Pixie's Lemonade Stand

It seems that nature had decided to make everyone its enemy today, with the insane heat that lingered in the air. The sun was beaming down relentlessly on the town, having no mercy, aside from the sparse bits of casted shade it caused. Everyone who was currently outside had a look, very clearly looking for an out, or a way to stay active and cool while about their days.

Which made it the perfect day for Pixie to enact his genius plan.

Pixie had pulled a small fold-out table, tablecloth, a cooler, and various other bags and things in a small wagon all the way to the entrance of a park. The perfect place to catch the most passerbys. She set up the table, carefully draped the tablecloth over it, and carefully tied a sign to the front, which read “Lemonade! 100 Cloudcoins!” in big bold letters, as well as a tiny open and close sign, currently switched to “Closed”. With a bit of effort, Pixie pulled a large tub of lemonade from his cooler onto the table, nearly full with a bright yellow liquid, cold to the touch with condensation dripping down the sides. It looked insanely refreshing. Pixie hadn’t even finished setting up when she noticed other cats pointing out her stand, clearly taking interest in her business. Adding the final touches with displaying cups, a few extra decorations, and even a small box of cookies, he finally flipped the sign back over, now reading “Open”.Pixie took a seat on the small stool he brought, waiting for the first bite. Some of the previous cats who were talking started to turn away, which started to annoy him, but then he noticed two cats talking in the distance, obviously about his stand due to the pointing by the brown one. They talked for a bit before both of them started making their way over, with Pixie putting on a big smile.

“Hello! Would you like some lemonade? I made it fresh!” she beamed. 

“Hi! We would like two cups, please!”, replied the short brown cat.

“Ok!” Pixie chirped “Which of these cups would you like?”. Pixie gestured to two same-sized cups on the table. One was a plain white paper cup, the other was a clear plastic cup that had a repeating design of lemon slices around the entire circumference of the surface.

“Can we have the fancy ones?”

“Yes! Names for the cups?”

“My name is Leif, and they’re Iris!” Pixie quickly scribbled the names onto the cups with a permanent marker, and took a mental note. Cool cup..

“Some ice?” he inquired

“Yes, please!”

Using the cups, Pixie scooped some ice from her cooler. Once both cups had ice, she analyzed them.

1, 2, 3, 4… 1, 2, 3…

Now it was time. Pixie flipped the tap on the drink dispenser, and each cup filled with the refresher. They were pretty full, slightly above three quarters. One last thing left.

“Would you like a cookie too?” He offered

“Are they extra?” asked Leif.

“Yes.”

“No thank you, then”

Pixie nodded and began to push the cups on the table towards them. With a sense of triumph, she spoke.

“That will be 1100 cloud coins, please!”

The smile on Leif’s face fell as both cats' eyes widened in shock. It even caused a group of three cats, ones Pixie recognized as Lucia, Selene, and Dusky to react in a similar way as well, with them shooting quick worried glances at each other.

“Huh? I thought the sign said 100?” He questioned.

“It does, but you got the cool cup and ice, that’s extra. The 100 is just for the plain cup and no ice. The cool cups are 100 each, and each ice cube is 100. There’s four in this one, and three in this one. That’s 1100 total.”

“That’s ridiculous.” The other cat, Iris spoke up. 

"You never even stated it was extra.”

“You never asked,” retorted Pixie. “Besides, it says on the sign.”

Iris leaned down to observe the sign. Staring for a moment, they could make out a tiny, faint line near the bottom left of the sign, reading “may have extra charges” written in such chicken scratch it was nearly illegible. Coming back up. Iris shot a cold glare at Pixie, which truthfully gave him the chills. Leif noticed and put a paw on their shoulder.

“C’mon, it's no big deal, she’s just a kid.”

“I am not paying for this.”

“It’s fine, I got it.” Leif pulled out the correct amount of coins, with Iris still looking at him disapprovingly.

“You shouldn’t be paying for something like this, you’re being taken advantage of.”  “It’s… fine, ok?” In all honesty Leif knew, but he didn’t want to make a child upset. After a deep breath, he placed all the coins into Pixie’s designated payment cup, and he and Iris each took a cup, and then a sip. Both the cats immediately recoiled, with Leif putting on a fake smile of enjoyment, as well as fake sound of delight.

 However, Iris began to cough and wheeze, and they dropped the cup. Leif immediately went to them.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m… fine…” Iris attempted to sputter between coughs. Pixie began to notice their claws unsheathing, and when she saw their eyes, they began to slit.

Wow, rude! Why do they have to be so dramatic about it? I’m right here!

Leif noticed the changes in Iris too, seemingly afraid of it with how she became so frantic at the sight of it, spilling from her cup as well.

“Ah, Iris!!” A small pause, then a paw placed on the shoulder again, and he began tapping it. “Uh, I just remembered! We have somewhere to be! Like, right now! Don’t you remember too?”

“Yes.. Let’s go now…” The purple cat wheezed through coughs, and the two of them ran off insanely quickly. Pixie could only watch, getting ticked off at the wasted product that was now soaking into the ground. He still couldn’t believe the intense reaction to the clear hatred that purple cat had to it. Like, really? Getting so mad that you unsheath your claws, narrow your eyes into slits, and start bearing sharp teeth? The nerve of some cats.

All the while, the second group in line had just sat and started at the events that had just unfolded, jaws dropped. They were all still frantically exchanging gazes, none of them moving from their spot. Still in the line though, meaning they were all still customers

“Can I help who’s next?” Pixie called on the friends, but none of them moved. After a while, a frown from Pixie, and a nudge from Dusky, Lucia stepped up to the table.

“Um… Can I just have a cookie..?” She seemed nervous.

“No, they’re extra. You need to buy lemonade to get one.”

“...How much extra?”

“They’re 300 extra.”

“Oh!” Lucia exclaimed in surprise. “So, can I just have the most basic lemonade and a cookie?”

“Yep! Just give me a name.” spoke Pixie. He began to prepare the basic white cup, iceless lemonade as Lucia stated their name. He also reached for a napkin, grabbing a cookie with it, and passing both to his customer. Lucia took both in one paw after paying. 

“Thank you.” A small voice crack left Lucia’s mouth as she stared at the cup in fear. She gestured to her friends, and they got up and began to walk away.

“Aren’t you going to try it?”

Lucia stopped, starting to worry. Starting at the cup again, she thought for a second, and her friend and girlfriend also looked worried. She brought her paw closer to her face slowly, but then thought, and took a bite of the cookie in the same paw.

“This is… good!” She then proceeded to take another bite, seemingly trying to confirm that it was indeed the case. “Thank you for the food!” She called out one last time before the three cats went on their way, dipping out of sight. Pixie noticed something, however.

She never took a sip of the lemonade the whole time.

And the cookie thing wasn’t a compliment, he didn’t even make those! He bought them from a store!

Pixie groaned in disappointment, grabbing his head with both his paws and sprawling onto the table. Nobody liked his lemonade, this first one was excessive hatred, and the second didn’t even try. He bet that the second Lucia got out of his line of sight, she dumped it on the floor. Was it seriously that awful? 

Maybe it was. She had never tasted it before she got here, after all, but it’s just lemonade, that’s easy! She had used all the right ingredients: water, lemons, and sugar. Of course, water is the base, it's mostly water she used anyways.Then the lemons, of course you needed those, but lemons are bitter, and no one wants that, so that came to the sugar, the easiest way to drown out the bitterness. Pixie made absolutely sure there was enough. Adding cup after cup, tons of second guessing, then adding another, and another. There’s no way it would be bitter like that! It even looked pretty, being bright yellow and all. It looked so much better than the original muted color, so she had to fix it. Unfortunately, she had no food colouring, so she settled with some yellow icing. That stuff is mostly dye and sugar anyways, that was stuff that was already in it!

Well, there was nobody else in line, maybe he should try some. Pixie grabbed a plain cup, got some ice, and dispensed some for himself. Staring at the drink that had sent a wave of distress over three cats that day, he went for it, taking a swig of the refreshment.

The flavour that hit Pixie’s tongue and the back of her throat instantly made her spit it out. It was so sickeningly sweet that it burned her mouth. She reached for the cookies and shoved one in her mouth, hoping the sweet would somehow cleanse her palette by soaking it up.

That was awfu!. I think *I* should have been paid to drink that..

The thought caused Pixie to look at her earnings. With how it was earned, is it even morally correct to keep this?

…

Eh.

Pixie dumped the earning cup into one of her bags, and packed her stuff back into her wagon. I guess there would be no end to the suffering caused by the heat this time, with Pixie having failed in both providing a product and in her mission to get enough cloud coins for that guitar she wanted.

Oh well, I guess he would just have to perfect his recipe, no matter how long it takes. Until then, those cats sure have something to look out- I mean, look forward to.