Ice Cream Around the Bases

ThatGirlWithaCat

Practice Round

Prompt 4: XXX (Frank) starts work at an ice cream truck. They meet YYY (Hazel).

1018 words

Lol, it's 1:30 right now and I had to write this for some reason, I don't know why. I should probably be sleeping - especially since I'm supposed to go running in the morning, but we do what we gotta do. And I gotta do this.

Anyways, sorry if it's horrid, but I don't really care. I got it done. :/

Also, this is for the Camp Jupiter War Game Tournaments forum (kinda a long name, but all the good ones were taken). Blah blah blah, link's in the profile, but I bet if you're here you already know that.

As the sun came up and the moon went down, Frank looked outside. It was his first day at the new ice cream truck - Betty's. It would be. . .fun. At least it gave him something to do, and would maybe help him improve his driving skills. Frank was. . .not the best driver, to say the least, or maybe the most.

He grabbed his backpack, filled with his wallet, phone, two water bottles, and a baseball cap. Sighing as he made him and his grandma breakfast, Frank thought about what the day would bring. Ice cream, definitely. Studying, maybe. Texting his nonexistent friends? Probably not.

It wasn't that Frank wasn't good at making friends, he was just new here. It was the beginning of summer, and most people were off at sleepaway camp, or roaming downtown with their friends, heck, some people were just inside, playing Minecraft and Fallout...with their friends.

Frank would probably make friends when school started up again. Or maybe not. After all, who would want to be friends with that weird Asian guy whose mom was dead? The thought saddened Frank. His mom had been gone for a few years, but Frank still thought about her often, and still wished she was there for him.

To be honest, though, Frank didn't know what this year would bring. Maybe, for once, it would be happy. And good? He didn't know.

He suddenly stopped for a second and looked out the window. People always felt sorry for him because of his mom, but they never brought up his other missing parent - his dad. Apparently it was just a "one year fling", and they had "met in the war" or something like that, but Frank knew he was still out there - waiting for the day when his son would step up and claim the prize of being his son.

But all those thoughts about his mom dy- nevermind- and his dad? Those were too heavy for today. Today was going to be the first day of ice cream truck driving, and he was a firm believer that it was going to go well. Not just well, perfectly.

Ah, well, maybe not perfectly. He might have to settle for amazing.

With an unusual spring in his step, Frank called his grandmother down. "Grandma? Food's ready and on the table, I've got to go though for my job, I'll be back in a few hours." He smiled a bit - not a lot, but just enough to be considered a grin - and opened the door to the outside world, breathing in the fresh dew and scents of a new day.

He took the bus to the ice cream shop - which was silly, as he could have just driven. But to be honest, that's what he was going to do all day, so why start now when someone else drove instead? Plus, taking public transportation was good for the environment. Frank liked the environment.

He got off at the bus stop closest to Betty's, and walked the rest of the way there, two tenths of a mile in total. Heart beating, he knocked on the back door of the store - what the owner had told him to do in the instructions she had given him.

But it wasn't Abigail who opened the door. It was a girl, about Frank's age, with milk chocolate colored skin and floofy - that was the only way to describe it - hair. She was confused for a second, and then smiled.

"Are you Frank?" Frank nodded mutely, not sure what to say to this new person. "Cool. I'm Hazel."

Frank mustered up his courage to say something. "Do you work here?" He asked. The girl laughed, a bit.

"Sorta. Abigail's my mom's sister, so my mom made me help get this business started." She rolled her eyes, like Frank should know what she meant. He managed a weak smile at this.

"Um, okay? So, it's-" Frank checked his watch, "Already nine. What am I supposed to do now that I'm here? Drive the ice cream truck, right?" Hazel nodded.

"Yep. It's. . .right over here, let me show you," She led Frank around the small ice cream parlor, and pointed at a white van with multicolored swirls on the side and "Betty's" in red swirly letters.

"Wow," Was all Frank could say. "That thing, it's, like, somehow it's gorgeous." Before he could stare too long at the truck, though, Hazel tossed him the keys. . .and missed.

"Oops. Sorry 'bout that," She said, hurrying to pick them up. It wasn't like the keys had landed a few feet away from Frank - more like ten. "I'm absolutely terrible at throwing things. I can catch alright, but throwing? Now, that's a bit, or maybe a lot, of a different story." Hazel looked at the metal object she was holding. "And to think my mom wants me to play softball this year." She muttered that last part like it was a secret she was keeping close to her heart.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, for Hazel, Frank had excellent hearing.

"Softball?" He asked. Baseball was one of his favorite pastimes (hah, get it? Frank sure did - he loved that joke), and he was pretty sure softball wasn't all that different. "I play baseball. Do you want to do like, a thing together? I could teach you how to. . ." He gestured to the predicament that had just happened, "Throw."

Hazel looked embarrassed at first, then immediately perked up. "Really? That would be great, thanks! When do we start?"

Frank had no words at first. He had assumed that she would just shoot down the idea, but nope. It was a thing - officially?

"Um, I guess we could meet at the fields on Saturday? I don't have anything planned then."

Neither did Hazel, so it was a date - in the calendar, of course, don't get any ideas!

Frank had an excellent day of ice cream truck driving after that. He ate a lot of ice cream, too - more than he would like to admit, but it was his first day, so no one really cared.

-ThatGirlWithaCat/KittenLuv