I Want That Bike

Rafi walked into the mall with his friend Sam. He could see all the stores.

On the first floor there was the ice cream shop, the toy store, Justice, Levi’s, and a bunch of other stores. Rafi was a little tall for his age he’s 12, his best friend was Sam (duh), and his favorite place is the Chestnut Hill Mall he loved the huge crowds, crazy deals, and the air conditioned elevators “What store do you think we should go to first?” Sam asked.

“I think we should look in the new bike store,’’ Rafi said. “It just opened up a few weeks ago.”

“OK. I’ll get the map,” said Sam as he looked at the map. “It looks like it is on the 2nd floor” “Let’s go!!!” Rafi said. They took the elevator to the 2nd floor because they were too lazy to take the stairs. Soon as they got to the 2nd floor, they looked around.

Then Sam found it. It was next to the food court. They walked in. It looked like there was a big crowd around one bike. Rafi pushed his way through the crowd and then he saw it. The bike he had been waiting for. “I HAVE TO GET THAT BIKE!!!!!!!!” Rafi announced to everyone in the store. “Let’s see how much it costs,” Rafi wondered. He looked down at the bike. The tag said $200. “OMYGAW

D!!!!!!!” Rafi yelled. He looked in his pocket: 51 cents. He looked down at the floor.

There was one cent there. “I have 52 cents and I need $200. Does anyone want to make any donations?” Rafi begged.

“NO!!!” everyone yelled and laughed. It turns out that the whole crowd wanted to buy that bike, so they were definitely not going to give him any money. He walked out of the store in shame.

“You could wait ‘til you get Christmas money, and then you’ll have enough money,” said Sam. “Yeah, but then I’ll have nothing to do all summer!!!” Rafi replied. They walked out into the food court and saw the ice cream shop, the Five Guys, and the burrito place. As they walked towards the ice cream shop, he saw a sign that said “HELP WANTED” in big red letters.

“YES, this is a dream come true!” Rafi cried aloud as he read the sign. “15 and up!?!” Rafi shouted. He was so angry that he wanted to pick up a table and throw it out the window. But then he thought of an amazing idea. A bad one, but a great one. “Sam gimme the hat you’re wearing,” demanded Rafi “and the shades too.”

“What the heck are you doing?” Sam asked.

“Getting that bike,” Rafi replied.

“How?” Sam wondered.

“Getting a job at the ice cream place,” said Rafi.

“But it says it’s 15 and up,” said Sam. “I have a plan,” Rafi said. “I’m gonna put on the hat and shades you’re wearing and say I am 15.”

“So basically you're gonna lie to the ice cream workers?” Sam asked.

“Just be quiet and act like I’m 15,” Rafi answered. Rafi put on the hat and the shades and straightened up his back, so he would look taller. He walked up to the counter and said, “Is this where you apply for an ice cream job?”

“Why yes it is, young feller,” the guy at the counter said. “If you want the job you're gonna have to fill out this form.” He held up a yellow piece of paper. “This is your registration form for the job.”

Rafi took the piece of paper and looked at it carefully. There were a bunch of questions on it. It had a bunch of personal questions like, “Where do you live?

What is your age? What is your email?” As he filled it out, Rafi wondered if he should do this - after all, he was lying. “No, I should definitely do it! It’s the bike I've been dying for!!!” Rafi thought to himself. When he finished the form he handed it to the guy at the counter who luckily wasn't the manager. The manager would have probably suspected something. The guy at the counter looked at the application for about 2 minutes and then said, “Kid, it looks like you've got yourself a job.”

Rafi was so happy that he felt like the winner of the lottery. The next step was to learn how to scoop ice cream onto the cones. The guy at the counter taught him to scoop ice cream so that it looked perfect. He taught him how to put on just the right amount of toppings and how to drizzle the chocolate sauce on fast, but so that it looked good. The guy at the counter said, “Training’s over. Your first shift starts now.”

Rafi asked, “Do you think you should show me how to use the register?”

The guy at the counter said. “Oh yeah,” and then he showed him. The first shift was a total success. Rafi made $20 in two hours.

Rafi took the #27 bus home and got there just in time for dinner. When he got in he quickly ran upstairs. He didn’t want his mom to see that he had chocolate syrup on his shirt and that he was all sweaty. He changed as fast as he could, just in time to sit down for dinner. He was starving because he had been working so hard.

His arm was killing him because he had worn it out. He convinced his parents to let him go to the mall again the next day, and that made him excited.

The next day he returned to Ice Cream Palace. The guy at the counter was so surprised that he came back that he took him into the back room of the store and then he said, “Since you’ve been such a good worker, I’m going to teach you the secret recipe for the perfect ice cream sundae.”

He could see the all the flavors of ice cream in the containers, and he could smell the bubbling hot fudge. Rafi felt very proud of himself.

“So, first you get a seven inch bowl and then get the best vanilla ice cream

and put it in the microwave for 12.5 seconds. Then you take it out and let it sit out for ten seconds.”

Rafi asked, “What if you put in peanut butter chunks and bits of pistachios before you put it in the microwave, so that it will melt into the ice cream?”

But before he finished the guy in the back room said, “NO! This is the way we make our perfect ice cream sundae. If you don’t wa

nt to learn the perfect way you can get out.”

The guy in the back room finished walking Rafi through the steps of making the perfect sundae and then gave it to Rafi to taste a sample of it. Rafi thought that it was pretty good but thought, “If you melted in the peanut butter chunks and pistachio bits and put in a couple golden brown mini-marshmallows and crunched up Oreos it would taste even better.”

The next three shifts went pretty well and the guy even paid him up front.

Now Rafi had $80.00, but everything went wrong during the fourth shift. He was scooping up strawberry ice cream and it went flying up into his shades and hat and when the guy caught a quick glimpse of his face he realized that he was not 15. Rafi knew he had seen him, so he jumped over the ice cream counter and ran out of the food court before the guy at the counter could even start to catch him. He ran out of

the mall and got on the #27 bus.

On the way back home he called up Sam and said, “I got fired from the job and I only made $80. I don't think I’m ever going to get that bike!” When he got home he sulked into his bedroom, shut the door, and flopped onto his bed. “I’ll never get that bike,” he thought to himself.

That night he was thinking to himself in bed and had the most brilliant idea in the history of the world. Since he knew the secret recipe AND had his own idea on how to make it even better, he could earn the money for the bike by having his own ice cream stand. The next morning he got to work. He found 4 big pieces of wood in the basement and a saw. He had to do this very quietly because his parents would never trust him with a saw. After he finished making the table he found an old tablecloth and some nails to put it all together.

Now it was time to start making the ice cream. Since it was the summertime, he knew his parents had bought lots of junk food. He knew he could find all the ingredients to make his new perfect ice cream sundae. It took about a day to get the ice cream ready and to finish the table. The next morning he brought it out to the front of the garage and quickly whipped up a poster that said, “Rafi’s Perfect ice cream Sundae! $8.00!”

He taped that to the front and got all of the plastic bowls and spoons from his pantry. He knew he would need to re-use all of the spoons and bowls if he wanted to make a lot of money.

Now it was time to put all of the ingredients on his ice cream stand. He used a couple of bowls to put out the golden brown marshmallows, the pistachios and the peanut butter chunks. He got a mini cooler and put 4 ice cream containers in it.

While he was getting the cooler, he found that they had a battery powered microwave. That meant that it would take less time to finish each sunday since he wouldn’t have to go inside. The microwave was pretty big so it could fit two sundaes at once.

When he went back inside, Rafi told his parents that he was having a little ice cream stand in the garage. His parents were late sleepers, so he didn’t have to worry about them until about 10:00 AM. There were a lot of kids on his block, and they liked to get up early to play outside. It was about 8:00 AM and most of the kids were just getting out of their houses and getting ready to play a game of football. As soon as one kid saw the sign he told everyone else. All the kids on the street went back inside to get money for the ice cream. Some eve

n brought money to get two! By 9:30 he had made about $90. So he only needed to make thirty more bucks to get his bike. Then the younger brothers and sisters of his first customers came out to buy more sundaes. By 10:00, he had already made more than $200. Rafi put the whole stand into the garage and closed it up. He went inside to relax and have lunch. After lunch, the kids were waiting outside to get more sundaes, and some of their parents were even out there too. Rafi had a pretty busy hour and a half after that, and he made a lot of money. By 1:00, he had made approximately $400. He was getting really tired, and there weren't many more customers.

Rafi went back inside and told his parents he made a lot of money from the ice cream sale and said he was going to the mall. His parents said, “OK, but tomorrow we’re going to have a more relaxing day.” Rafi made one last sundae and headed to the mall with all of his money, which amounted to $500.52. When he got to the mall he walked straight into the food court and went up to the counter of The Ice Cream Palace. The guy behind the counter was glaring at him and looked like he wanted to call the cops.

Rafi said, “Look, I’m sorry about lying to you. I wanted to make it up to you by giving you MY secret sundae recipe and a tip for training me.”

The guy behind the counter was speechless. He took a bite of the sundae and he loved it.

Rafi said, “It’s your secret recipe plus melting the peanut butter chunks and crunched pistachios into it, and putting the golden brown marshmallows and the mashed Oreos on top.”

The guy at the counter said, “Thanks kid, I’ll see you around.”

Rafi walked away.

Rafi walked to the bike store and looked around to see if the bike he liked was still there. There were still a bunch of kids looking like they wanted to buy it.

He walked up to the clerk and said, “I’d like the black one in the corner over there.”

The clerk said, “That will be $200.”

Rafi took out his money and gave him the $200. After he purchased the bike he walked the bike out of the mall over to the bus stop. Then he thought to himself, “Why should I take the #27 if I can just ride this baby home?” And that’s just what he did.