Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
“Tell it to the judge, Miss Lee. Bribing public officials is a serious offense.”
“Seriously,” Melanie adds in. “Crack their heads together, throw them both out on their asses.”
I ignore her. The bell over the door rings again as someone else comes in, and at this point I’m expecting Satan himself to come in and give me shit.
“Good morning, Miss Hannah.” Thankfully, it’s one of the furthest things from it. Ben comes up to the counter, ignoring the two intruders.
“Morning, Ben. How are you? After your usual?”
He shakes his head. “I’m feeling pretty eh. Do... do you got like Ginger Ale or something?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Anything else to settle my stomach? I know it ain’t your forte, but I kind of just came here because it’s my routine. Didn’t think too much about it.”
“Figures,” Henry shouts. “This man comes in here every day? And clearly has food poisoning?”
I continue my task of ignoring them. “I don’t have anything to sell, but I can give you some of the pink stuff as a friend.”
“Pushing drugs won’t help matters, Miss Lee,” Fred adds.
“Are you two going to buy anything or just heckle me all day?” I snap at them.
“Did I come at a good time? This doesn’t seem like a good time.” Elias is my next visitor, and I’d be glad to see him no matter what.
“Mr. Lawson,” Fred announces. “There is a regular customer of Miss Lee here who is clearly sick because of her health-code violating products.
“Hey,” Ben turns around. “I’ve been here for years, and I have never been sick after my orange cranberry muffins before. Don’t go accusing Miss Hannah of anything on my account.”
“Yet you eat here every day, and you’re sick as a dog.”
“I never felt like this, but uhm,” Ben rubs chin. “I guess the only thing different is that when Miss Hannah’s bakery was closed, I still wanted a muffin so I went to Henry’s Baking Factory instead. Got a Cherry Cranberry muffin instead. Wasn’t very good. Didn’t have a lot of flavor. And I’d been feeling kinda off ever since then. Maybe it’s his muffins instead?”
I cross my arms. “Hey, yeah. Why don’t you go and investigate Henry’s bakery instead? Isn’t this cause for suspicion.”
Fred narrows his brow at me. “How dare you? Weaponizing health inspections against your competitors? That is a sign of corruption if I ever saw one, Miss Lee, I’m sure the court would love to hear about it.”
Elias is taken aback by the scene. I’m sure he just wanted to stop by to say hello and check up on me, but it’s all gotten a bit more complicated. But soon he smiles. “No, no, she has a point. In the interest of fairness, I should subject the Baking Factory to the same inspection as the Sweet Stoppe.”
“I have nothing to hide,” Henry says, with haughtiness. I think I see some doubt in him.
Elias, I, Henry, and Fred leave the Sweet Stoppe. For this, I’m willing to take a break, and leave up a sign that I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. It’s not a long walk toward Henry’s store, and I’m reminded of how out of place it is. It’s a new construction and sticks out like a sore thumb, looking like some sort of microbrewery with all of its excessive wood paneling and brass everywhere. It’d probably be fine in Smithport, but it’s just tacky in a place like Evergreen Valley.
We enter, and Elias points to the door to the back. Henry opens it for him, shifting around, annoyed that he has to go through all of this. Welcome to the club, maybe you shouldn’t have started all of this.
“There’s nothing back there. I follow all the rules and bylaws. This is my fourth location, you know. And none of them have had any reports. None that stuck anyway.”
“This is a witch hunt,” Fred says in his increasingly nasally voice. “This won’t look good for you, Miss Lee.”
“Just... just shut up, Fred. Please. For once in your life, shut up.”
“I will not. The righteous will not be silenced.”
I massage my temples.
“Hey, what’s this back here?” Elias says from the back. “Your flour is awfully, uh, brown.”
Elias’s words cause people to gather around him.
Henry crosses his arms. “It’s wheat flour. Perfectly natural. All natural, even. Are you going to give me a mark for serving my customers wheat flour?”
“I don’t know, man, this isn’t the consistency of flour. Flour doesn’t do this,” he says, sifting it through his fingers. As a professional flour worker, I could tell something was kind of funky about whatever that was.
Elias brings it to his nose. “Is... is this sawdust?”
Henry’s eyes go wide and he clears his throat. “What? No. This is a bakery not a sawmill.”
“Oh god,” I say. “Are you seriously using sawdust? In the twenty-first century?”