Lily was trying hard.

  She was trying super hard!

  Tears were welling up in her eyes!

  Her nose was runny!

  She wasn’t going to cry!

  She was an eight-year-old emestipated adult!

  She was too old and mature to cry.

  But….

  But…!

  Her super cute dairy cow costume was torn!

  The milking machine had been so strong, it tore the udder right off!

  “Moo.”

  “Moo.”

  “Moooo.”

  The other cows tried to comfort her.

  They rubbed their heads up against her gently.

  They had tried to warn her!

  Lily’s Mama took her by the hand, and she walked on two feet out of the barn to wash up.

  Once her hands were clean, she could scratch her itch, and wipe her eyes…

  Lily looked down at her (now clean) hands in wonder.

  “Hands… are really amazing, huh…” she said out loud.

  And her Mama…

  Sally got super concerned!

  She had seen Lily change a lot as she grew up…

  But she had never seen any other kid quite like Lily!

  Pretending to be a cow was one thing, but having a revelation about hands afterwards?

  Over the line!

  “Uh, Lily, are you okay…?” Sally asked, hesitantly.

  None of her mommy friends were around to ask for help!

  Lily looked up at her Mama with an expression of determination.

  Lily was serious!

  “Mama, I’m okay! But the cows need help!”

  There was a fire burning in her eyes!

  “Lilyyyy!”

  In the distance, a cat girl and a real cat were walking up the road to Dan’s Farm.

  It was Flo and Mr. Cat!

  Quickly, Lily wiped away her tears and put on a brave face.

  She couldn’t make her friendly rival and Mr. Cat worried!

  “H-hi!” she said, sniffing.

  “Oh no, Lily, your kigurumi!” Flo cried.

  The costume’s udder was hanging, tattered, from Lily’s front, revealing her normal dress underneath.

  Lily looked down at it sadly, then back up at her Mama.

  “Mama, can you fix it?”

  Sally…

  Got fired up!

  She was a talented seamstress!

  She was still Lily’s Mama! She could still be a good and capable mother! (Phew!)

  “Of course I can, Lily! I can fix that right up. Oh, but I don’t have any thread…”

  “Granny Pomum has some! I’ll ask her to let you use some!” Flo said.

  She wanted Lily to fix her kigurumi as fast as possible, so they could keep matching!

  It was almost lunch time, so they got some ice cream to go, and went back to the bed and breakfast inn for some lunch.

  “Granny! Granny! Can you let Lily’s Mama use some needle and thread? Lily’s kigurumi tore!”

  A little catgirl bounced up and down, super worried!

  Granny smiled.

  “Of course I can dear, calm down.”

  “Thanks, Granny,” Sally said gratefully.

  “No trouble at all, dearie. This is Wisconsin! We always help out a friend in need.”

  Wisconsin was a super friendly place!

  Lily took off her dirty, torn kigurumi, and handed it to her Mama to work on. Then, Lily focused on her own work!

  She had to write up a report!

  Well, she didn’t have to write a report, but she didn’t want to forget a single thing!

  The cows needed help!

  And they could only say ‘moo,’ so they couldn’t tell anyone themselves!

  Only Lily knew what all the problems were!

  So she wrote them all down, so she could tell Brenda and the rest of the Chamber of Commerce!

  This was bigger than just the price of cheese, now…

  Even bigger than helping the Texan cattle herds…

  This was about helping the dairy cows!

  They needed shade!

  They needed clean pens, and clean water!

  They needed quiet, gentle milking machines!

  They needed smaller groups, so the cows could remember who all their friends were!

  They needed more space to move around in!

  They needed scratching posts, and toys!

  They needed…

  A return to Tradition!

  Old Man Sam had been doing things right!

  All his cows were happy!

  He hadn’t known why what he was doing was right, but his ancestors had had it figured out!

  Flo watched her businesslady rival write down all these things that were wrong, and…

  She was stunned!

  She had been so proud of herself for selling all fifty apples, without hurting her voice!

  But in just a single morning, at the cost of her kigurumi, Lily had figured out all these problems the dairy cows were having…

  This was a problem that had been going on for weeks!

  Lily, being eight years old, still spoke out loud as she wrote things down, so Flo could get the gist of what she had learned.

  And…

  Flo was stunned again!

  The strike had been going on for weeks now.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  That was how everyone knew there was a problem.

  But the things Lily was writing down were…

  Normal!

  That was just how things were!

  The dairy cow herds grew and got bigger, so they had less space…

  That was normal!

  The pens and water were clean enough…

  Weren’t they?

  Scratching posts and cow toys…

  Would cows even care about such things?

  It wasn’t that hot…

  Did cows need that much shade?

  And the new milking machines everyone used were designed to milk the cows as fast as possible.

  Cows needed to be milked daily!

  With more cows, farmers either needed more machines, or faster machines.

  And there was only so much space for machines!

  So the machine makers of D-Troy made faster machines…

  And Lily was starting to get into a lot of detail about noise and clean hooves and so on…

  So much detail!

  All this, from one morning?

  Flo felt like she was falling behind again…

  Lily finished writing her report, and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

  “Phew! All done!” she said proudly.

  Then, she sighed loudly, and slumped in her chair.

  “Haahhhhh… Lily needs a break…”

  “Good work, Lily…” Flo said.

  “Oh, right! How did your apple selling with Mr. Cat go?”

  “It went fine… We sold out all the apples, even more than yesterday…”

  “Really?! Wow, that’s amazing! Good job, Flo! How did you do that?”

  Flo tilted her head at Lily.

  What did she mean?

  “Huh? Mr. Cat taught me his ancient cat techniques… I’m sure he’s already taught you those…”

  “Nope!”

  “Huh?”

  Flo was confused!

  “Mr. Cat helps me in other ways! Like, uh…”

  Lily thought about it!

  What did Mr. Cat actually help her with?

  Hmm….

  “Hey, Lily! Come on! I help all the time, mrow!”

  Mr. Cat leapt up on to the table and sat in front of Lily, and frowned at her!

  “Mostly you eat french fries… and talk about wanting more french fries…”

  “Meow! I helped you hire those people, didn’t I?”

  “Ah!”

  Lily plopped a little fist into her hand.

  “That’s right, you’re an excellent judge of character!”

  Mr. Cat preened.

  Lily turned back to Flo.

  “But he never taught me any ancient cat techniques for selling… I’ve been blessed by the Gods and Goddesses, mainly, and people hear about my Lilyburgers through word of mouth, from their friends!”

  Lily frowned at Mr. Cat.

  “How come you never taught me any ancient cat techniques?”

  “Meow.”

  Mr. Cat meowed cutely, and then scampered off!

  That little rascal!

  Lily giggled.

  “Well, that’s okay. So the ancient cat techniques worked really good, huh?!”

  Lily looked at Flo with sparkly eyes.

  “Y-yeah, they did! First we practiced posing, and then meowing…”

  Flo blabbed all the secret cat techniques!

  She wanted to brag to her rival!

  “Wow, good job, Flo! I bet you’ll sell even more apples tomorrow!”

  “Of course I will! I’m a great saleswoman!” said the little girl wearing a cat kigurumi.

  While they had been eating and reporting and chatting…

  Lily’s Mama had been working hard!

  She carefully washed the kigurumi, cleaning out the dirt without making the tear worse, and then she sewed it back up with thread from Granny Pomum!

  She had to enjoy being a mother while she still could!

  Lily was growing up so fast…

  Soon, Lily would be learning to sew her own clothes, and then she wouldn’t need her Mama anymore!

  It made her a little sad to think about…

  So she gave it her all now, while she had the chance!

  And, just as Flo finished boasting about her future sales…

  “Lily, here! I finished mending your kigurumi!”

  ““Yay!”” both girls cheered!

  Lily put it on right away, and it was as good as new!

  “Moo!”

  “Meow!”

  The two little girls bounced up and down while holding each others’ hands, mooing and meowing up a storm.

  They had both just had some ice cream recently, after all!

  They were full of sugar and energy!

  They were full of motivation and optimism!

  A few minutes later, they calmed down.

  “Flo!” Lily said, putting on a serious business expression.

  “Nyaa~ I mean, Lily.” Flo matched her energy.

  “When’s the next Chamber of Commerce meeting?”

  “Next week!”

  Lily’s shoulder’s slumped.

  “That’s so long… the poor dairy cows…”

  “And your poor restaurants!” Ghostly Mac chimed in!

  “Right! You have to get your supply problems fixed as soon as possible!” Ghostly Rich added.

  “And then you can expand the franchises more!” Ghostly Ray always had his eyes on the prize!

  “Well, you could just go tell Brenda,” Flo said matter-of-factly.

  “Huh? The secretary?”

  “She’s not just the secretary, she’s the General Secretary!” Flo said. “She’s the secretary for all the big councils and chambers and committees! She’s really important!”

  Flo leaned in and whispered. “She’s kinda the boss of everyone, actually!”

  “Ah, I see…” Lily said, not really understanding.

  Ghostly Duke, on the other hand, understood and was throwing a fit!

  A grown-up, otherworldly fit!

  “I knew it! It was too good to be true! Everyone sharing everything, everything decided by committee, it’s all—”

  “Oh hush, Duke!” Ghostly Mac said.

  “Yeah, this isn’t that kind of story!” Ghostly Rich said.

  “They’re just friendly in Wisconsin! It doesn’t have to be any deeper than that!”

  Lily tuned them out.

  Her ghosts could be noisy sometimes!

  “I should have known from how walkable—”

  Lily ignored them!

  “Let’s go tell Brenda what I found!” Lily said.

  And so Lily, Mr. Cat, Flo, and Lily’s Mama all went together to General Secretary Brenda’s big fancy office in the Friendly Commonwealth of Wisconsin’s capitol building!

  They got on her schedule no problem!

  Of course, normally, General Secretary Brenda was super busy!

  She had to attend all the meetings, after all!

  And then she had to put all the notes together, based on what they decided, and tell the other committees and chambers and councils what was what!

  But the Dairy Cow Strike was her number one priority!

  It was starting to affect her five year plan, after all…

  Ghostly Duke was ghostly gagged at this point!

  “Welcome, Lily, Sally, Flo, Mr. Cat!”

  “Moo!”

  “Hello again.”

  “Meow!”

  “Mrow.”

  Brenda blinked, and adjusted her narrow-framed glasses.

  “What cute costumes you’re wearing!” she gushed.

  They were too cute!

  “Thanks, moo!” Lily said. “But we’re here with important news!”

  “Yes, I heard. Please, take a seat.”

  They all sat down at a special round table in Brenda’s office, and Lily handed her the report.

  “Brenda,” Lily said seriously. “The cows are in trouble! They need help!”

  Brenda’s glasses flashed in the light as she flipped through the report.

  Speed-reading!

  Brenda, herself, prayed regularly as well!

  The Goddess of Reading!

  The Gods of Organization and Planning!

  And they had blessed her!

  The Goddess of Reading, especially, was super happy about all the free public libraries…

  “You wrote, ‘Return to Tradition’ and underlined it three times at the end… what did you mean by that?” Brenda asked.

  Lily huffed. “Like the founders John and Marge did it! And like Old Man Sam does it! His cows are the happiest cows I’ve seen since I came here!”

  “Old Man Sam?” Brenda thought, placing the name. “Oh, the farmer with the small herd, way out on the edge of Bessie’s Landing?” She didn’t think about him much, since with his small herd, he didn’t produce much of the milk in Wisconsin…

  “Yeah! His cows have clean water, and shade, and trees to scratch on, and a ball…”

  Lily started gushing about Old Man Sam’s farm and how nice it was for the cows.

  Brenda looked back down at the report.

  Some of the words were spelled wrong, and there were drawings of sad cows in the margins…

  But, in the end, there were a lot of actionable recommendations!

  It was a really good consultation report!

  And, if there was an example of all these recommendations working already, they could skip the trial phase, for the most part…

  Brenda’s mind was whirling with calculations and plotting!

  Er, planning!

  Organizing!

  She knew just how to push the policies through that she wanted…

  “I’m going to call an emergency general meeting for this evening. Lily, would you please attend so you can answer any questions that come up? Don’t worry, I won’t put you on the spot, but you first-hand perspective will help a lot…”

  “Moo!”

  Brenda looked at Lily blankly.

  “I mean, yeah! Moo!”

  Lily couldn’t help herself!

  She was slipping back into a dairy cow mindset…

  Brenda…

  Shrugged!

  She had the report, after all.

  Lily was just going to help explain some of the finer details.

  Brenda smiled, and her eyeglasses flashed.

  They were finally going to solve the Dairy Cow Strike!