Wolf's Café


I walked through the mall. Walking through a mall isn't a great idea when you're out of money. But what I was going to buy was a store. I could rent it out for 250 a month. I then saw a perfect vacant lot. It was right in the centre, next to the main elevators and escalators. I rushed inside and saw a counter, a bathroom and nothing much else other than a light bulb.

"You want this?" asked a lynx from behind the counter.

"How much is the rent?"

"Three hundred a month."

"A bit over budget, but I need it. So I'll take it."

Just then, Leon walked in as the lynx walked out. Leon was panting: he was carrying two buckets of red paint, three buckets of green paint, two paint rollers, a stack of wooden floorboards and a bucket of nails.

"Nice work Leon. I'll paint the walls, you go get the rest of the floorboards, some better lighting and some airspray. Then you need tables, chairs and barstools. Oh and we need to test the plumbing, improve the bathrooms and a fridge. We also need some soft drinks for any kids. Get water, coke and maybe orange juice"

Leon sighed and walked back out. I got a toolbox and got to work.


Three non-stop days of work and the joint is looking decent. Its walls were painted a light green with the floorboards carpeted. There were three rows of fluorescent lightbulbs and the bathroom had been retiled. There was also a menu with some appetizers. All that was left was the main sign with the name. The name...

"Waddya wanna call the place?" asked Leon.

"I don't have any ideas. You?"

"How about...Dunkin' Donnell's Coffee?"

"If people associate me with the name Donnell, the police will be on me in seconds. How about..."

Five minutes later...

"Well I still say that stinks!" said Leon.

"Hmmm, then why don't we do Wolf's Café?"

"Not bad. Let's get painting."

Half an hour later...

We grabbed the sign and placed it on It said Wolf's Café with a picture of a grinning wolf holding a cup of coffee.

"Finally!" I said. "We're officially OPEN!"

Wolf's Café had no doors. It was one of those places that was open to the rest of the mall without the usage of doors. So we just hung a little paper sign with OPEN written in green from the main sign.

"So, Wolf." said Leon. "How much coffee do we have?"

"If the place is half full, we'll have enough for three days. I need to get more from the boat. I'll see you soon Leon!"

I ran out of the café towards the exit of the mall. I then went into a drainpipe and got onto the speedboat I had left it in the sewers. I turned the engine on and sped through the sewers. Damnit, low tide! The speedboat flew out of the sewer pipe and landed into the water, barely missing the rocky ground underneath. It took about half an hour to get to the boat. I stopped the speedboat and tied it to Leon's crashed Wolfen. I walked into the cargo room and did not like what I saw. The water levels had gone up about 20 centimetres since four days ago. I grabbed about ten coffee sacks that were near water and loaded them onto the boat. I then saw some sugar sacks. After a bit of hesitation, I loaded two of them onto the speedboat as well. I then noticed a door saying:

WATERTIGHT STORAGE

I opened it up and began placing as much coffee that would fit in there. In the end I managed to fit about a hundred sacks in. As the water would get higher and higher, I would take sacks from lower sections and take them, or put them in watertight storage. I got on the boat and went back. When I got there, the tide was high again. I rode through the sewer pipe and unloaded the coffee into an empty dumpster. I would wheel it in as the mall was closing and deliver it to Wolf's Café at night. So I walked into the mall and went to check on Leon.


This isn't so hard after all. I did it once before when I had to do community service. Make coffee, beware of hooligans. So far we've earned fifty three Cornerian credits! If this keeps up, we'll have our monthly rent paid back in no time! Wolf is probably still at the boat. We've agreed not to use our communicators unless of an emergency. Wait...who is that? No...anything but that birdbrain!

"This looks like a nice place." said the guy.

"I agree." said a girl next to him.

They walked in and sat on the barstools.

"Black coffee for me and a cappuccino for the lady here."

"Coming right up..." I said.

"Leon? What are you doing here!"

"Falco Lombardi...if you must know I'm doing community service."

"Wow, you must of been caught quickly since I kicked your butt in Katina."

"I told you, my G-Diffuser was faulty!"

"Anyway, coffee today or next year?"

I grumbled as I started on Falco's and Katt's coffee. I felt like giving them a Venom Special, to kill them all. But I would be caught red-handed.

"Something smells fishy." said Falco.

"Probably your fish breath..." I muttered to myself.

"If Leon's doing C-time... Leon! Where is the Cornerian official that should supervise you during service!"

"Uh...he's...He's an undercover agent. Can't reveal his name or location or anything. Not even to you."

"O...kay I guess."

A few minutes passed and birdbrain and Katt left. I turned on my communicator.

"Wolf, are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm heading back. I'm in the mall."

"Uh oh. I saw someone who you don't want to see at the moment."

"Who?"

"Falco Lombardi!"

"What the heck!"

"Yeah, birdbrain! If he sees you wandering around, it'll blow our cover!"

"Cover? What's the cover story?"

"Community service!"

"Damnit. We might just be screwed. We need to get at least a hundred thousand to pay off our debt and get new jets, three hundred thousand if we want something as good as the Wolfen. And that is gonna take some time! Oh shit! Look who's here!"

Wolf turned off his communicator and I went back to serving coffee.


I slipped under a table, praying that Falco wouldn't see me. As soon as he was out of sight, I made a mad dash towards Wolf's Café. Just then, a kid walked inside with an ice cream and some of said ice cream went on the floor.

"WHOAAAAAH!"

"Yikes!" said Leon, who came with a mop to clean up the ice cream. "You OK?

"I'm fine..." I said, rubbing my head. "Aren't you glad we didn't call it Dunkin' Donnell's."

"Yeah. Birdbrain might be dumb but not that dumb.

Well, let's get to work!


The past few days have flown by. We've made enough money to pay the rent early and buy a medium sized TV for the place. We thought about hiring some staff but decided against it. We couldn't afford it quite yet. Leon bought two coffee shop outfits and we've been wearing them all the time. It makes us look more professional too. We also stitched our logo onto them. Usually Leon works at the coffee shop while I do everything else ranging from tax payment to ordering boxes of snacks. The cargo ship is holding fine, I've done four trips so far. Everything was going to plan until yesterday. Yesterday, Starbucks, a massive company which owns a range of cafés, announced they would be building a new coffee shop, the biggest one in Lylat to be exact. Right next to ours! Well excuse me! Can't let you brew that, Starbucks!


Thanks for reading and/and reviewing. Now that Starbucks is in the picture, what chaos will ensue? Find out next time, on "Can't let you brew that, Starbucks."