Marcus and Julius folded their hands in front of their faces, put their elbows on the table, and leaned over to look at the little girl businesswoman who was the talk of the towns.
Lily!
An eight year old girl with brown hair and blue eyes, carrying a ledgerbook.
A golf prodigy!
And a business prodigy!
And a culinary prodigy!
Truly, one blessed by the Gods…
The two mayors didn’t know how right they were!
Other than their normal business, and the emergency with the food supplies, they had one other thing they were here to do today…
Negotiate with Lily to open up Lilyburgers restaurants in their villages, as well!
You see, they had figured it out!
Lilyburgers was causing economic activity to increase!
As good mayors, they tracked stuff like that very closely!
They cared about their villages, and their people!
They wanted them to have money, and spend it a lot!
They wanted everyone to be happy and wealthy!
Not only that, but restaurant food was a luxury!
On top of helping money move around, it was a nice little treat for the people!
Especially at the mine and quarry, from what they had heard!
Worker happiness was up!
Way up!
The miners and stone quarriers had more energy, and were happy to eat hot food instead of just packed lunches!
Julius, the mayor of Lumberville, already had an idea for how a Lilyburgers cart could be moved to follow around the lumberworkers as they felled trees and cut them up in the forests…
Marcus, the mayor of Grassy Hill, wasn’t sure how to have a cart positioned for his farmers, who were more spread out, but his village was a lot more compact than the others.
He wanted to maximize land for farming!
He even had a choice location set aside in the tiny city square, which would be a perfect fit for a Lilyburgers.
There wasn’t room for a normal restaurant, but a Lilyburgers would fit!
However…
With the price increases…
Lily had insisted Lilyburgers would remain open.
That was all well and good.
But could she keep expanding…?
George, the mayor of Three Creeks Village, cleared his throat.
“Ahem, that’s good news, Lily. So, will you be able to keep opening new restaurants?”
He shared a look with Julius and Marcus!
Henry, the thin mayor of Stone Pit, was too busy breathing a sigh of relief to join in!
He couldn’t go back to life before Lilyburgers…
And, in response to George’s question, Lily…
Frowned!
All the mayors swallowed thickly.
Gulp!
“Probably not…” Lily began. “With these prices, I don’t know… what I can do…”
Understandable!
It was a fluid, extreme situation!
But…
The mayors were eager!
And…
It was Julius who struck first!
“Miss Lily, I heard from George about the situation with your cash flow…”
That’s right!
When Lily had wanted to open up Lilyburgers #2, the City Square Location in Three Creeks, she didn’t have all the money she needed right away!
She sold part of that business to George for fast cash!
Four thousand dollars!
That had been enough for her to buy up everything she needed, and cover the rent!
It had even been enough to expand into Stone Pit!
Julius continued!
“Is there some way we can help you expand into our own villages, Lumberville and Grassy Hill?”
Marcus nodded along.
Lily…
Sighed!
“With ingredient prices the way they are…”
Lily had two problems!
The first, was her cashflow!
She didn’t have enough money to expand right now!
She’d have to buy supplies, and pay rents!
And that was before training new workers…
Her second problem was the ingredients!
Even before the price hikes, there wasn’t enough!
She was selling out every day!
It was worse because the price went up, but there was a more fundamental problem!
Or, rather, there were three fundamental problems!
Cattle rustling in the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas!
A Dairy Cow Strike in the Friendly Commonwealth of Wisconsin!
And Anarchy in the Glorious Sun Kingdom of France!
Today, Lily had learned that these were the sources of her main ingredients!
“Lily… Lily…”
A haunting whisper in her ear, that she had mostly tuned out.
Ray kept saying the same thing over and over!
Lily had heard it a million times!
“And is there nothing at all we could do?” Julius asked.
Marcus… nodded!
“Indeed,” he said with a deep voice, “If it’s a matter of cash, such things can be solved.”
They wanted to get in on it!
The way George had, that lucky guy!
But it was George who shook his head!
“Guys, with ingredient prices the way they are, my earnings are going to plummet. I’m sorry to say, Lily, but it’s not a good investment right now.”
That’s right!
Lilyburgers was only going to scrape by until prices came back down!
“Lily… Lily… Franchise…”
Lily sighed, and all eyes snapped back to her.
“Well, there is one way…” she said, dramatically.
Everyone held their breath!
She looked up, with a fiery light in her eyes!
“Franchising.”
Everyone paused for a beat, and then their heads all tilted in unison.
“Franchising?” Julius repeated. “What’s that?”
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Lily explained, and showed them her ledger and calculations.
Someone could buy a franchise, and they would run the business, and get the right to use her branding and recipes and business practices.
She would even help train their first workers at her existing locations!
It was the system Ray Croc had come down to the mortal realm as a ghost to help Lily set up!
Lily would get twenty percent of profits, as the business owner.
The franchise owner would be the manager, and do all the work, and would keep all the other profits.
But the franchise owner would also be responsible for the capital costs!
Julius and Marcus frowned.
That was…
Normally, it would be a good deal!
But with costs the way they were…
They would hardly make any profits at all!
And ingredient supplies were tight as it was…
What if prices rose again?
And there was the upfront cost…
Even if Lily didn’t charge the initial franchise fee at all, it would take a while for the franchise owners to make their money back…
In the end, it was Marcus who seized the opportunity!
He had a really clear vision of a Lilyburgers in his compact village!
And…
He had a supply of wheat!
He was close to the source!
On top of which…
Wheat was selling for a lot right now!
His farmers were going to be flush with cash in a month or two, when the harvest came in!
And they would want to spend that money on luxuries!
“Lily,” he said in his deep farmer voice, “I’d like to open a franchise in Grassy Hill Village!”
He was going to make a bet!
He was betting on Lilyburgers!
But…
He was a farmer at heart!
He was super careful with his money!
He worked hard for it!
Even as a mayor, he worked hard, and knew how hard all his villagers worked!
So, Lily made her proposal, relaying what her ghostly advisor, Ray Croc, told her.
“For a single franchise in Grassy Hill, the profit split would be eighty-twenty between you and me, and the initial fee would be five thousand dollars…”
That was about five percent of the enterprise value Lily had figured out with George on their first round of business golf!
Remember, that was a low ball estimate!
Lily was hopeful!
If she could get five thousand dollars now, then she could pay her debts at the end of the month...
But…
Marcus frowned!
Material costs were higher now!
“I’d like a waiver on the franchise fee.”
No!
That was the most important thing at the moment!
Lily needed cash right now!
“A waiver?” she asked, trembling.
This was high stakes business!
Rich and Mac, her other ghostly advisors, were grumbling.
“Right, a waiver. I want to skip the franchise fee, given the limited profitability for a restaurant in these trying times.”
Who would want to open a restaurant when ingredients were so expensive?
Normally, nobody!
Marcus was in a unique position, because his village was going to do well with the higher prices!
Ghostly Ray Croc was fuming.
“Lily, you can’t let him not pay it! That’s the whole point of franchising! If you just give them away, you’ll never make money, and everyone will want to not pay it!”
Julius was watching closely!
Lily shook her head.
“Sorry, I can’t waive the franchise fee.”
Lily bit her lip.
If she had just a little more money, she could pay her debts…
But, she still had ten days.
If she couldn’t figure something out, maybe she’d go back and negotiate with Marcus some more.
“Well, that’s understandable,” Marcus said.
There were no hard feelings!
Marcus was a tough negotiator, but that was just business!
Sometimes things didn’t work out right away.
“If ingredient prices were normal, I’d have no problem paying the franchise fee. So let’s try again when things shake out.”
He reached out a hand, and Lily took it.
A business handshake!
Marcus was careful not to squeeze too hard, of course.
He was a gentleman!
And, with that, Marcus and Julius left to return to their own villages.
They were interested in opening up their own franchises, but not with these market conditions!
Lily said goodbye to the other two mayors, and met up with Junior.
Or, rather, she waited for the lunch rush to end, then spoke with Junior.
“Well, it was busy as all get out again, so demand seems to be stable…”
That was because they had kept the same prices!
It was a damper on their profitability, but they were keeping their customers!
Junior had everything under control, so Lily just observed and, at Ghostly Ray’s prompting, took some time to write down her franchise plans.
“Things aren’t great right now, but you gotta do something! Moping is no good! You know you need to do this, so might as well do it now and get something productive done!”
Ray was a go-getter!
And he was laser focused on franchising!
Because he knew!
He had lived it!
Franchising was the way to expand fast and make a lot of money!
Supply shocks like this were temporary!
The free market would fix things!
Although, this was a different world…
Things worked a little differently here!
Once Lily was done writing out her plans, it was dinner time!
Junior was still working, but George came and drove her home so she could eat with her Mama and Papa.
“Oh dear… What’s wrong, Lily?”
Lily’s Mama noticed right away that Lily was down!
She had tears in her eyes!
“Mama… everything’s more expensive now!”
Lily sat in her Mama’s lap and explained everything while her Mama stroked her hair.
There were a lot of complicated words in her explanation!
But Sally soothed her daughter like she always had.
When Lily had scraped her knee playing.
When Lily had had trouble in school.
And now when Lily’s business wasn’t doing so well.
“It’s going to be okay, Lily. Make sure you say your prayers and ask the Gods and Goddesses for help.”
Sally gave the same advice she always did!
That night, Lily ate dinner with her Mama and Papa and Mr. Cat, and the next day she let Junior handle things in Stone Pit by himself, for the most part. She inspected the mine cart and the City Square Location, instead. But things were going smoothly! Other than the increased ingredient prices…
Mr. Cat had promised to run around more later, so Lily was sharing her french fries with him at lunch time, sitting by the fountain in the city square.
Munch munch…
“Meow!”
Munch munch…
“Sigh…” Lily said, out loud.
“Mrow, cheer up Lily! You said your prayers, right?” Mr. Cat said, gulping down another french fry.
“Yeah, but…”
Lily was running out of ideas!
She had prayed, and thought, and wracked her little head over what she could do…
If she could solve even one problem…
If just one ingredient were back to normal, she’d be profiting again!
She’d make enough money to keep expanding!
“If only I could go to Texas…”
“You mean the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas, right?” Mr. Cat corrected.
“Do I have to say the whole thing every time?” Lily asked.
Mr. Cat nodded sagely. “They take that very seriously over there.”
Freedom! Forever!
“If only I could go to the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas,” Lily corrected her earlier wistful statement.
“Well, why not?” Mr. Cat said matter-of-factly.
“Huh?”
“Why not go? Those cattle rustlers sound like bad news! Someone should make them stop!”
Lily nodded, but she was still frowning.
“You’re right, but I can’t go…”
“Why not?”
“My parents debts are due…”
Mr. Cat’s eye twinkled.
“Heheh,” he chuckled. “Nobody lends to cats! We’re too smart for that!”
“Uh, Mr. Cat, that sounds like a bad thing…”
Loans could be useful sometimes!
Lily was struggling with them now, but her Mama had used a loan to pay their rent this last month!
“Nuh uh, you see, we know all the tricks and loopholes!”
Cats could wiggle out of almost anything!
“Isn’t that cheating?” Lily asked.
“Nope! Like that little loan your Mom took.”
He was talking about the loan for the rent.
Lily’s Mama had borrowed one thousand dollars for the rent, and she would make two payments of six hundred dollars over two months to pay it back, for a total of one thousand, two hundred dollars.
“I read that contract! It just says the money has to be paid back in two months!”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, so you don’t have to pay anything for two months! See, a cat would never make an early repayment.”
You never know when you might need that money!
“Wait, what?!” Lily cried out.
They could just not pay the loan next week?
Mr. Cat smugly ate another french fry.
“See, aren’t I smart? And since I’m so smart, you should be giving me more french fries, not less!”
His logic was impeccable!
“Smart kitty!” Lily pet him on the head.
Lily was a good girl!
Her Mama had told her to limit his french fries, and give him more pets instead!
Mr. Cat purred.
He foresaw more french fries on the horizon!
But Lily was too good to be tricked!
And Lily’s mind was racing!
If she didn’t need to pay six hundred dollars at the end of next week…
That gave her more time!
But…
She would owe that money at the end of next month, instead.
She would end this month with about four hundred dollars left over, after payments…
And she would only make about four thousand, two hundred dollars if ingredient costs stayed high…
Not enough to pay her rents and the loans!
But with next week taken care of, her businesses running themselves, and more time…
Maybe Lily could do something!
But she would need some help…
And…
At just that moment…
George and Henry, the mayors, arrived in their cars!
“Lily!” Henry shouted!
