by AD Hartley
Carlo knew that Randy was only concerned with his best interests and he himself had only an hour ago been very close to quitting, but the discovery in the study had lifted his spirits. If he could continue with his father’s help, perhaps he could make a success of things? And far from crushing his resolve, the news that Mr Hill was once again sticking his nose where it was not wanted only doubled his determination.
Carlo jumped up, taking Randy by surprise. ‘Recall the stock and assess the losses. Let’s get a figure on what we have to make up before launch as soon as possible. Then I want to revaluate the production schedules and see how much stock we can make up by hitting it hard.’
‘But Carlo, are you sure?’ This is a big commitment.’
Carlo grinned back at Randy feeling happier than he had in weeks. ‘Does this look like the face of someone who is quitting?’
‘OK, if you’re sure. But making up the stock shortfall to launch on the 22nd will take more cash than we have available right now. I appreciate your enthusiasm and it’s a nice suggestion, but…’
‘We’re not launching on the 22nd anymore.’ Carlo butted in. ‘We’re launching on the 29th at the town fair. Consider the 22nd a, what did you call it? Soft launch? Will the extra week help make up the stock shortfall if we boost production in the meantime?’
‘Well, possibly.’ Randy stammered feeling he was losing grip of the conversation.
‘Good. Let’s get the details of what we’re facing and re-plan the schedule. In the meantime I’ll get Newton and Abi working on new marketing for the town fair and Norton and Ben on defence.’
‘Defence?’ Randy asked, utterly bewildered.
‘We were sabotaged. Randy.’ Carlo answered, dropping the usual honorific. ‘I want to know who and how! Which better people to investigate than two who would normally be the prime suspects?’
‘Sabotaged? It was an insect, Carlo. Sometimes it just happens. We perhaps need to re-evaluate our cleaning procedures, shut down the mixers for a while to check for nests… but it’s clear it was an oversight on our part, not sabotage.’
‘Cockroaches? In my factory?’ Carlo echoed his father, ‘Not likely. I think someone is trying to cause trouble and I mean to find out who it is!’
Randy gave in to the force of passion that was Carlo. ‘OK, he said sighing. ‘Let’s get started.’
‘Excellent.’ Carlo exclaimed. ‘Oh, and Randy?’ he winked at his guardian, ‘It wasn’t a nice suggestion… it was an order.’ He strode over to the door and marched out whilst Randy leant back in his chair, shaking his head.
Luigi Leaves the Factory
Carlo ran across the factory and over to the study feeling alive with excitement and a rather unusual sense of confidence, not something he was used to. But he was stopped dead in his tracks as he bounded down the stairs only to be confronted by Norton screaming in the opposite direction at an astonishing speed for the normally sluggish boy. They collided head on and both went tumbling back down the stairs, Norton still shrieking, interspersed with a high pitched yelp as he hit every other step on the way down.
Carlo groaned as he rolled to a halt only to have Norton leap up and sprint back up the stairs, eyes wide, still screaming with every last breath he had. He span around the corner at the top of the stairs and out of sight, the din slowly growing more faint and eventually stopping as they heard a final slam meaning Norton had yelled his way across the factory and through the front gate. Even now Carlo thought he could possibly hear a faint screeching and he imagined Norton still running at full volume down the street.
Ben appeared at the door in hysterics and reached out a hand to help Carlo up.
‘That…’ he gasped through the laughter, ‘was the funniest thing I think I have ever seen!’
‘I take it you reintroduced Norton to my Dad?’
Ben nodded whilst holding the wall for support.
Carlo didn’t see the funny side. ‘Come on, Ben!’ he shouted. ‘You know I didn’t want you to do that!’
Ben calmed down a little and walked back into the study. ‘You nodded to Norton indicating that you wanted me to fill him in on what was going on, so I did.’ Ben said, taking a seat.
‘No, I nodded to Norton indicting that you should tell him nothing! Absolutely nothing!’ Carlo said, exasperated.
‘Ah.’ Ben answered. ‘Perhaps you could have made that a wee bit clearer?’
Carlo sat down opposite his friend, his previous enthusiasm now lost beneath the worry about what Norton might do or say next. ‘He’ll be half way across town by now.’ he exaggerated. Ben started to laugh again. ‘I don’t know what you find so amusing. I recall you sat on the floor having lost the ability to both stand and speak when you saw my Dad!’ Carlo added, rather more forcefully than he meant to. ‘Where is Dad?’ he finished, looking around the room.
Ben pointed back to the far wall that Luigi had shot through earlier upon meeting him.
‘Dad?’ Carlo called, shaking his head.’ You can come out now.’
Luigi’s head appeared through the wall again looking thoroughly fed up. ‘Why must you lot keep doing that to me?’ he said, marching back into the room. ‘If I wasn’t already dead I would have died of a heart attack.’ He looked around the room. ‘Where is the noisy round boy?’
Ben looked at his watch theatrically and pretended to make a mental calculation. ‘Scotland?’ he offered, breaking down in laughter again.
Carlo ignored him. ‘Right, we have a few things to sort out.’ he said, reasserting his new found authority. ‘Firstly…’ he said pointedly towards Ben, ‘you need to go and find Norton and get him back here before he does or says something stupid.’ Ben gave him a look that suggested Norton’s daily routine was doing or saying something stupid, but he got up anyway and threw Carlo a salute.
‘Yes, Sir!’
‘And do not tell anyone else about Dad until I say so, alright?’
‘Yes, Sir!’
‘Go on then.’ Carlo said, as Ben stood to attention. ‘Now, please.’
Ben did a passable impression of an about-turn, grinned back at Carlo and then pelted for the stairs at full speed.
Carlo turned back to his Father who had taken Ben’s place at the desk. ‘Well, we’re going to have our work cut out for us.’ he said. Luigi raised his ghostly eyebrows in interest, so Carlo carried on to tell his father what he and Randy had discussed. ‘I got the town fair idea from Vicky’s Grandfather.’ he finished with a smile. ‘He said there was a competition one year.’
‘Yes, I remember the town fair.’ Luigi said. ‘We won, didn’t we?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’
‘Apparently not. But anyway, I’m going to need your help if we’re going to get everything ready for the Fair in time.’
‘Are you sure we didn’t win.’ Luigi asked, refusing to move on.
‘Not according to Vicky’s Granddad, no.’ Carlo insisted.
‘Who’s Vicky?’
‘My Girlfriend.’
‘You have a girlfriend?’
‘Dad, please!’ Carlo shouted. ‘We have work to do.’
‘Sorry, son.’
Carlo took a deep breath and tried to remember what he was saying. ‘Right. It’s a good job we know how far you can go now. The pencil dropped at the far end of the factory, about 80 meters or so. I’ll get Ben to mark the exact distance.’
Luigi shook his head. ‘I’m not sure that’s the right distance though, Carlo. I didn’t bounce straight back here.’
‘Where did you go, then?’ Carlo asked surprised.
‘I reappeared right where you were, but then you started running away from me and by the time I realised what was going on I bounced again and ended up back here.’
‘Norton turned up and was just about to get in the way.’ Carlo explained. ‘So does that mean you’re haunting me and not the room?’ he asked confused.
Luigi shrugged. ‘I’m not actively haunting anyone or anything that I kno
w of.’ he said, with a glum look at the floor. ‘But I’m not sure it is you, Carlo, otherwise why would I have bounced back to the study when you ran off down the factory?’
Carlo shrugged, but wasn’t too worried about it. Despite everything he was beginning to feel like the factory was really under his control for the first time and the ghost of his father inexplicably bouncing around seemed like a minor issue. Here, at his lowest ebb, there seemed the clearest path and Carlo was now determined to march down it assertively.
‘So, will you help me?’ he asked, looking at his father. ‘I’m going to put us back on the map and doing it with Luigi Leodoni as my adviser just seems right.’
Luigi smiled. ‘Of course I’ll help, in whatever way I can. I’m not sure how, but let’s do it!’
Carlo smiled and felt something like relief flow through him. They could restart the factory. Now, possibly for the first time, he was certain of that and he was no longer riding the wave of other people’s assertions, he was in charge.
Quickly listing the most pressing issues to be managed; the stock recall, the increase in production, the town fair and the suspected security breach, Carlo and Luigi came up with a plan of action and soon the young man was calling Randy from the study telephone to arrange a full staff meeting for later that day. He was going to step up, for the first time, as Giancarlo Leodoni, of Leodoni’s Ice Cream.
Norton was eventually persuaded to re-enter the factory just before lunch, which, Ben noted, may have had more to do with the factory canteen than his willingness to accept a ghostly colleague. However, after a tense meeting in which Mr Leodoni apologised for scaring him and then, reluctantly performed a number of vanishing tricks under instruction, which eventually took Norton’s mind off the fact he was dead, Norton agreed not to screech like a girl in Luigi’s presence and, most importantly, not tell anyone else about his existence until one of the Leodoni’s expressly allowed it.
Over lunch in the canteen, Carlo, Ben and Norton met up with Newton and Abi to explain what had transpired that morning, minus his father’s ghostly apparitions. Newton’s love of Sherlock Holmes was piqued by the idea of finding a saboteur within their midst, though his sleuthing career was cut down before it had begun when Carlo told him that he wanted Newton to team with Abi to concentrate on plans for the town fair, starting with a review of Leodoni’s “strategy” for past fairs using old information, the location of which had been provided by Luigi earlier.
Ben and Norton were unsurprisingly over the moon to be made unofficial FBI agents (Federal Bureau of Ice-cream, as they were dubbed by Norton). They were to find out when the tainted batch was made from Randy, review CCTV footage to see if the culprit could be spotted and, if not, covertly question a few key suspects as defined through the course of a heated discussion during which Ben had grudgingly agreed not to name Norton as the lead suspect, but Carlo allowed them to add Neil, Herbert Fitzherbert and their history teacher, Mr Short-Bottomley, because none of them liked him very much.
After lunch the entire workforce gathered on the factory floor as requested and Randy, Lucy and Carlo climbed halfway up the metal stairs leading to the offices above to make sure everyone could see them. Carlo stepped closer to the rail and thanked everyone for coming but it was lost in the din of dozens of well-fed people continuing their lunch time chats.
Lucy brought everyone back to attention with a shrill and impressively loud whistle that had Norton and Ben applauding in respect.
‘Everyone, can we have your attention, please!’ she shouted before nodding to Carlo to continue.
‘Thank you for coming.’ he tried again, ‘And when I say that, I don’t just mean here… now. But also thank you to those of you who returned when we re-opened and thank you to those of you who have joined us for the first time.’
Newton turned to Ben and Abi, a look of slight surprise on his face, and whispered, ‘That was a good start.’ Ben winked back having already seen the newly assured Carlo in action.
Carlo went on to briefly touch on the issues they had faced over the previous weeks and the admiration he had for the staff in overcoming those barriers. He decided to leave out any reference to the tainted stock, but mentioned that although the launch date would remain, the new focus would be a special unveiling at the town fair in three weeks which required everyone to pull together to make sure the event would be a success.
‘I know many of you knew my parents. Their pride at the quality of Leodoni’s products was only beaten by their pride at the quality of the Leodoni’s staff who worked with them. If my father were here today I know he would still be proud. Thank you.’ As Carlo finished he felt a Ghostly prod in the side that made him laugh as he squirmed away behind Randy, who had taken over the meeting.
‘If my Father was here today? Cheeky bugger!’ Luigi whispered. Ben laughed next to Carlo and received an invisible poke in the ribs too.
Randy finished the meeting with some more specific details about the workload facing them over the following few weeks before Lucy dismissed everyone back to work before “The Directorship” as Norton liked to call Randy, Lucy and the gang, returned to the office.
‘That was good, Carlo. Well done.’ Randy said sitting behind the desk. Carlo tried not to beam too much at the praise. ‘Well, as requested, Lucy and I are almost finished with the new production schedule for the remaining weeks until the fair. It will be difficult, but the extra week allows us to make up for much of the lost time. I’ve asked Lumsden and his crew to oversee the disposal of the tainted stock once it’s returned and then thoroughly clean the machinery overnight to avoid disruption in manufacturing. In the meantime we’ll have some pest control people come and take a look.’ he continued, still unwilling to believe it was sabotage. ‘Let’s just hope that whatever happened won’t happen again.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Fox, Sir! We’re on it, Sir!’ Norton said, standing as close as his waistline would allow to attention and saluting with what he thought was efficient military grace.
Ben shook his head despairingly. ‘Come on, idiot.’ he said, gently pushing Norton out of the room who was still trying to stand to attention until dismissed.
Carlo caught up with them just outside the door and pulled them to a stop. ‘Be cool, guys. We just want to know who might have done this, not go around accusing people. Right?’
Ben and Norton nodded solemnly and headed for the exit, but Carlo heard Norton whoop with delight as he re-entered the office. ‘Damn.’ he said, trying not to think about what his friends might get up to.
The rest of the afternoon found Lucy and Randy ensconced in the office doing what Newton described as “proper work” whilst he and Abi were in the office next door working out the “battle plan” for the town fair. Carlo had excused himself with a vague excuse about “walking the floor” and showing his face to the staff, but had headed straight to the study where he spent the afternoon taking down advice from his father regarding the coming weeks, despite Luigi’s wish to go and see what Randy and Lucy were up to.
‘Who knows what mistakes they’re making? I should be up there!’ he mumbled, staring at the wall as if he could see the offices at the other end of the factory.
‘Dad, please…’ Carlo said, pointing back to his notebook where he had just finished copying down some pointers on something his father called a supply chain. ‘You shouldn’t get involved, it’s their job now. Anyway, you can’t even reach the office, you’d just disappear again.’
‘They’ll be getting it wrong.’ Luigi continued to rumble into afternoon.
‘Jeez! I wish you’d stayed in the wall.’ Carlo mumbled back.
By the end of the day, Carlo was exhausted but happy. Looking back, so much had happened. He had nearly quit; he had discovered his father’s ghost; he had taken charge of the factory; held a staff meeting and learnt a great deal about running the operation. He closed his note book and stuffed it in his bag.
‘Will you still be here tomorrow, Dad?’ he aske
d, finally raising a question that had been playing on his mind for the last hour.
‘I think so. I’m not at all sure how this haunting business works, but I don’t see why not. Every time you have come into the study I have been aware of that and with effort I can, well, manifest myself. Having you near helps, it makes me more alive.’
‘But what will happen when I leave?’
‘I’m still here, I think, but less… physically. I sort of drift into nothingness. Ghosts can’t really daydream it seems. If I stop concentrating I fade away until the next time.’
Carlo looked horrified. ‘That’s awful!’
‘It’s OK, actually.’ Luigi confirmed. ‘It’s quite comforting. All those thoughts that plague you when you’re alive? I don’t have to worry about them. I’m aware, but I’m not aware, if you see what I mean?
‘No.’ Carlo laughed. But he was relieved at least to hear that his father wasn’t worried about what happens when left alone.
Luigi looked up at the clock. ‘You should go, son. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He looked at Carlo for a second and then smiled warmly, turning to walk back through the wall. ‘I love you, Carlo.’ His voice drifted back.
Carlo stared back at the place where Luigi had disappeared. ‘I love you too, Dad.’ he said. Carlo picked up his bag and then, just as he was about to leave he noticed the old diary still sat on the desk. Having learnt so much today already he felt he would be in a much better place to understand some of the things his father and grandfather had written at the front of the diary. Feeling in the mood for some homework he stuffed the diary in his bag too, locked the door behind him and jogged up the stairs, just as his father’s head popped back through the wall.
