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Jinnie lay in bed listening to the twins chatting to each other through the interconnecting door. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she knew it was them and not the TV, as they kept switching between English, Italian, French and German, which they were beginning to get reasonable at. She looked at the travel clock on her bedside table and saw it said 06:48. It was Christmas Day and a sea day, so there was no rush to get up, but she fancied a cup of tea.
She hopped out of bed and put on the kettle, which she had filled with bottled water before she went to bed. The sharp click finally caused Paolo to stir, and Jinnie put a finger across her mouth and pointed to the interconnecting door. Paolo sat up and listened. When Jinnie gave him his mug of tea, Paolo whispered, “I can’t make out what they are saying.” “Neither can I,” replied Jinnie, “they keep switching languages. I think they could be reading their bedtime book to each other. I hope not, I was enjoying the story, it’s about a ninja cat.”
Jinnie slipped quietly into the twins’ cabin, mug of tea in hand, and stood watching her children reading to each other and marvelled at their fluency in foreign languages and how they were translating the story of the ninja cat looking for a snake that had escaped from the zoo. Millie suddenly saw her and said, “Mummy, how long have you been listening to us?” “Not long,” replied Jinnie, “I was enjoying the story. You know it’s Christmas Day, why haven’t you opened your stockings?” Willie answered, saying, “I know that now we are not babies we agreed to only have one present each on the ship and save the rest until we got home. But we weren’t sure if the stockings counted as our present, and we wanted to open our presents when everyone was here.”
Jinnie laughed and said, “The idea was the stockings were full of little extras for you when you woke up, and the present is in my cabin to open when everyone comes before breakfast.” With that, the twins dug into their stockings, pulling out a huge mixture of things including little boxes of raisins, packets of peanuts, packets of mini cheese biscuits, an orange and an apple, coloured pencils, colouring books and a pencil sharpener, the next two books in the ninja cat series, transfer tattoos, finger bobs and new matching sun hats. The twins were delighted and started loading up their backpacks with things to play with later, as the club was closed because it was Christmas.
Granny and Grandpa were the last to arrive in Jinnie and Paolo’s cabin, freeing the twins to open their single present each. They quickly ripped off the Christmas wrapping paper of robins and snowmen and discarded it on the floor. It revealed, much to the twins’ delight, giant selection boxes. “Oh, yummy!” cried Willie as Millie was deciding what to eat first. Jinnie said, “Right, kids, it’s time for breakfast. You know the rules, no chocolate before lunch. I think we should have one bar each day.” Millie said, “OK,” then to Willie, “let’s save the best till last and start with what we like least.”
It was just like Britannia, Buck’s Fizz with breakfast, and a visit to Father Christmas mid-morning. This time the twins both got a bear, but this time in a turquoise Arvia tee-shirt, which Grandpa said meant they were Reform supporters. Millie said the two new bears could join the others on the playroom shelf.
The twins decided that they wanted a sandwich for lunch, and when Izzy asked what filling they wanted, they looked at her as if she was mad before they chorused, “Boiled egg and sliced tomato, of course.” Jinnie couldn’t stop herself laughing, but she came back with the sandwiches packed full to overflowing and said to the twins, “I got them to put a little salt and pepper on the tomato, just like Izzy does at home. And I have got giant chocolate chip cookies for dessert. They were in the buffet, the server told me they have different types every day. Sometimes it’s peanuts, sometimes it’s dark chocolate, sometimes it’s raisins, sometimes it’s white chocolate, but today it’s milk chocolate.” Millie and Willie nodded to each other before Willie said, “We like chocolate chip cookies.”
As the twins were getting ready for their Christmas dinner, Willie asked his mother, “Are we going to the pantomime after dinner?” “I’ve booked seats, so we can if you want to,” answered Jinnie. “Yes, please,” replied Millie, “it was really good last Christmas.” “It’s a different story this year,” said Izzy. “It’s Dick Whittington and His Cat. He was Lord Mayor of London. You will love it, and you can tell Larry all about the famous cat when you get home. She was responsible for Dick becoming rich.” “Wow,” said Willie, “Larry will love that.”
As Izzy predicted, the twins loved the pantomime, as did the adults, and the fact that the cat was supposed to be a girl cat, was called Tommy and was nearly as big as Dick Whittington added to the story. Jinnie told the twins the cat was probably a Maine Coon because they were huge but friendly. They strolled out of the theatre and made their way to the midship glass lifts, through the atrium where the previous evening they had listened to the captain reading ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Where last night there had been a huge crowd with the children sat cross-legged on the floor and the adults standing, everyone listening, and this morning had been Santa’s grotto and children’s games, were now two girl acrobats performing on big rings suspended from the ceiling several decks up. The twins watched open-mouthed.
As Izzy and Jinnie got them ready for bed, the twins said that this Christmas had been better still than last year, the pantomime had been fabulous, and it was sad that the cat had been sold. They would never sell Larry. Then Willie said, “Mummy, one day, when Larry dies, can we get a giant Maine Coon cat?” Jinnie said, “We’ll see,” but was secretly pleased, as she remembered that Larry had been the first to suggest that to her.
***
On Boxing Day, the ship was in the third of the ABC islands, Curaçao. Jinnie sat on the balcony with her first coffee of the day as the ship eased into Willemstad with its pretty pastel-painted houses round the harbour. Jinnie decided it was so pretty it was worth a photo on her phone. She had just taken the snap when the twins arrived, washed, dressed and hungry. Millie said, “We got ourselves up this morning as it’s 7:30 and we are hungry, when can we go to breakfast?” “Soon,” replied Jinnie, “Daddy is in the bathroom and Izzy and George will be here any minute, then we can go.”
The twins had their usual Rice Krispies followed by boiled egg and soldiers. This year the twins had started asking for toast, having tried it and liked it last year. There were little bowls of orange marmalade and strawberry jam on the table, but Jinnie caught the twins frowning. “What’s the matter, kids?” asked Jinnie. “Yesterday there was honey, like Winnie the Pooh has,” replied Willie. Jinnie said, “Perhaps they have some if we ask,” and the twins promptly had ramekins of honey in front of them. The waiter said, “I’ll make sure it’s on the table tomorrow.”
The family negotiated a minibus to take them all to Playa Lagun, a beach that Penny had found on the internet with shallow warm water surrounded by cliffs. It apparently offered excellent swimming and snorkelling and the chance to see sea turtles. The driver agreed the price, including waiting with them to bring them back to the ship.
The first view of the beach took Jinnie’s breath away, it was spectacular, soft white sand, a calm shallow sea with only a few people on the beach, and what looked from a distance to be a café/bar with loungers and beach umbrellas for hire. Turning to Penny, Jinnie said, “It looks like you have found a winner here.”
The twins were quickly into their snorkelling gear and impatient for the others to get ready so they could get into the sea. Eventually everyone was ready and trudging to the water’s edge except for Granny and Grandpa Walsh, who claimed to be too old to go snorkelling and stayed on their loungers with cold drinks. The bay was very long and narrow and the water extremely calm, rather than waves at the water’s edge it was more like ripples on a pond. Jinnie stuck an exploratory toe in the water and discovered it was lukewarm, so she ventured in and found that it was very shallow. She seemed to be walking a long way before the water came up to her waist, but the twins were already swimming, diving to the seabed and coming up with shells.
Jinnie lowered her face mask, took a deep breath and dived down to join the twins in the sun-warmed inlet. The water was wonderfully clear, and she could see the sandy seabed slowly dropping away to a more rocky bottom perhaps 10 metres further toward the entrance to the bay. To her surprise, Dan and Penny were floating over the rocks watching a medium-sized sea turtle casually swimming by. Back on the surface, the excited twins wanted to know if she had seen all the little fish and the turtle.
On shore and drying off, the twins couldn’t wait to tell their grandparents what they had seen and done, how the water was really warm, warmer than Uncle Nigel’s swimming pool, and to show them their new collection of seashells. Paolo rescued the grandparents by arriving with several laminated menus, and everyone spent ten minutes deciding what to eat before a waitress arrived to take the order.
It was about ten minutes later that the food and drinks arrived. It was a mixture of hot dogs (for the twins) and various burgers for the adults, but everyone had French fries. Mostly it was cheeseburgers, but George and Dan had gone for the ‘House Special’, which had two beef patties, two cheese slices, onion rings and pineapple. All the men had a local beer, while the women and children had Coke Zero.
After lunch, the twins, George and Dan dug a big sandcastle before Jinnie called them to get ready for the taxi ride back to the ship. It was a 4 p.m. all-aboard time for a fast overnight run to Antigua. On the way back, the driver asked the twins if they had enjoyed their day and was pleased to learn the best thing had been the snorkelling and seeing sea turtles up close.
***
When the restaurant doors opened for the first sitting, the twins raced to the family table and were busy chatting to the waiters when Paolo, Jinnie, Izzy and George arrived. The view over the ship’s wake showed just how fast the ship was going, and Jinnie stood at the window and took a photo before joining the twins at the table. They were joined by Granny and Grandpa, and everyone set about ordering dinner. As always, the waiter went to the twins first, and of course, they started with tomato soup, and then ordered lamb cutlets that they remembered had been delicious when they had them previously.
The twins’ order had only just been placed, and the assistant waiter was hovering with a second round of the bread basket when Uncle Dan and Aunt Penny hurried in and took their seats. Penny apologised for being late, saying how they had only woken up a short time ago and had rushed around madly. The twins took great pleasure in pulling Uncle Dan’s leg over his very red face from today’s sunshine. As they made their way back to the cabin after dinner, Millie said to Izzy, “We really like lamb cutlets, they are fun chewing the last scraps of meat off. We should have them more at home.”
The ship didn’t arrive in Antigua until after breakfast, and as the family made their way to the pool, there were lots of people hanging around as they were leaving the ship to fly home. As usual when in Antigua, Jinnie was having a workday checking out some of the company businesses, and she had booked them all on the ship’s excursion to the Continental just as soon as she could.
Jinnie walked through Heritage Quay and popped into Aunty JoJo’s, where she introduced herself to the manager and asked about the business. She was delighted to learn that it was still as good as ever and the bar was packed every day. As they chatted, Jinnie asked if there was anything the manager could suggest to improve sales. The manager thought for a moment before saying, “I can only think of two things, expand the restaurant for one, but that is not easy, and improve the dessert offerings. At the moment we only have a very limited menu, there are only so many doughnuts, apple pies, and cookies you can sell.” “What do you suggest we add?” asked Jinnie.
The manager smiled and said, “Firstly, fresh tropical fruit mix, then a decent ice cream, not a cheap soft machine one but a good one we can scoop. Chocolate brownies, churros, and waffles. We can mix them up, a brownie with a scoop of ice cream, an ice cream and fresh fruit sundae, a waffle ice cream sandwich, and of course, apple pie and ice cream.” “I like your thinking,” said Jinnie. “As soon as I get home, I’m going to search out Brooke, your divisional director. I think we need to talk this through, maybe we can come to an agreement with a big-name manufacturer like Ben & Jerry’s or Häagen-Dazs.”
Jinnie walked out of Heritage Quay and hailed a cab, asking to be taken to the TT Ennios. The driver smiled and said, “I like going there.” Jinnie smiled back, saying, “I know why, you are hoping to win the free weekend.” The driver asked, “How do you know about that?” “I set up the scheme,” replied Jinnie. Before the conversation could continue, Jinnie’s mobile pinged. Looking at the screen, she saw it was a text from Monica. Clicking on it opened, and Jinnie read:
‘Hi Boss, I know you are on holiday, but something has come up I need to talk to you extremely urgently. Please ring me as soon as possible, we have only a very small window of opportunity, and I can’t easily explain in an e-mail. Monica.’
Jinnie read the message twice, by which time the taxi was pulling up outside the TT Ennios Antigua. She paid the driver, who headed off to register his visit. Jinnie walked into reception, gave her name and said that she had an appointment with the manager. She was soon sitting in the manager’s office and asked if he minded if she used the company internal comms system to talk with Bearcat Foods in Florida. He spun his computer monitor round to her and rose to leave her alone. Jinnie told him to sit back down, saying, “I have a strange feeling I might need to ask your opinion on this discussion.”
Jinnie flipped through the on-screen directory and was soon making a video call to Monica. The call was answered by Ro, who was delighted to speak with her old boss. They had a brief chat, during which Jinnie asked about Jed and Syd and life in Florida before being put through to Monica. After saying “Hello” and “Thanks for coming back so quickly,” Monica suddenly realised this was an internal video call and said, “I thought you were on a cruise, how come you’re on a video call?” “The ship is in Antigua for a couple of days, and I’m in with the manager of the TT Ennios Antigua. I just popped in to chat about how business is going, so I took the opportunity to use his computer. Now, what is so urgent?”
Monica said, “It’s a huge business opportunity, but we will need to move fast to secure it, and it is a new direction for us.” “OK,” said Jinnie, “you better start at the beginning and talk us through it.” “Here goes,” replied Monica, “it’s a bit complicated, so don’t hesitate to ask questions if I am not making sense.”
“Over here in the States, there are thousands of ‘drugstores’, what we call pharmacies in Barbados, and I think you call chemists,” explained Monica. “Many of them used to have soda counters where you could get the likes of a Coke and ice cream. But these days, there are not so many still with soda counters, and one of the last of the old-fashioned chains, Frank’s, has just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.”
“Strangely, I know someone involved,” Monica continued, “and they were telling me that the problem with the chain is all with the ‘over-the-counter drugs’ business. It badly needs reorganisation, but they don’t have the money to do it. The soda counters and ice cream make a good profit. They make their own ice cream, ‘Frank’s Original’, at a couple of factories and sell it through about 800 drugstores across Florida and the south-eastern states. Many of the drugstores are franchises, and basically, most of them are poor contributors to the overall company. The ice cream business is a profit centre, and they also supply about 500 small grocery outlets, restaurants and hotels with pints, quarts and half-gallons, and it is delicious ice cream.”
“I guess the whole point of this tale,” said Monica, “is that the ice cream business is just about the only valuable asset and is for sale to raise funds to reinvest in the rest of the business in an attempt to turn it around. I think we should try and buy it as a going concern. It could be cheap, as a huge chunk of the business is at risk of going down the pan sometime in the future. However, I would like to integrate it into our business, selling through our US Aunty JoJo’s outlets as an extra dessert option. We currently have 50 or so outlets, and there are also the Ennios Hotels, offering an immediate and growing boost to the ice cream business. Then I know you are thinking about opening SuperBurger in Florida. We may have to cut back production for a while if the drugstore outlets are lost, but I can see us selling through all our American outlets.”
“Right,” said Jinnie, “why the rush?” “My contact says that unless they get an offer by the end of this week, that’s when the 120 days of Chapter 11 protection is up. If they can’t raise money by selling the ice cream division, they will file for Chapter 7 and liquidate the whole company. It is being sold with a contract to continue selling to the drugstores. My friend says the money from the ice cream division sale should be enough to sort out the ‘over-the-counter’ drugs business. But I am not betting on it,” replied Monica. “I would be growing the brand through our own outlets and new independent outlets into new US markets, so we are not so heavily relying on the drugstores’ soda counters if the worst happens.”
“OK,” said Jinnie, “do we get the worldwide rights to the name and recipe? Do they have any ice cream parlours? You know we have started a catering division in the Caribbean, could we use the brand there? Could we sell it in our Canadian outlets? Could I sell it through our UK outlets?” “I asked my friend about rights,” answered Monica, “and I am assured that worldwide rights with no limits are included in the sale, so we could manufacture and sell anywhere worldwide. That would include the catering division, Canada, the UK, the Caribbean and anywhere we chose to set up a business. Finally, they don’t have any ice cream parlours, but I would sure love to try some. It is a great product for a franchise business and a very cheap, almost risk-free business to get into.”
Turning to her companion, Jinnie asked, “What do you think, could you sell own-brand ice cream in the Ennios Antigua?” “Well, it’s not really own brand,” came the reply, “I have been to Florida, and Frank’s Original has an excellent reputation. I would love to have the opportunity to sell it in our restaurants and snack bar.” “Oddly, I was talking to the manager of Aunty JoJo’s at Heritage Quay earlier this morning,” said Jinnie, “he wanted to add a good ice cream brand to his dessert offering. OK Monica, let’s take this further. How much is this going to cost us to pick up the business from Frank’s? Not just the cost of buying the business, but what infrastructure do we need in our chains, how much will it cost, will we need to train staff, will we need advertising, do we keep the ‘Frank’s’ name?”
“Of course, we keep the name,” replied Monica, “‘Frank’s Original’ is well known round here, there is no need to change it unless it infringes a trademark in some territory. I have already started putting a costing together and putting the idea that I have just run past you on paper for the board, but I now need to expand that to the Caribbean, Canada and the UK and I don’t know where to start with that.”
“I suggest you simply say we would also have worldwide rights to make and sell the product under the Frank’s name,” said Jinnie. “I will pick up that side of things when I am back at work. I will also run the idea past some of the main board directors, Alberto, Sir Nigel and Brian, but give me some numbers and if they look good, I will sell it to the board, and you can get an offer in. When it’s ours, I’ll start pushing it into the other regions and the ice cream parlour idea. Ring me on my mobile to update me every day, we have Starlink on the ship, so comms is excellent.”
***
The cab dropped Jinnie outside Heritage Quay, and as she walked past Aunty JoJo’s, she thought about talking to the manager about Frank’s before deciding not to, as she wanted to get back on board and phone Potters Bar before they went home. Jinnie grabbed a cold Pepsi Max from the suite’s fridge, sat down on one of the balcony chairs, and dialled Alberto’s office direct landline number. Jinnie recognised Janet’s voice answering the phone and asked to be put through to Alberto.
Alberto’s first words were, “Hello Jinnie, what scheme do you want to talk about today? You only ring from your holiday if it is too urgent to run past me when you get back.” “You know me too well,” replied Jinnie. “So, I don’t have to repeat this story, can you ask Janet to invite Sir Nigel and Brian in and shut the door?” “Righto, just give me a moment.” In the background, Jinnie heard Alberto talking to Janet before he came back on the line saying, “I’m getting too old for this, most people my age are retired.” Jinnie chuckled and said, “You will never retire, you love the business too much. They will have to carry you out in a box.” “I don’t know,” replied Alberto, “now Gianna has recovered her health, she is nagging me to take a long break to her village in Puglia. I am a five-star hotel man, I don’t want to stay in the family trulli, even with a swimming pool.”
“Anyway, the others are both here now, so you are on speaker and can run your news past us all,” continued Alberto. Jinnie launched into the story Monica had just told her and finished by saying, “I told her to get me some cost in writing like yesterday, and if they are half decent I would drive it through the board. What do you guys think?” Sir Nigel was first to react, saying, “Well, I for one can see a classy ice cream brand fitting into our businesses perfectly. I ventured into a SuperBurger at a motorway service station the other day, not my type of place at all. It was OK for a pee and a coffee, but I did hear someone complaining that they couldn’t have ice cream on their apple pie because the machine was done for cleaning. Apparently, it happens a lot, if we served scoops of good stuff that would be cured. As New Business Director, I definitely think the opportunity needs looking at.”
Brian was next to speak. “As you are aware, I just handle the finances and let you people deal with the food side, but I love good ice cream, not that whipped stuff with a flake stuck in it, but fancy flavours. In my opinion, you can’t beat a scoop of Mint Choc Chip on your fruit pie. I can’t see any harm in looking into this project a bit deeper and getting it costed properly.”
Finally, it was Alberto’s turn to speak, “I have long thought that we need a good in-house ice cream to sell at Trattoria Trevi. We only carry Vanilla for things like the Banana Split on the children’s menu, and we occasionally break our own rule and serve it as a stand-alone dessert that is not on the menu. Of course, our Vanilla comes from an Italian company, but if this Frank’s is any good, I would be willing to give it a try. So, I think you have three tentative ‘yes’ votes. I presume both you and Monica are a ‘yes’, and the technical directors like Nigel and Belinda traditionally abstain on a food-related vote, so I think you have carried the board so far. Let’s see what the costing brings.
In Chapter 6 – A Last Minute Offer
© WorthingGooner 2025
