The ghosts froze like an old VHS tape, flickering between frames.

  Up in heaven, a klaxon siren, like for an air raid, started going off.

  Weeeeeeeehhhhhhhh weeeeeeeehhhhhhhh…

  It was an emergency!

  “Who did this?!”

  “Who hired that cat?!”

  The Gods and Goddesses ran around in a panic!

  Lord Hades and Lord Homer, the God of Literature, were standing together watching over Lily, since they had both won the right to help her first.

  Homer, who was blind, was looking in the wrong direction, but anyways…

  He had a sheaf of paper in his hands.

  “Hmm…” he groaned, pretending to look at them (they were upside down). “The plot’s starting to derail.”

  Hades turned only his head and looked at him. “Magical girl? This world doesn’t have magic, does it?”

  Witches and wizards. Mirrors that can talk and singing animals. Magical energy measured in points and systems that tracked all that with status screens…

  That wasn’t the kind of world Lily lived in!

  “No, it shouldn’t…” The God of Literature shuffled his papers. “But if it does, then the tags are wrong…”

  “Tags?”

  “Right, this world doesn’t have the magic tag.”

  And then…

  The God of Literature pulled it out.

  It was a sticker with the word ‘MAGIC’ written on it.

  It was packed with all kinds of tropes and implications!

  Hades, the God of Death, narrowed his eyes as he looked at it!

  People avoiding death with a magic spell… bringing the dead back to life…

  He didn’t like that tag!

  It made him much less important!

  The God of Magic, who had been running around with the rest of the gods, saw what the God of Literature was holding and jogged over. He had a pointy hat on, and robes with stars stitched into them, and a long white beard and bushy white eyebrows and a twinkle in his eye!

  “Oh, put that away. We won’t be needing that…”

  “No?”

  “Phew…”

  “No, I’m certain of it.”

  “Well, we already have ghosts and talking cats, so…”

  “That’s normal! Let it go!” Hades pleaded.

  “I suppose…”

  And…

  He put the ‘MAGIC’ tag away.

  “Right,” the God of Magic said, “this is a plot by the God of Tricks and Trials, I’m sure of it!”

  He pulled out a wooden pipe and started blowing bubbles with it.

  The bubbles formed odd shapes: cubes and tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons and starbursts in all different colors, softly glowing.

  “The God of Tricks and Trials!”

  “So it’s Loki, eh…” Homer mused.

  “No, actually, it’s Tricksy,” the God of Magic.

  “Trixie?” Hades repeated.

  “No, Tricksy. Trick-see,” the God of Magic enunciated.

  Hades folded his arms and huffed. “I don’t remember that God participating in the tournament.”

  “After Justitia got involved? Of course not. I see now he ignored our pact and hired his own agent…”

  “But, still, magical girl? What could the cat mean?”

  “Plot derailment…”

  The God of Magic nodded.

  “You see it all the time, a story starts out with a normal, average, every day little girl…”

  “Lily’s not average! She’s the best girl!” a passing Goddess, running around looking for Tricksy, stopped to yell at the three Gods, then continued on her way, holding her halo to her head in one hand and hitching up her dress with her other.

  “Ahem, as I was saying, these girls usually have normal problems, then they become magical girls and the scope of the conflict escalates well beyond what it was originally, and the normal problems are forgotten.”

  “Hmmm…” the God of Death and God of Literature hummed.

  “The question is…” The God of Magic joined the other two and looked down on Lily, who was about to answer the cat’s question. “Whether or not Lily will stick with the hard work of running a business, or if she’ll be tricked into signing a contract and becoming a magical girl…”

  Back down in the mortal realm.

  In the Kingdom of Appalashia.

  In the village of Three Creeks.

  In the small townhouse where Lily and her Mama and Papa lived.

  Lily looked at the blue-grey cat and tilted her head.

  “Contract?” she asked.

  “Yeah, make a contract and become a magical girl! Then you won’t have to do math!” the cat said.

  And then…

  At that very moment…

  Lily’s Mama sat down at the table!

  “Mama,” Lily turned to her Mama, “what’s a contract?”

  Lily’s Mama…

  Frowned!

  “Hmmm, a contract is like a promise, but you have to follow it. If you break it, the government forces you to keep your promise, or puts you in prison…”

  Sally looked at her daughter seriously. Now that she was emancipated, she could sign contracts. And she was only eight…

  Eight year olds really shouldn’t be emancipated!

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Even eighteen year olds maybe shouldn’t be signing big contracts!

  That could go really badly!

  Lily’s eyes opened really widely.

  “The government forces you to keep promises?” she asked.

  Her Mama looked super serious!

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Like if you promised to make Lilyburgers every single day, what if you got sick? If that wasn’t in the contract, you’d be breaking your promise if you took a day off.”

  “Ohh…” Lily nodded like she understood.

  And she did!

  Kind of…

  Actually, she didn’t really understand the main point!

  But…

  She understood enough!

  She turned to the cat!

  She still wanted to make him her pet, if she could!

  “Do magical girls get days off?”

  “Huh? Days off?” The cat had gotten bored and started bathing himself, and he looked back up at the little girl who made french fries. “No, you’d be a magical girl, see—”

  “Then no thanks!” Lily said.

  And that was it!

  All the Gods and Goddesses in heaven breathed a sigh of relief.

  Except for Tricksy, who clicked his tongue!

  “If I can’t take days off, then I can’t spend time with my Mama and Papa!”

  Dingdingdingding!

  Lily’s Piety Points skyrocketed!

  They kept going up and up!

  The ghostly WcDonald brothers unfroze, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  That night, Lily and her Mama talked about contracts, and Lily promised to be very careful with them.

  The cat was put outside, but he still hung around, hoping for more free food.

  And the ghosts talked to her about contracts, too, before her nightly prayers.

  “You have to be really careful with contracts, Lily.”

  “Right, get everything in writing, and make sure you understand it all.”

  “Did you misters ever mess up with a contract?”

  The ghosts shared a look, and shrugged.

  “Yeah, back when we were alive.”

  “We were upset at the time…”

  “But death really puts things in perspective, you know?”

  “Yeah, we thought it was important when we were alive.”

  “But, honestly, we were just being resentful. We had more than enough money.”

  “It wasn’t totally fair, but then, what in life really is?”

  “Speaking of which, Lily, how much money are you planning to make, anyway?”

  Lily put a finger on her chin and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Hmmm, if the rent is one thousand, then that’s how much I need, right?”

  “Well, there’s food and clothes and other stuff…” Mac said.

  “But that’s all you want?” Rich asked.

  “Yeah, I want my Papa and Mama not to worry about money! They can just retire and take it easy!”

  The WcDonald brothers nodded. “Well, then—”

  “Oh! And I want to be able to take days off!”

  Lily still had to go to school when summer ended!

  “Goodnight, Mr. Ghosts!”

  She said her nightly prayers, thanking the Gods and Goddesses, and prayed to the God of Animals for help with making Mr. Cat her pet!

  Then, the next morning, Lily woke up early again, picked up her meat and buns, and started preparing her Lilyburgers for the hungry miners.

  Elsewhere in the village…

  “Oh dear, your father’s forgotten his lunch again,” a middle-aged woman said. “Hazel, would you take it to him at lunchtime?”

  “Okay Mom!” Hazel answered.

  Hazel was a tall girl with medium-brown hair and green eyes and she had just recently finished her schooling. She was fourteen now, and she was enjoying her first summer that wasn’t just a vacation. She was supposed to be thinking about her future. Would she find a boyfriend here in the village, and be a miner’s wife, and work little jobs around town? Would she leave the village and go to a big fancy university? Or would she pursue her real dream?

  Hazel wanted to be a chef!

  She wanted to cook food in a restaurant!

  But there were no restaurants in her village!

  And although she was pretty good at school, there weren’t schools to become a chef.

  She would have to find a restaurant to work in, as an apprentice.

  And her family didn’t know any chefs.

  The closest thing in the village was the baker, but he mainly only baked bread, and although Hazel liked baking, she didn’t feel passionate about churning out loaves of bread over and over again, every day, for the rest of her life.

  So, for the most part, she was lazing around the house, or hanging out with her friends, doing nothing much productive.

  Maybe something would fall into her lap.

  You never knew!

  Hazel was a good girl, of course, so she helped her Mom around the house until a little before lunchtime, and then she picked up her Dad’s lunchbox and walked through the village to the edge where the mine was.

  There was an odd smell in the air…

  Sniff sniff

  Hazel inhaled, trying to pin it down.

  Normally the mine was a dusty area.

  But this smelled like…

  Food?

  Cooking meat?

  And something else…

  It wasn’t a barbecue, so what was it?

  A whistle blew, signaling it was lunchtime to the miners working, and Hazel hurried around the bend, where she saw a strange cart set up next to the supervisor’s shack. A little girl was stirring a big pitcher of lemonade, and heat lamps shone down on piles of food Hazel had never seen before. A cat was sitting next to the cart, meowing plaintively.

  “Come on, just one more french fry! And one more after that! I’m starving here! Come on, feed me!”

  Actually, he was more than just meowing.

  “I’ll give you more french fries if you promise to be my pet!” the girl answered.

  “I can’t be tied down! I’m a free spirit! I’m independent! But I need you to give me french fries!”

  Hazel just looked at the girl and the cat and the cart, not understanding it, until she heard her father’s voice.

  “Oh drat, I forgot my lunch. Better just get a Lilyburger, then…”

  “Dad!” Hazel called.

  He turned and saw her, holding his lunchbox.

  “Oh, Hazel? You brought my lunch? Thanks, pumpkin.”

  “Dad, don’t call me that in public…” Hazel whined.

  She was fourteen now!

  Her Dad chuckled, and his miner friends elbowed him goodnaturedly.

  “Yeah, come on, Tim. Hazel’s graduated, right? You gotta treat her more like an adult.”

  “She’ll always be my little pumpkin! That’s a father’s right!” he declared proudly, puffing out his chest.

  “Ugh!” Hazel groaned, but she handed her Dad the lunchbox.

  “Oh, don’t be like that, Hazel. I know, I’ll buy you a Lilyburger and fries, to thank you for bringing my lunch all the way here.”

  “What?!” his friends cried.

  “Hey, I was gonna have to buy one anyway!”

  He quickly got in line, and Hazel followed him. Ahead of them, they could hear the little girl talking with other miners.

  “One Lilyburger set with cheese, coming right up!”

  “Uh, Dad, what is this?”

  “You know Bill, the miner who got injured a while back? Well his daughter set up this cart and now she’s selling these Lilyburgers and french fries! They’re really good, you’ll like them.”

  Hazel was stunned.

  Wasn’t this basically a restaurant?

  Well, kind of.

  Most restaurants were inside buildings, and had their own seating.

  But the little girl, that Bill’s daughter…

  She was definitely a chef!

  She was making food and selling it to people, and the people liked it!

  That was Hazel’s dream!

  She was looking over the little girl’s head, at the griddle and the oil fryer, and at all the cooking utensils, when her father asked, “Do you want cheese on your Lilyburger?”

  “Huh? Uh, sure, yeah.”

  “Okay, one Lilyburger set with cheese, coming right up! That’ll be two dollars.”

  Hazel’s eyes went wide.

  Restaurants were supposed to be expensive, weren’t they?

  Two dollars for a restaurant meal was super cheap!

  The little girl put a pile of golden-yellow sticks on a metal plate, and what must be a Lilyburger, and then the girl filled her Dad’s cup up with lemonade from a pitcher that was nearly empty.

  “Thanks Lily!”

  “Thanks mister!”

  Hazel and her Dad walked back to the picnic benches, and sat down. He placed the metal plate in front of her and took out his own lunch from the lunchbox.

  “Lilyburgers are good, but I’ll always love your mother’s cooking! Praise to the Gods!” he said as he started chowing down on the fried rice his wife had made.

  Hazel picked up the sandwich. It was warm, almost but not quite too hot. The bun was nice and fluffy, and the meat in the middle was clearly freshly cooked, and still juicy, and the cheese on the burger had melted and was peeking out around the edges.

  It smelled really good!

  She opened her mouth wide, and took her first bite!