Lily woke up bright and early, said goodbye to her Mama—Papa was still sleeping—and ran through the crisp early morning air to the butcher and the bakery.

  She needed to hurry and pick up her ingredients so she could start cooking!

  Carefully, she carried the big bag of beautiful light brown buns and the bountiful bundle of ground beef up to her cart and started setting up.

  She had to cook twice as many Lilyburgers today! And twice as many french fries!

  She cut up the potatoes!

  She formed the beef patties with her hands!

  She lined up the buns!

  She flip flip flipped the patties as they cooked, sizzling on the griddle!

  And as she worked, a certain beautiful grey cat wandered over to the cart, drawn in by the smell. “Mrow,” he said as he sniffed the air. His fur coat, which he was very proud of, was almost blue, and in another world, he would have been called a ‘Russian Blue’ cat.

  “Oh, hi Mr. Cat!” Lily said.

  She wanted to pet him, but…

  “Lily, you can’t pet a cat and then make food again without washing your hands!”

  “Yeah, it’d be bad if you got the food dirty, and then one of your customers got sick!”

  “Hey, my fur’s not dirty!”

  Lily and the ghosts froze.

  They looked back and forth between each other.

  “Mrow!”

  They all looked down at the cat.

  The cat licked his paw and swiped it down over his ear.

  “See, I’m perfectly clean!”

  “Uh…”

  Lily didn’t know what to say!

  She’d never had a cat talk back to her before!

  “Mew!” the cat said cutely and sauntered over, and then he rubbed himself against Lily’s foot!

  She was standing on a stool, so he couldn’t quite reach her leg with anything but his tail.

  Lily started trembling.

  “Mr. Ghosts… I want to pet him so bad!”

  “Do it, little girl! Give in! Pet me!” the cat said deviously.

  He was temptation incarnate!

  “Don’t do it Lily!”

  “Ah, the french fries!” Mac said.

  “Oh!”

  Lily, distracted from the cat by the fries, pulled them out out of the fryer and put the basket up so they could dry under a heat lamp.

  “Mrow? French fries, what’re those?”

  Curiosity got the cat!

  He’d never heard of french fries before!

  Lily quickly got another batch of fries cooking, and picked up a fry that was already done. Then she bent down and held it out to the cat.

  “Here kitty kitty… come eat a french fry!”

  Now that he was being offered a french fry, he was suddenly feeling a bit standoffish.

  He sniffed the air, and hesitated, wasting a bunch of time!

  But, he was so cute!

  Eventually, he snatched the fry out of Lily’s hand and took it a couple feet away, and started eating it.

  It was…

  Delicious!

  “Ohh, this is really good, little girl! Mrow!”

  He finished the fry and then walked a little closer to Lily and sat down, looking at her expectantly for another french fry.

  “Ah, the burgers!”

  But…

  Lily had work to do!

  She couldn’t play with Mr. Cat right now!

  “Mrow… Mrow!”

  Lily continued getting ready. She only had a little while left until lunchtime and the hungry miners came to get their Lilyburgers and fries and lemonade!

  The cat was… annoyed!

  Playing hard to get was his thing!

  He would tease the humans and then not let them pet him! No matter how much they wanted to!

  Now this little girl was ignoring him, when he wanted her attention!

  And he wanted more french fries!

  “Mrow! Mew…”

  He started rolling around on the ground really cutely, showing off his fluffy belly fur.

  And…

  It didn’t work!

  His mouth fell open in shock as Lily finished up her preparations, and the lunch whistle blew.

  “Phew…” Lily said, wiping the sweat from her brow with a cute little handkerchief her Mama had made her.

  It had been a lot of work, but Lily was faster today. She managed to make twenty Lilyburgers, twenty orders of french fries, and two big pitchers of lemonade.

  And, as soon as the miners came out of the mine…

  They came straight to her cart!

  “Welcome to Lilyburgers!” Lily said with a big bright smile.

  Ahh… so bright!

  Lily’s cute smile lifted the miners’ spirits after their hard work in the mine!

  “I’ll take a full set, with cheese,” the first customer said.

  “Coming right up! That’ll be two dollars,” Lily answered.

  And with that, it was a blur of burgers and fries and dollar bills changing hands!

  The cat watched from the side, fascinated.

  The little girl was giving the men food, and they were giving her bits of paper and metal.

  One of the miners tried to pet him, and he dashed off, giggling to himself.

  “Ha ha ha, that’s how it should be! You’ll have to be faster than that to catch me, human!”

  Eventually he got tired of being chased, and leapt up to the top of the supervisor’s shack where he laid down and watched the rest of Lily’s lunch rush.

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  Eventually, there was a chorus of sad groans from the miners still in line.

  Lily had run out of food again!

  “I still have lemonade,” she said, but the miners walked away.

  Even though she had made twice as much food, there were still about ten more miners who had gotten in line too late.

  She had about half a pitcher of lemonade left.

  “Oh no… waste…” she groaned.

  She didn’t want to waste the lemonade!

  But…

  It was too much for her to drink on her own!

  And the pitcher was heavy, so carrying it home herself would be really hard!

  “Hang in there, Lily!” Mac said encouragingly.

  “Yeah, it’s not over yet!” Rich added.

  The cat watched, interested to see how this would play out.

  And…

  At the last minute…

  A group of miners approached with empty cups!

  They hadn’t bought any of the food, but they wanted a quick pick-me-up before they got back to work. A little bit of extra energy!

  And with that, once again, Lily sold out! For the second day in a row!

  Then, lunchtime ended, and the miners got back to work.

  “See ya tomorrow, Lily!” one miner called to her.

  “Yeah, I’m definitely gonna get a burger tomorrow, for sure!” said another, who had been at the back of the line today.

  Lily started cleaning up, washing her spatula and plates and other cooking utensils, and the cat came back.

  “Mrow!” he mewed impatiently.

  “Sorry Mr. Cat, my hands are all wet!” Lily showed him her wet and soapy hands, and the cat…

  Didn’t care!

  “Mew, mew!” He rubbed himself on her foot again.

  “Gimme another fry!” he said.

  “I’m all out of food now, you’ll have to come back tomorrow for more.”

  “What, why?”

  “Huh?” Lily paused and looked down at the cat. “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you out of food! I want some!”

  “Uh, Lily sold it all to the miners. That’s my job!” she said proudly.

  Meanwhile, Rich and Mac, the ghostly WcDonald brothers, furrowed their brows.

  “Hey, Rich, do all cats in this world talk?”

  “I don’t see how, Mac. The cat looks like any other from when we were alive. It shouldn’t even have a voice box, or the mouth shape to make all the different phonemes…”

  The ghosts were taking this way too seriously!

  Of course cats can talk!

  “Hey, Mr. Cat, how come you can talk like a human?”

  Lily asked him straight out!

  She just came right out and asked him!

  And the cat answered!

  “You know, us cats are the servants of the gods! Humans even used to worship us as if we were gods ourselves. We would pass on messages to you humans, and even do errands for the gods here in the mortal realm. In exchange, we get nine lives! It’s a pretty good deal!”

  “Oh, is that how it is?” Lily said as she wiped her hands dry on a towel.

  “So gimme a french fry!” the cat demanded.

  He was begging!

  The french fry had been really, really yummy.

  “Sorry Mr. Cat, I really don’t have any french fries left.” Lily answered sadly.

  She wanted to feed the cat. She’d never had a pet before!

  Maybe if she fed Mr. Cat, he’d be her pet.

  “Well, make some more, then!”

  “Hmmm… but I’m out of potatoes, and I need fresh oil, so I’d have to buy ingredients…”

  “Well, how long will that all take?”

  The cat was willing to wait a few minutes for Lily to get her act together.

  He was a very patient cat!

  But his limit was five minutes.

  Any longer than that, and Lily would lose her chance. To give him food. For free.

  He was a cat of principles!

  “Sorry Mr. Kitty-Cat, but you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. I have to do my accounting, and order more ingredients…”

  “That’s right, Lily.”

  “And we need to plan for tomorrow. Do you think you could make even more burgers and fries? There was about ten more customers you couldn’t serve today.”

  “I dunno, it was pretty hard already…”

  Lily and the WcDonald ghost brothers started talking business, and the cat’s jaw dropped.

  “Mrow!”

  But they just ignored him!

  Well, if that was how it was going to be, he was just going to keep whining and follow her around until he got what he wanted!

  Lily walked back to the village, with the grey-blue cat following behind her.

  She bought more of the ingredients she could store in the cart overnight, and took them back to her cart, the cat following the whole way.

  But when she went to the cheese store, since she was running low and needed more, there was a problem.

  The price of cheese had gone up!

  “Sorry, little Lily. Cheese has gotten more expensive, and I have to raise my prices.”

  The block of cheese she’d bought before had been thirty cents, and the block had been big enough for about thirty cheese slices for her Lilyburgers.

  Now that same block of cheese was sixty cents!

  The price had doubled!

  “Hmmm…” Mac hummed.

  “That’s a pretty big price jump,” Rich said.

  “What should I do?” Lily asked her ghostly advisors.

  “Mew!” whined her feline tag-along.

  The woman selling the cheese tried to entice the cat over.

  “Pss pss pss,” she said, but the cat ignored her, instead rubbing himself on Lily’s legs while she consulted.

  “Well, thinking about this business-like, one cent worth of cheese is sold for ten cents. So if the price doubles, it becomes two cents worth of cheese sold for ten cents,” Mac said.

  “That’s still a good margin of eight cents for the cheese in a Lilyburger with cheese,” Rich said. “And since it only adds one more cent to your material costs, it’s not really worth raising the price. Plus, you’d have to deal with a bunch of pennies all the time.”

  “Okay,” Lily said, and she bought the block of cheese, arranging to pick it up in the morning.

  “Sorry about that, Lily. Hopefully prices will come down soon.”

  “It’s okay. Gods bless!” Lily answered, and then she went to the bakery.

  And prices had gone up there, too!

  Not as much as the cheese, thank goodness, but the buns were still more expensive.

  Before, each bun had cost seven cents.

  Incidentally, the ground beef used in each burger patty had cost ten cents.

  The pickles and ketchup had cost two cents for each burger, since there wasn’t very much in each one.

  So all together, a Lilyburger cost nineteen cents to make.

  Or at least, it had.

  Now the buns cost ten cents each!

  “Uh oh…” Rich muttered.

  “Prices have gone up. There’s nothing I can do, wheat has just gotten more expensive!” the baker said.

  “Aww…” Lily said, but that was just the way it was.

  She ordered the same amount of buns as she’d used today, twenty buns.

  She wasn’t confident she could cook up more than twenty Lilyburgers before lunchtime started.

  She arranged the buns to be picked up in the morning, and left for the butcher’s shop.

  “Gods bless!”

  “Gods bless, thanks for your order!” the baker called back.

  Lily was worried on her way to the butcher’s shop.

  Even Mr. Cat stopped meowing, curious to see what would happen.

  And sure enough…

  “The price of beef’s gone up. Our suppliers just don’t have as much beef for sale…”

  “I knew it,” Lily said glumly.

  “Well, hopefully it’s just temporary,” Mac consoled her.

  “Right, prices can go up and down depending on the suppliers. That’s why we sell the burgers for more than they cost to make. Not just to make a big profit, but also so we don’t have to change our prices all the time when costs fluctuate. Consistency matters a lot in the fast food business!”

  “That’s right, imagine if fast food restaurants raised their prices really high! Customers would go somewhere else to eat!”

  They all stopped and thought about how bad that would be.

  …

  Lily folded her arms and nodded. “Yup, we won’t do that! We won’t waste money on silly things and raise our prices too high. Everyone should be able to afford a Lilyburger!”

  She declared it proudly!

  The butcher tilted his head.

  “Uh, so the ground beef…”

  Each Lilyburger had about a quarter pound of uncooked ground beef in the patty. It used to be forty cents per pound, but now, it was sixty cents.

  Lily ordered five pounds of ground beef, to pick up in the morning, and paid three dollars.

  The cat followed her home.

  Followed her inside, even!

  “Mama, look, I found a cat! He likes french fries!”

  “Oh, isn’t he a cutie,” Lily’s Mama said, and scratched him behind the ears just the way he liked.

  “Mew!” he said cutely, and rolled over onto his back, exposing his tummy fur.

  Heheheh… he thought. I’ll tempt her into rubbing my belly, and then we’ll tussle!

  But Lily’s Mama stood up straight and started making Lily some lunch. Lily took a piece of paper and a pencil and started doing her accounting!

  “Hmm… so if the material costs went up this much, my gross profits go down this much… Now a Lilyburger costs twenty-seven cents, and if I sell it for ninety cents my gross profits are only fifty-three cents…”

  Idly, Lily fed Mr. Cat little bits of her lunch while she ate and did her calculations, assisted by the WcDonald brothers.

  “Hmph, why bother with all this math and work?” the cat scoffed. Lily and the ghosts looked at him, sitting on the chair next to her.

  “Hey, Lily. Why don’t you make a contract with me and become a magical girl?”