Up in heaven, things were getting serious!

  This happened sometimes!

  Not all the time, though.

  For the most part, the Gods and Goddesses were chill!

  They relaxed!

  Heaven was their home!

  The mortal realm was where they did their work, for the most part.

  They were work-from-home, full time!

  It was a really sweet gig.

  But, every now and then…

  A God got serious.

  They would put on a ceremony.

  This was a big deal.

  The God or Goddess, or even a group of them, would put their full force into something.

  Either a blessing, or…

  Divine Retribution.

  Today, it was a blessing!

  In fact, it was the God of Literature, the blind poet Homer!

  He was wearing sandals, and a toga, and leaning heavily on a walking stick.

  His eyes were squeezed shut!

  His knuckles were white on his walking stick!

  He trembled, and repeated his words of power over and over!

  “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”

  Things were getting serious!

  He had to help Lily, but he had to maintain the setting!

  All the other Gods and Goddesses were watching the blind poet…

  The famous bard…

  And they were rooting for him!

  All except for one…

  Tricksy! The God of Tricks and Trials!

  Well, he wasn’t against the God of Literature.

  But he was playing tricks!

  That was what he did!

  The thing was…

  Life is full of trials.

  Challenges!

  Overcoming those challenges brought blessings upon the victorious!

  Failing those challenges brought character growth!

  Most people chose to avoid challenges, and never won blessings nor were forced to grow…

  That’s not good!

  And there were some people who prayed to Tricksy for more and harder challenges…

  Those guys were weird!

  Abnormal behavior!

  It kinda weirded him out…

  The Goddess of Finding was still looking for Tricksy, but he was really good at hiding!

  Tricksy’s foxy ears twitched, and his tail swished!

  Heheheh…

  Things were about to get challenging!

  “You can do it, Homer!”

  “Keep it up!”

  “We all gotta keep helping Lily!”

  Back down in the mortal realm…

  In the Kingdom of Appalashia…

  In the village of Three Creeks…

  Lily was waiting outside her restaurant, early in the morning!

  Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a…

  And then Junior, the mayor’s son from Stone Pit village, arrived!

  “Good morning, boss!”

  Junior climbed out of his car, taking off his driving goggles and gloves.

  His car didn’t have a roof today!

  It was a convertible!

  So cool!

  “Hi Junior! Good morning!”

  Lily waved and smiled.

  Today, they were going to set up the restaurant in Stone Pit village, and get the cart delivered and stocked, and do employee training in the afternoon!

  It was Monday!

  And, a certain cat was drowsily sitting next to Lily…

  Did he hate Mondays?

  Ah ah ah.

  You see, that’s a common misconception!

  Cats don’t care about Mondays!

  Cats don’t care about the days of the week!

  They just do whatever they want, whenever they want!

  Cats are free spirits!

  Mr. Cat had slept all day yesterday, and had been planning to sleep in all day today, too…

  Until Lily had told him she was going to work.

  And that meant.

  French Fries!

  Mr. Cat had woken up!

  The siren song of perfectly cooked, salted, crunchy-on-the-outside-and-pillowy-soft-on-the-inside french fries had reached his ears!

  He was still feeling tired though.

  Poor guy!

  Lily showed Junior the last parts of the business he needed to learn. How to set the cart up for success in the morning!

  Hazel and Zoey arrived to pick up the ingredients for the day, and leaving Mr. Cat behind to nap, they walked up to the cart by the mine and showed Junior the set up, and also how they wrapped up for the day.

  Junior was a gentleman, and insisted on carrying the heavy stuff!

  His Affection Points rose!

  Junior was a fast-learning kind of guy, and soon enough, they left Hazel and Zoey to their work, and returned to his car.

  He was going to drive Lily and Mr. Cat to Stone Pit village!

  They flew down the country roads at a perfectly safe and responsible speed, with a trio of ghosts flying behind them!

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  It was quite a spooky picture, if anyone had been there to witness it…

  But Lily was facing forward!

  Her eyes were set on the future!

  The bright future of the day: starting up two new restaurants!

  First stop, the village smith!

  He was the one who made all the cooking tools and utensils and put the cart together!

  Lily and Junior checked it over, along with the ghosts, while Mr. Cat napped!

  Everything was fine!

  The smith had done a great job!

  “Thanks for the business, little lady. It was nice to work on something other than more chisels and pulleys…”

  Most of the work was for the stone quarry, and it was boring!

  The smith was an artisan!

  He liked doing new things!

  The total for the order was three hundred and seventy-four dollars, and Lily paid him, and then they made several trips from the smith to the city square, where Lily’s Lilyburgers #4 was located!

  That’s right, she had so many now, she had to number them!

  This made ghostly Ray Croc really happy.

  Everybody likes to see the number go up!

  It’s an innate human pleasure!

  Even for ghosts!

  The cart for the quarry, by the way, was Lilyburgers #3!

  Lilyburgers #1 was the cart at the mine, and Lilyburgers #2 was the Three Creeks Village City Square Location!

  The rest of the morning, Junior and Lily set up Lilyburgers #4.

  First, they installed the griddle, the fryers, and the heat lamps.

  Then they picked up their ordered ingredients and other supplies.

  The pitchers and cups for lemonade.

  The ground beef, the buns, the cheese, the pickles, the ketchup, and the potatoes!

  And so on and so forth.

  Once they were done…

  The employees showed up!

  It was the first day of training!

  Abel, Brandon, Chuck, and Delilah…

  Four employees!

  They all were looking for steady work, so two would work at the cart, and two would work at Lilyburgers #4 every day of the week!

  Abel and Brandon were childhood friends, and classroom jokers!

  But, they could be serious, too!

  They were going to work at the cart.

  Chuck and Delilah were also childhood friends, and childhood sweethearts!

  They were going to work at Lilyburgers #4, on different shifts.

  And Junior was going to supervise everything, and work both shifts at Lilyburgers #4.

  “See? I told you the system was easy to understand and copy once you got used to it,” Ghostly Ray said.

  Lily merely smiled!

  It was time for the final touch!

  Chuck and Junior worked together and hung up the second sign Elizabeth, George’s wife, had made for Lily!

  After the training was done, everyone ate some of the Lilyburgers and fries they had made for training!

  “This is so yummy!” Delilah exclaimed.

  “Indeed, the taste is divine,” Chuck declared.

  “So gooooood,” Brandon cried!

  “Where have you been all my life,” Abel blurted.

  They all loved the food!

  “Mrow!”

  Mr. Cat was insistent!

  He loved the food, too!

  But Junior and Lily were keeping a close eye on him!

  Only one french fry from each person!

  After their shared meal, Lily paid everyone their day’s wage.

  Ten dollars to the four regular employees, and thirty dollars to Junior.

  He had put in a full day’s work today!

  And tomorrow, he’d be picking up Lily again!

  For the first week, Lily was going to oversee things!

  And, that night…

  Something amazing happened!

  Mr. Cat climbed into Lily’s bed and snuggled up next to her!

  They were both tuckered out!

  Lily was so happy she fell asleep praying, thanking the Gods…

  She loved her pet!

  Lily slept better than she could ever remember sleeping…

  But, she still woke up on time!

  And for the first day, she went to Lilyburgers #3, the cart at the stone quarry!

  She met Abel and Brandon at Lilyburgers #4, made sure they got all the ingredients they would need, and walked with them to the quarry cart. There, they set everything up, washed their hands, and got cooking!

  Lily wanted to help, but…

  “Lily, you gotta step back. Let them learn to do it themselves!” Mac chided.

  “That’s right, Lily. You’re the boss, and you won’t always be here to watch them, let alone help them. Only step in if they’re doing something wrong,” Rich added.

  In the end, Lily just stood off to the side, watching.

  Abel and Brandon were doing a really good job!

  Sure, they were cracking lots of jokes, but their hands kept moving!

  In the other direction was the stone quarry.

  It was like a big canyon!

  The land fell away at the edge, and there was a winding path along the side going down to the bottom, where the men were working! They used chisels and special tools to cut out big blocks of stone, then loaded them onto cranes and hauled them up out of the pit, and then loaded the stones onto carts.

  From there, more men pushed and pulled the carts down to the river, where big barge boats carried the stones to the east, where the big cities would buy them.

  It was hot, dusty work!

  Especially in summer!

  And, eventually…

  The lunch bell rang!

  All the men stopped working and started trudging up the path to the break area!

  And the boss emerged from the supervisor’s shack…

  He was going to be their first customer!

  He had heard from the mayor how good the Lilyburgers and fries were, and he wanted to try them himself!

  “Welcome to Lilyburgers, boss!” Abel said.

  “Oh no… You jokers are working here?”

  The boss knew Abel and Brandon!

  “Yep!” Brandon answered. “Told ya we could find work outside the quarry!”

  Working in the quarry was dangerous!

  It was no place for jokers.

  Stones were really heavy.

  The boss sighed.

  Lily was worried!

  “Oh no!” she said to her ghosts. “Is he not going to want to buy anything now?”

  This could be bad!

  But…

  “Well hold your horses, Lily,” Mac said.

  “Just let it play out. If he’s not willing to buy from them, you could make him a free sample yourself.”

  That’s right!

  She could let the quality of her fast food speak for itself!

  But…

  Everything was fine!

  “Hahhh…” the boss sighed. “Alright, I’ll take a full set with cheese.”

  “Coming right up, bossman!”

  Abel and Brandon…

  Could be serious!

  Sure, they had joked around a lot in class…

  But they were at work now!

  Work was no place to play jokes on the customers.

  They had the bare minimum of professionalism!

  Mr. Cat yawned.

  “French fries…” he whimpered.

  He wasn’t exactly hungry… But he always had a second stomach for french fries!

  The boss took his plate and cup to a table near Lily, and…

  He started chowing down!

  “Ohh, this is really good!” he said!

  Lily did a little fist pump!

  “Yes!”

  Another satisfied customer!

  And soon after that, the men came up to get their packed lunches.

  And they saw their boss eating!

  And the new cart that was set up!

  Well, the dam broke.

  A bunch of the quarry workers wanted to try the food, too!

  Almost everyone wanted to try it!

  But, they also had packed lunches.

  So they split their orders!

  There were about a hundred men working at the quarry.

  And the cart sold out!

  A full seventy sets sold!

  Everyone got to try at least part of a Lilyburger and the french fries!

  When the rush really started, Abel and Brandon didn’t have time to even joke around!

  They were too busy!

  “Maybe we should have brought more ingredients…” Lily murmured.

  “Meow!”

  Mr. Cat dashed off!

  He had spotted a few miners who looked like they had extra french fries!

  Lily sighed.

  Well, at least he was running.

  Exercise!

  And, soon enough, the lunch break ended.

  “Well, how was it, Abel, Brandon?” Lily asked the two young men.

  “Phew, that was a lot, Miss Lily!” Abel said.

  “Yeah, it was non-stop once it started! We’re gonna have to cook more food tomorrow, before the break starts…”

  “And did you write down everything in the ledger?” Lily double-checked.

  “Yep!”

  Abel showed her the ledger.

  At the top there were a few doodles…

  But as it got busy, the doodles stopped halfway down.

  And Abel had written everything he was supposed to!

  “Alright, good job, Abel!”

  Lily made sure to praise him!

  “And good job with the cooking, Brandon! I heard a lot of the workers saying they liked the food!”

  Brandon puffed out his chest with pride!

  They had some questions about cleaning up, which Lily helped them with, and then they put the cover on the cart and headed back to the village, to Lilyburgers #4!

  They arrived to find Chuck and Delilah switching out…

  And Junior was looking frazzled!