She's fatherless, destitute and loves ice-cream. These things don't mix. But when the fence behind the Ice-Cream Shop is damaged, she finds an escape to bliss ...

oOo

Ever since she could remember, it drew her. Tempting, teasing and tantalising, the need for it lived inside her. As a tiny infant she must have caught the sweet scent from the Ice-Cream Shop as she lay nursing at her mother's side, and that scent drew her, and that scent marked her fate.

The shop was huge to one as small as she; with doors and windows gaily lit, and a constant flow of people flooding in and out. All young and smiling, their grown-ups dragged along: reluctant guardians. Empty-handed going in, they always had something sweet and special in their hands as they returned into the sunshine.

And she watched them, every day.

Her family had nothing. She never knew her father, and her harassed mother scurried about, trying to endlessly tend to her large family. With five brothers and three sisters, life was never dull, but it was difficult.

Yes, it was hard to keep going, trying to get a share of the meagre food; the warmth on cold nights; the love of a lone parent unable to gift attention onto a deep-thinking little one. Life was tough.

Nevertheless, she was learning fast, her supple feet and quick eye helped her claim goodies others had lost, especially down the street from the shop. Sometimes a child would drop the contents of their ice-cream cone onto the ground, where it splashed with a wet plop. Inevitably, the child's wail soon followed and, more often than not, the parent dragged the tot back into the shop for a replacement.

She watched all this without much emotion, her eyes fixed on the slowly spreading puddle of ice-cream on the pavement. She crept up quietly on the other side of the fence from the road, looking out anxiously beneath the gap, looking up at the rotten timbers on which grew tiny brown mushrooms that looked foul.

If the street was empty - and she would be very careful to ensure it was - she might dart out and grab some of the mess from the ground, then disappear as quickly as she appeared. People got very upset if they saw her do that, even though they would never, ever try to eat the ice-cream from the ground themselves. She could never understand that, thinking it was a terrible waste of something so wonderfully, incredibly special.

If the street was not empty, she would stare wistfully as the puddle was trodden underfoot and smeared along the path, leaving a dirty-black sticky mess as evidence. Days like that were all too common, and she would go back home to her brothers and sisters, her ever-stressed mother and her own empty stomach.

oOo

One quiet summer afternoon, while she was exploring the waste ground between the old houses and the small row of stores, she noticed a new gap in the fencing at the back of the Ice-Cream Shop. It had never there before so she eyed it curiously. The faint stench of motor exhaust was in the air as she drew closer and drips of oil lay across plants on the disturbed ground.

Ah. They were digging things again.

The big people, the grown-ups - they dug all the time around the houses and stores, forever changing things around, for no real reason except that they can.

She envied that.

It would be nice, she thought, if she could make her home a little bigger. Her brothers were so big, they took over the place; bouncing, biting and playing all the time.

Nearer and nearer she crept, until she was looking in to the back yard of the Ice-Cream Shop itself. It was neither as colourful nor as pleasant smelling as the front, but there was no-one there and --

Is that ice-cream?

Her little eyes lit up as she spied the white plastic tub. It had a glorious smell coming from it - very like fruit - and it was all the more noticeable as it contrasted with the horrid oily smell from the machines.

She sneaked carefully across the yard, watching and listening all the way, until she was within touching distance of the discarded container.

Yes! There was still ice-cream in it! Still hard and icy!

Her thin little frame shivered, both in anticipation of this treat and her fear of being discovered. She stretched out and dipped in her finger, carefully hiding her body behind a metal barrel. It was delightful!

Oh, so tasty and sweet and it didn't have the hint of gravel that the slops on the ground have. Oh, why can't I have this always? Why can't we have this at home? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have ice-cream in the morning, in the day and at night?

Just then a screen door screeched open and a very large man stomped down the three concrete steps into the yard. He was big, with black hair and a black moustache and his large belly hung over his belt. He scratched himself and hitched up his pants, then looked for something in his pockets.
She pulled back behind the barrel, heart racing, hoping he would not think to look this way. Thankfully, he was more interested in lighting a cigarette. The noxious smell of burning tobacco filled the yard, masking the strawberry scent from the tub.

A shout came from within the Ice-Cream Shop - an angry shout - and the man turned around and roared back angrily. The voice from within got even more strident and he glared for a moment, exhaled a fog of smoke, then threw his cigarette end at the barrels where she was hiding. This almost scared her into flight, but by now she was too frightened to move. The man climbed up the stairs and the screen door slammed behind him. She took the chance to dart for the broken fence and squeezed through it and ran across the torn-up soil the earth-mover had cleared.

Through a window at the back of the ice-cream shop, the big man's moustachioed face looked out into the yard in astonishment as she scurried out from the yard. His eyes and lips tightened.

This will not do, he thought, this most certainly will not do.

oOo

Over the following days she was drawn to the gap in the fence like an iron filing to a magnet. In her short life, she never saw a magnet, or iron filings. She did see, however, an opportunity to get some ice-cream - and that was worth any risk.

She watched carefully and noticed every evening the big man threw the used containers into the yard as the shop closed. The sky grew dim, the lights at the front went out, the big man opened the back door and flung the containers into the area of the yard in which she had hidden on that first day.

Like clockwork.

Slowly, she formed a plan.

She waited quietly one evening, lying beside the hole in the fence. After a time, the lights inside the ice-cream shop went out. Soon, she heard the big man and the other person leaving by the front door, the sounds of keys jangling and clinking together very loudly in the twilight.

Unable to hold herself back, she forced herself through the gap ... and into paradise.

Ice-cream. Fresh, cold, sweet and pure.

Oh, ice-cream!

It was an incredible experience for her, dipping into each and every tub. There was so many, all unique, yet all sharing that indescribably warm and cold mix ... paradise.

By the time she left she was as sticky, smeared and dirty as an ice-cream strewn pavement. Slightly sickened, too, she admitted. Still, it was the best experience of her lifetime and she virtually floated home. She felt gorged and delighted with herself. It wouldn't matter what her mother could provide tonight - she had dined with style.

Her brothers and sisters crawled all over her when she arrived. The smell of rich food, sugar and that rarity - ice-cream - clung to her like heavy perfume. It was all she could do to fend them off and battle to her mother's arms, begging to be cleaned-up, as if she was a crying infant once more.

Some of her siblings, aroused by the thought of food, chose not to let her out of their sight again. However, she didn't care and, worn from her adventure, fell asleep in minutes.

oOo

And so it came to pass.

Her brothers found the hole in the fence too, and every evening her entire family raided the Ice-Cream Shop's yard. They licked the empty containers clean, gorging themselves on the waste of the rich.

Their mother didn't care.

She wouldn't go near the place. In fact, she refused to approach the shops at all. She was growing more and more distant as the days went by and her brood took full advantage of it.

oOo

The big man frowned as he looked down at the almost-cleaned tubs scattered all around the yard. He collected them with distaste and then noticed tooth-marks on the edge of one. He pursed his lips and exhaled noisily.

That bloody hole in the fence. That's how they're getting in. Those useless idiots in the Council, with their cut-rate builders ... I'm a sodding taxpayer, Goddammit.

He had complained about his damaged fence several times and the Council, despite numerous promises, had failed to repair it. But now he knew he had nightly visitors.

He began to place the empties into black sacks, and grew more and more angry and frustrated when they were ripped open each morning.

He got a bin to put them in, but that was opened easily.

Eventually he bought a special container that could only be opened with a key, but they still came into the yard: drawn by the smell; because they could; or perhaps out of habit, by this point. He pulled at his moustache in frustration, trying to work out a plan.

He was certainly not going to pay to repair the fence himself, being a man of some conviction. Stubborn in his determination that he was not going to pay for damage caused by others, he would wait for hell to freeze over before he would back down.

Nor was he going to wash out the tubs before disposing of them each evening, and end up giving the Council more of his hard-earned cash. The new water charges annoyed him so much he considered washing-up as too expensive, no matter what his wife said, and no matter how she complained he was not going to have charges for bloody water on his list of expenses.
Muttering to himself, and realising he could be closed down if anyone knew about his freewheeling night-time visitors, he formulated a plan.

oOo

Most of her family had stopped visiting the yard. Even though the tubs were still there, the lock on the waste container had thwarted them all and their poor hunger made them stay away. It was too painful to think of all that lovely ice-cream, inaccessible, rotting and going to waste.

She never gave up and continued to visit each night, more cautiously now as the new buildings were almost complete. The yellow diggers and the large trucks had moved closer to the fence and the vinegar-smell of freshly poured concrete was strong. New street lights, too, were getting closer - the signs of regeneration in what was a virtual wasteland.

Wasteland or not, it was still her home.

The smell in the yard was stronger than usual, a mix of sweet strawberry and bitter almonds, and she salivated despite herself.

Oh, such a beautiful thing, ice-cream. So rare and ... and what is that?

She peered in to the darkened yard. The locked container was closed and secure, but beneath it one tub lay on the ground.

No!

Could it be?

Did he forget to put it into the container?

She almost ran into the yard, scratching herself on a nail that stuck out from the broken fence. Her skin barely felt it - she scarcely believed her luck. The top was still partially on the tub and it was almost full of the precious treasure. With winter drawing near, the ice-cream had not melted much, and smell was enough to make her feel ravenous

Nutty, fruity, delicious and fresh.

It took little effort to remove the lid completely, wherein a blast of nose-twitchingly gorgeous ice-cream scent rose into the air like an olfactory firework. Her little eyes were blazing greedily. Without a second thought, she launched herself into a treat of which she had only dreamed.

Staggering back home, full to the brim with plundered booty, she felt strangely thirsty.

Ice-cream must do that, she supposed.

Though her head and face felt frozen, she was delighted with herself. Oh, such sweetness!

When she went home, her family greeted her with a wonderment that lasted all of the two seconds it took to realise she was coated in ice-cream and, once more, they raced to the yard.

Bloatedly, she watched them go. She looked around for Mother to comfort her; however, she was nowhere to be found. Over the past few weeks she was absent most of the time.

That feeling of thirst started to grow more pronounced. She smacked her lips together a couple of times, hoping it would just disappear.

It didn't.

There was no running water, so she went out into the new roadway to where she knew the builders had a standpipe. It would do in an emergency like this and, anyway, it was dark - there was nothing to fear. Halfway there, her stomach cramped uncomfortably and she had doubled up in pain. The thirst was an overwhelming need and she began to feel the stirrings of panic.

Convinced that the water would take the pain away, she ran the last few metres to the pipe.

In a large bucket lay a virtual ocean of water. She didn't hesitate and drank deeply, feeling a brief soothing effect as the water cooled her innards. Yet even though she had drank as much as she ever had, the horrid thirst still possessed her.

She downed more. And more. And still more.

Driven on by her own need for water, she wailed in pain and hurt as she drank and drank.

oOo

"I dunno. I'm sick of those idiots and their bait traps," the foreman complained to the site engineer as he pulled on his heavy-duty work gloves.
He flashed an expression of intense disgust at his colleague.

"Y' get nests here and there when ye'r diggin', but they usually sod off sum'place else, like. This is the tenth one t'day!"

They were at the edge of the road, beside the standpipe, looking down at something laying near the bucket.

"I can't stand cleanin' up bloody vermin," the foreman complained, as he opened a black plastic bag and dumped within the body of a dead rat, its fur matted, its paws and fur smelling vaguely of strawberry and almond.