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 abunch 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 lookedaround.

Then Sam found it. It was next to the food court. They walked in. It lookedlike there was a big crowd around one bike. Rafi pushed his way through the crowdand then he saw it. The bike he had been waiting for. “I HAVE TO GET THATBIKE!!!!!!!!” 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 tomake any donations?” Rafi begged.

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

“You could wait ‘til you get Christmas money, and then you’ll have enoughmoney,” said Sam.

“Yeah, but then I’ll have nothing to do all summer!!!” Rafi replied. Theywalked out into the food court and saw the ice cream shop, the Five Guys, and theburrito 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. “15and up!?!” Rafi shouted. He was so angry that he wanted to pick up a table andthrow it out the window. But then he thought of an amazing idea. A bad one, but agreat one. “Sam gimme the hat you’re wearing,” demanded Rafi “and the shadestoo.”

“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 tothe 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 jobyou're gonna have to fill out this form.” He held up a yellow piece of paper. “This isyour registration form for the job.”

Rafi took the piece of paper and looked at it carefully. There were a bunchof 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 heshould do this - after all, he was lying. “No, I should definitely do it! It’s the bike I'vebeen dying for!!!” Rafi thought to himself. When he finished the form he handed it tothe guy at the counter who luckily wasn't the manager. The manager would haveprobably suspected something. The guy at the counter looked at the application forabout 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 stepwas to learn how to scoop ice cream onto the cones. The guy at the counter taughthim to scoop ice cream so that it looked perfect. He taught him how to put on justthe right amount of toppings and how to drizzle the chocolate sauce on fast, but sothat it looked good. The guy at the counter said, “Training’s over. Your first shiftstarts 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 chocolatesyrup on his shirt and that he was all sweaty. He changed as fast as he could, just intime 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 lethim 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 wasso surprised that he came back that he took him into the back room of the store andthen he said, “Since you’ve been such a good worker, I’m going to teach you thesecret recipe for the perfect ice cream sundae.”

He could see the all the flavors of ice cream in the containers, and he couldsmell 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 outfor ten seconds.”

Rafi asked, “What if you put in peanut butter chunks and bits of pistachiosbefore 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 waywe 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. Rafithought that it was pretty good but thought, “If you melted in the peanut butterchunks and pistachio bits and put in a couple golden brown mini-marshmallowsand 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 wasscooping up strawberry ice cream and it went flying up into his shades and hat andwhen the guy caught a quick glimpse of his face he realized that he was not 15. Rafiknew he had seen him, so he jumped over the ice cream counter and ran out of thefood 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 gothome he sulked into his bedroom, shut the door, and flopped onto his bed. “I’ll neverget that bike,” he thought to himself.

That night he was thinking to himself in bed and had the most brilliant ideain the history of the world. Since he knew the secret recipe AND had his own idea onhow to make it even better, he could earn the money for the bike by having his ownice cream stand. The next morning he got to work. He found 4 big pieces of wood inthe basement and a saw. He had to do this very quietly because his parents wouldnever trust him with a saw. After he finished making the table he found an oldtablecloth and some nails to put it all together.

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

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

Now it was time to put all of the ingredients on his ice cream stand. He useda couple of bowls to put out the golden brown marshmallows, the pistachios and thepeanut 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 poweredmicrowave. That meant that it would take less time to finish each sunday since hewouldn’t have to go inside. The microwave was pretty big so it could fit two sundaesat once.

When he went back inside, Rafi told his parents that he was having a littleice cream stand in the garage. His parents were late sleepers, so he didn’t have toworry about them until about 10:00 AM. There were a lot of kids on his block, andthey liked to get up early to play outside. It was about 8:00 AM and most of the kidswere just getting out of their houses and getting ready to play a game of football. Assoon as one kid saw the sign he told everyone else. All the kids on the street wentback 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 tomake thirty more bucks to get his bike. Then the younger brothers and sisters of hisfirst customers came out to buy more sundaes. By 10:00, he had already made morethan $200. Rafi put the whole stand into the garage and closed it up. He wentinside to relax and have lunch. After lunch, the kids were waiting outside to getmore sundaes, and some of their parents were even out there too. Rafi had a prettybusy hour and a half after that, and he made a lot of money. By 1:00, he had madeapproximately $400. He was getting really tired, and there weren't many morecustomers.

Rafi went back inside and told his parents he made a lot of money from theice cream sale and said he was going to the mall. His parents said, “OK, buttomorrow we’re going to have a more relaxing day.” Rafi made one last sundae andheaded to the mall with all of his money, which amounted to $500.52. When he gotto the mall he walked straight into the food court and went up to the counter of TheIce Cream Palace. The guy behind the counter was glaring at him and looked likehe wanted to call the cops. Rafi said, “Look, I’m sorry about lying to you. I wanted to make it up to youby 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 andhe loved it. Rafi said, “It’s your secret recipe plus melting the peanut butter chunks andcrunched pistachios into it, and putting the golden brown marshmallows and themashed 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 likedwas 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 overthere.” The clerk said, “That will be $200.” Rafi took out his money and gave him the $200. After he purchased the bikehe 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 whathe did.