The drive continued, and billboards were crammed together more and more densely on both sides of the road. And right around lunchtime, they arrived at…

  The Outlet Mall!

  A wondrous place with lots of different clothing stores from all the best brands!

  It was like the shopping mall in Dustin, the capital of the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas, but bigger! Way bigger!

  But Lily was in no mood for all that!

  She was a girl on a mission to save her Papa!

  She wanted to just hurry up and buy what she needed, and get a move on!

  Sally looked down at her daughter.

  She had a really serious frown on her face.

  It made Sally even sadder to see Lily frowning…

  But Sally wanted to save Bill, too!

  Her daughter’s pet had claimed to have a message from the Goddess of Shopping, telling them to come here…

  Certainly, there was a Goddess of Shopping.

  But would Coco really send a message to… Mr. Cat?

  Up in heaven, Coco nodded!

  “It’s really important,” she insisted!

  A woman’s outfit is her armor!

  That was her motto!

  Mayor George parked the car, and Lily was about to rush out, when…

  Gurgle grumble rumble…

  Her tummy rumbled!

  “Ahem, let’s go!” Lily said, trying to ignore her rumbling tummy.

  But, Sally remembered…

  She was Bill’s wife…

  But she was also Lily’s Mama!

  “No, Lily, it’s lunchtime. We can go shopping after we eat.”

  “But, Mama! We have to save Papa…” Lily pleaded.

  Sally gave her daughter a look.

  “Lily, your Papa might be in a pinch, but he’s still your Papa. He’ll be fine for a little while longer. He’s tough!”

  Rumble grumble gurgle…

  “And you’re still a growing girl. You need to eat a proper lunch!”

  Sally believed in Bill! He could take care of himself for a little bit! But as Lily’s Mama, she had to take care of her!

  Sally was fired up!

  “Yes, Mama…” Lily said.

  Still, she puffed out her cheeks.

  She wanted to hurry!

  Too bad there wasn’t a Lilyburgers nearby…

  That would be fast and easy!

  “I know a pretty good restaurant,” Mayor George said. He had taken his wife on a shopping date here, before!

  Lily nodded. “Okay, let’s eat lunch!”

  But, she had forgotten…

  The truth about restaurants that made Lilyburgers so competitive…

  “It will be a twenty minute wait for a table,” the restaurant’s host told them.

  Lily’s jaw dropped!

  Twenty minutes?!

  That was forever to an eight-year-old girl!

  “Oh, good,” Mayor George said, “that’s pretty fast for Osteria Francesco.”

  That was good?!

  Lily hopped over and looked around.

  There were a couple tables empty right now!

  What the heck?!

  Sally was also confused, but she didn’t say anything.

  This was her first time in a restaurant, too!

  “And I’m sorry to say, but due to the increased price of ingredients, the prices have risen…”

  “The normal amount?”

  “Yes, that’s right…”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Very good, sir. While you’re waiting, why not play a game or two? We’ve recently installed a blackjack table, or even mahjong…”

  “No, that’ll be okay… But you have gambling here, inside the restaurant?”

  The host shrugged. “It’s helped offset the cost of ingredients.”

  Looking at the three of them (and their pet cat), he finally noticed that Lily was clearly not an adult.

  “Oh, a child… well, if you want to let her play, we can look the other way.”

  He smiled, and then went to arrange for their table.

  Sally’s mouth dropped.

  “He’s going to let a child gamble?”

  “Well, it seems so…” George was also flustered.

  That was against the law!

  Something really was rotten in the Kingdom of Appalashia!

  “I am emancipated,” Lily pointed out.

  Everyone gasped.

  “Lily, you said it right, meow!” Mr. Cat pointed out.

  “Good job Lily!” her Mama praised.

  “Well done,” George said.

  Lily puffed up her chest!

  “Heheh, I’m a real adult now!”

  So, they managed to do nothing for a whole minute before getting bored and wandering over to the gambling area.

  Just to look!

  There were people playing cards, but the players all looked sad or stressed out…

  Even the dealer looked tired, though he was forcing himself to smile.

  And the worst was…

  The mahjong table.

  It was a fancy one, that shuffled the tiles automatically.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Four people were seated at the little table, each with a row of tiles in front of them. One by one, they would draw a tile from a stack of tiles like a wall, and then either put it face up in the center or swap it with one of the tiles in front of them.

  It was kind of a complicated game…

  So they had a person standing there who did nothing but explain the rules!

  She was wearing a kimono with long sleeves, and looked really pretty!

  She explained the rules, and Lily listened.

  “So you try to make patterns with the tiles?”

  “Right, either a sequence of numbers in a row, or three of a kind. If you get four of a kind, you can reveal an ura-dora, which gives the winner bonus points…”

  Lily kind of understood!

  At least how to make a hand.

  “And then you do the scoring like this…”

  Whoa!

  That was really complicated!

  Yakus and doras and hans and fu’s!

  “Games are played for a certain number of rounds, or when a player goes to zero points. Oh, and if the dealer for a round wins, they get to replay that round staying as dealer until they lose. And they get a bonus multiplier for winning as dealer, too.”

  Lily was doing her best to remember!

  But it was really complicated!

  Mayor George was already lost.

  Sally had her hand on her cheek.

  Mr. Cat nodded like he totally understood!

  “So,” Lily asked, “what’s the catch?”

  “Huh?” the kimono-wearing mahjong explainer replied.

  “The catch! How does the casino make money!”

  “The edge,” George helpfully added.

  “Oh! Well, there’s no edge. Mahjong is played between four players. There has to be four, so here, if you three would like to play while waiting for your table, I could join in and play as well. I get paid a salary, so whatever I win goes to the casino.”

  There it was!

  Although it didn’t seem too bad…

  “Would you like to play a game?”

  The other players had just finished, but they all looked exhausted, even the winner.

  Lily squinted at the table.

  Everyone had an equal chance to win at mahjong…

  Well, that was better than the card games she knew…

  But there was still something fishy about it!

  Lily might not know much about gambling…

  But she knew about games!

  She was a little kid!

  The best games were the ones where everyone had fun! Like tag, or hopscotch, or riding the swing-set!

  “No thanks!” she replied.

  “Okay, well if you change your mind, just let me know.”

  The mahjong explainer smiled and went back to…

  Well, doing nothing.

  Not a bad job, if there was nothing to do!

  “Mister Richman, your table is ready,” the host announced.

  “Yay!” Lily said.

  They could finally sit down!

  They got sat down, and the host switched out with another man!

  “Hi, I’m Giovanni, and I’ll be your waiter today. Shall we start with drinks?”

  So everyone ordered drinks.

  And then it took five minutes for the drinks to come!

  “Do you still need time to look at the menu?”

  “No!” Lily said quickly.

  She wanted to hurry up and eat, and hurry up and go shopping, and hurry up and save her Papa!

  It was a restaurant with ‘Italian’ food, a lot of which was pasta noodles, so Lily ordered spaghetti, Lily’s Mama ordered ravioli, George ordered pasta carbonara, and Mr. Cat ordered fish.

  “And we’ll have garlic bread for the appetizer,” George finished their order.

  “Okay, I’ll let the chef know your order and he’ll get started.”

  Lily tried to wait patiently.

  She really did!

  But after a few minutes…

  “Ugh, what’s taking so long…” she grumbled.

  “Well, this is what a restaurant is like,” George said. “You have to wait a lot, and the food is made from scratch.”

  “Oh dear…” Sally put a hand to her cheek.

  She knew that was really time consuming!

  The food was better when she did that when she was cooking for her own family, but right now…

  Rumble rumble…

  Everyone was really getting hungry!

  And, eventually…

  Lily spotted the waiter coming back!

  She perked up, excited!

  But…

  “Here’s your garlic bread.”

  It was just the appetizer!

  Lily sighed.

  She still had to wait!

  George and Sally were talking about shopping for a disguise, so Lily and Mr. Cat just munched on garlic bread…

  It was really yummy!

  Maybe they should just fill up on garlic bread and then leave…

  But they already ordered, so they might as well eat the food they were going to have to pay for anyway…

  Ugh…

  Lily wished she was just at a Lilyburgers!

  Their food would have already been out, and they would have finished eating by now!

  An eternity (for an eight-year-old) later…

  The waiter came back with a big tray with everyone’s food on it!

  “Thank the Gods,” Lily exclaimed!

  The waiter put down everyone’s food, and refreshed their drinks, and they all said a prayer of thanks to the Gods and Goddesses, and…

  Yummy!

  “Mmm!” Lily said.

  The spaghetti was really yummy!

  Everyone’s food was!

  Lily’s Mama liked her raviolis, and Mayor George liked his pasta carbonara, and Mr. Cat liked his fish!

  Lily scarfed it all down!

  Munch munch munch…

  “Ahh…” Lily sighed. “That was really good!”

  Lily’s Mama wiped her daughter’s mouth with a napkin, getting all the spaghetti sauce off her face.

  Then, the bill came.

  “Lemme see it!” Lily said.

  A Lilyburger with cheese set was two dollars at her restaurants.

  She wanted to see how she compared with a real restaurant!

  George was frowning at the receipt, and Lily’s Mama had gone pale. But, Lily was an emancipated adult…

  They showed her the receipt.

  The total bill was over fifty dollars!

  The drinks were a dollar each, and the bread appetizer had been eight dollars alone!

  And then each meal was about ten dollars a person!

  “Bwuh?!”

  Lily was shocked!

  “This is actually not as bad as I thought it would be, given the rising cost of ingredients. Maybe because we didn’t order any beef…”

  A meal for four cost as much as Lily’s Papa made working in the mine for a whole day…

  And that was just one meal!

  Lily’s ghosts nodded invisibly.

  “See, we told you your restaurant was revolutionary!” Mac said.

  “That’s why everyone loves Lilyburgers so much!” Rich declared.

  “This is why we need to expand fast,” Ray said, as usual. “We have to save people from all this waiting and high prices…”

  “So, who’s gonna pay the bill…” Duke wondered, rubbing his chin with a frown.

  That was easy!

  Lily looked at her Mama!

  “Mama, can you hand me my wallet?”

  She had a special wallet for the money from her super chores and opening her franchises!

  She had made thousands and thousands of dollars in the last few weeks!

  Fifty dollars for one meal was a lot…

  But she had more important things to worry about!

  Now that they were finally done with lunch, they needed to go shopping!

  Then they could save Lily’s Papa!

  Sally handed her the wallet.

  She felt bad making her daughter pay for their meal…

  She was used to not having a lot of money!

  The high price of their meal was making her nervous!

  It had been yummy, but not eleven dollars level yummy…

  She could have made this at home, if she put her mind to it!

  But Lily, having rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful over the last few weeks…

  Threw down the money!

  “Okay, let’s go!”

  “Thank you, we hope you’ll come again… Stay Lucky!” the host said as they left.

  Stay Lucky?

  “The food was really yummy,” Lily replied. “Gods Bless!”

  They walked outside, once again surrounded by lots of different clothing stores.

  “Well, what did you think of a real restaurant, Lily?” George asked.

  Lily gave him a look.

  “I think we should open a Lilyburgers here,” she said.

  Mayor George Richman gave her a business smile. “I agree.”

  They both smiled, and then did a business handshake!

  Look out, expensive and slow restaurants!

  Fast food is coming!

  “Ah, over there!” Mr. Cat exclaimed, and he scampered off.

  There was a store selling kimonos like the mahjong explainer had been wearing, and other costumes.

  Weighed down by their big lunch, everyone followed at a much slower, walking pace.

  “That’s it! That’s what the Goddess of Shopping wanted you to buy!”

  Lily, her Mama, and Mayor George peered into the shop window.