Chương 431: WE SOLD EVERYTHING
SATURDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, LUNCH
The first trickle of success streamed to our stall very quickly. The moment Beta Ki's shadow departed from the lobby, Peach returned to our stall with two other women. They would like to buy more fudge squares, for their friends who couldn't be here... because they were delicious and it was nothing to do with the fact that Beta Ki had made them.
"Twenty dollars a bag." Ben said in monotone from behind the counter.
I turned around to see that the signs had been tempered with. There was now a "0" behind the "$2".
The ladies produced the money instantly. Even Peach, she blushed a little, "I might as well get a few more bags, it's for a good cause after all."
"Is it really for a good cause and not just because Beta Ki made them?" Ben asked.
Shh... Ben! Don't be rude! These nice ladies were holding out $50 bills.
"Why don't you buy the other things too?" Ben offered a bag of cookies.
Peach ended up buying 3 bags of fudge and a bag of cookies. The other ladies followed suit. For some reason, they only spoke to Ben now, not me... although Peach did smile tentatively at me and offered a small bow before she left. I waved and smiled back but her back was already turned.
After that I just retreated under the table to pack more bags of stuff. Yes, like the raccoon that I was, I hid under the table. I didn't like being stared at by the Lorent ladies. But I had not time to deal with that. I had to make up more bags quickly first.
I opened a bunch of boxes randomly and started bagging cute mixes of pies and muffins and anything that felt like it would taste good together. We actually got quite decent stuff. None of them looked super fancy, but they all smelled like good food, except for the banana bread. Don't worry, I didn't put any of Jonah's banana bread into the mix for sale.
While I did that, Dean served and Ben collected the money.
That was just the beginning. Word of mouth went around fast - I'm not sure if it was due to social media or good old fashions mindlinks, but our stall soon started to form a fast moving queue. Fast moving because I've already packed everything into bags, and because every bag was $20.
Every now and then, Ben would yell, "$20 a bag, get your lunch quick and contribute to the hospital's good work in the community."
Which was our selling point to the passerbys who were in a rush (our line was moving a lot faster than the Lorent booth), and our reason of the exorbitant price tag.
"$20 for this tiny bag of cookies?" A man grumbled as he took out his wallet to pay for his wife's purchase.
It was NOT tiny. It was urm...cute.
"Thank you for your donation to the hospital outreach fund." Ben answered coldly and plucked the twenty out of the man's hand. And then he smirked, "Here, I'll give your wife a free kiss."
And I'm not sure if it were to the wife's relief or disappointment when Ben took her hand and placed a chocolate kiss into it. Hahahaha.
By now our shift was way overtime. Where was Link and Kev? The lunch crowd was also trampling through the main lobby of the hospital. There was a huge crowd around the Lorent booth, and many others joined our quick-moving queue to grab a bite for a good cause.
Where was our lunch? Weren't our teachers, or Esther, or Hank, or someone grown up and responsible supposed to come check on us and give us our food? What was taking them so long? If my food didn't come soon, I'd eat the stuff I was packing. I mean, with this $20 price tag, we've already earned more by now than what we would have if we had sold everything in the 20 boxes.
"You okay down there?" Ben asked.
"I'm hungry." I told him.
"Eat something then." He told me.
Then I will! I picked up a soft pretzel. I had been eyeing it for a while. I passed one to Ben, and another to Dean. They looked equally grateful. I guess I wasn't the only one starving.
Ben pointed his phone at me, and I realizing he was using his camera.
"Hey! No photography!" I told him.
"I didn't take a picture." Ben stopped his phone, "I took a video."
He showed me eating under the table surrounded by a small mountain of half emptied food boxes.
"The next time no one believes that you're a raccoon, I'll show them this video."
I flared, right from under the table.
"Hi! Lunch is here. Where's Sam?" Link and Kev put our lunches in brown paper bags on the table top right above me. They've just returned from their second delivery, and Mrs Beta had sent them over with our lunch. The adults had been caught up helping the other stalls - they had been dealing with one problem after another. The stall outside the entrance needed an extra tent when it hailed a little just now. Tim's group got into a bit of a food fight with the Morning Light stall next to it (because it was manned by Morning Light goons). And to top it all off, one of the stalls hadn't been set up at all! Hank and Steve found the table and wooden poles left in the corner and had to build it themselves.
It turned out that Ben was right. Our stall was at the best position. The Lorent Stall attracted a lot of customers. They had done their marketing groundwork way before they set up their stall. They were also kind enough to send business our way after each sale, mostly because they could not keep the news of Beta Ki's Vday Fudge to themselves. (That's what Ben had renamed the item and set up its new sign.)
Ben helped me clean up the empty boxes. He wrote the time down on one of them, "Half the fudge has sold. That's our first sell-out box."
Then he put the empty winning box at the VIP position next to Jonah's banana bread. There were still a few more pieces. Ben put the money for them in the money box and put the box into the large black trash bags with the other emptied boxes, "We'll clear the other boxes after lunch."
Link and Kev took over the stall. They were much better at bake sales than we were. Link said hello and chatted with every customer like meeting an old friend along the street, and Kev dealt with the cash with a calm and steady hand. Actually, taking Ben out of the picture just made the whole stall feel friendlier. It was like the customers just preferred not to deal with Ben.
I tried to listen in to Link and get a few tips for further references.
"Here, let me help you get a good one." He offered one customer who was holding up the line to inspect every item in each "Lucky bag".
"Buy two, get a kiss free." He announced proffering up the bowl of chocolate kisses.
"I guarantee our home baked goodies are all made from good quality ingredients. If not, you can come back for an exchange." He promised with absolute sincerity.
"We need more bags, beta." Kev informed us as he replenished the trays, "And fudge squares and cookies."
"Use your eyes, they're sold out." Ben answered with his usual customer service standard, "We'll bag the rest for you."
So we did, or at least Ben and I did. The other three continued to serve customers. Ben and I were self-delegated under the table like illegal laborers, packing brown paper bags with goodies, plastering it with lots of love, or rather, all the leftover heart shaped stickers. Despite being a boy, Ben was surprisingly good at crafting things. Ben scribbled a triumphant "SOLD OUT" across all three $20 items, and made a new sign "SECRET VDAY GOODIES $10"
Actually, of all the guys I knew to date, only Dean and Ben were "crafty" types, as in they were pretty good with their hands and could draw and make stuff out of ice cream sticks, or soda cans, or whatever. Last year at camp, Ben used ice cream sticks and raffia string to make a scroll that could be unrolled. On it, he had used a wood burning pen to engrave verses from one of the Lycan texts we were being taught. He said it was going to be his Beta pledge, and then he gave it to me at the end of the camp and told me to keep it for him.
Dean made me birthday cards every birthday. He would draw them himself. Last year, he drew two fat bears sitting among buttercups and colored them in color pencil. I was very impressed. It looked just like a picture of a real gift card - and then he confessed that he copied it from a real gift card - but he didn't trace it. He copied it, line by line, which impressed me too, because I'd never do anything like that.
For Dean's birthdays, I'd always just buy him something nice at the store, depending on what store I happened to follow Savy to. Last year, I bought him a body wash set - a guy one in dark green bottles. It didn't impress him, but it cost me $60! This was because I followed Savy shopping after a movie and she wanted to check out this new bath and body care shop, and that was the only "guy" gift set I could get.
I should've just bought Dean movie tickets - I just might this year.
Mrs Beta and the other adults finally got to our stall. They watched with dumbfounded expressions as the steady line of customers come by to pick up brown paper bags of unknown content, all for the crazy price of $10.
"Grab yourself a treat for dessert, and contribute to the hospital's outreach fund!" Ben yelled at the after-lunch crowd.
By the end of lunch break, Florence and Joanna (Dean's mum and Shannon's mum) came to take over the running of the stall for the afternoon shift.
"We're sold out." We informed them.
"What do you mean by 'sold out'?" Mrs Beta asked.
"We sold everything, Mum." Ben said, highly satisfied with the outcome of the day.
"What about the new stock for the afternoon shift?" Esther looked at the back of our stall at the mountain of emptied boxes.
"We sold EVERYTHING." Ben repeated.
"Oh." Said Esther.
"Oh." Said Mrs Beta.
"Oh no," said Florence, "Whatever should we do now?"
"We can't close the stall now!" Esther informed us.
Apparently, we weren't supposed to have sold EVERYTHING.
Now that our stall had closed and the customers had dispersed, Mrs Beta could take a good look at our operations. She looked at the sign boards, "$20?"
Ben opened the money tin to show the adults. Their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
"Well, I suppose that's one way to run a bake sale." Hank broke the silence with a cough.
"Oh, Ben!" Mrs Beta was less amused, "What did you do now?"
"Win the prize for the stall that raised the most funds." Ben boasted. He handed his mum the empty winning box, "Sam's box sold out first by the way."
"What? How?" And then Mrs Beta narrowed her eyes at the sign board for "Beta Ki's Vday fudge" and figured it out on her own, "Nevermind."
"Let's just pool together some of the boxes from the other stalls." Esther decided.
We just sold everything for them and raised more than ten times the funds expected from the sales, but nobody was going to praise us?
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