Chapter 1: The Longest Ice Cream Line in Nutville

It was the hottest afternoon of the summer, and everybody in Nutville wanted ice cream.

The line at Chilly Milly's cart stretched past the fountain, past the bench, past the flower boxes, and around the statue of General Nutbert, who looked deeply concerned to be wearing three accidentally dropped napkins.

"One scoop at a time!" cried Chilly Milly, wiping her forehead. "No shoving! No line-cutting! No licking someone else's cone just because yours isn't ready yet!"

"That rule exists for a reason?" asked Papa Nutwobble.

"Several reasons," Chilly Milly said grimly.

Nutty stood in line fanning himself with a paper plate. Mama paced in little impatient circles. Papa stared dreamily at the menu board.

"By the time we reach the front," he said, "my sprinkles will have retired."

Nutty's ears perked up. A problem. A line. A crowd. A dessert. All of his favorite ingredients for a plan.

He flipped open his notebook and wrote:

FASTER ICE CREAM DELIVERY SYSTEM

Grandma Nutwobble, who had only come for one lemon scoop and some peace, saw this immediately. "No."

Nutty pointed at the line. "Look how slow it is! What if, instead of handing cones one by one, Chilly Milly could launch them directly to customers?"

The whole family turned to stare at him.

Papa's eyes widened. "Airborne sundaes?"

Mama grinned. "Extreme dessert!"

Grandma closed her eyes for one long patient second. "Ice cream," she said, "is not a projectile."

Nutty had already stopped listening. By the time they reached the front of the line, he had drawn a machine with a scoop arm, a cone holder, a lever, two aiming flags, and a note reading MAY REQUIRE HELMETS.

Chilly Milly looked at the page. Then she looked at the line still curling around the park. Then she looked at the melting tubs in her cart.

"If you can make this faster," she said, "I will consider one trial launch."

Grandma groaned into her hand. Papa whispered, "This is the best summer of my life."

Chapter 2: Scoops at High Speed

The Ice Cream Catapult was built beside the bandstand in under an hour, which was exactly as reassuring as it sounds.

Nutty used:

• one springy throwing arm
• one padded cone cradle
• one scoop slide
• one umbrella for shade
• and one large sign that read CATCH CHEERFULLY

Chilly Milly supplied the cones. Mama tested the launch lever. Papa volunteered to sample any misfires, which everyone agreed was not a sacrifice.

The first launch was vanilla.

Nutty set the cone in the cradle. Mama pulled the arm back. The crowd leaned in.

"Target: Mr. Mole by the fountain!" Nutty announced.

FWIP!

The cone sailed gracefully across the park and landed directly in Mr. Mole's waiting paws.

The crowd went wild.

"AGAIN!" shouted thirty-seven squirrels at once.

The second launch was strawberry for the twins near the gazebo. Perfect. The third was mint chip for Mayor Buttersworth. Also perfect, if one overlooked the fact that his hat got a decorative stripe.

Nutty glowed with pride. "Observe the future of refreshment!"

Grandma folded her paws. "The future is sticky."

Then Papa asked for a double chocolate swirl with extra fudge.

This was, in hindsight, too ambitious.

The cone was taller. The scoop stack was wobblier. The fudge made the whole structure shiny and overconfident.

Nutty adjusted the aim. Mama pulled the arm. Chilly Milly rang the service bell.

FWIP-GLORP.

The cone launched beautifully. The top scoop did not.

It flew one way. The cone flew another. And a ribbon of fudge landed across the judge's table for the park flower contest.

Everyone stared.

Papa caught the cone with one paw and the top scoop with the other. Then, because he was Papa, he ate both immediately.

"Still successful," he said.

Grandma pointed at the fudge stripe on the contest roses. "Not for the roses."

Chapter 3: Chocolate Incoming

Soon the whole park was ordering by distance.

"One lemon swirl by the oak!" "Mint chip near the swings!" "Two small vanillas and a brave sherbet by the duck pond!"

Nutty and Mama worked the machine like professionals. Chilly Milly loaded cones with heroic speed. Tony the Delivery Fox ran around wearing a catcher glove, just in case.

At first, the launches were magnificent. Cones arced through the sunshine. Children cheered. Customers caught dessert from benches, blankets, and once from the top of a picnic table.

Then the wind shifted.

This matters greatly when you are catapulting dairy.

A blueberry scoop drifted sideways into the tuba section of the park band. A lemon cone took a sudden turn and landed in the mayor's flower ribbon box. And a triple berry sundae, aimed at the chess club, ended up on the statue of General Nutbert.

The general had now suffered enough dessert-related indignities to qualify for sympathy.

Nutty narrowed his eyes. "Cross-breeze complication."

Grandma, sitting under the shade umbrella with a perfectly ordinary cone, said, "You are discovering why restaurants invented walking."

But Nutty was committed. He added a wind sock to the top of the catapult. Then a second wind sock. Then a tiny side rudder he called the Scoop Stabilizer.

This improved things for almost six minutes.

Then Chilly Milly called out, "Emergency order! Five cones for the birthday party by the bandstand!"

Nutty loaded the cradle. Mama pulled the arm. Papa held the topping tray. Tony blew his whistle like this helped science.

The catapult launched three cones perfectly. The fourth bounced off the scoop slide and landed on the bandleader's shoe. The fifth went straight up.

Everyone in the park looked skyward.

The cone hovered for one magical second in the hot blue air. Then it began falling directly toward the biggest bowl of banana pudding at the birthday table.

"Sundae emergency!" shouted Nutty.

Chapter 4: The Sundae Emergency

All across Nutville Park, chaos developed in dessert form.

Mama sprinted toward the birthday table. Tony dove after the falling cone. Papa grabbed the pudding bowl. The band kept playing for several confused seconds before realizing the music had become less important than gravity.

The cone dropped. Tony lunged. Papa tipped the pudding bowl. Mama slid across the grass on a picnic blanket.

SPLONK.

The cone landed in the bowl.

There was silence.

Then the birthday child, little Hazel Rabbit, clapped her paws and shouted, "SURPRISE SUNDAE!"

The entire party cheered.

This was fortunate, because the rest of the park had also become a problem. The heat was rising. The scoops were softening. The catapult arm was now slightly sticky with fudge and optimism.

Chilly Milly put both paws on her hips. "All right. The machine is funny, fast, and dangerous to toppings. We need a calmer plan."

Nutty looked stricken. "No more catapulting?"

Grandma stood up and brushed crumbs from her skirt. "Smaller launches," she said. "Shorter distances. One scoop at a time. And a catcher team."

Papa nodded. "A controlled dessert distribution system."

This sounded serious enough that everybody agreed.

So they reorganized. The farthest customers came closer. Tony and two older kids became official catchers. Mama used less force on the launch arm. Chilly Milly limited cones to modest heights. Nutty adjusted the sign. It now read:

CATCH CALMLY. NO HEROICS.

The rest of the afternoon went much better. Cones still flew, but only politely. One landed in a hat, but the hat's owner asked to keep it that way. And by sunset, every customer in Nutville Park had gotten ice cream with only a medium amount of running.

Chapter 5: Cones for Everyone, Carefully

By evening the line at Chilly Milly's cart was gone.

In its place stood a cheerful semicircle of customers, a shaded waiting area, three official catchers, and one slightly sticky machine that had learned some manners.

Nutty leaned against the catapult, proud and tired. "I think we improved ice cream."

Grandma licked the last of her lemon scoop and considered this. "You improved the speed," she said. "You did not improve the laundry situation."

This was true. Several squirrels now wore artistic dessert marks. The mayor had fudge on one ear. The tuba still smelled faintly of blueberry. And General Nutbert had somehow acquired a cherry.

But everyone was smiling. Chilly Milly sold every scoop in the cart. The birthday party declared the pudding accident their best tradition yet. Papa had sampled enough "quality control" dessert to speak very slowly and happily.

Mama tossed one last small vanilla cone to Hazel Rabbit, who caught it perfectly and bowed like a champion.

The crowd cheered.

Nutty looked at his notes. He had started with a wild idea and ended with something slightly smaller, slightly safer, and much more useful.

This happened to him often.

"Next summer," he said, "we could maybe build a root beer zipline."

Grandma pointed a spoon at him. "Finish your cone before inventing beverages."

So he did. And Nutville Park glowed warm and golden while the last careful cones sailed through the evening air, just high enough to be exciting and just low enough to stay out of the flower contest.