“Well, before the big company moved in on our patch we would have been able to buy the house next year” he shrugs “But ’cos of them taking all our business we’ll be lucky to be able to afford it ever. The money from the grave robbing helps keep us in petrol and that's about it” he turns and gives a container a good hard kick, his foot leaves a large dent.
“BASTARDS!” Shouts Tink at the top of his voice “we’d have had the house by next year if that big ice cream company hadn’t come along with their shiny van’s and fancy tunes, how can we compete against that kind of money, we can’t even get a new bell”.
“We definitely need a new bell, me holding you out the window while you yell "ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding ding!" In the French national anthem tune makes us look unprofessional” says Manual, moving his head around in circles to get the stiffness out of his neck.
“I told you, I had to sell the bell to get money for petrol. Schools and play parks is where people buy ice cream not dockyards” he turns and kicks the container again leaving another large dent. “That’s why we have to rob graves, if we didn’t we’d be broke already” he arches his back and head butts the container, There is a perfect image of his face stamped into the steel “Lets go to work”.
Tink and Manual close the back doors and walk around to the front, they get in and Manual starts the van and pulls away from the dock. a large pool of oil is where the van was.
The ice cream van pulls up outside a school.
Manual reaches over and lifts Tink off of the passenger seat. He shoves Tink out of the window and stretches his arm as far as he can, Tink is just about to start his attempt at welcoming music when he notices another ice cream van inside the playground. “The cheeky mother fu..” Begins tink, Then remembering he was just outside a school cut’s himself off in mid sentence.
Manual pulls Tink back into the van. “I thought we agreed the tune would be ding ding ding...etcetera. I know we want to attract children but teaching them that kind of language is a bit irresponsible” he says.
“There’s one of them shiny ice cream vans in the playground, IN the playground no less, we were told that the playground was not to be used by traders” Tink's face turns a deep shade of red “if I get my hands on the owner of that company they're going to wish I'd never been born”.
“Don’t you mean that they’ll wish they’d never been born?”
“No. Who in their right mind would wish that they’d never been born?”
“Someone who has to deal with you when you’re angry”
“They’ll wish I wasn’t born to be angry with them in the first place”
“Good point” he was amazed at how clever Tink was. “What’ll we do now?”.
“We’ll go to the swing park, there’s always kid’s there and you know that as soon as one kid gets an ice cream they all want one”.
Manual starts the van and they drive off toward the swing park.
Just as they are turning the last corner to the swing park they spot another of the new ice cream vans parked at the gates.
There is a huge queue at the window of the van. Kid’s everywhere are holding triple flavour cones covered in chocolate sprinkles, toffee syrup and crushed nuts.
“Oh look” says Manual grinning “they’ve got crushed nuts! We’ve not got crushed nuts”.
Tink opens the door and moves to step out of the van; he stops when Manual asks “where are you going?”.
“I'm going to give the driver of that van some freshly crushed nuts”.
“Tink, you promised the judge you wouldn’t hit anyone again after the Tink r bell episode”.
“I wasn’t going to hit him very hard, just hard enough in a soft enough place” Tink closes the door and resumes his place standing on the passenger seat. “We’ll try the boating lake. It’s a warm day; there might be some people there who want a nice cooling choc-ice”.
Tink and Manual try the boating lake, the Town Square, the City Park, the riverside, outside the cinema, at the local football pitches.
They eventually come to a halt at the city dump.
At every place they visited in their spot was one of the new ice cream vans playing it’s fancy tunes and selling it’s triple flavour cones covered in chocolate sprinkles, toffee syrup and crushed nuts.
“Manual?”.
“Uh-huh”.
“This is no time for your Elvis impersonation”.
“Sorry”.
“I think it’s time we took some positive action”.
“Like what? Kidnap the drivers and hold them to ransom?”.
“That sounds like a great plan to me”.
“It wasn’t a suggestion it was a question!”
“I know Manual. But to me it sounds like a great plan” Tink’s eye’s narrow and a scheming look scuttles across his face.
He is hatching a plot and manual knows that when Tink’s eyes narrow like that then someone is going to be very, very, very sorry.

Part Four

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