They got back inside, and Gertrude pulled out a binder from behind her desk.

  “Okay, so what kind of work is it?” she asked.

  Lily explained.

  “It’s cooking and selling work! In the morning we get the ingredients, then we cook them up, then we sell them at lunch time and dinner time!”

  That’s right, Lily and the ghosts had decided to sell at dinner time, too!

  It was going to be a full day of work at Lilyburgers City Square Location!

  They would start at ten am, and then serve lunch from eleven to one, and then stay open until six in the evening! A full eight hours of work!

  The market tended to be busiest in the morning, then people would stop and eat lunch, either going home or eating a packed lunch. Then in the afternoon they would come back, and then they would go home for dinner at around five.

  By half past five, the market was usually empty.

  That would give the workers at Lilyburgers enough time to clean up after serving dinner customers!

  “Hmmm…” Gertrude hummed. “Cooking work, cooking work…”

  She looked up from the binder. “Nobody really put down cooking as their skill…”

  The ghostly Mac and Rich harrumphed behind Lily.

  “It’s easy enough to train someone,” they said.

  “Don’t worry, Lily can train them,” the eight year old girl declared. “Hazel picked it up right away!”

  “Oh, speaking of Hazel…” Gertrude said, and flipped towards the back of the binder. “You said you wanted a manager, right? I happen to know Rebecca’s a very good cook, and she has a lot of experience…”

  She pulled out Rebecca’s resume and slid it across the table to Lily, who looked down at it. The ghosts leaned over her shoulder and looked at it, too.

  “Whoa…”

  Rebecca was really talented!

  She had a lot of work experience!

  Right now she was working part time as a bookkeeper for a logistics company, for fifteen dollars a day.

  “Only fifteen dollars…” Lily muttered.

  “Yes, she insisted on not working mornings or late at night. Most jobs want workers to start in the morning, so she had to take less pay…”

  Work was typically split up into half-shifts of four hours each, with a full shift being eight hours and a lunch break.

  Right now, Hazel’s mother worked one half shift for fifteen dollars, which was pretty good pay for a half shift, from noon to four.

  This let her do housework in the morning—including wrangling her daughter, Hazel—and then come home and get started on dinner for her husband, Tim, before he got back from the mine.

  “But I don’t know if she’ll want to work a full shift at your restaurant… She loves to cook for her husband, you see.”

  “Hmm…” Lily stroked her chin, like she had seen the adults do!

  It was like the grown up version of putting on her thinking cap!

  Lily remembered that Tim had said he liked the Lilyburger and fries he had ordered!

  He even bought some more for Hazel, the first time she came to the cart!

  He liked Lilyburgers!

  What if his beloved wife was the one cooking the Lilyburgers…?

  Lily had a good feeling!

  “I want to hire Miss Rebecca!” she declared.

  “Well, hold on, Miss Lily, you have to do an interview.”

  “An interview?”

  “Yes, a job interview, to make sure you can get along with the employee, and they can get along with their boss, and so everyone understands what to expect.”

  The ghosts all nodded.

  “Yep, that makes sense.”

  “So they have job interviews in this world, too…”

  Gertrude pulled out a stack of other resumes.

  “You said the training was easy, right? How do you feel about young men and women looking for their first job?”

  “That’d be perfect!” Lily said.

  In the end, they arranged to have the interviews the next day, at the Lilyburger cart by the mine!

  That way, they could show the interviewees what the cooking was like!

  And they could make a few extra Lilyburgers and fries and let the interviewees have a sample!

  Gertrude would reach out to the potential hires today, and tell them there was an interview for a job opportunity paying ten dollars per half shift.

  Lily would have to change the working hours of the cart, but Hazel would be super happy about that anyway. Now that two people were cooking together, they didn’t need to get started as early as when Lily had been doing it by herself.

  For Rebecca, since Lily wanted her to be a manager at the Lilyburger City Square Location, and also do the bookkeeping for the cart at the mine, they were going to offer to pay her thirty dollars per day.

  “That’s as much as the rent is!” Lily whispered to the ghosts.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Well, the rent is low,” Mac said.

  “And labor is one of the biggest costs of business,” Rich added.

  “Plus, if she’s a reliable manager, she’ll be worth her weight in gold,” Ray said. “You’re going to be expanding fast, so you won’t have time to be double checking every little thing. You need someone you can trust.”

  “Now, about the rent. Normally, rent is paid up front.”

  Lily turned as pale as the ghosts.

  Oh no!

  Business at the cart had been good, but Lily had only just gotten close to recouping her costs from buying the cart in the first place!

  But she still wasn’t there yet!

  She only had two hundred and ninety dollars and six cents!

  But…!

  Gertrude noticed!

  “Ahem, however…”

  She was going to fudge things again!

  “We have been struggling to find someone to take up occupancy of that shop, so I’ll postpone the payment due date until the end of this month, and then rent will be due on the first of the month from then on.”

  “Phew…” Lily said out loud.

  Gertrude’s eyeglasses flashed.

  “Do keep in mind that that means you will need to pay two months’ rent on that day. That’s one thousand, five hundred and seventy-five dollars, since this month is already a quarter over.”

  “Hmmm…” Lily hummed.

  Lily…

  Wasn’t sure what to do!

  That was a lot of money, due all at once at the same time as they other payments she needed to make!

  She had to pay the rent at home, which was a thousand dollars.

  If she didn’t pay that, she and her Mama and Papa wouldn’t have a house to live in!

  Then there was the loan payment that had covered this month’s rent, and that would be six hundred dollars…

  And the first medical debt payment was three thousand dollars!

  It was already going to be close…

  Too close!

  Lily had done the math earlier.

  If the restaurant sold one hundred and ten Lilyburger sets a day, which the ghosts told her was very reasonable, she could make over one thousand, eight hundred dollars before the end of the month.

  That would cover the rent payment…

  But then she wouldn’t have enough to cover the rest of her expenses.

  There just wasn’t time!

  As Lily was agonizing over what to do, thinking of how she could maybe sell more burgers and make more money that way…

  The door in the back slammed open!

  It was the mayor of their village, in the flesh!

  He was a big, er, heavy-set, older man!

  He was wearing golf slacks, and a polo shirt, and he was even carrying a bag of golf clubs!

  It wasn’t even lunch time yet, and he was heading out to play golf!

  Gertrude bit back a sigh.

  Her boss was slacking off at work again…

  Mayor George looked over, and saw his clerk and a little girl sitting at a table covered in resumes.

  “Oh? What do we have here?” he said, curious.

  Gertrude gulped.

  She had kind of slipped things by him about Lily so far!

  About her emancipation, and now about her business…

  If the mayor got involved, then…

  Lily, however, put on her imaginary business cap!

  It was like her thinking cap, but for business!

  Game recognizes game!

  She knew that the mayor was someone rich!

  Rich people played golf! Of course she knew that much, she was already eight years old!

  “Ahem, hello there, Mr. Rich Man!” she said.

  She said it!

  Gertrude’s mouth fell open.

  Lily was…

  Truly a genius!

  How had she known the mayor’s name was George Richman?!

  “Oh ho ho, hello there, little lady,” the mayor chortled.

  He was a courteous, polite older gentleman!

  He could humor a little girl, after all.

  “What brings you to the town hall today?” he asked.

  “I’m opening a restaurant,” she declared proudly.

  “Oh, really?” he said. He looked at Gertrude, who swallowed and nodded. He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded again!

  Wait, his top clerk was serious?

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “Oh, hrmm…”

  Then, the clock caught his eye.

  He was going to be late for his tee time!

  Meanwhile, the ghost of Ray Croc’s eyes flashed!

  This was it!

  “Lily, Lily!” he said, excitedly. “Do you know how to play golf?”

  “Golf?” she said, not sure what he was getting at.

  But the mayor thought she was talking to him!

  “Hrm? Oh, yes, I was just about to head out for a game, since the weather is so lovely. Too good to spend cooped up inside, isn’t it? Ohohoh…” he laughed!

  He laughed right in front of Gertrude, who was biting her tongue!

  Gertrude was cooped up inside working while her boss was going out to play golf!

  “Sir, it’s the middle of the day…” she said.

  “Oh, pishposh, it’s business golf,” the mayor said.

  “Business golf?” Gertrude raised an eyebrow. “With whom?”

  The mayor… started sweating!

  “Lily, Lily! Golf is where a lot of business happens! Go play with the mayor!” Ray encouraged.

  “But I don’t know how to play!” Lily whispered back.

  “Ask the mayor to teach you! Trust me, it’ll make him feel important!”

  Lily was dubious.

  Would the mayor really be such an easy and simple man.

  “Uhm, Lily wants to play golf, too! And Lily wants to talk about business!” she said.

  She tossed the mayor a lifeline!

  And he grabbed it for all he was worth!

  He hadn’t risen up to the position of mayor in a backwater mining village without knowing how to seize an opportunity when it presented itself!

  “Ahem, well, yes, little lady, you can certainly join me on my business golf game,” he said magnanimously.

  Gertrude narrowed her eyes. “How is Lily going to play golf, exactly? Your clubs are too big for her.”

  “No matter, there’s a kid’s set at the country club. Come along, Lily, was it? We definitely have to go discuss our business, ohoho…”

  Gertrude sighed.

  Whatever.

  She was over it!

  The mayor was retiring soon anyway!

  “Well, we can discuss the rent payments later,” she said, and Lily nodded.

  “Uh, yeah, we’ll discuss that later,” she said, putting it off!

  But Ghost Ray reassured her.

  “Don’t worry Lily. If we can get Mr. Richman on our side, that’ll be a big help. He could be our first investor!”

  And so Lily followed the mayor out to the golf course at the country club on the edge of town, for her first business golf!