Mutual Feelings

by Billy Taylor

  “Don’t worry, these suits are new. We throw them out once someone has worn them,” I said. Jim passed everyone the package they needed to enter the next stage of the factory. Shoe protectors, the suit overall, gloves, and a hat, similar to what you would wear in the shower to prevent your hair from getting wet.

  “This is even worse than the time I visited the hotel you were bringing down on yourself,” August muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Ethan replied.

  “When I had to wear that stupid builders hat and the high visibility vest that didn’t fit.”

  Ethan smirked. “Oh yeah, that’s still my screensaver on my phone.”

  “No, it isn’t,” August said with a sigh.

  “Yes, it is.” He removed his phone from his pocket and the screen lit up; I could see out of the corner of my eye August wearing a bright orange helmet and vest with a huge sulk on her face.

  “Oh, Ethan, change it!” she said, trying to grab it from him.

  “No! I like it! Leave me alone!” he whined.

  August’s eyes then started to bulge and her nostrils began to flare. Meanwhile everyone else was almost fully dressed apart from those two.

  “Are you ok?” I asked her.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” Ethan said. “That’s her poop stare. She just really needs a poo.” He and Madeline giggled.

  “I do not!” August cried. “This is my super-serious I’ll-kick-the-poop-out-of-you look.” Jim and I kept to ourselves in case this was actually developing into an argument or if they were actually joking.

  August maintained her gaze and Ethan’s face became more and more concerned. “Guys, she’s not blinking, why isn’t she blinking?” But no one said anything. Jim and I certainly couldn’t say anything, and Madeline was too busy swinging her legs on the bench. “Fine, I’ll change it later!” Ethan said, accepting defeat.

  August held her stare for a little longer and then she smiled. “Thank you, babe,” she said, kissing him. “If I hold it long enough, it starts to scare him,” she said to us. Jim and I laughed and then he locked up the giant locker.

  Ethan walked to August and squeezed her cheeks and then he kissed her again. They smiled at one another after. But Madeline and I looked at each other and made gross faces. “Will?” Ethan said.

  “Yes?” I replied.

  “Would you mind taking a photo of us all in our suits, please?”

  “Of course.” He unzipped his suit slightly and grabbed his phone and passed it to me. I took the photo and gave Ethan his phone back, and then Jim asked, “Is everyone ready?” as he stood beside the next door.

  “Yep!” we all said.

  “Ladies, if you could make sure all your hair is tucked into your hats, please. And if everyone could please refrain from coughing or sneezing or spitting, that would be great. But if you need to, please make sure you use your hand to contain it,” Jim said, scanning his card and opening the next door.

  “The next room is slightly colder, so when we go through the next door into the factory, the temperature isn’t affected. The factory isn’t that cold to say we make ice cream, but it’s not exactly warm. We’re making ice cream after all. Grab yourselves a pair of goggles and those ear protector radio things. I can still remember the day we got those, best day of my life,” Jim said, admiring those ear protector radio things like they were the greatest things on Earth. “Because the machinery is quite loud in the factory, ear protection must be worn. It’s not like if you take them off and expose your ears to the noise it will cause your head to explode, but say you worked in those conditions for a long period of time, it would definitely damage your hearing. So they’re just like call centre headphones, but much thicker and bigger and better. There’s a switch on the right ear, you’ll be able to feel it. Push and hold it in for a second and it will turn itself on. Then we should connect to one another within a few seconds and we’ll be able to talk through these. Otherwise we’d have to shout without them!” We each said hello to test that they were working and then we were ready to enter the factory.

  “Welcome to the factory!” Jim said, opening the final door and allowing us all to pass. We took our first steps onto the spotless white floor. I glanced down at Madeline, who was scanning the factory in amazement. “Did you know there are three Ron’s Ice Cream factories around the world? The first one is the one we’re standing in that has been open for over fifty years. And then fifteen years ago we opened another in America because we couldn’t make enough over here to send to them, and transporting it over there was very difficult and expensive. And then five years ago we opened a huge factory in China because we sell millions and millions of tubs over there now.

  “Right then, I’m going to need your help making some ice cream,” he said to Madeline. “We’re making chocolate today, do you think you’ll be able to help me with that?” She fiddled with her hat and nodded. “Follow me,” Jim said, pacing into the heart of the factory.

  I was given the specifics of the factory before I’d even started working at Ron’s Ice Cream because Ted’s dad arranged for Ted and me to come and make the ice cream with Jim on my fourteenth birthday. We made chocolate that day, too. As you walk along to the first mixing tank you can see the different stages the ice cream tubs go through. You can see the empty ones being stacked and separated in one section and then farther along they’re being filled with ice cream and capped. And then they run along a conveyer belt ready to be stacked by robotic arms and placed into a freezer for a few hours. When we reached the first mixing tank, two employees were already waiting for us with the ingredients we’d need to firstly make the ice cream. They’d also provided a small stepladder so Madeline would be able to reach and see into the mixer.

  “Right, although Madeline is super strong, she may need some help pouring the ingredients into the mixer as they’re so awkward to handle. Ethan, if you wouldn’t mind assisting Madeline on this first tank since this mixer is taller than the next one, and then August, you can help her on the next mixer. That’s not me trying to be funny by the way.”

  August smiled. “No, it’s fine, don’t worry.”

  “So if you look over there at those six big tanks or silos, those are filled with cream, and the cream is going to come along here into this mixer and you’re going to add these ingredients to it.”

  Madeline and Ethan poured five or six bags in together, and then they had these canisters of syrups and natural flavourings to pour in. Like I said, the fifteen to twenty people on the next tour were watching Madeline add the ingredients into the mixer, and she enthusiastically waved up to them and they waved back while she made the ice cream.

  “You’d normally have to wait thirty minutes to an hour before we were ready to move onto the next stage, but we have a of batch of what you just made already waiting for us. So now we can move on to the next mixer and make some chocolate,” Jim explained, directing us to the next mixer. “This is a different mixer,” he began. “I call this the hot pot. The hot pot is where we melt all the chocolate and add some extra ingredients to make it taste even chocolatier.”

  I have no idea how many times Jim has taken people around the factory. It must be more than a hundred times. But watching him now, he’s still showing the same amount of excitement and devotion as he did when I first took my tour around here more than six years ago. And of course it’s his job so he has to, but you can see on his face and the way he talks that he really loves it. And it’s nice to see that after so many years of working here. Without him it could mean the fall of Ron’s Ice Cream.

  “So, we have two big boxes full of chunky chocolate pieces here. I need you to pour them into the hot pot for me. August, it’s your turn to assist Madeline this time, so I need you to step up to the plate.” Madeline’s stepladder had been placed in front of the hot pot, ready for her to pour in the chunky pieces of chocolate.

  “Can I try a piece of chocolate before I pour it in?” Madeline asked.

  “Of course!” Jim re
plied. Her face lit up and she reached into one of the boxes and picked a small chunky chocolate piece and placed it into her mouth. She chewed it and then she hummed.

  “Is it good?” August asked.

  Madeline nodded. “Yep, it’s great!”

  Jim reached into the box and passed August and Ethan a piece, too. “We can’t have you two feeling left out, now can we?” He tossed a piece to me, too, which I happily consumed, enjoying the rich taste I had forgotten.

  Jim lifted the large square lid of the hot pot and placed the metal arm underneath it so it wouldn’t fall. “If you two could drag one of those boxes onto the grate here and then you just need to lift it up and tip them in. Some of the pieces may get stuck between the grate, but you can poke them through after with your fingers.”

  August and Madeline did as instructed and poured the first lot of chunky chocolate pieces in. As they did so Ethan said, “Try not to drop your phone in there, dear.” We laughed, and then they poured in the second box. Afterwards they added a few small bags of cocoa powder to make it even chocolatier.

  “So, that’s it for the ingredient adding and mixing. We’re going to stack the ice cream tubs now, and then we can watch them rub along the track and be filled up with chocolate ice cream.”

  We strolled over to the other side of the factory where there were many boxes of tubs waiting to be stacked and filled with ice cream. “Don’t worry, I don’t want you to empty every box. We’ll do one box and then we can move along to the filler.”

  The employee who was currently stacking them stepped back and allowed Madeline to take charge. She grabbed as many stacked tubs as she could in her hands and then Ethan lifted her up and she placed them on top of the ones already waiting. There are two piles of tubs stacked up, dropping down onto the machine that shoots them along the track, sending them across to the filler. By the time Madeline had added her first amount, they’d already half gone, the process works that fast.

  Once she’d emptied the box, she and Ethan had become quite tired. “You have to be quick,” Jim said. “It’s a good workout stacking tubs.”

  He then escorted us over to the filler. You can’t really see a large section of the filler. There’s a small window, I’d say the same size as a DVD case. So the tubs are spun around by a rotating piece of metal that looks similar to the inside of a cowboy’s gun where the bullets are kept. I think Madeline could have watched it all day. She loved it. After that we watched a robotic arm organise the tubs into blocks of eight and push them into a box, and then another robotic arm placed them onto a wooden pallet. They’re then moved into the freezer where they’re left for a few hours and then they’ll be boxed and shipped either tonight or tomorrow morning.

  “So that concludes all we’re able to do in the factory today I’m afraid,” Jim said, taking us back to the door we entered the factory from. “Thank you for your help, Madeline. It’s so nice to take a break sometimes.”

  Madeline had a small sulk on her face because she didn’t want her experience to end, but she managed to say, “You’re welcome, Jimmy,” and then returned to sulking.

  “If you place your headsets and goggles back onto the side, and then leave your suits on the bench, that would be wonderful. We will take care of those later.” He opened the door and we all stepped inside. “It was lovely meeting you all and I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of what we make here. I wish I could come and make some more ice cream with you upstairs, but I have to get back to work, so much more ice cream needs to be made!”

  “What do you say?” August said, looking at Madeline after she took off her headset.

  “Thank you, Jim,” she said with a large grin.

  “You’re very welcome, Madeline.” He opened the door back into the room with the bench. I shook his hand and thanked him, and then he returned to what he does best, making ice cream.

  The tour had left the do-it-yourself room no longer than a few minutes ago, and Mel, the lady who helps during the do-it-yourself part, was finishing tidying up. She smiled and said, “All ready for you, Will.”

  I thanked her and asked August, Ethan, and Madeline to take a seat on one of the dining benches. They’re similar to the ones that they’d have in school dining halls or cafeterias. I grabbed four large metal mixing bowls, one for each of us. I thought I’d make one for Zac for when I next saw her. At the back of the room is a large shelf unit. Each tub on the shelf is labelled with what’s inside it. There’s various types of biscuits and cookies and chocolates. There’s about twenty or thirty tubs. And then on the table to the side we have fresh bananas that can be mixed in, too.

  “You just unclip the lid and grab a packet of whatever you want. I’d advise grabbing three or four packets,” I said as we wandered over and began our selections. I grabbed myself a packet of small chocolate chunks and a packet of cookies. August selected bananas and white chocolate. I’ve never tried that combination before, but I’m guessing it must have an interesting taste. Ethan chose some cherries and fudge. Madeline couldn’t reach the top shelves so Ethan had to lift her up so she could examine and make her choice. In the end Madeline chose nearly every biscuit possible from the shelf. But she’d been clever with her over choosing because she decided she was going to add one or two biscuits from each packet. Meaning every biscuit would be in her ice cream.

  “Before you empty your packets into your bowls, you need to decide what ice cream you’re going to use for your base.” Behind the counter are eight flavours of ice cream in a fridge/freezer like what you would find in an ice cream shop where they scoop some up and pop it into a cone for you. This ice cream is soft. If it was frozen solid, then you’d have to wait ages for it to soften so you could mix your packets in with it.

  I went first so it gave them time to consult over their selections. I scooped myself some vanilla into a bowl. August chose vanilla, too. Ethan chose strawberry. And Madeline chose bubblegum. I scooped some ice cream into everyone’s bowl and then we returned to the bench and began adding our packets and mixing them into the ice cream with a spatula.

  “So what did you think of the film?” August asked as we all mixed.

  “I thought it was great. The girl I went to see it with works at the cinema. She had a small crush on you after the film,” I replied.

  August smirked. “Aw, how cute. Is that the Zac person you mentioned earlier?”

  “Yes, it is. I know it’s a guy’s name, but it’s a family name, she’s actually Zachary Williams the third. But you can’t tell her I told you that.”

  She laughed this time. “It’s a pretty cool name though. So is she your girlfriend or is she a friend?”

  “I’m not sure how to put it,” I said. “We’re sort of…seeing each other, but she doesn’t want a relationship or a title.”

  August quickly replied, “So you’re sleeping together?”

  “August,” Ethan interrupted, nodding his head over to Madeline.

  “A train could pass through this room and she wouldn’t notice, Ethan. Have you seen how much fun she’s having?” I glanced over at Madeline; her tongue stuck out as she dropped tiny bits of biscuits into her ice cream and then sang quietly as she stirred them in.

  “Maybe,” I answered August’s question shyly, which we all knew translated into yes.

  “Ethan, can I have a playing card and your marker, please?” August asked Ethan as she held out her hand.

  “What makes you think I have one?” Ethan replied.

  August didn’t reply, she just raised her eyebrow marginally. Ethan leant forward and said, “I don’t have any on me because they’re behind your ear!” And then he pulled a deck of cards and a marker from behind August’s ear. August raised her other eyebrow marginally this time. She took the deck and marker from Ethan and found the queen of hearts, and then started writing on the back of it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m guessing she’s writing an autograph to Zac. So you can take it to her and it’ll ga
in you the biggest amount of brownie points ever. Good idea, August,” Ethan said.

  “Thank you, babe,” she replied as she wrote on the back of the card. After she signed it she told me to pass Ethan my phone, which I cautiously did in case he made it disappear and couldn’t bring it back.

  “Why does he need my phone?” I asked wearily.

  “Because we’re going to take a photo together to prove the authenticity of my autograph for Zac.”

  “Ah, good idea,” I replied.

  “Thank you.”

  Ethan held up my phone and said, “I might as well quit being a magician and become a full-time photographer for August’s fans.”

  We smiled as the flash went off and then she replied, “I’ve taken plenty of photos for you and your fans!”

  “I bet if we counted how many photos we’ve taken, I would have taken ten times the amount you have.”

  She smirked. “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

  “So what are you going to call your ice cream flavours?” I asked everyone.

  “I’m calling mine Madeline’s Mayhem,” Madeline answered.

  “I’m thinking something like Bashful Bananas,” August answered.

  “I was just gonna call mine Cherry And Fudge,” Ethan answered.

  “You’ve got to call it something a little more interesting than Cherry And Fudge, Ethan.”

  “I didn’t criticise your ice cream name selection, August.”

  “That’s because Bashful Bananas sounds amazing.”

  “Fine. I don’t know why I need to think of a name for it because either you or Madeline will have eaten it before I’ve even had a spoonful.”

  August smirked. “Yeah, that’s true.”

  Ethan pondered for a moment before saying, “Ok, how does Ferry Chudge sound?”