“Sherwood Neighborhood is coming apart at the seams,” yelped 10-year-old Mandy Dandie as she pedaled her pink bike past her neighbors on the street. She said it out loud because the words felt too heavy to keep in her chest.
They did not even nod at her, much less say hello. A curtain snapped shut in Mrs. Bixby’s front window. Mr. Talbot pretended to be fascinated by his mailbox. Mandy rang her bell twice, bright and sharp, the way she used to when people actually looked up. No one did.
“Nobody talks to each other,” she mumbled, turning into her driveway. “If anyone talks to me, all they want to do is pick a fight.”
Her father came out from the garage, wiping his hands on a rag. Mr. Dandie always tried to look steady, but lately Mandy noticed little things—how he paused before opening bills, how his jaw tightened when the phone rang, how he stared at the kitchen calendar as if it might give him better answers.
“Don’t worry about the neighbors, Mandy,” he said. “A lot of them have lost their jobs and are having a hard time finding new ones. The economy has been really tough for a lot of people. We just all need to help each other right now.”
Mandy nodded, hugging him hard. Her mother had passed away when Mandy was an infant, and Mandy had no recollection of her—no voice, no smell, no warm hand on her forehead. Sometimes that made Mandy feel like their house was the only solid thing they had: the creaky front steps, the oak tree she loved to climb, the marks on the laundry-room doorframe that showed how she’d grown.
“Why does everyone have to be so mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know, honey,” Mr. Dandie replied, picking up the newspaper from the driveway and opening it. His eyes moved across the front page. “Ruben Gruff of Gruff Construction offers to buy the backyards of homeowners in Sherwood Neighborhood,” he read aloud.
Mandy’s stomach tightened. “Buy the backyards? Why would anyone—”
Her father kept reading, and his voice went flatter, the way it did when he was trying not to scare her. “Sherwood Neighborhood homeowners would earn an extra lump of much-needed cash,” he said. He lowered the paper and looked right at Mandy. “Oh no.”
“Oh no what?” Mandy pressed.
“Developers,” her dad said, scratching his head. “They’ll try to build extra houses in the neighborhood. It will be like living in an ice cube tray of cookie-cutter homes.”
Mandy pictured rows of identical roofs and fences so close together you couldn’t stretch your arms without touching someone else’s. And then her mind went to the thought she tried not to think: if things “changed” enough, could they lose their house? If the neighborhood got “developed,” would their small white home still belong to them?
“Does this mean he would tear down the trees?” Mandy asked, her voice smaller than she meant it to be.
“Oh, Ruben will tear down trees and flower gardens for his new homes,” her dad said, and his eyes flicked toward their oak tree. “Built so close together that no one will be able to enjoy a picnic or a pool party.”
Mandy’s throat burned. “I don’t want to lose the old oak trees I love to climb,” she blurted. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she said the first idea that made her chest feel less tight. “Maybe if I had a lemonade stand, I could make money and give it to our neighbors. Then they might not take Ruben’s money.”
Mr. Dandie’s face softened. “That’s a nice thought, Mandy.” He tried to smile. “Maybe the neighbors would rally round and help each other without resorting to Ruben’s destructive building project.”
Mandy clung to that. Rally round. Help each other. Sherwood didn’t feel like Sherwood anymore, but maybe it could.
She set to work building and painting a lemonade stand and opened it within the week at the end of her father’s driveway. She painted it pink because pink looked friendly even when people weren’t. She painted a sign in careful letters: LEMONADE! 50¢ A CUP.
Her “secret recipe” was more sugar than water and bits of lemon rind, because Mandy believed extra effort deserved extra sweetness. The neighbors disagreed after tasting it.
“This is awful!” Mr. Talbot complained, coughing into his hand. “It tastes nothing like lemonade.”
Mrs. Bixby tried to help. “Honey, maybe… less sugar,” she said. “And maybe… no rind.”
Mandy forced a laugh as if she didn’t care, but inside she felt hot with embarrassment. If she couldn’t sell lemonade, how was she supposed to stop a construction company?
At the end of the hard week, Mandy counted her coins. The number was small enough to make her want to stomp her foot. She shoved the coins into her pocket and pedaled to the grocery store.
“At least I’ll get some candy,” she decided. “I deserve it after all this effort.”
As she passed a plant nursery, the owner was dragging a potted tree toward the curb as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of it. Mandy slowed. The tree’s fruit was…pink.
Not pink like a trick. Pink like it belonged that way. And when the sunlight hit it, the air around it seemed to shimmer, as if the tree didn’t quite match the rest of the world.
Mandy blinked hard. The shimmer stayed.
“What’s this?” Mandy asked, stopping her bike.
“A mistake,” the owner said. “An odd lemon tree. Nobody wants an ugly pink lemon tree. I’m done wasting space.”
Mandy felt a tug in her chest, the same tug she felt right before a summer storm, when the sky turned green and everything got quiet. “It looks magic,” she whispered.
The owner snorted. “Magic doesn’t pay rent,” he said.
Mandy dug out her coins and emptied them into her palm. It was all she had, and it was supposed to buy candy, but the tree glowed in a way candy never had. “Please let me have it,” she begged. “It’s a business investment.”
“A business investment?” he repeated, eyeing the tiny pile of coins.
“I need your pink lemon tree for my lemonade stand,” Mandy said quickly. “Business has been bad, but your tree will make it better. Everyone drinks regular lemonade. Pink lemonade will be original!”
The owner stared at Mandy for a moment like he was deciding whether kids were always this dramatic. Then he shrugged. “Fine. Take it,” he said.
Mandy balanced the pot in her bike basket and rode home so carefully she barely breathed.
The next day, Mandy set out her lemonade stand with her new pink beverage. She set the pink lemon tree on the stand like a crown. Her sign read: PINK LEMONADE! 50¢ A CUP.
“I think my pink lemonade has magic in it,” she told her dad, because if she didn’t say it out loud, she might lose her nerve. “Who has ever heard of pink lemons?”
Mr. Dandie stood beside her with a mug of coffee, trying to look relaxed. “Uh-huh,” he said, shrugging. “Don’t let customers stiff you.”
The first customer—a lady Mandy didn’t know well—took a sip. Her eyes widened.
“Wow! This is so tasty,” the lady said, dropping change into the jar. “Can I have more?”
Mandy grinned. “Of course!”
Then the lady’s mouth opened again, and a song poured out like it had been waiting behind her teeth. “I hate my job!” she serenaded. “I think I’ll quit in a few days!”
The lady stopped mid-note, blinking in confusion. “Did I just… sing that?” she asked.
Mandy’s heart thumped so hard she felt it in her throat. She looked at her father. He looked back at her, eyebrows raised.
“Maybe your pink lemonade is magic after all,” Mr. Dandie murmured. “Everyone who drinks it starts singing their secrets.”
Mandy’s skin prickled. It wasn’t just tasty. It was doing something. Something honest.
Word spread fast. Neighbors wandered over “just to try it.” After a sip or two, they sang truths they seemed to have been swallowing for weeks.
“I don’t know how I’ll pay the mortgage!” one man warbled, clutching his cup.
“I’ve been snapping at my kids because I’m scared,” another woman confessed in a shaky melody.
And then—strangest of all—after they sang, they laughed awkwardly and wandered off, lighter, as if the songs had carried something heavy away. They didn’t remember what they had sung.
Mandy did, though. Every word stuck in her head like a note you couldn’t stop humming.
That night, Mandy lay awake imagining her father reading bills at the kitchen table. She imagined the house being taken away—no more creaky steps, no more oak tree, no more proof that their life belonged to them. The thought made her stomachache. If this lemonade made people tell the truth, maybe it could save them.
Later that afternoon, Ruben Gruff strode down the street in a blue pin-striped suit with a clipboard, smiling like he was already the owner of everything he looked at. Mandy didn’t like him immediately, which made her feel proud of her instincts.
He saw Mandy’s stand, tossed two quarters into the jar, and downed a cup of pink lemonade.
Mandy held her breath.
Ruben’s mouth opened—and out came a booming song. “My secret plan is to run a four-lane highway through the neighborhood!” he belted. “As soon as I get the neighbors to sign their properties away, I’ll take the contracts to a judge and argue that I own most of the neighborhood, so I can build whatever I want!”
Mandy went cold. Not just houses. A highway. That meant noise, traffic, maybe fewer people wanting to live here at all. Maybe the value of their home dropping. Maybe her father forced to move them somewhere else, somewhere that didn’t feel like them.
Ruben finished his song and smirked as if he’d only complimented the weather.
Mandy sat very still. His song would have been easier to enjoy if it had rhymed, she thought weakly, because if she thought about rhymes, she didn’t have to think about losing her home.
“Come back again soon,” she managed, even though her stomach felt sick.
The second Ruben walked away, Mandy flipped her sign to BE BACK IN TEN MINUTES and sprinted inside.
“Dad,” she gasped, “Ruben started singing his secret plan!” She spilled every detail, word for word, because she was afraid the truth might disappear if she didn’t say it fast enough.
Mr. Dandie’s face went pale. He sat down hard. “I have no idea what to say,” he admitted. “Just… don’t tell anyone yet. Not until we see what happens.”
Mandy stared at him. Don’t tell? Her whole body wanted to shout it from the roof. But her father looked frightened in a quiet, adult way, and that scared Mandy more than any developer.
That evening, Mandy tried to warn Mrs. Bixby anyway—gently, without saying “highway” out loud.
“Do you think… someone could trick people with contracts?” Mandy asked, pretending it was a random question.
Mrs. Bixby smiled sadly. “Oh honey. People get desperate,” she said. “They’ll do anything for a little cash. Your daddy’s doing his best. Don’t carry grown-up problems on your shoulders.”
Mandy walked home with her cheeks burning. Grown-up problems lived on her shoulders whether she invited them or not.
At the city council meeting later that week, the room smelled like old carpet and worry. Ruben handed out contracts with practiced confidence. Neighbors took the papers with shaky hands. Mandy’s heart hammered.
Her father leaned close. “Because of your lemonade, Ruben won’t remember what he sang,” he whispered. “Play dumb for now.”
Mandy tried. She tried sitting still. She tried swallowing her words. But she could hear the future roaring in her head like traffic.
Without asking her father, she stood on her chair and yanked a bullhorn from her backpack.
“Ruben is going to run a highway through our neighborhood!” Mandy shouted. “Don’t sign away your backyards! Don’t do it!”
The room froze. Some people gasped. Others frowned like Mandy had spilled juice on the floor.
“She’s not on the agenda,” Ruben snapped, looking irate. “Sit down, little girl!”
The council leader banged a gavel. “Mandy, you are not allowed to speak,” he said. “This meeting is for adults only. Please keep her quiet, Mr. Dandie. I need order.”
Order. Like the order was more important than their homes.
A few people chuckled—quick, uncomfortable laughs. Someone whispered, “Kids and their imaginations.”
Mandy’s face burned. For a horrible second, she wondered if she was just being dramatic, if her fear had turned into a story in her head.
Her father tugged at her sleeve, his voice low and pleading. “Mandy, please,” he said.
She climbed down, shaking. Tears spilled before she could stop them. She hated crying in public.
As the meeting continued, she watched neighbors accept Ruben’s papers and tuck them into folders like they were homework assignments. Next week, they would return them signed. Next week, her words would be too late.
Outside, Mandy sat on the cold steps and pressed her palms to her eyes. Maybe she really didn’t have the right kind of voice. Maybe being age 10 meant you could see danger clearly but no one would believe you.
She pictured her home again. The creaky steps. The oak tree. Her father’s tired smile. If she did nothing, she might lose all of it.
Her embarrassment hardened into determination. She didn’t feel brave. She felt desperate.
“I’m coming back next week,” she whispered. “I’m setting up my lemonade stand. I’m going to make everyone tell the truth.”
Mr. Dandie’s face tightened. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he admitted. “We might not be able to stop him.”
Mandy lifted her chin. “I have to try,” she said.
After a long moment, her father nodded. “Okay, but… I might stay out of it. We might get in less trouble if I don’t show up,” he said quietly. “Sometimes, doing the right thing can cost you.”
Mandy didn’t like that, but she understood the way adults feared consequences. Kids had consequences too—they just tasted like humiliation and helpless tears.
The next week, Mandy balanced the pink lemon tree in her bike basket and trailed her lemonade stand on a skateboard. Twice the pot nearly tipped, and she nearly toppled with it.
“Come on, little pink lemon tree,” Mandy whispered, dusting gravel off the pot. “You just took a couple falls. You can’t die on me now.”
Outside the council building, she set up shop. People crowded around for the bright pink drink.
“Mandy Dandie’s Pink Lemonade!” she called. “Fifty cents a cup!”
Neighbors admired the odd tree and dropped coins into the jar. After a sip or two, the singing began—first timid, then stronger.
“I don’t want to sell Ruben my land…” one neighbor sang, voice trembling.
“I need my backyard for my dog to run and play!” another pleaded.
“I’d rather be broke than have anything to do with Ruben,” a small group harmonized, and Mandy felt something swell in her chest—courage, shared and multiplying.
Only minutes later, Ruben arrived, watching the crowd with narrowed eyes. He looked amused, not alarmed, like he thought this was a silly trick.
He grabbed a cup and drank a large swallow.
Then he sang so loudly he was nearly shouting. “If I can buy just half the yards, the rest will fall—it isn’t that hard. I’ll build a highway straight through town, and once it’s there, prices go down. Then I’ll buy what’s left for cheap—the whole neighborhood will be mine to keep.”
Mandy’s hands shook, but she forced herself to move. She pulled a small battery-operated tape recorder from her backpack—one her father kept in a drawer—and pressed RECORD.
When Ruben finished, Mandy hit PLAY. His own voice spilled into the air again, clear as a bell.
Ruben’s face turned beet red. “I didn’t say those things!” he shouted. “She’s a fraud!”
He lunged toward Mandy, reaching for the recorder. Mandy stumbled back, heart slamming, clutching it like a shield.
“Stop!” a voice thundered.
Mandy spun. Her father stood there after all, eyes blazing, stepping between them.
“Ruben, if you go anywhere near my daughter, I will have you arrested for attempted assault,” Mr. Dandie warned. “This is enough. Get out of our neighborhood once and for all.”
Mandy’s throat tightened. She felt both small and powerful at the same time, like a match that could light a whole room.
Inside the council meeting, not one neighbor submitted a signed contract. Not one pen touched paper. The truth was too loud now to pretend it hadn’t been heard.
When the doors opened, neighbors poured out with faces that looked different—less pinched, less frightened. Someone laughed. Someone cried in relief. Someone hugged Mandy so hard she squeaked.
Ruben stormed away, clipboard tucked under his arm like it had betrayed him.
“Pink Lemonade saved Sherwood Neighborhood!” Mandy called to the crowd, laughing through leftover tears. “We can help each other! We don’t have to sell our home!”
Her father kissed her cheek. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered, and for once his smile didn’t look tired.
Mandy looked at the pink lemon tree—scratched, dusty, still glowing faintly as if it carried a small secret flame. Most people would have overlooked it. Most people would have thrown it away.
Mandy understood it now. The tree hadn’t forced anyone to be brave. It had simply made the truth hard to hide.
The next morning, Mandy painted her sign again, careful and bold:
PINK LEMONADE! 50¢ A CUP
EVERYONE NEEDS A LITTLE PINK LEMONADE NOW AND THEN
When she pedaled down Maplewood Lane and rang her bell, Mrs. Bixby finally waved back. Then Mr. Talbot did as well. Sherwood didn’t feel perfectly fixed—but it felt like the seams were being stitched, one truthful song at a time. It might be ongoing work to fix the neighborhood, but Mandy was happy to do it. Maybe being ten didn’t mean she was small. Maybe it just meant she had less practice being afraid.
Copyright 2023 Jennifer Waters
Pen Jen's Inkwell Podcast version:
“Sherwood Neighborhood is coming apart at the seams,” yelped 10-year-old Mandy Dandie as she passed her neighbors on the street. They did not even nod at her, much less say hello. As she rode her pink bike up her driveway, she rang her bell several times in disgust.
“Nobody talks to each other,” she mumbled to herself. “If anyone talks to me, all they want to do is pick a fight.”
“Don’t worry about the neighbors, Mandy,” Mr. Dandie told her, coming out from the garage. “A lot of them have lost their jobs and are having a hard time finding new ones. The economy has been really tough for a lot of people. We just all need to help each other right now.”
“If you say so, Dad,” Mandy agreed, hugging her widowed father. Mrs. Dandie passed away when Mandy was an infant, and she had no recollection of her mother. “Why does everyone have to be so mean?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Mr. Dandie replied, picking up the newspaper from the driveway and opening it. “Ruben Gruff of Gruff Construction offers to buy the backyards of homeowners in Sherwood Neighborhood,” he read aloud the front-page headline. “Oh no! The developers are going to try to build extra houses in the neighborhood. It will be like living in an ice cube tray of cookie cutter homes!”
“How can we stop it, Dad?” Mandy asked. “I’ll have to think of something!”
“Sherwood Neighborhood homeowners would earn an extra lump of much-needed cash,” Mr. Dandie continued reading aloud. “Everyone must realize that Ruben will destroy the charm of our lovely neighborhood,” he stated, looking right at Mandy.
“Does this mean that he would tear down the trees?” Mandy wondered.
“Oh, Ruben will tear down trees and flower gardens for his new homes, built so close together that no one will be able to enjoy a picnic or pool party,” her dad explained, scratching his head.
“I don’t want to lose the old oak trees that I love to climb!” Mandy cried. “Maybe if I had a lemonade stand then I could make money and give it to our neighbors. Then, they might not take Ruben’s money.”
“That’s a nice thought, Mandy,” her dad admitted. “Maybe the neighbors would rally round and help each other without resorting to Ruben’s destructive building project.”
Mandy set to work at building and painting a lemonade stand and opened it within the week at the end of her father’s driveway. Despite Mandy’s “secret recipe” of more sugar than water and bits of lemon rind, her lemonade hardly sold, especially once the neighbors tasted it.
“This is awful!” the neighbors complained. “It tastes nothing like lemonade.”
At the end of a hard week, Mandy counted her coins and headed to the neighborhood grocery store on her bike.
“At least, I’ll get some candy,” she decided. “I deserve it after all this effort.”
As she passed a plant nursery, the owner rid himself of an odd pink lemon tree. When Mandy saw the lemon tree, it sparkled, and she knew there was something special about it.
“It looks magic!” Mandy insisted. “Please let me have it!” she begged the owner, emptying her pockets of all her coins. “It’s a business investment!”
“A business investment?” he questioned. “This ugly thing?”
“I need your pink lemon tree for my lemonade stand,” she told him. “Business has been bad, but your tree will make it a lot better. Everyone drinks regular lemonade, but pink lemonade will be original!”
The next day Mandy set out her lemonade stand with her new pink beverage. She set the pink lemon tree on her stand for advertising. Her sign said: “Pink Lemonade! 50 cents a cup.”
“I think my pink lemonade has magic in it,” she told her dad. “Who has ever heard of pink lemons?”
“Uh-huh,” Mr. Dandie agreed, shrugging his shoulders, overseeing her morning business deals at the lemonade stand. “Don’t let the customers stiff you for your lemonade, honey.”
“Wow! This is so tasty,” one lady quipped, putting change into the cash jar. “Can I have some more, please?”
Then, Mandy’s customers started singing and dancing in the street.
“I hate my job!” the lady serenaded. “I think I’ll quit in a few days.”
“Maybe your pink lemonade is magic after all?” her father considered. “Everyone who drinks it starts singing their secrets! Business is booming!”
“I told you there was something special about that pink lemon tree!” she whispered.
Surprised, Mandy listened to her singing customers without giving any advice, mostly because she was not sure what to say. What magic was in her pink lemonade that made the neighbors express their truths in song, feel better, and then forget they even said those things?
“I’m so glad that you like my pink lemonade,” Mandy cheered, shocked at how much the neighborhood customers enjoyed her new beverage.
“This recipe is going over much, much better than that last one,” her father pondered, humming. “I even feel like singing a love song.”
Later that afternoon, Ruben Gruff strode down the street in a blue pin-striped suit with his clipboard. He saw Mandy’s stand, slung two quarters in her jar, and downed a cup of pink lemonade.
“My secret plan is to run a four-lane highway through the neighborhood,” he belted out in song as Mandy listened. “As soon as I get the neighbors to sign their properties away, I’ll take the contracts to a judge and argue that I own most of the neighborhood so I should be able to build whatever I want on the land, including a highway. All the neighbors will lose their homes, and I will be a millionaire.”
Mandy sat in silence until every last word of Ruben’s song had finished. “His song would have been easier to enjoy if it had rhymed,” she whispered to herself, rubbing her ears. She felt sick to her stomach, realizing Ruben’s devious plot to destroy her home and community.
“Come back again soon,” Mandy fibbed to Ruben as he left. She posted her “Be Back in Ten Minutes” sign at her lemonade stand and ran to tell her dad the strange news.
“Dad, Ruben started singing his secret plan to take over the neighborhood,” she explained to her father, weaving in all the details that no one ever wanted her to know.
“I have no idea what to say,” Mr. Dandie sighed. “Just don’t tell anyone for now, until we see what happens . . . so we can figure out what to do.”
Later that week at the city council meeting, Ruben handed out contracts for those neighbors who wanted to sign away parts of their land. Mandy and her father sat at the meeting in trepidation that they might not be able to stop Ruben’s horrid plan.
“Hi Mandy,” Ruben greeted her with a fake smile and handshake. “So glad your pink lemonade business is booming!”
“Because of your magic pink lemonade, Ruben doesn’t remember telling you his plan,” Mr. Dandie whispered to his daughter. “Play dumb for now.”
Instead of playing dumb, Mandy decided to take the situation into her own hands. In an attempt to expose him, Mandy stood up on her front row chair and pulled a bullhorn from her backpack.
“Ruben is going to run a highway through our neighborhood and push all of us out after we sign over our backyards to him!” Mandy exposed him. “Don’t fall for it! Don’t give him your backyards for a little cash.”
“She’s not on the agenda,” Ruben argued, looking irate. “Sit down, little girl!”
“Mandy, you are not allowed to speak,” the city council leader insisted. “This meeting is for adults only. Please keep her quiet, Mr. Dandie. I need order!”
“Sorry, ma'am,” Mr. Dandie mumbled. “Mandy, we should go . . .”
As the meeting started, Mandy burst into tears. She watched the neighbors take Ruben’s deceptive contracts with instructions to return the forms at next week’s meeting.
“I’m coming back to next week’s city council meeting,” Mandy advised her father. “I’m setting up my pink lemonade stand, and I’m going to force everyone to tell the truth.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” her father admitted. “We might not be able to do anything to stop Ruben. It’s a bigger problem than I originally imagined.”
“I have to try to do something,” Mandy decided. “I found the magic of the pink lemon tree at just the right time.”
“Okay, but I don’t think I’ll be able to help you this time,” Mr. Dandie explained. “We might get in less trouble if I don’t show up, but you could just sell your lemonade outside the meeting.”
The next week, Mandy set out on her bike with her pink lemonade tree in its front basket, trailing her lemonade stand on a skateboard. Several times she almost killed her pink lemon tree when it dumped out of her bike’s basket.
“Come on, little pink lemon tree,” Mandy spoke to it, dusting it off from the gravel in the street. “You just took a couple falls. You can’t die on me now!”
When Mandy reached the city council meeting, she set up shop, and people crowded around for the refreshing beverage.
“Mandy Dandie’s Pink Lemonade for sale!” she announced. “Come and get it for 50 cents a cup!”
“What an interesting tree!” the neighbors admired, marveling at the odd pink lemon tree, dropping their change into the cash jar.
After a couple sips of Mandy’s pink lemonade, everyone sang out the truth and neighbors all sympathized and encouraged each other.
“I don’t want to sell Ruben my land . . .” neighbors sang with different melodies.
“I need my backyard for my dog to run and play!” another neighbor pleaded in song.
“I’d rather be broke than have anything to do with Ruben,” a group of people harmonized.
Only a few minutes later, Ruben showed up, observing the strange communication through song. Ruben smirked listening to all the secrets being revealed.
Without knowing it, Ruben drank his own large cup of Mandy’s pink lemonade, finally revealing his own devious secrets.
“I’m going to own Sherwood Neighborhood,” Ruben sang so loud that he was almost shouting. “These people are so stupid, and I’m stealing everything from them!”
“Did you hear him say that?” Mandy pointed out, recording his admission of guilt on her handy battery-operated tape recorder. “I can play it back for you.”
Mandy played Ruben’s singing on repeat for every single neighbor attending the city council meeting as they enjoyed her pink lemonade.
The more she played the tape, the angrier Ruben became, burning with rage, and trying to grab the recorder from Mandy.
“I didn’t say those things!” Ruben lied with his beet red face. “She’s a fraud!”
“Ruben, if you go anywhere near my daughter, I will have you arrested for attempted assault,” Mandy’s father threatened, deciding to show up to the council meeting after all. “This is enough. You’re a rotten, horrible human being. Get out of our neighborhood once and for all.”
As the city council meeting took place, the neighbors banded together and rejected Gruff Construction’s plan. Not one neighbor submitted a signed contract to Ruben.
“Pink Lemonade saved Sherwood Neighborhood!” Mandy called to all the neighbors as they left the meeting in triumph. “I’m going to develop my lemonade into a franchise! Everyone needs a little pink lemonade now and then.”
Mr. Dandie kissed Mandy on the cheek, proud of his daughter who saw magic in everything, even a lonely pink lemon tree that most people would have overlooked.
Copyright 2023 Jennifer Waters
https://soundcloud.com/jen-waters/mandy-dandies-pink-lemonade
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