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It had been Gwen’s idea to go get ice cream. Kara, Owen, Orion, Bethany, Gwen, Kiel, and Charm had just had their last day of school, which was definitely worth celebrating and ice cream was the perfect heat solution to battling the heat.
Right now, they were standing in front of the display of flavors, deciding which ones they should order.
“I want bubblegum!” Kara said excitingly. “It matches my hair!!”
“It’s also probably filled with food coloring and preservatives,” Charm replied. Kara shot her a dirty look, but there was no malice behind it.
“How many scoops do you want?” asked the man in charge of scooping the ice cream. A copper name tag with the name ‘James’ engraved onto it was pinned to his apron. He was apparently unnerved by Charm’s remark about the content of the neon pink ice cream.
“10 scoops!! Oh, and I want all of them on a cone!” Kara exclaimed without hesitation. James looked up, trying to gauge if she was joking or not.
“Um, Kara? Are you sure you can finish all of that?” Bethany asked, worried. “10 scoops is a lot of ice cream.”
“Yeah!” Kara replied. “Go big or go home, am I right?” James shrugged and started scooping the bubblegum ice cream onto a waffle cone. In the end, it took 4 cones to fit the requested 10 scoops.
“You want ONLY 10 scoops?!” Kiel exclaimed as Kara started eating the first ice cream cone. “I want twenty five!”
“Kiel, that’s really not a smart decision,” Bethany sighed.
“Why not?” Kiel said. “You know, after years of living on the streets of a magical world that doesn’t even have this delicious non-magical treat, I’m going to eat all of it that I can!”
“WOW THAT’S SUCH A WEIRD THING TO SAY ESPECIALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE A HUMAN FROM A TOTALLY NON MAGICAL WORLD” Bethany scrambled, ignoring the weird face James made as a reaction to Kiel’s statement.
“Do you even have the money for twenty five scoops?” Charm asked, ever the sensible person of their friend group.
Kiel pulled out his wallet. “Well I have… 2 dollars? How many scoops can that buy me?”
“One,” James replied.
Kiel spent about ten minutes begging his friends to loan him money, but in the end, none of them had extra change. Defeated, Kiel got only one scoop of his favorite ice cream flavor, mango-brownie-peanut butter-chocolate ripple. “I’ll return one day for my twenty four other scoops,” he said, to no one in particular.
Charm was next. “Do you offer any vegan ice creams?” she asked.
James nodded. “We do- one of our most popular flavors is vegan! It’s the ‘I Love Ice Cream Berry Much’ flavor.”
At the sound of the pun, everyone froze and turned to Charm, scared of what would happen next. Charm’s eyes narrowed and gritted her teeth. “You know what,” she seethed. “I think I’ll pass on ice cream today.”
James looked terrified at the sight of the teenager’s icy glare, and in a high pitched voice he asked, “is there anyone else who’d like to order?”
“Me!” Gwen exclaimed. “I’d like one scoop of strawberry, and one scoop of... umm… ooh, I’d like cake batter!! Oh, also I’d like rainbow sprinkles with that!”
Out of all of the earth customs and items, ice cream was the one that probably most fascinated Gwen. The creamy texture, the variety of flavors (all of them delicious!!) and all of the toppings brought immense joy to her. The fact that she was getting ice cream with her best friends was, quite literally, the cherry on top.
Owen went after Gwen. “I actually have a coupon for a free ice cream scoop! Can I have vanilla?”
James took the coupon and examined it. “Oh I see… so, the coupon is for a free ice cream scoop, but the scoop also costs fifty dollars.”
Owen stared at James, confused. Math wasn’t his strength (don’t even get him started on fractions!) but he was pretty sure that free did not equal fifty dollars. “Wait… how does that work?” he asked.
James shrugged. “It’s free, but only if you pay fifty dollars.”
Owen was even more confused. “Okay… what if I don’t use the coupon? Will my scoop still cost fifty dollars?” he asked.
“Nope!” James said. “It only costs fifty dollars if it’s free.”
At that point, Owen gave up trying to understand ice cream economics, and begrudgingly accepted the fact that he would have to pay for his ice cream. “Okay, then I’ll have a regular, non-free scoop of vanilla.”
Bethany ordered a scoop of mint chocolate chip, which completely baffled Orion.
“Mint chocolate chip? Seriously?” he said. “Why would anyone willingly eat something mint flavored?!”
Bethany shrugged at her brother, smiling. “I think it’s tasty!”
This outraged Orion even more. “TASTY?? Beth, our TOOTHPASTE is mint flavored!! Why would you eat toothpaste flavored ice cream?!”
The two siblings bickered some more, until James interrupted. “Are you guys done ordering?”
“I’m the last one,” Orion said, turning away from Bethany. “Hmm, I don’t really know what to get.”
“Maybe you should get the oreo flavor!” Kara said. “You know, because your name’s Orion, so it’s like, oreo-n.”
Orion was unamused, but Charm, on the other hand, was bright red and fuming. “I’d like the crunchy peanut butter ice cream,” Orion said quickly, before Charm could start yelling about her hatred of puns.
Finally, all of the friends had gotten their ice cream, except for Charm, who was still enraged. Kara had offered Charm one of her four ice cream cones (Kara had realized that she had maybe ordered too many scoops) but Charm declined, mumbling about ‘junk food’ and ‘full of chemicals’. They all paid for their ice cream and headed outside the store, soaking up the sunshine and eating their ice cream. Their summer had just begun, but they could tell it was going to be a good one.