The next day, Hazel arrived at the butcher’s shop to meet Lily looking inordinately proud of herself.

  She was practically beaming! She had a huge smile! She rivaled the early morning dawn in brightness!

  “Miss Lily! Good morning! Guess what?”

  “Good morning!” Lily said back. “What happened?”

  “I woke up before my mom came to get me this morning! All on my own!”

  “Wow!”

  Lily clapped her hands.

  Hazel huffed through her nose.

  Even her Mom and Dad had praised her this morning!

  Hazel was a real adult now!

  And she had her own money…

  Or, had.

  She had had her own money.

  She had spent it all!

  So she was really excited for work today.

  More specifically, she was excited to get paid ten dollars at the end of the day!

  She took the heavier ingredients from Lily and they walked up the road to the mine, and set up the cart. And they cooked up the food faster than ever!

  “Hazel, I want to teach you about selling today, because I’m going to be busy today!”

  “Huh? Busy?”

  “Yeah! I’m going to be doing job interviews!”

  Hazel…

  Was shocked!

  “Lily, I’m so sorry! Tell me what I did wrong! Please don’t fire meeeeee!”

  “Bwuh?!”

  Hazel fell to her knees and clasped her hands, begging Lily!

  Mr. Cat, from his perch on the supervisor’s shack, sneezed.

  “Hazel, I’m not firing you! You’ve been doing really good!”

  Lily patted her employee on the head.

  “I’m opening another restaurant! And I’m going to open even more restaurants, so I can’t always be at the cart cooking up burgers and fries!”

  Hazel sniffed.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah! In fact, I kinda wanted to give you a promotion…”

  “Promotion?!”

  Hazel shot to her feet, then crouched down a little out of excitement, holding balled up fists in front of her chest. “Really?! So you’ll pay me more money?!”

  “Uh…”

  Lily thought.

  She hadn’t really considered that.

  But, it would be wrong of her to ask Hazel to do more work, managing the cart as a supervisor, without giving her more pay!

  Obviously!

  What kind of system would it be if a ‘promotion’ was really just more work with no extra pay!

  That would be…

  Uh…

  Exploitative?

  No, that word was too big.

  Well, it would be wrong.

  Lily was certain of that!

  The God of Middle Management up in heaven smiled!

  Lily got it!

  Now that she was going to be the boss of the bosses, she’d need his help and blessings!

  He was watching over her carefully, as were all the other Gods and Goddesses!

  Even the God of Tricks and Trials…

  They still hadn’t found that rascal!

  But, back down in the mortal realm, Lily did some quick maths and came to a decision.

  “That’s right, Hazel! I’ll pay you twelve dollars a day, and you’ll be the boss of the cart. And we’re changing the hours a little. We’ll start a little later, since two grown ups can cook faster than I can…”

  Hazel…

  Was super stoked!

  Thrilled!

  She even sent a small prayer of gratitude to the God of Labor.

  And also the Goddess of Shopping, out of habit!

  Everything was coming up Hazel today!

  “Boss, you can trust me! I’ll make sure the cart runs perfectly smoothly!”

  “Great! I’m also looking to hire your Mama, Misses Rebecca, to manage the restaurant in the village! And she’ll oversee the cart and the bookkeeping and ordering!”

  “Huh?! Wait, wait a second, Miss Lily…”

  That sounded like…

  Hazel would be working for her Mom!

  Hazel did the Scream pose for a second!

  “Well, you’ll just be picking up the ingredients and letting her check the ledger and cash box, and I haven’t hired her yet…”

  “Meow!”

  Mr. Cat meowed when he saw a group of people coming, led by Gertrude!

  It was the jobseekers!

  And among them, there was Hazel’s mother! Rebecca!

  Hazel gulped audibly. Then…

  She rushed to look busy and professional!

  She was arranging the food!

  She was tidying up!

  There was a twinkle in Rebecca’s eye as she saw her daughter trying to look busy.

  There was still about an hour until lunch time, so Lily explained how Lilyburgers worked.

  She showed them the potato cutter, and the french fry fryers, and the Lilyburger patties and the griddle, and how to assemble a proper Lilyburger!

  It really didn’t take much time.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Cat…

  Was snaking his way between their legs!

  Whenever someone would try to pet him, he’d dart away!

  He was being a little rascal!

  Gertrude had stayed to make sure the jobseekers made it to the cart okay, and then bought herself a Lilyburger set and sat down for an early lunch.

  And once she did…

  Mr. Cat was there, begging for fries!

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  Gertrude had a lot of fun tearing fries into pieces and feeding him!

  Lily…

  Didn’t notice!

  Mr. Cat was probably going to get a lot of french fries today…

  After the explanation, Lily said she wanted to interview Misses Rebecca first.

  So they sat down at one of the picnic tables.

  Rebecca looked Lily up and down.

  Rebecca had thought the offer was a little too good to be true…

  Thirty dollars a day, a management position in a restaurant, in their little village?

  But, having seen the cart… and smelled the food…

  She was interested!

  She’d been wanting to get back to work full-time anyway, now that Hazel was done with school. And even more so now that Hazel had found her own job…

  While Rebecca was thinking about all this, Lily finished her explanation of the job.

  “So, you would oversee the Lilyburgers City Square Location, helping with the cooking and selling as needed, as well as managing the supply orders for both that restaurant and the cart, and the bookkeeping, running from ten in the morning to six in the evening.”

  Lily’s ghosts were watching over her from behind, helping her with making the explanation.

  And…

  Rebecca…

  Smiled!

  “I’d be happy to work with you, Miss Lily.”

  Success!

  Mr. Cat ran over, and rubbed himself against Rebecca’s leg, purring!

  He even purred!

  And he let her pet him!

  You see…

  Mr. Cat knew!

  Now that Rebecca was going to be the big boss of the Lilyburgers chain…

  She was going to be in control of the french fries!

  And, as he had said before, he was an excellent judge of character!

  “That’s great, Misses Rebecca!”

  “Please, call me Becky, Miss Lily.”

  “Okay! Would you be willing to help me with the rest of the interviews?”

  “Of course.” Becky smiled.

  These were going to be the employees working below her.

  There were five boys and girls, roughly Hazel’s age, who had come looking for their first job.

  John, Eric, Ron, Alice, and Zoey.

  But…

  There were only three shifts that needed workers, at the moment.

  One at the cart, who would need to be able to work with Hazel and somewhat independently.

  And then two half-shifts at the restaurant in the city square, who would need to work under Becky’s supervision.

  First up was John!

  He sat on the other side of the picnic bench, and Mr. Cat hopped up to sit next to Lily. He could just barely see over the top of the table!

  John had shaggy dark brown hair, and brown eyes, and he was really skinny!

  “My folks say I need to get out of the house more, and get a job… It’s kind of a bummer, y’know?”

  “Meow…” said Mr. Cat. “He’s not very motivated… I don’t think he’d give me many french fries…”

  Lily tilted her head, listening to the ghosts.

  “Mister John, what kind of work do you want to do? Where do you want to be in five years?”

  “I dunno… My Pa says to just work at the mine, but it sounds really hard…”

  Becky frowned!

  Mr. Cat frowned!

  The ghosts frowned!

  John wasn’t serious about this at all!

  “Well, what are you good at?” Lily asked.

  She was trying!

  Trying to see the good in John!

  She wanted to give him a chance!

  And…

  There was a spark of life in his eyes!

  “I’m good at playing games! Chess, mahjong, go, shogi, reversi, backgammon, I like gaming!”

  John was a gamer!

  The ghosts all clapped their hands to their heads.

  They knew about gamers!

  Sure, they had been old when video games were getting started, but they knew about them!

  Lily looked down at Mr. Cat, who shook his head. Then she looked up at Becky, who also shook her head!

  Lily had a feeling, but…

  “Okay, thanks for coming over, John! We’ll let you know if we have a job for you to do!”

  “Okay…”

  John shrugged.

  He didn’t really care, anyway!

  And he wasn’t just thinking that!

  Working every day sounded like a bummer…

  And it would cut into his gaming time!

  If only he lived in the kind of world with game mechanics, or a duel academy, or something like that…

  It was a character and genre mismatch!

  Next was Eric!

  He was a really big, strong looking guy!

  He had tidy, light brown hair and green eyes.

  “I was gonna work in the mine, like me Da, but there’s no openings right now! And then I heard from Jason about this Lilyburger cart, and I was gonna come up today to check it out, see if it fit my macros, you know? And Lilyburger with cheese and french fries looks like it’d make great recovery food! If only there was a bit more protein…”

  “Ohh!” the ghostly Mac WcDonald said. He quickly told Lily about double cheeseburgers.

  “What would you think about a Lilyburger with two patties and two slices of cheese?” she said.

  Bam!

  Eric slapped his hands down on the table!

  Mr. Cat hissed and scampered off! He was spooked!

  “That’s it! That’d be perfect, Miss Lily!”

  His eyes were sparkling!

  “Ahem.”

  Becky cleared her throat.

  “Oops, sorry, I got too excited! Hahaha…”

  Eric laughed awkwardly, apologized, and sat back down.

  “He sounds passionate about the food, at least,” the ghostly Rich WcDonald said.

  “And how do you feel about cooking?” Becky asked.

  Eric shrugged. “I don’t mind it, but cooking Lilyburgers and fries doesn’t seem too complicated.”

  “How about cleaning?”

  “Well, I’m not afraid of getting dirty. I was gonna work in the mine. It’s just part of the job, I figure.”

  Lily looked over at Mr. Cat, who was peeking around the side of the cart.

  She wanted Mr. Cat to get on board, too!

  “I think he’s a good fit, Lily,” the ghostly Ray Croc said, adjusting his sunglasses.

  Becky also nodded.

  And, begrudgingly…

  Mr. Cat also nodded!

  “Meow! Tell him to calm down a bit!”

  Lily looked at Eric and reached out her hand for a handshake.

  “I’d like to offer you a job, Mister Eric! But, try not to scare Mr. Cat, okay?”

  “Ah, hahaha… Yeah, sorry about that, I’ll try not to pop off too hard around him…”

  “He likes french fries!” Lily whispered.

  “Okay!” he whispered back.

  And they shook on it!

  After a little discussion between Becky and Eric, they decided he would work the first shift at the restaurant in the city square.

  Next up was Ron!

  He wore eyeglasses, had neatly styled black hair parted on the side, and was dressed really formally! He was wearing slacks, and a button up shirt with a collar!

  Lily felt a little bad, since the mine was a dusty area!

  Although, the wind always seemed to blow the dust away from the cart…

  How convenient! And lucky for Ron’s nice clothes!

  “Good morning Miss Lily, Miss Rebecca…”

  Mr. Cat jumped up and took his place again.

  “...and Mr. Cat, thank you all for your time and consideration today.”

  Ron was super professional!

  Already, the three ghosts were nodding in approval!

  Lily explained the work, and Ron said it was all fine…

  But then, Becky jumped in!

  “Ron, I thought you were going to go off to university in Charleston? Why are you looking for a job in Three Creeks?”

  It was such a small town, everybody knew everybody else’s business!

  Ron adjusted his glasses and nodded.

  “Yes, but I was looking for a part time job over the summer, until classes started. Otherwise, I’d just be studying all day.”

  “Hmmm…” Lily hummed.

  “Mrow,” Mr. Cat meowed.

  “How much work were you looking to do?” Becky asked.

  “A few shifts a week, but I’m flexible.”

  In the end, they told Ron that they would let him know what shifts they needed him for. After he walked away, Lily and Becky had a little conference!

  A small meeting!

  A tiny discussion!

  “He looked like he’d be a really good worker…” Lily said.

  “Yes, he would, but honestly, Ron’s destined for bigger and better things than our little village. He aced the Royal University entrance exam. Also…”

  “Hm?”

  “Well, him and Hazel don’t exactly get along…”

  Hazel liked shopping and hanging out with her friends!

  Ron liked studying and was thinking about the future a lot!

  They didn’t dislike each other, but they didn’t have much in common!

  “I’d certainly like his help at the City Square Location,” Becky said, already getting on board with the name! “But I don’t think he’d be a good fit for the cart, not if Hazel is the supervisor.”

  Mr. Cat nodded. “Mrow, yeah, I can imagine them arguing about unimportant stuff, rather than focusing on cooking the best french fries!”

  “I’d also like someone who’s going to stick around…” Lily said. “If he’s going to leave for university at the end of summer, we’d have to hire someone to replace him…”

  Lily’s ghosts chimed in.

  “You’ll have to get used to that, Lily.”

  “Fast food has a lot of turnover.”

  “That’s just part of being a kid’s first employer. Eventually, they move on!”

  Becky shrugged. “Well, he said he’s flexible, so at least he can fill in for anyone who gets sick. And it’s better to have him for a short time than to be short on people!”

  Lily nodded. “True!” she exclaimed.

  Of the three boys, one was a gamer, one was a good fit, and one was only good for a short time!

  One and a half out of three!

  Next was the two girls, Alice and Zoey!