text: Saving the Fate of Coffee Express By: Haripriya “Do you think... people are going to visit our coffee shop?” I asked, looking at my mom. “I know that people are going to come... it’s just that, maybe right now is not our time.” my mom told me, trying not to sound worried. “No one has been coming to our café for almost a month!! We are losing that much money! MOM!!" I paused glanced at my mom, angrily, who had a blank expression on her face, staring in to nowhere, "Are you even listening to me? You couldn’t pay the rent, or any bills!” I yelled with pain and worry. “Yes, I am listening to you. It’s just...well, people are going to come. I know it. Now, you go play outside... and I will figure everything out.” my mom told me. I wish she could just understand that no one was visiting Coffee Express anymore because of the coffee shop downtown. It was fancier and had more options. It also had more staff members to help the place run quicker and the customers get their coffee and snacks nice and hot. I get that we don’t have any of those things, but... there had to be other reasons why no one was visiting out place!! It was so unfair! I can’t believe that people would do this. The worst part is the manager of Coffee Express threatened my mom by saying that if no else comes in the next 2 weeks, they were going to close and he wouldn’t pay my mom anything, and he won’t let us live here. My mom couldn’t say anything. She had nothing with her, other than me. She worried every day, but whenever I asked her, she would hide her fear and tell me to be hopeful. She expects that everything will come to her instead of persuading people, and advertising people. She thinks that all good will come to us when we haven’t done anything to figure out why the other café is getting so much publicity. I told her that we need to devise a plan to figure out what is better with them, and we could do something even better to improve our shop! But no, she won’t even listen to what I have in mind. All she cares about is trying to look innocent and helpless in front of everyone. Well I would always ignore her when she would say, “Good comes to you when you need it at most.” because that saying wasn’t true neither logical at all. What did make sense is me trying to figure out what made their shop better than ours and try to use that to attract more people to our café. Now that was a solid plan. Of course, my mom wouldn't listen to me when I tried to persuade her about doing this. So, I just had to figure out what it was all by myself. Now you see, that was the hardest part. Not just coming up with a plan, but to also execute it properly. That was the real key of doing this entire mission, and if that didn’t work, we would be stranded in the streets. That is the last thing which I would want to happen to us." Every day I would think about our lives and would just go, “Wow... I can’t believe it. This is how our lifestyle is.” Complaining was not going to work. Nobody was going to help us get more publicity and customers, so the entire fate of Coffee Express and our life depended on my two hands. I needed to find the perfect excuse to get out of the store for once and go downtown, but... what would it be? What should I tell her? I didn’t know, but I was sure to figure out an excuse sometime later today. After all, my mom’s café was very important to me and I cared about it. Even if I was potentially going to get in trouble, it was going to be worth it. I thought about what I would say for a lot more time. Turns out that trying to come up with a smart, logical, and thoughtful excuse was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But soon enough, I did think of a great one. “Hey Mom, can I go to the park and possibly make some friends?” I My mom did know something weird was going on with me, but as always, she agreed. Now, it was time to execute the real plan. I was excited that I forgot to say ‘Bye’ to my mom. I was too excited. I was so sure that I was going to find the secret that made their café attract more people. But it turns out that I didn’t need to do that because, well I looked down at the colored floor. It was filled with different colors and types of leaves. It was like it sprinkled the floor. WAIT A SECOND, SPRINKLED!! THAT’S IT!! We need to make new Autumn flavored drinks and we can top each one with many different types of sprinkles!! Yes!! We could make a lot more drinks, and even limited addition snacks, and deserts!! YES!! THAT IS WHAT WE CAN DO TO BOOST A LOT OF PUBLICITY!! I need to tell mom, and the manager about this! I can almost feel this plan working! All we must do is buy a lot of flavors and other supplies and we will have our new line of drinks and pastries! Another thing we must do is make a lot of posters, signs, shoot advertisements, and spread the news about our new drinks and this could really save Coffee Express ! I can’t believe that this entire time the answer was all around us!! Not just for Autumn though, we need to have seasonal snacks and drinks for each season! This way we can let the customers try new things and at the same time have different food choices that will make all the customers wait for something totally unique and simply delicious!! My mind had almost blown with such an amazing discovery. Now, all I had to do was convince my mom to do this. Soon, I went back inside the shop and told my mom about my new idea. I told her that it would be fine if she took a little time to think about this. After all, it was a big decision to make. After some time, as I had hoped, she agreed, and we had officially introduced out new line of autumnal drinks and pastries. I had to squeeze my way outside because of the rush we had after my discovery. I couldn’t believe this had worked!! I can officially say that we have saved the fate of Coffee Express . ~The End~