The Lemonade Stand
It was a beautiful day in the height of summer with all that entailed, the sun beating down overhead, the crickets thrumming in the grass, the sky turning bright cornflower blue without a single wisp of cloud.
Katie sat on her gran's folding chair, trying to ignore the way her t-shirt and shorts clung to her damp with sweat and sticky in places from spilled fruit juice.
She'd set up a little stand at the road's turn off with her friend Leanne, selling ice cold lemonade and containers of fresh blackberries pilfered from Mrs. Hinkenburg's garden. They'd been very eager to get stated because the weather promised to be nice and they were sure to get lots of people who wanted a nice cool drink.
Katie had been especially eager because she was saving up to buy a new basketball. She was getting tall now, probably she was the tallest in her class, and she knew that if she practiced hard she would definitely make the team this fall.
Daddy had helped her set up a hoop at the end of the drive for her birthday and agreed to play with her after he got home from work or on the weekends, but their ball was old and slippery and even if her mum said it was 'perfectly serviceable' if Katie wanted to practice properly she needed a new one.
Which was why she was still sitting out here, sweating to death, with not a single customer or potential customer in sight when Leanne had long since abandoned her to go swimming in the pond behind Tommy Gabriel's house.
Tommy Gabriel and his friends had already been by earlier to invite them swimming and harass them for free samples on the grounds of friendship and owed favours.
Katie thought longingly of the water which was deep enough in the centre to still be cool, even with the heat of the day and was tempted to take a sample of her own product, giving the cooler with the bulk of the lemonade and berries a sideways look.
But no, she needed to save it for the paying customers. There was no point if she drank it herself.
So Katie very determinedly managed to keep it down to two glasses of the pink lemonade and a few snuck berries that looked so ripe and melty that they were probably no good to sell anyway, focussing on braiding bracelets out of the long grass and even plodding through a chapter of the book her teacher had assigned for summer reading – her gran had brought it out to her when she toddled down to refresh the cooling charm on the cooler, so the ice wouldn't melt, and it wasn't like there was anything else she could do when she needed to sit behind the stand.
She was carefully adding wizard prices to her handwritten menu board and tacking it back up to the edge of the stand when a car pulled up outside the drive and the driver rolled down his window.
He looked tired, his big smile slightly pinched, with dark bags under his eyes and he was sweating worse than even Katie.
"Hello there little love, you mind giving us directions into town?" he asked.
Disappointed that he wasn't there to buy lemonade, Katie gave him a small shrug and pointed down the road.
"Go down that way until you get to the big tree with the rock in front and then turn left and keep going until you see the town," Katie instructed, "It's about a half-hour to walk, so it shouldn't take you too long."
"Thank you, we're meant to be going to visit my aunt," he breathed, smiling a little nicer, and a little more genuinely this time, "I've been up and down these roads for hours, and haven't had a bit of luck."
"It's not far now," Katie said encouragingly.
"That's good to hear, you've really saved me, Aunt Fanny would've skinned me alive if I missed this dinner," he said, "Tell you what, let me, buy some of your wares as a proper thank you. Kids? Who wants a lemonade?"
There was a resounding chorus of 'Me!' from the back seat of the car, and Katie blinked noticing for the first time that the man had five kids with him.
Two girls who were probably twins and three boys. All of them were probably younger than Katie.
"Alright, so that will be, two pink lemonades—"
"Daddy I want the pink kind!" protested one of the boys.
"I know Jer, but your sister wants regular," said the man patiently, "So, yeah, two pink lemonades, four regular lemonades. And…six cups of freshly picked blackberries."
Delighted, Katie scrambled over to the cooler and carefully poured the lemonade into the plastic cups and affixed the lids and handed over the straws to the man, and then rooted around in the ice for the best looking containers of blackberries.
"That'll be," Katie counted quickly, doing some of the math on her fingers, "Ten, ten pounds please."
The man handed over a twenty pound note, with a wink and said, "There you go little lady. A little something extra for your troubles."
"I can't—" Katie protested.
"It's fine," said the man, "You've really helped me out, and your lemonade is very delicious. Besides, you have something you want to buy don't you?"
It was true, with the man's twenty pounds she'd be able to buy her new basketball…
Before she could make up her mind, the man had put the car in gear and was pulling away from the drive with a wave.
"Thanks again! You have a good night!"
"Thanks, mister! You have a good night too!" Katie called back waving, unable to contain her grin as she clutched the twenty pound note tightly.
With this she was going to buy the best basketball in the store, and she would definitely, definitely make the team!
AN: Done for the There's a First Time for Everything Challenge on HPFC for the prompts 'Katie Bell' and 'First time being paid'. As always I'd love to hear what you guys thought :)