‘But Daddy, Mommy and her boyfriend always take me for ice cream on a Saturday afternoon, Boo’s need ice cream else they turn into pouty, stampy-foot Boo’s.’
Boo was trying to persuade her daddy to take her for an ice-cream, but as it was raining and as he had still not got a new door for his car, he was a little reluctant to drive anywhere.
Thinking about it, he was getting rather nervous recently, several fireballs had hit his house, his shed, his car and the local ice-rink and even Waitrose. If he did not know better, he would have sworn it was a conspiracy.
‘But Daddy, there are loads of places around here to get ice-cream, we have been to Tonios, Sprinklebelly’s, TopChurn, Screamadeli’s and loads more. Please, let’s go to Sprinklebelly’s, it is the best, Mommys boyfriend takes us there loads.’
Boo’s daddy was sick of hearing about Mr. Perfect being so perfect. knowing all the best places in town for ice cream and pizza and….
So, he decided that he would take Boo for the perfect ice-cream and it would not be Sprinklebelly’s, he would show her.
‘Let’s go to The Ice Maiden, they are supposed to be great”.
Boo rolled her eyes, ‘Daddy, that place is rubbish, they have terrible flavours and they will not even give you quad sprinkles, nor hot cherry sauce, please, lets go to Sprinklebellys.’
Unfortunately Daddy would not be persuaded, so Boo grabbed her back pack and her cute bobble-hat, just in case she needed them and they set-out. So adamant was daddy that he almost dragged Boo out of the house and all the way to ‘Ice Maiden’.
The fist thing that she noticed was that it was really quiet, just a couple of tourists that had wandered in.
The second thing that she noticed was that her dragon was hiding behind some curtains. As usual he was not doing a very good job, while it must be pointed out that his head was well hidden, that was about it – the curtains left his legs, belly button, arms and even a substantial part of his neck and chin on display.
Boo grinned and remembered that he assumed that if he could not see you, that you could not see him. She laughed
While Boo and her daddy checked the ice-cream flavours, her dragon wandered up alongside her ‘Why are you here, the flavours are rubbish ?”
Boo read aloud ‘Blue Cheese, Old Socks, Pickled Herring, Custard with prawns, Toffee sticky frog, Baked Beans, Cabbage, Sprouts, Wet Dog, Dried Toad flakes, Eggy caramel, Toe Jam, curried eels…’
‘Hmmm, that looks nice’, Boo’s daddy was pointing to a tub of ‘pureed school dinner leftovers’
‘Daddy, I hate to tell you this, but none of this sounds even slightly edible.’
The dragon tapped Boo on the shoulder and put a claw to his lips ‘shhhhh’, he leaned his head around the side of the counter and with the quietest, but hottest, of breaths melted all of the tubs of ice-cream in an instant.
‘Oh dear,’ said Boo, ‘they seem to have melted, what a shame, I really wanted double armpit flavour ice-cream with bogey sprinkles’. She rolled her eyes just to reinforce the sarcasm in her voice.
‘Oh yes, thats odd, we will have to go to…’
‘Sprinklebelly’s’ shouted Boo.
‘…..Dairy Lad’ finished her daddy.
‘Oh great, they have the worst ice-cream’. She looked at the melted tubs of impossibly bad ice-cream, ‘Sorry, they have the second worst ice-cream, Mommies boyfriend says that only a complete idiot would want to go there….’
They went there regardless. Boo’s dragon followed them, quietly, and only managing to set fire to a small privet hedge along the way too, which was quite good for him. Boo passed him a granola bar and a packet of smokey bacon crisps just in case he was tempted to inhale a wobbly tourist or two.
They checked out the flavours here, ‘Vanilla, Low Fat Vanilla, Extra Low Fat Vanilla, Synthetic Vanilla, Low Fat Synthetic Vanilla’ Boo read them all aloud again. They were all the same basic flavour. She looked at the toppings ‘Strawberry, low-fat strawberry, low sugar strawberry, Low fat low sugar strawberry’, she could not see any others. Boo rolled her eyes again.
‘Daddy, this is rubbish, please lets go to Sprinklebellys, pretty please ?’
The dragon once more popped his head around the counter and once again, the ice-cream melted instantly, not only that, but the low-fat, low-sugar ice-cream topping burst into flames, filling the shop with acrid fumes that made everyone’s eyes water.
‘Oh dear’, said Boo’s daddy a little confused, it looks like this place is no good either. Lets go to……
‘Sprinklebelly’s’ shouted Boo.
‘…..Golden Cone Ice-cream Parlor’ finished her daddy.
Boo rolled her eyes so vigorously that she wobbled. ‘Oh no, not Golden Cone, that place is almost as bad as this one, we tried it once and the selection of sprinkles is so bad that we had to go and buy some from Tesco. Worse still the cones are so hard that they are almost impossible to eat without breaking your teeth’.
But, sadly, he was not listening, he almost pushed poor Boo the length of the High Street to the Golden Cone Ice-cream Parlour. When they got there, there was utter pandemonium, it seems that just a few moments ago they shop was hit by a meteorite. The glass window had a perfectly circular hole melted in it, all of the ice-cream was melted, all of the tables and chairs were completely wrecked too. The only thing that appeared to have survived the impact was of course the cones. They stood on the gently smoking counter just as inedible as ever.
Boo’s daddy looked a little nervous, there had been way too many meteorite strikes recently and he glanced nervously at the sky, hoping to spot any inbound fireballs.
‘Uhm, it looks like this shop is closed Boo, lets go to….”
‘Sprinklebelly’s’ shouted Boo.
‘…..FreeeeezeeePlops’ finished her daddy.
Boo rolled her eyes so hard that she nearly fell over. ‘Daddy, please, lets go to Sprinklebelly’s, it is the best place in town, I’m sure that they will not have melted ice-cream or get hit by random fireballs, or…..’
She did not finish the sentence, she had just noticed that there was a huge plume of steam rising from a shop a few doors down.
‘Or, or, or, or’ She was lost for words
‘Or have any problem with the heating systems’, finished her daddy.
It would seem that FreeeeezeeePlops really needed to be re-named “SteamingPlops”.
For reasons that were not obvious to anyone except Boo and her dragon, the store was now so warm that all of the ice-cream had melted and the store had turned into a rather sticky, really rather icky sauna.
Boo’s daddy gave up, ‘let’s try Sprinklebelly’s, surely our bad luck cannot continue for much longer ?’
Boo danced a little victory dance.
So they walked back up the High Street to Sprinklebelly’s, there was a huge queue outside now, given that the number of shops serving ice-cream was rapidly diminishing and it was a lovely sunny day. Eventually they reached the ice-cream. Boo ordered a quad scoop Waffle-Cone ice-cream (Cookie-Dough, Strawberry, Belgian Chocolate and Pecan Nut), with Warm Cherry and triple-chocolate fudge, topped off with white chocolate chips, chopped nuts and a scoop of gummy bears. Her daddy ordered his usual, single scoop of low-fat vanilla with low fat, low sugar strawberry sauce.
They sat outside in the sun eating their ice-cream. ‘Would you like to try some Daddy?’.
Her Daddy looked warily at the incredible concoction that she was rapidly inhaling in a most dragon-like fashion.
‘Erm, maybe, just a little bit’. He frowned.
Boo scooped a little of everything onto a piece of waffle-cone with some difficulty, but she did make sure that there was a green gummy bear on top. He sniffed at it, twice, then popped it into his mouth and savoured it. It was delicious, utterly, amazingly, fantastically, incredibly delicious. He had never tasted anything so amazing in all of his life.
He abandoned his boring vanilla ice-cream and helped Boo with hers.
‘You know, Boo’, he began, ‘this is the absolute best ice-cream I have had, it is incredible, we should come here more often’.
Boo smiled and waved to her dragon who was flying lazy loop-the loops in the sky above them grinning.