Lily woke up to Mr. Cat batting her face with his paw, and meowing!

  “Meow, mew…”

  “Bwuh? Huh?”

  Lily sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  It wasn’t even the crack of dawn yet!

  “Lemme outta here, I gotta go help Flo!” Mr. Cat said.

  “Oh, right, you’re helping her sell apples this morning…”

  Lily got up and opened the door, and Mr. Cat shot out like a bolt of lightning!

  His diet had really worked!

  After a few days of running around without french fries, he was a lean mean nice little girl helping machine!

  Lily also changed out of her pajamas into her dairy cow thinking costume.

  “Moo!” she said, out loud.

  She couldn’t help it!

  “Yep, good method acting,” Ghostly Duke said.

  He continued giving her advice about getting in the mindset.

  It was like playing pretend, but on the next level!

  Super pretend!

  Lily’s Mama also woke up.

  She yawned real big and stretched!

  “Good morning, Lily…” she said, sleepily.

  “Moo!” Lily replied.

  Sally froze, and opened her eyes properly, and looked at her daughter.

  Despite her cow costume, Lily’s eyes were sparkling!

  Sally sighed.

  Her daughter was pretending to be a cow today…

  Was this more, or less normal than her daughter running a business that made hundreds of dollars a day?

  “Moo!” Lily insisted.

  Sally sighed.

  “I don’t speak cow, Lily…”

  “Moo!”

  The cow says moo!

  Sally put on her mother thinking hat!

  “Oh dear, cows don’t eat breakfast at the table like people do…” she lamented, out loud.

  Lily froze.

  There was a look of horror and hunger on her face!

  “Pause! Time out!” she cried. “Lily’s going to method acting after breakfast!”

  Ghostly Duke chuckled.

  “Whoa!” Ghostly Mac said.

  “Hey, so you can smile and laugh!” Ghostly Rich smiled.

  “Ahem,” Ghostly Duke cleared his throat, and put his tough-guy face back on.

  “Well, we gotta feed the actors, after all. Can’t act on an empty stomach.”

  He was in director-mode!

  Ignoring this, Lily bounced around the room while her mother got ready, and then they headed down for breakfast with Granny Pomum.

  Apple Danish!

  Sausage!

  Eggs!

  Apple juice!

  And that was it…

  Granny Pomum looked really sad!

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t offer you some cheese, or even some toast for jam. Our cheese supplies are nearly out, and the price of wheat went up again, so we barely have enough for danishes…”

  The Friendly Commonwealth of Wisconsin was in trouble!

  “Don’t worry, Granny! I’m going to figure out why the cows are striking! Look, I got my dairy cow thinking costume on already! Moo!”

  Granny put on a kind smile for the kigurumi-clad little girl. “I hope you do, Lily. I hope you do…”

  She said a prayer to the Gods and Goddesses, asking them to help Lily!

  That was worth a lot of Piety Points!

  In the meantime, while Lily had been getting up and having breakfast…

  Catgirl Apple Seller Flo had been hard at work!

  As she was leaving the house, Mr. Cat was sitting on her doorstep, waiting for her!

  “Mrow!” he said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cat! ...m-meow.” she meowed!

  “Meow indeed!” he said.

  Flo tilted her head.

  What did that mean?

  “Well? Let’s go!”

  Flo walked with Mr. Cat, wearing her cute cat kigurumi, to her apple stand in the center of Bessie’s Landing!

  Her older brother dropped off a crate of apples early in the morning, just for her!

  Yesterday, she sold thirty-six apples…

  She was selling them for five cents each!

  So she had made a dollar and eighty cents yesterday!

  Today, her brother had left her fifty apples.

  It was a high bar to clear!

  More than twice what she normally sold!

  “Meow, yesterday I heard you caterwauling first thing in the morning!”

  “What’s caterwauling?”

  “That yelling you were doing, meow!”

  “O-oh, sorry…”

  Mr. Cat leapt up onto the stand’s table, sat down, and raised his paw to cut her off.

  “Don’t apologize! There’s a time and a place for caterwauling! And it worked, didn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  “Cats do that sometimes, too! Like in the middle of the night, when we serenade the ones we love!”

  Was that what the cats in town were doing when they yowled in the middle of the night?

  “Meow! But if you’re trying to sell, there’s a better way, and easier on the throat!”

  Flo nodded, a serious look in her eye.

  She wanted to get good at selling!

  She had to surpass her rival…

  “And the secret is… cuteness!”

  “Cuteness?”

  “Meow! Cuteness! It’s an ancient cat technique, that I will pass on to you, little catgirl!”

  And so, Mr. Cat taught Catgirl Flo in the ancient ways of cuteness:

  Appeal!

  Attract!

  Draw people in!

  Cats are experts in these techniques.

  Everyone wants to pet the cats!

  Everyone wants to hear the cats purr!

  “Meow, you already have the fur part down, with your costume, so we can skip that!”

  Cats bathe themselves every day! It’s very time-consuming!

  But a clean, fluffy coat of fur is a key part of a cat’s attractiveness!

  Mr. Cat meowed and mewed as he told Flo how to stand, how to pose, and how to look at people to draw their attention naturally!

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was a shame she couldn’t move her costume’s tail…

  But she was only human!

  “Now, the last part is your meowing, mew!”

  “Meow… meow… mrow… mew…”

  Flo practiced!

  She practiced really hard!

  She wanted to get this right!

  And, as she did…

  She was drawing lots of attention!

  The sun was rising, and all the Friendly People of Wisconsin were walking to their jobs!

  Wisconsin was a highly productive country, after all, even with the Dairy Cow Strike going on.

  So there was lots of people walking to work!

  And they saw a little girl at her apple stand, wearing a cat kigurumi, practicing meowing with a beautiful Russian Blue cat!

  It was adorable!

  And the cat was being surprisingly critical!

  But Flo was doing her best…

  Everyone was rooting for her!

  A lot of the workers were lingering, deciding they didn’t need to be so early to work today…

  “Okay, meow!”

  “Mrow!” Flo responded.

  “You’re ready, now do what we practiced!”

  “Mew!”

  And Flo did a cute catgirl pose!

  “Nyaa~” she said!

  This was a high level technique!

  Za-kyun!

  Everyone felt like they’d been struck by lightning!

  She had hopped up on one leg, and flopped her catgirl paw mittens in front of her, and smiled!

  And…

  There was a rush!

  Everyone had been holding back, waiting for her training to finish…

  But now…

  “Meow, apples for sale, mew!”

  She didn’t have to yell!

  Her soft meows and mews echoed through the city center like a crash of thunder!

  It was irresistible!

  “Mew, yummy apples, meow!”

  “Ahem, good morning, Flo. What a pretty cat you are!”

  The first worker made it there!

  He had bought an apple yesterday, after she yelled at him to buy some apples.

  It had been really good!

  But he had been planning to avoid her today.

  He didn’t really like getting yelled at first thing in the morning!

  But a hearty dose of cuteness in the morning?

  That would carry him all day!

  “Good morning, meow. Wanna buy some yummy apples, mew?”

  Too cute!

  That pose!

  Those meows!

  That costume!

  This was a very high level sales technique…

  “Yeah, I’ll take two!”

  Flo clumsily picked up two apples in her oversized cat’s paw mittens, and handed them to the worker, and he put a dime down on her stand’s table.

  “Meow, thanks! Gods Bless, mew!”

  “G-Gods Bless…”

  The worker blushed, and then scurried away with his prize.

  He was going to work super hard today!

  After that, it was a blur of selling apples and meowing!

  Mr. Cat sat on top of the stand, out of reach of the customers, meowing directions to his apprentice.

  And before she knew it, Flo had sold out all the apples!

  All fifty apples!

  “Meow, sorry everyone, I’m out of apples for today! Come back tomorrow, mew… Stay Friendly!”

  “Stay Friendly!” the workers said, and then they quickly left.

  They weren’t late to work, but they were late to be early!

  They’d only be on time!

  Flo’s cuteness had been off the charts, and very distracting…

  Mr. Cat chuckled.

  Just as planned!

  His apprentice had a knack for this!

  He jumped down from the top of the stand and meowed to get her attention.

  “Meow, good job, Catgirl Flo!”

  “Mew, thank you, Mr. Cat! Gods Bless!”

  Flo wasn’t a cat, so she couldn’t purr, but the smile on her face was brighter than the morning sun!

  “Meow, it’s nothing. Let’s go check on Lily!”

  “Oh yeah! My rival!”

  Flo got fired up.

  She was going to brag, today!

  She sold all fifty apples!

  That was two dollars and fifty cents in her pocket, now!

  She was catching up!

  So she closed up her stand, and she and Mr. Cat walked down the road to Dan’s Dairy Farm…

  Lily and her Mama had walked there earlier, right as Dan was starting his daily chores.

  “Good morning Dan! Moo!” Lily said when she saw him.

  “Oh, good morning, Lily!” he yelled back.

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.”

  “Moooo.”

  The cows all mooed as well!

  There was a little cow walking on two legs approaching!

  “I’m going to super pretend to be a cow today!” Lily declared.

  Dan looked at her, then her Mama, then back to Lily.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked.

  “I’m going to go in the cow pen and do what the cows do!”

  Lily’s Mama put a hand on her cheek.

  “Is that safe?”

  But, Dan nodded.

  “It should be fine. The cows aren’t giving milk, but they’re still nice cows.”

  “Moo!”

  “Moo.”

  “Moooo.”

  So spake the cows.

  “Okay! And… action!” Lily said!

  Ghostly Duke nodded invisibly.

  And Lily got down on all fours!

  “Oh, Lily, your costume is getting dirty!” Lily’s Mama said.

  “Don’t worry, those clean out real easy,” Dan assured her.

  “Moo!” Lily mooed.

  “Alright, little cow, go on in with the other cows. Y’all be nice to Lily, okay?”

  “Moo!”

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.”

  “Moooo.”

  And so Lily started her morning as a cow girl!

  The other cows snuffled around her, learning who she was, and she tried to remember all of them, too!

  But, she was distracted…

  The ground was really dirty!

  It was getting all over her costume!

  All the other cows were pretty dirty, too…

  And, being on all fours, she was pretty close to their cow hooves…

  They all had mud in their hooves!

  That didn’t look nice…

  All the cows were mooing, and so did Lily, and eventually, she got thirsty!

  So she went to get some water, mooing all the way!

  And when she got there…

  The water was dirty!

  There was dirt at the bottom of the trough, and stuff floating in the water.

  Lily scrunched up her face.

  “Moo!” she said.

  She wanted clean water!

  But, nobody did anything!

  Dan was busy with other stuff, and her Mama was watching over her, but Mama didn’t understand what “moo” meant!

  Lily took note of this.

  She went to the feeding trough next.

  Hay!

  The hay looked fine, actually.

  Her tummy was still full from breakfast, but the other cows seemed to like it!

  She pretended to eat some hay.

  “Munch munch munch moo!” she said!

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.” the other cows said, eating their hay.

  “Mmm, yummy hay, now to chew my cud, moo!” Lily said.

  Ghostly Duke nodded. “Good method acting. Keep it up, Pilgrim!”

  The sun was coming up, and Lily’s full-body dairy cow costume was getting kinda warm!

  She was kind of shaded by the other cows, but the air was still warm.

  So she wandered around, looking for shade…

  There wasn’t any!

  The cow pen was really big, but there wasn’t any shade!

  And there were so many cows, she didn’t recognize them anymore!

  Nor did the other cows recognize her!

  They were nice cows, so they would snuffle her and then be nice and say moo, but it was happening over and over again!

  Lily would say moo back, and try to remember the other cows, but there were too many!

  Moo!

  And then, it happened.

  Lily felt itchy.

  She almost stood up to scratch it, but Ghostly Duke stopped her.

  “Lily! Cow! Cow mindset! Method acting!” he shouted.

  Lily stopped.

  “Moo!” she said.

  Maybe she could scratch it against a tree or something…

  But there weren’t any!

  The cow pen fence posts were metal, and there were no trees or anything!

  It was hot, she was itchy, it was dirty, and she couldn’t make any cow friends…

  “Moo!” she mooed!

  This was a lot less fun than she had anticipated.

  She was feeling kind of ornery!

  But, she persevered!

  She was super pretending!

  She ambled into the barn, which was even warmer than the cow pen was.

  It was stuffy!

  Dan’s Dairy Farm had a bunch of milking machines, but they were really loud!

  Whirring and banging and rumbling!

  It was a little scary…

  But the last thing Lily wanted to pretend was using the milking machine.

  All the other cows watched warily as she approached one of the machines.

  “Moo!”

  “Moo!” they warned.

  “Moo…” Lily said back.

  She crawled up onto the milking platform, and put the milking suction cups on her costume’s udders, and…

  Rip!

  It tore the udder right off!

  It ripped her costume!

  The milking machine was too strong!

  Lily froze, looking down at her torn costume.

  “I quit!” she yelled!

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.”

  “Moooo…”

  The other cows nearby came up and snuffled, making sure she was okay.

  They were nice cows!

  Lily’s Mama came running in.

  “Lily, are you okay?! Oh, no, your costume…”

  Lily sniffled. She had tears in her eyes, and her hands were too dirty to wipe them away!

  “Mama! The cows… the poor cows… moo…”