"Right" Spencer chewed on the edge of her quill. The 5 girls were gathered in Spencer's room the next day. Spencer at her desk, Aria on a beanbag, Alison on her bay window and Hanna and Emily laying top and tail on her bed.
"What about a Lemonade stand?" Aria suggested
"No one does that in England Aria, it's not hot enough" Spencer pointed out. Aria huffed and kicked her foot against the edge of Spencer's bed.
"What about" Hanna stared up at the ceiling with her hands on her stomach "A sexy car wash?"
"I doubt people will want to pay to watch a bunch of 13 year olds wash volvos in bikinis" Emily laughed.
"Hey, I'm still 12!" Aria retorted.
"So am I!"Alison added
"Even worse" Spencer agreed "We could sing for money and stuff, like people do on the streets"
"What, like homeless people?" Hanna asked, scoffing "Besides, I can't sing anyway"
"Neither can I" Emily agreed, passing Hanna a small high five. Spencer rolled her eyes.
"We could sell stuff then maybe" she suggested.
"Like what?" Alison asked "None of us have enough stuff to sell, if you're thinking like a boot sale or something-"
"Fat idea!" Aria suddenly sat up, her eyes widening.
"What is it?" Spencer asked eagerly, swivelling around on her spinney chair and tapping her quill against her face.
"My mum's boyfriend owns a bakery" she started explaining "I could ask him if we could borrow some of his spare supplies and we could do a bake sale!"
"Your mum has a boyfriend?" was the only thing Hanna seemed to gather from that sentence.
"Yeah, his name's Zach" Aria told her "He's a bit weird, but it's the only thing I can think of"
"That sounds like a good idea, and I can't think of anything better" Spencer shrugged her shoulders.
"Bake sale it is?" Alison asked. The other four girls nodded their heads in agreement.
"Great" Aria stood up "I'll go and get supplies now, and we can start baking"
Aria returned some time later with 5 boxes full of flour, 4 tins of cocoa powder, a crate load of eggs and various other ingredients that Zach has spare in the back of his bakery.
"All this stuff is like a day out of date" she explained "So he's not legally allowed to sell it, but there's no law saying we can't. Besides, who's even gonna taste the difference"
"Excellent!" Spencer exclaimed, rubbing her hands together "Right so, I can make some mean banana muffins, Hanna I'll put you in charge of cookie and cupcake duty, Aria you make us some leaflets and stick them around town, and Alison and Emily you get together and do us some brownies"
"Hey, why are we the only ones in a pair?" Alison asked with a frown.
"Because I saw you attempt to make apple pie 3 Christmas's ago, and it would be an understatement to say you're a dangerously shit cook"
Alison mocked a sarcastic gasp.
"Is everyone good?" Spencer asked, tying an apron round her waist. Everyone nodded.
"Then let's go"
"No, Ali, I said 2 cups of flour not 2 spoonfuls!" Emily said, irritably smacking her hand against her forehead.
"Well you could have said it more clearly!" Alison retorted, scooping a cup full of flour into the mixing bowl. Her face was covered in flour, and she had bits of cocoa powder sprinkled in her hair.
"We've made six whole batches of these already, did you really think the recipe would change during the third batch?" Emily argued "Here, let me do it"
She snatched the cup out of Alison's hand and poured the flour in the bowl herself, brushing her hands off as she finished.
"How many batches are we making?" Ali asked, carefully cracking an egg against the mixing bowl.
"Spencer said 10" Emily answered "There are 20 in a batch, so we'll be making 200 brownies altogether. Each brownie will sell for £1.50 muggle money, which is-"
"£300" Alison finished "That's nowhere near enough". Emily bowed her head, and started mixing the bowl of brownies.
"It's a start" she said, slowly mixing the chocolate mixture together "Hey, could you pass me another egg"
"Sure" Alison said, throwing an egg at Emily. Emily tried catching the egg, but it cracked in her hand.
"Alison!" she gasped "Why the hell did you throw it?" Alison smirked and wiped a smudge of flour off of her face.
"You asked for an egg" she shrugged "Not my fault you couldn't catch it" Emily flicked the egg off her hands and into the bowl. She picked up another egg and threw it directly at Alison, smashing it against her shoulder.
"Oh you wanna go there?" Alison retaliated, picking up another egg and tossing it at Emily's chest. It wasn't long before more eggs had been thrown than there were in the mixtures themselves, and Emily went to reach for another egg and realized-
"Oh shit"
The egg boxes were empty, and most of them were smashed up on the floor and dripping all over Emily and Alison's aprons.
"Hey Em, could you pass me two eggs" Spencer suddenly said, without looking up from her recipe.
Emily glanced nervously at Alison, and Alison returned the glance with a mouthing of the word 'Crap'
"Hey did you hear me I asked if you could pass me-what the fuck happened?" Spencer had turned around now to find Emily and Alison dripping with the remains of smashed up eggshells and yolks.
"We ran out" Alison stated. Spencer's face brewed a shade of red and she folded her arms.
"YOU BLOODY IDIOTS!" she roared "NOW WE'LL ONLY HAVE HALF THE AMOUNT OF STUFF WE NEED FOR A GARUNTEED £2000" Alison shifted closer towards Emily and bowed her head.
"Sorry" they both muttered at the same time. Spencer raised an eyebrow.
"It's fine" she said unexpectedly "We'll just have to raise our prices a little, I don't know. Give me the ones you've already done and we'll make something work" She walked away silently, untying her apron and taking the muffins out the fridge.
"We're fucked" Alison gulped. Emily nodded her head.
"Totally fucked" she agreed.
Spencer had set up a stall at the end of her road, and Aria had draped a banner over it reading 'Help us raise money for our friends memorial, the Maya St Germain fund'. Soon enough, customers were flowing in buying cookies, muffins, cupcakes and brownies.
"Things are looking good" Spencer whispered, frantically putting money notes into the money box.
"We might just make it, you know"
"We bloody better" Hanna said "Especially after the whole egg situation"
"It wasn't my fault!" Emily chuckled "Alison was the one that threw the egg in the first place"
"I threw it for you to catch!" Alison argued "Besides, if you hadn't have-"
"We don't have time for this" Spencer snapped, digging Alison in the ribs "Let's just agree that both of you fucked up majorly and now we have to work as hard as we can to raise enough money.
Emily and Alison rolled their eyes "Yes, mum"
It was near the end of the day now, and the sun was starting to set. There was no one around in the streets, and it was becoming clear that the girls would not be getting any more customers today.
"So how much have we got?" Hanna asked eagerly.
"Hold on, I'm counting it" Spencer said, flicking through the wads of money. Her face fell as she counted the last note. "£1700"
Emily's heart sank. They hadn't raised enough money. She had failed Maya, yet again. It was all her fault. It seemed like she couldn't do anything right lately, so she sat down on the edge of the road and held her head in her hands.
"It's not your fault, Em" Alison came and sat down next to her, as if she had read her thoughts.
"I just wanted this for her" Emily sighed "You know? I feel like I owe it to her"
"Hey" Hanna suddenly said, nudging the Emily in the rib and pointing to something "We've got another customer"
She was pointing at a woman, who was accompanied by a small boy and two more children in a double buggie. The woman approached the stall and smiled at the girls.
"What would you like?" the woman said to the small boy, who looked to be about 4 years old.
"Muffin please" he said, pointing to one of Spencer's banana muffins.
"One banana muffin please" the woman said. Spencer tipped the muffin into a paper bag.
"£2.50 please" she said. The woman got a few coins out of her purse and dropped it in Spencers hand. To Spencer's surprise, she found that the woman had given her 2 Sickles and a knut.
"Oh, I'm so sorry" she fumbled around and took the money back out of Spencer's hand "Foreign money, here"
"You're a wizard" Spencer said. The woman froze and looked up at her with a small smile.
"Yes, I am" she said "I take it you girls are too?" All five of them nodded at once. The woman looked up at the banner over the girls head, and sighed.
"Your the friends of that girl who was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yeah" Emily said, standing up from the side of the road "Maya". The woman shook her head.
"So sad" she said "As a worker for the ministry, I can assure you we are doing everything we can to catch that woman and bring your friend to justice.
"Thank you" Alison said, nodding her head. The woman read the banner again.
"So you're raising money for a memorial party for her?" she asked. Spencer nodded.
"Well actually, we're trying to raise the money to hire her favourite singer for the party" she explained.
"Oh really?" the woman asked "What singer?"
"Avril Lavigne" the five girls said at once. The woman looked shocked.
"I love Avril Lavigne!" she said "Your friend had great taste in music. So, have you got all the money you need?"
The girls sadly shook their heads.
"We need £300 more" Aria explained. The woman bit her lip slightly.
"Tell you what" she said, pulling something out of her bag what looked to be a cheque book "I'll give you the rest of the money you need, if I can come and watch her sing"
Spencer took the cheque from her hand and gaped at it in awe.
"For real?" she asked, her face suddenly lighting up "You're really just gonna give us this money?"
The woman smiled and nodded her head "Think of it as a little apology from the ministry"
The girls crowded round the cheque to make sure it was real. Alison examined it with a strange look on her face, as she had never seen a cheque before.
"Thank you, thank you so much!" Emily breathed "I don't know what to say"
"It's no problem, really" the woman smiled "I'll be happy to come and pay my respects to Maya. So, when and where is the memorial?"
"This Saturday" Hanna said "Primrose beach"
"I'll be there"
"Can we go home yet?" the small boy said, taking a bite of his muffin.
"In a minute, James, I'm just talking to these girls" she replied.
"He's cute" Aria peered down at the boy "Are they all yours?" The woman shook her head.
"Goodness, no" she laughed "Only the girl. Say hello, Rose!"
The baby shook her tiny fists, causing all five girls to 'awwwww' simultaneously.
"These are my nephews, James and Albus" she explained "I'm babysitting them"
Albus shook his fist, and James buried his head in the woman's coat with embarrassment.
"Anyway, I better be off" she said "Put the kids to bed, and all that"
"Thank you again for this" Spencer smiled, waving the cheque. The woman smiled.
"It's no problem, really. See you Saturday!"
Once the woman had left, the girls gathered round Spencer to examine the cheque again.
"We've got all the money!" Hanna jumped excitedly "Avril Lavigne, here we come!"
"We did it!" Emily started jumping too.
"All thanks to" Spencer read the name scribbled on the cheque they had been given 'Hermione Granger'