A Sticky Situation

Kim's new job at the toffee factory was a big change for her...

THE air was sweet with the smell of burned sugar and vanilla.

"This is your clock card," the foreman said.

The machine clicked as he inserted the card.

"Three minutes late, and your pay's docked. Three times late, and you're out."

Kim trembled.

On Friday, she'd been at school. Saturday was her fifteenth birthday, and today, Monday, she started work.

Her mum had wanted her to go to secretarial college, but Kim didn't want more studying. She wanted to start her life.

Ron, the foreman, gave her a cap and overall to wear, then led her to where a girl stood beside a conveyor belt, upon which jostled countless toffees.

The machine was noisy and Ron had to shout.

"Debby will show you what to do." The toffees ran into a machine that wrapped them into tubes.

From here, Debby scooped them up and stacked them in neat rows into boxes. It looked easy.

Kim gathered a handful of tubes and put them into a box, but hers were all higgledy-piggledy.

While Kim straightened them out, tubes built up in the wrapping machine.

The toffees running into it piled up like water behind a dam, then spilled on to the floor.

"Stop the line!" Ron yelled.

Squashed toffees stuck his boots to the floor. He glared at Kim.

"Get a mop!"

A woman further up the line bellowed, "Terry!" Kim, terrified, glanced at Debby. Debby pointed to a broom.

"You sweep up. I'll get the water." Kim tried to avoid Ron's glare as she swept up.

A young man wearing green coveralls arrived.

"Excuse me." He leaned over Kim and inserted a key into the machine.

The clanking metal stilled and toffees stopped flowing.

Terry turned to Kim.

"You clear the floor, and I'll unjam the machine." He had warm brown eyes that twinkled as they flickered towards Ron, still struggling to free his feet.

Kim's face burned. It was all her fault.