pandora took the note from her pocket to examine it once more. Grandy Brock shook his head, putting a hand on her shoulder in comfort. Even though the three grownups had dismissed the note in front of the children, it was very obvious from their behaviour that they saw it as a real threat.
Even though it was still very much on Orinthia’s mind, by the time they’d reached Two Scoops Creamery the other children seemed to have forgotten about the horrible threat the Ambroses had just received. Dotty and Pem’s chatter had quickly turned to what ingredients would be needed to replicate the flavours of a jam roly-poly pudding, and seeing the smile back on her friend’s face, Orinthia thought it best not to tell Dotty about the secret conversation she’d just witnessed between her mums and Grandy Brock.
‘OK, here we are,’ said Pem, holding out her arms as she led them up to the creamery. It was nestled under an arch of the railway bridge, which she said once upon a time had been used for storing sleepers, ballast and track. A mint-green sign, the same colour as the Penny Lick, hung over the double doors in welcome, with the words ‘Two Scoops Creamery’ emblazoned across it in a loopy, pale-pink font. ‘You’re going to need to put these on before we go in,’ Pem continued, leading the children into a small entrance room before handing each of them a white hair net. ‘We take hygiene very seriously.’
‘Ha! You look like a bag of oranges, Kip!’ Peggy jeered as Kipling pulled his net over his marmalade-coloured mop.
‘Well you look like a trout that’s just been hauled out of the sea!’ the boy retorted, ‘but if I were a fisherman I’d throw you straight back overboard!’
‘You all look as silly as each other,’ Pem reassured, tucking her blonde curls into her own hair net. ‘But we can’t have any loose hairs getting into the ice cream.’
Beyond the entrance hall was another set of double doors. As Dotty pushed them open, the first thing that hit Orinthia was the incredible aromas coming from within. All the yummiest smells in the world seemed to waft towards her all at once, engulfing her like a blanket. She breathed in deeply, enjoying the moment – she detected toffee, cocoa, roasted nuts, vanilla, candied fruits, brown sugar, marshmallow and her favourite of them all – cinnamon.
‘Welcome to the Ideas Room!’ said Dotty with a smile. ‘This is where the magic happens!’
Once the doors were closed behind them, all the children could do was stand and stare. They were in a sprawling, cavernous space with brick walls and a low, curved roof. All around there were contraptions and machines, appliances and mechanisms, each one playing its part in the ice cream-making process. Pipes ran all over the ceilings and walls, dials whirred, lights blinked, levers spun and gears turned.
Orinthia looked around curiously, trying to take it all in. There were gadgets that peeled and chopped nuts, and gizmos that stirred and thickened cream. To her left she spotted a contraption cracking eggs by the dozen, and to her right a huge mangle was squeezing juice from strawberries and raspberries. Copper-bottomed saucepans were bubbling away on a large stove, the smell rising from them sweet and deep and honeyed. Caramel perhaps? Orinthia thought. Or golden syrup?
The most impressive sight of all was the ingredients shelves that spanned the entirety of the furthest wall. Orinthia’s gaze jumped between jars of chocolate chips and vanilla pods, sugar sprinkles and chunks of honeycomb. There were bottles of jewel-coloured syrups and tall phials of fruit cordials.
‘Dotty, Pem, this is amazing!’ she said, looking around in awe. ‘What a set-up you have.’
‘A girl from the village called Demelza Clock helped Mum and Mam design all of the machines,’ Dotty replied. ‘She’s a brilliant inventor – a real whizz with soldering irons and screwdrivers!’
‘Ha! Maybe I should hire this Demelza girl to invent some contraptions for the Mailbox Menagerie,’ said Suki. ‘A claw-clipping machine would definitely come in handy!’
‘Not to mention an automated pooper scooper!’ added Kipling.
Pem clapped her hands together before reaching for a large wooden spoon. ‘Right, let’s get started on this jam roly-poly recipe,’ she declared. ‘I’ve got some plain vanilla ice cream already churned, so why don’t you go and find the other ingredients? We’ll need flour, butter and suet for the pudding mix and there’s plenty of Mum’s home-made strawberry preserve in the pantry.’
Throughout the afternoon Pem tweaked and re-tweaked the recipe several times, appearing on the hour with new variations of the ice cream for the children to try. After their first round of licking and slurping, everyone agreed that the inaugural batch wasn’t quite sweet enough, and would definitely benefit from more ripples of the yummy strawberry jam.
The second batch was delicious but the children all thought that it could do with being creamier.
The third batch was very nearly there, just needing a few more chunks of the roly-poly sponge to add texture.
‘OK, this is definitely spot on!’ said Pem, bringing out the fourth batch as the afternoon drew to an end. It was the colour of a perfectly steamed suet pudding, topped with a glistening, jammy sauce. Without needing any more encouragement, eight spoons were eagerly plunged into the tub.
For a moment there was complete silence.
‘Well?’ asked Pem, clenching her fists with anticipation.
The Brocks and the Shalloos looked at each other, and without needing to confer, burst into rapturous applause.
‘It’s sooo yummy!’ exclaimed Dotty, patting her mother on the back.
‘Perfection!’ Séafra agreed.
Caspian didn’t even need to utter a word to express his appreciation – the toddler had plunged his face into the tub and was licking away with wanton abandon!
‘That’s settled then!’ said Pem, dabbing her brow with a handkerchief and looking very satisfied. ‘I’ll get the final recipe written down, ready to—’
Pem flinched mid-sentence, distracted by a sudden scritching, scratching, scrabbling sound coming from the other side of the Idea Room’s door. It was as if someone was trying to get in, and Orinthia could tell from Pem’s quickly widening eyes that her thoughts had immediately turned to the threatening note.
‘Hello?’ Pem called out. ‘Who’s there?’
The rattling continued.
‘Hello?’
No answer.
Brandishing her wooden spoon, Pem turned to the children. ‘Stay here,’ she whispered, her face ashen. ‘Don’t move.’
She edged towards the door with caution, and with a trembling hand prised it open just the tiniest bit.
She immediately recoiled with a yelp, shielding her face with her hands. A grey and red bird had swooped inside, flapping its wings ferociously and squawking at the top of its lungs.
It was Zuni!
‘Oh my goodness me!’ gasped Pem, ducking quickly as the parrot zoomed over her head. ‘I thought it might have been . . . well . . .’
She didn’t finish her sentence, but Orinthia knew what she had been thinking – that whoever had written the threatening note had been trying to break into the creamery.
No one else seemed to have noticed though, and they were too busy fussing over the parrot’s unexpected entrance.
‘Hey girl, what are you doing in here?’ said Dotty, holding out a welcome hand. Zuni swooped towards her, but no sooner had the parrot landed on the back of her palm, than she began to peck at Dotty’s fingers. ‘Ouch!’ Dotty yelped, pulling back her hand in pain as the bird let out a loud screech. ‘She bit me!
Ouuuuuch!’
‘Oh my goodness, Dotty! Are you OK?’ Suki exclaimed, quickly coming to the girl’s side and shooing the parrot away with a loud clap. ‘We must have startled Zuni and she got scared.’
Dotty looked down at her thumb, which was dripping with blood. ‘I’m . . . I’m fine,’ she said, shaking it out. ‘It’s only a scratch.’
‘It looks like more than a scratch to me!’ exclaimed Pem, running to her daughter’s aid. She took her handkerchief from her pocket and pulled it tightly around the wound. ‘Come on, we need to get this cleaned up and bandaged at once. And we’re going to need to get rid of all the ice cream we made this afternoon – that parrot might have contaminated it and we can’t take such a risk!’
She quickly led Dotty out of the Ideas Room, leaving the other children staring up at Zuni, agog. The grey parrot was now nestling up in the rafters of the curved roof, her head hung and her feathers ruffled.
‘Well it looks like Mrs Gastaldini needs to do a lot more training with her,’ said Kipling with a frown.
‘She just got spooked, that’s all,’ said Suki. ‘Probably flew in here and felt trapped.’ She reached for a chair to stand on. ‘Come on, let’s try and lure her down.’
‘I’ll leave that with you,’ said Kipling with a splutter. ‘I’d like to go home with all of my fingers intact, thank you very much!’
Back at Tupenny Mill, Grandy Brock and Mrs Gastaldini were in the kitchen preparing supper. There was already a huge bowl of spaghetti bolognese in the middle of the table, as well as a crisp green salad and a chunk of Parmesan cheese waiting to be grated.
‘Mrs Gastaldini, you’ll never guess what,’ said Suki, kicking off her shoes before retrieving Zuni from inside her satchel. (The parrot had been put in there for safekeeping once the children had finally managed to lure her down from the rafters, in the hope that it would calm her down.) ‘Zuni somehow followed us down to Two Scoops!’
Mrs Gastaldini looked up from the table with a gasp. ‘Oh Zuni! Uccellino mio! What have you being doing, hmm?’
The parrot flew across the room, coming to roost on the old woman’s lap. Mrs Gastaldini looked down at the bird scornfully. ‘Now don’t you ever go flying off again, do you hear me? That was very dangerous!’
‘You can say that again,’ said Kipling. ‘She got scared and bit Dotty. Pem had to bandage up her finger!’
The Italian woman stiffened suddenly, her brow darkening. ‘What? But that can’t be possible! Zuni would never do such a thing.’
‘I’m afraid it’s true, Mrs Gastaldini,’ said Bramwell. ‘But I’m sure it was just an accident. She was just spooked by being handled by someone new, I think. Nothing that a bit more training won’t sort out.’
‘Excuse me? Are you accusing me of doing a bad job with her, Bramwell?’
Bramwell, completely taken aback, began to splutter. ‘W-w-what? No, of course not. I—’
‘Well it sounded as though you were!’ Mrs Gastaldini harrumphed.
Orinthia’s nose crinkled with confusion. This was at least the third time that Mrs Gastaldini had been snappy with one of them recently. Orinthia was starting to wonder if it wasn’t just the stuff with her brother that was on her mind. Was there something else that was putting her in such a cross mood?
‘I think it was all just a bit of a misunderstanding, Serafina,’ said Grandy Brock, trying to mediate, but obviously just as perplexed as everyone else. ‘The sproglets think you’re doing a fantastic job with Zuni, isn’t that right everyone?’
The children nodded sheepishly, not daring to exacerbate the situation.
Mrs Gastaldini looked to the floor, and Grandy Brock reached out a comforting hand. ‘You see?’
‘Thank you, Amos,’ said Mrs Gastaldini, squeezing his arm affectionately and causing his cheeks to immediately flush. She paused for a moment. ‘I’m sorry everyone. I know I’ve been a little . . . iraconda . . . grumpy, over the past week. The truth is, my brother in Italy has been on at me to go back to Napoli for a while now, and’ – she paused, taking a deep breath – ‘I recently found out it’s because he’s not very well. I’ll be returning to Italy next week. I’ve wanted to tell you all, but I didn’t know how.’
The news came as a huge shock to everyone, including Grandy Brock. ‘Oh Serafina, I’m so sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Will your brother be OK?’
‘I do hope so, but he’s going to have to go to the ospedale . . . hospital . . . for a little while.’
‘Does he have chickenpox like Taber?’ Peggy asked.
‘No. It’s a little more serious than that. And that’s why I must go home. He needs me by his side. My famiglia need me.’
Grandy Brock nodded, but was obviously devastated. ‘And how long will you be gone for?’
‘The truth is, I don’t know, Amos.’
Orinthia didn’t know what to say. Poor Mrs Gastaldini. How awful it must have been for her keeping such horrible news to herself.
‘I love you all,’ said Mrs Gastaldini, her eyes glistening. ‘You have welcomed me into your home, and I’m going to miss you so so much.’
Orinthia went to her side and rested her head on her shoulder. She smelt of cooking and laundry powder and her beloved pomodori. She was going to miss her terribly too.
