Purple Pop's Arc

Chapter 6 of 16

By morning, Purple Pop had stretched her shop across three spots along the path. A small wooden booth held jars on tidy shelves. A violet donkey stood nearby with baskets bouncing on her flanks. Purple Pop tied an apron of deep pockets at her waist and worked all three stations at once. Coins clinked. Customers smiled. Then the sun began to slip low, and panic pricked her chest. How would she pack it all before dark? She pulled a sturdy carved crate from beneath the booth and flipped its brass latch open. Inside, she had cut snug slots for every jar, every ribbon, every stack of sachets. She moved fast. Shelves emptied into the crate. Baskets came off the donkey and nested inside one another. The apron pockets caught the last loose wrappers. As the sky turned plum, Purple Pop snapped the latch shut. One crate. One donkey. One booth left standing for tomorrow. She had beaten the dark. But as she led the donkey home, she felt the crate's weight tug her shoulder. Three stations meant three times the candy to make by sunrise. Her kitchen was only one small room.