It was a cool evening in Hawaii. Slushy was sitting on a stool near the counter of the snow cone shop tallying up the cash in the register for that day. He'd been working at the shop long enough the owner trusted him to lock up. "Another slow day" he mumbled as he finished counting the bills and jumped off the stool. He cleaned up the place a bit and made sure everything was in order before leaving the store and locking the place up.
As he was walking home, he felt the cool air hit him. Normally he would have loved this kind of weather, but sales at the shop had started to fall. Some days he'd only get two or three customers if he was lucky. Even with the lack of customers in the shop, Slushy had saved up a good amount of money, so he was doing fine financially, but he enjoyed working at the shop and didn't want to lose it or disappoint the shop owner. He had to find a way to attract new customers.
His mind wandered as he walked. Maybe a local advertisement or putting up posters around the island? No, that wouldn't help. Doesn't matter how much advertising we do, that won't change the temperature around here. Maybe we sell something more for the colder weather? No, we don't have the equipment for that kind of stuff and it's too expensive. Slushy eventually reached the housing development where most of the experiments had made their homes. It was dark out so most of his cousins had retired for the night. Slushy went into his house, grabbed a soda, sat down, pulled up the recliner, and turned on the TV. Not much was on, so he just settled on watching whatever game show was on.
After a few minutes Slushy's phone started to buzz. He pulled it out and clicked the answer button. "Hey! Splody!" Slushy said in a tired yet happy voice before hearing Splodyhead on the other end "Hey man, what's up? Walked by your shop earlier and you seemed a bit down". Ever since they made up for the whole "kung-fu" thing at one of Pleakley's E.A.R.W.A.X sessions, they've been best friends. Every Saturday night they would usually go out and do something together. Last Saturday they went bowling with Whoops. Needless to say, Whoops whooped their butts. "Eh, just been slow. Weather hasn't been the best for business. How have things been at the Tiki place". "Not bad. David's been working on a new routine for his show, so I've been helping him out with that." Splody said sounding a bit bored. "Practice usually doesn't last too long for… obvious reasons." Slushy knew what he meant. David was a great guy, but not a fast learner. He gets there eventually but gets burned a lot along the way.
"So, what are you doing most of your day then." Slushy asked. "Oh, taking walks, watching tv, playing video games, the usual. I really need to get more productive with my time." Splody replied. "Hey, you said business was going slow because of the weather, right?". Slushy wasn't sure what he was getting at. "Yeah, what about it?". "What if during my free time I try heating up the island a bit to help you draw in more customers?". Slushy gave it some thought. "So, you're suggesting you heat up the island to help the shop get more money? That seems a bit underhanded don't you think?". Slushy heard Splody scoff over the phone "Don't think of it as underhanded, think of it more as correcting nature. It has been unusually cold out recently, hasn't it? We're just 'fixing' it".
Slushy wasn't very fond of the idea but still contemplated it. "Ok, let's say we did go through with your idea, there's no way your powers are strong enough to heat up an island". Splody knew Slushy had a point. "That's true, but there's a lot of us heat experiments out there. What if all of us worked together to heat up the island, then we all split the profits from your shop?". Slushy started to do the math in his head, this could actually work. If enough customers came in, even splitting the profits, the shop would earn more than it does now. "Ok, how about tomorrow we try testing this theory and see if it works. Thanks buddy". He could hear Splody sound a bit happier over the phone. "Ok! Sounds good! I'll get in touch with the others and see what we can do. And no problem. This'll help out the both of us". The two said their goodbyes and hung up. Slushy still had a feeling of guilt over their plan, but he also didn't want to lose the shop and figured it wasn't hurting anybody, so he just shrugged it off and went to bed hoping the next day things would be different.
