“Great!” said Flopsy. “Just stand in the corner and dance as goofily as you can. I’ll call in the customers!”
“I’m on it!” announced Lemon Mouse as she took position.
Wily cried out, “It’ll never work! Isn’t that right Blacky?!”
Blacky glared up at the fox and asked, “Why did you call Flopsy a loser? That was like… extra mean.”
Wily tried to think of what to say quickly. “No. No. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just some friendly jeering. You know how it is. In fact, you should say it too.”
Blacky thought about it and then looked across the path shouting, “You’re a loser!” Flopsy just made a paw gesture that implicated that she was watching him.
A few animals were already on their way. Gumdrop immediately started dancing as cutely as she could. Flopsy smiled really big when it looked like it was gaining all the attention she had expected. “Oh, isn’t that the cutest thing you ever saw?” said one of them. “It’s a little dancing lemon!”
The Lemon Mouse asked cutely, “Would you all like to buy a fresh cup of lemonade for a quarter?!” Flopsy was already filling the cups. The plan seemed to work, and Wily’s stand was now being ignored.
The fox grumbled and pointed to the lemon bucket. “Blacky, quick! Put one of these on!”
The much too large skunk gasped. “I’m not a mouse, Wily!”
“Well… then go out there and dance or something. That mouse will ruin everything!”
“Dancing is for girls!” complained Blacky. “There has to be a better way! There’s more customers coming this way too!”
The fox panicked when they were already noticing the dancing Lemon Mouse, and it did not help that Flopsy was smirking as well. The fox ran over and kicked down his own signpost and shouted to the approaching customers, “Free lemonade! Why pay a quarter, when you can get some for free!”
Both Flopsy and Blacky gasped. “What?!”
The bunny became enraged, “You can’t sell it for free! Nobody will buy anything from me if you just give it away!”
Wily sneered. “That’s the whole idea, you little twerp!”
“You’re just trying to put me out of business! If you aren’t going to play fair then just get out of here!”
“Why don’t you make me!” returned the fox.
Blacky hopped up and down. “Wily, she’s right! We can’t just give them away!”
When the approaching customers saw all the fighting, they carefully made their way around the lemonade stands. Flopsy slammed her fist into the stand and shouted, “Look what you did! You’re ruining everything! All I wanted to do was learn how to run a business, but you and Blacky are messing everything up!”
Blacky waved his paws. “Wait! I didn’t decide to do that last bit!”
Gumdrop was awfully worried at where this was all going. She implored the bunny, “Flopsy, we all just need to calm down.”
Flopsy ignored the mouse and picked up a fresh lemon. She raised it into the air, and before she found better sense, she tossed it as hard as she could. Wily dashed clear out of the way, and unfortunately, it struck Blacky in the head.
Flopsy covered her mouth when she realized what she had done. Blacky just fell back after he had been hit, and the bunny and mouse became worried. However, Blacky soon rose back up with a look of frightening anger which was far more than he normally possessed. He picked up his own lemon and tossed it back grazing Flopsy’s left ear. When Flopsy saw he was going for another one, that was when the lemon battle began!
*****
Goober was a timid brown rabbit and a good friend of Flopsy’s. He had been the one to tell Flopsy all about how starting a business was a very fun thing to do. It just so happened that he had, at this very moment, the intentions of visiting his friend to see how she was doing. Unfortunately, what he found was a total disaster.
Both Blacky and Flopsy were screaming at each other while pelting each other with lemons. “You’re a–Ow!–total traitor, Blacky! Ow!” shouted the rabbit.
Blacky returned, “Well at least I’m–OW!–not a lousy friend who–OW!–talks bad about me when I’m not around! Ow!” Wily was in between the stands covering his head with his front paws. He was getting hit a lot too. Gumdrop was screaming at Flopsy trying to get her to stop.
Much against any amount of common sense that he usually possessed, Goober ran right into the fray and yelled at both sides, “Stop this! Stop this right now!”
“…and I’ll never be friends with you again!” shouted Flopsy as she accidently picked up Lemon Mouse and tossed the squeaking thing right at Goober. He squealed and fell to the ground. This action promptly halted the lemon fight and everyone ran over to see if they were all right.
Goober groaned dizzily. The mouse squeak-panted swiftly as she lay next to the brown rabbit. Flopsy whimpered, “I am so sorry! Are you guys all right?! I didn’t mean to throw you, Gumdrop. I didn’t even see you, Goober.”
Gumdrop weakly answered, “I’ll be ok. My lemon suit protected me from Goober’s face.”
Blacky frowned more than usual. “What about Goober?”
Goober was still pretty out of it. Flopsy patted his face a few times, and the brown rabbit suddenly raised his finger and announced, “Throwing lemons… is dangerous!”
Flopsy hugged the groaning rabbit and broke out into tears. “Everything just got all messed up because of Wily!” The fox rolled his eyes, but he did not leave.
Goober struggled to sit up and tried desperately to compose himself. “What on earth caused all this to happen?”
Flopsy explained, “I ran into Wily and told him I was going to start a lemonade stand, and he mocked me about it. He has been trying to mess things up ever since.”
“That’s not what he told me about it,” said Blacky.
Wily broke in, “She made fun of my paws!”
Flopsy was momentarily enraged, “I did not! I…” she faltered. “Oh, I guess I did do that. But that’s no excuse for what you did.”
Goober looked at Wily. “What did you do?”
Wily grumbled for a moment. He actually appeared rather ashamed of himself. “I lied to Blacky in order to get him to help me mess up Flopsy’s stand. I was just so mad at her for making fun of me.” Blacky did not respond to this other than just glaring back at the fox, but he soon turned to Flopsy and gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t wanna sell lemonade anyways.” Flopsy returned the embrace.
Gumdrop rid herself of the uncomfortable lemon suit and asked, “Well, now that we know what happened, what should be done? All the lemons are all over the place.”
Goober sighed and stood to his feet. “We got to get them all cleaned up. We don’t want anyone slipping on them. After that, maybe Flopsy and Wily can work something out.”
Both bunny and fox turned their backs to each other. Wily said, “Forget it. She doesn’t wanna do anything with me.”
Flopsy sneered and said, “He’s just a mean fox. Why would I want to work anything out with him?”
Goober raised a finger. “Well, it seems to me that both of you sort of wanted to have a business, but it didn’t happened because you were mean to each other. Why don’t you just make up and try running the stand together?”
There was a long silence. Flopsy finally said sulkily, “I’ll only do it if he asks me to. Politely!”
Wily turned to look at her and huffed. Finally, he asked, “You wanna?”
Flopsy was surprised to hear that from the normally mean fox, but she let out a long sigh and answered, “All right. Let’s just clean up this mess first. And… I am sorry I made fun of your paws.”
Wily smiled a little and rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry I tried to mess up your business. I’ll go get a bucket.” The two began helping each other clean all the lemons up.
Goober then asked Blacky, “Are you gonna help them?”
The skunk shook his head. “Can’t. I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching th
em do it.”
*****
The next day, Flopsy’s lemonade stand reopened. Wily joined her business as a sales representative. The bunny noticed that the fox had a certain knack for selling the lemonade, but she had to press upon him to do it without making things up.
Throughout the day, they made over thirty quarters which they split down the middle. Before they separated, Wily said, “I kind of had fun today. I really like trying to get the animals to buy things, and you really do make good lemonade.”
Flopsy smiled, “Maybe this will lead to better things during your stay in Cottontail Pines. Mister Hooty the owl always said there was some good in you.”
“Yeah, well… We’ll see. Just don’t tell anyone I had fun with a bunny, all right?”
“You’re secret is safe with me!” They walked off to their homes–both with smiles.
The end.
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