Lily burst onto the scene!

  It was a big open room, and…

  All the grown ups were sitting on the floor in a circle, with their legs folded underneath them!

  There was a cow in the center of the room, chewing her cud!

  She had big black spots on her white fur, and a tail with a little poof of black cowhair on the end, and really big adorable eyes!

  And she had the slightest frown on her face!

  She was annoyed and unhappy!

  Several other cows were standing in a corner of the room, also chewing their cud.

  “Moo,” said the cow in the middle.

  “Moo.”

  “Moo,” agreed the cows in the corner.

  “...Moo?” said one of the humans tentatively, sitting on the floor.

  The cows ignored him!

  The human who tried to moo had long, untidy brown hair, and he wore glasses that were perfectly circular, and he had a scraggly beard! His shirt was tie-dyed, a riot of colors all mixed together, and he was wearing leather moccasins!

  Next to him was a secretary keeping notes. She had black hair pulled into a tight bun, and wore narrow eyeglasses with thin frames, and she was sitting on her knees and legs directly, unlike everyone else who had their legs crossed underneath them. She was wearing a business suit and pencil skirt, so she had to sit like that!

  (She also took her job very seriously, and was the most professional secretary in all of Bessie’s Landing!)

  Lily and Flo stood in the doorway, taking the scene in, and Mr. Cat slid between their legs and went straight to the secretary taking notes!

  Her business suit was immaculate!

  His fur would look great on it!

  “Heheheh…” he chuckled, and then he sauntered over.

  “Meow, mew,” he said, and the secretary paused.

  She turned her harsh gaze towards him, and…

  Melted!

  “Ooh, what a cute cat!” she said, and held out her hand for him to sniff.

  He inspected it carefully for weird smells and stickiness…

  And then let her pet him!

  And he rubbed up on her clothes, leaving his fur behind!

  What a little rascal!

  Looking up, the secretary noticed Lily and Flo standing there, with Lily’s Mama behind them. She waved them over, and they came and sat down next to her.

  The cow in the middle watched them carefully, but when they sat down, she went back to chewing her cud and lowing occasionally.

  “Sit like this, Lily! Criss-cross applesauce!”

  “Oooh, I see,” Lily said, and sat down crossing her legs. “Thanks, Flo!”

  “Are you little girls here for the Chamber of Commerce meeting?” the secretary asked. “We got started early, sorry, but Stevie the Hippie didn’t want to wait…”

  “That’s okay,” Lily whispered, as Stevie the Hippie tried mooing again, and was again ignored.

  “My name is Brenda, and I’m the General Secretary of Wisconsin,” the secretary whispered back.

  “I’m Lily! I’m a fast food entrepreneur!”

  Not to be outdone, Flo introduced herself as well. “I’m Flo, and I’m going to inherit the apple orchards!”

  “Nice to meet you both,” Brenda said, effortlessly conversing and taking notes on Stevie the Hippie’s attempted negotiation.

  “Moo?”

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.”

  It was going nowhere.

  Dairy Cows don’t talk!

  Humans don’t moo!

  It was a silly idea.

  Mr. Cat sneezed.

  “That guy smells funny,” he said, and Brenda tightened her lips.

  She wasn’t going to say anything!

  That wouldn’t be professional!

  A minute later, Stevie the Hippie leaned back and sighed with exasperation.

  “It’s tough man,” he said, addressing all the other people. “I just can’t get the cows on my wavelength, you know? Like the vibe is all messed up here.”

  One of the other men frowned at him.

  “You said you could communicate with anyone or anything,” he said.

  “Like, yeah man, we’re all part of the same cosmic vibration, you know? Like we’re all the universe, and the universe is us, so anyone can communicate, you know?”

  “So what did the cow say?”

  “She said ‘moo’ man, I dunno what you want from me.”

  “We want the cows to produce milk again!”

  The other man was frustrated!

  Really frustrated!

  He was a hardworking farmer man!

  He was wearing a flannel shirt, and denim overalls, and workboots and a straw hat!

  He was even sitting on the floor because Stevie said it would help!

  And his back hurt now!

  He was quite frustrated.

  Stevie snapped his fingers. “There, that’s it!”

  “What’s it?” Brenda asked, hopefully.

  “Like, desire is the root of all suffering man, instead of trying to make the cows do what you want, you should learn to let go of wanting them to produce milk! There, I’ve solved the problem!”

  With that, Stevie stood up smiling, made peace signs with his hands, and walked away.

  Not his problem anymore!

  Flo’s mouth was hanging open.

  She couldn’t believe it!

  Stevie the Hippie sauntered out of the room, totally proud of himself, and as soon as the door shut behind him she couldn’t contain herself any longer.

  “That guy was nuts! Why were you all listening to him?!”

  She had thought the Chamber of Commerce was, like, the final boss of business in Wisconsin!

  She really looked up to them!

  The other man sighed, and stood up shakily.

  His legs had fallen asleep!

  The rest of the men stood up too, and started putting the conference table back in place.

  A farmer brought a halter in, and put it on the cow’s head, and started leading her away.

  “We’re desperate, Flo! We’re running out of our emergency milk stockpiles, and we’ve completely stopped exporting cheese! We barely have enough to feed ourselves!”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  For reference, all the men in the room were most definitely not starving.

  “We’re starving!” they protested!

  No they weren’t.

  “We’re all starting to lose weight…”

  That was true!

  While the businessmen on the Chamber of Commerce regaled Flo with their woes and misery, mostly cheese related, Lily went up to the cow that had been in the middle.

  “Whoa there, little girl,” the dairy farmer stopped her. “Don’t walk up to her from behind. She don’t like that!”

  “Oh!” Lily said. “Sorry Missus Cow!”

  “Moo,” said the cow.

  “Here, walk up to her from the side or the front. That’s it, slow and steady, with confidence. Talk to her nice and low, cows don’t like loud noises and sudden movements.”

  Lily walked up to in front of the cow and smiled.

  “Hi, my name’s Lily! Nice to meet you!”

  The cow leaned forward, and sniffed at Lily.

  “Moo.”

  “Her name is Daisy,” the farmer said.

  “Nice to meet you, Daisy! I hope you have a nice day!”

  “Moo.”

  “Gods Bless!”

  “Good job, Lily. I think Daisy likes you!”

  Daisy had the same slightly annoyed look on her face, though…

  But she blinked slowly!

  Did that mean anything?

  “Thanks for your help, Mr. Farmer.”

  The farmer twitched.

  He was shocked!

  “Hey, how did ya know my last name was Farmer?”

  “Huh?”

  It was happening again!

  Lily looked at her ghosts for help, but…

  They shrugged!

  “Well, maybe ya heard it somewhere. But that’s right, I’m Dan Farmer. If you want to see Daisy again, come on down to Dan’s Dairy Farm. We’re even making ice cream this week!”

  “Ice cream?”

  Lily had never heard of that before!

  “Oh, you’ve never had ice cream before? It’s delicious! The perfect treat for hot summer days.”

  “Okay, I’ll come check it out. Thanks, Mr. Farmer!”

  “Please, call me Dan.”

  “Okay, you can call me Lily!”

  They shook hands, and then Dan led Daisy and the other cows out of the Chamber of Commerce meeting room.

  Once the cows were out of the room, Brenda clapped her hands sharply, cutting off the other discussions.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s resume the normal agenda for today’s meeting.”

  She was a professional!

  Even if they had met with a hippie, and sat on the floor…

  All the men and women of the Chamber of Commerce took their seats at the table.

  Lily, her Mama, and Flo all had to sit in chairs on the edge of the room.

  Mr. Cat sat on Brenda’s lap!

  Brenda idly pet him while she got the meeting back on track.

  “Now, today we have some guests. Lily, would you like to introduce yourself?”

  Lily hopped up.

  But…

  She was short!

  Everybody couldn’t see her over the edge of the table!

  “Oh dear, well, you can join the table as guests. You can’t possibly be worse than Stevie the Hippie was…”

  Lily was eight, so that was saying a lot!

  Lily and Flo pulled up chairs, but Lily’s Mama stayed on the edge of the room.

  “Madame?”

  “Oh, no, I’m not here for business. I’m just keeping an eye on my daughter, Lily…”

  “Well, alright then.”

  Brenda continued taking notes.

  Once Lily was seated, she put her business thinking cap on!

  “My name is Lily! I run fast food restaurants in Appalashia and the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas, and I’m here to fix the price of cheese!”

  Brenda’s pen fell out of her hand.

  Lily’s Mama, and all her ghosts, facepalmed.

  One of the businessmen looked at her.

  “Price fixing?” he said.

  “Yeah!” Lily exclaimed. “The price of cheese is too high! And we can’t buy enough of it! And on top of that, the Texans can’t sell me more beef until they get their herds sorted out!”

  The same businessman frowned at Lily.

  This sounded like big business coming into town to tell them what to do!

  “You know price fixing is against the law, right?”

  “Huh?!”

  How could that be?

  The price was too high, so fixing it would just make it lower…

  Wouldn’t lower prices make everyone happy?

  Flo sighed, and shook her head.

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” she clicked her tongue at her business rival. “You can’t fix prices, that’s bad business behavior!”

  Brenda nodded.

  “Flo is right. Flo, would you like to explain?”

  So Flo explained to Lily that price fixing was when businesses got together and agreed to sell their goods for too much, to make more profits, and that Wisconsin had banned it.

  “Wow, I didn’t know that! But that’s not what I meant!” Lily protested. “I want to solve the problem so that I can buy cheese at normal prices!”

  “Why would someone from Appalashia need so much cheese, anyway? And, wait, are you from Appalashia, or Texas?”

  “The Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas,” Lily corrected him, out of habit.

  “Ah, so you are a Texan.”

  “No, I’m from Appalashia!”

  Lily explained her adventure helping the Texans, and how her business worked, and that she couldn’t buy the beef she needed until the Dairy Cows were happy and the boy cows and girl cows could make more baby cows and grow the herds again.

  “Fascinating…” a businesslady at the table said. “A restaurant with cheap prices and fast service… almost like an ice cream stand, but for hot food…”

  “I’m more interested in this franchising system,” said a businessman. “The risk and reward balance is most interesting…”

  Ray Croc was celebrating, invisibly and silently, behind Lily.

  This Chamber of Commerce got it!

  But, Lily frowned!

  She had her eyes on the prize!

  “If I can solve the Dairy Cow Strike, I can raise my profits, and pay my debts… so, why are the Dairy Cows on strike?”

  She looked around the table!

  Nobody met her eye!

  Brenda sighed.

  “That’s the problem. We don’t know.”

  “Asking the cows doesn’t work. All they say is moo.”

  “It’s been getting worse and worse over the years… We tried to go back to the old way of dairy farming, but we don’t have that much pasture land for that many dairy cows…”

  “Old Man Sam does things the old way, but he only has a small herd of fifty cows…”

  “Honestly, his little herd is doing the best of all of us…”

  Brenda clapped her hands again.

  “Okay, so does anyone have a problem with Lily trying to help resolve the Dairy Cow Strike?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Alright, without objection, Lily is permitted to attempt negotiations and conduct investigations.”

  Brenda turned to Lily. “Anything else?”

  Lily looked up into the empty air over her shoulder.

  “Uh, do I need a permit to open franchise restaurants here?”

  Brenda’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, you do, actually.”

  “Can I have one?”

  “You have to apply.”

  Brenda handed Lily a stack of forms to fill out.

  Paperwork…

  “Cheer up, Lily! With a permit, you can expand even more!” Ghostly Ray Croc encouraged.

  Lily put on a business smile and took the stack of forms.

  “Thanks…”

  The rest of the meeting went quickly, since the Dairy Cow Strike was the biggest crisis, and then Lily, her Mama, Mr. Cat, and Flo went back to the bed and breakfast inn for lunch.

  Lily said a prayer for help ending the strike, but the Gods and Goddesses didn’t say anything…

  That was normal!

  It didn’t mean they weren’t listening!

  As proof…

  Lily’s ghosts were still there!

  So she asked them!

  “We’re not farming experts…” Rich and Mac said.

  “I’m more on the business side of things,” Ray said.

  But Duke…

  Ornery old Duke…

  Snorted!

  “Hmph. It ain’t that complicated. You haven’t even looked at the problem yet!”

  Lily tilted her head. “Huh?”

  “You met one dairy cow, but you ain’t even looked at the farms yet! Go at least look at them.”

  Was Duke a ghost of common sense?!

  “As expected of a cowboy ghost…” Lily said, and Duke grimaced.

  “I was an actor who played cowboys. There’s a difference,” he grumbled.

  Flo finished her cheese sandwich and apple juice.

  “So, where to next?” she asked Lily. “Want to get ice cream?”

  Lily put on her business thinking cap.

  Would getting ice cream solve the business problem?

  It sounded like it would be yummy…

  But, her tummy was already full from lunch!

  “Let’s go to a dairy farm!”

  “Okay, which one?”

  “Huh?”

  Flo pulled out a map of all the dairy farms.

  There was a lot of them!

  Practically the entire land around Bessie’s Landing was dairy farms, or orchards!

  One in particular, way out on the edge, caught Lily’s eye.

  Old Man Sam’s Dairy Farm.

  “That one!” Lily pointed.

  Flo made a face.

  “Ugh, it’s such a long walk…”

  But, Lily had a chauffeur!

  “That’s okay, we can drive there!”

  So they called Dale, and they all got in the car to visit Old Man Sam!