(Fs to Plushies, F to Clown)
Gudako looked to the amusement park before her; then to the eight Servants behind her with a small frown on her face. “Listen, I don’t know why BB called us here either, but… Just humor her, okay? Last time we let her get out of hand…”
Gudako trailed off. As the last Master of Humanity, she’d been through trials beyond the comprehension of any of mankind’s oldest mages. And yet somehow BB somehow always seemed to outdo each and every one of them.
Maybe it was because the purple-haired Servant was terminally online, and thus subject to the craziest ideas conceived. Or maybe it was because she’d always been programmed wrong. Either way, from the moment they’d first met, BB had taken advantage of her damn near omnipotence.
And today, it seemed like the digital devil had conjured an entire carnival for Gudako and her summoned heroes.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Gudako muttered, taking a step past the carnival’s gate.
It was like walking through a wall of gel. There was a faint resistance to the motion, and as Gudako passed through it, the park seemed to move of its own accord, shunting her towards a brightly colored game, with a very familiar carnival attendant.
“Now, now. What kind of attitude is that for a carnival, hm? You’re going to hurt my feelings,” pouted BB. Perhaps because of the carnival’s festive atmosphere, she’d chosen to wear a loose yellow hoodie and a white baseball cap. She almost looked normal, which was in its own way terrifying.
Gudako looked behind her, blinking in shock. Her Servants all stood frozen on the other end, mid-step behind her. A knot of dread formed in her stomach, and she turned towards BB. “Whatever you’re planning, it-”
“-’s already too late? Very observant!” BB smirked. “You see, my dear Master, it just wouldn’t be a game without them.” She clicked a finger, and one of the Servants was sucked towards the two of them.
Mordred, traitor knight, was no stranger to BB’s chaotic tendencies. “The hell’s going on here?” She grunted, hefting her sword and dropping it over a shoulder. “What’s your game here, huh?”
“Ball toss. But it’s not just my game. It’s ours.” BB paused a moment, tapping a finger against her chin. Then she twitched her finger forward again, depositing another two heroes beside Mordred.
“What do you mean, ‘game?’” Asked Martha, part-time patron saint of houseservants, part-time boxer. She held a hand warily forward, no doubt prepared to summon her mount in an instant.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t get the chance.
BB’s purple eyes glimmered red, and a wave of energy washed over the two, who shuddered in shock, falling to their knees. The third Servant fared better, no doubt because her Caster-class was prepared for BB’s brand of digitalmantical devilry.
“Master, it might look like time is frozen on the other side, but we can see everything going on here,” Circe’s brow furrowed, holding her staff between the AI and herself. “I don’t know how much long this barrier will last, but I know this magic very well. I’m sure if you hit have the others hit her quickly enough—nnh!”
The air shimmered before her, and her barrier splintered. She dropped like the others, her staff clattering to the ground, her palms pressed against her robed stomach. It pressed back, bulging and swelling against her digits. Her robe came undone, exposing a bright pink shade to the air.
It wasn’t skin; however, it was velvety fabric.
As Circe let out a moan of horror, Mordred itched frantically at the collar of her armor, revealing lush, brown fur poking from her collar. Martha fared little better, her own belly growing much like Circe’s, though with soft fur of its own.
“BB! Stop this!” Gudako’s fingers twitched, casting a spell towards Circe. Assuming the witch was right, this was just like any of her transformative spells. A simple reversion hex should set things straight…
Unfortunately, a moment before the spell connected, Circe’s eyes bulged with realization. “No, you-” The spell connected, and whatever advice she was about to give was cut off as stuffing clogged her throat. She bulged and warped, clothes falling from a bright pink pig plush that still sported her bob haircut.
“Oopsie,” BB snickered. “Guess that means that’s out. Ooh, I love seeing you try to work out how to beat the big, bad, evil AI. Come on, try a healing spell next. I want to see what it does to her.” BB knelt besides Martha, grabbing the powerful woman’s cheeks and turning her head towards her Master.“
Unfortunately for the saint, there was little she could do to resist. Her arms hung limply by her sides, muscles little more than useless cotton. She fumed silently, too dignified to lower herself to insulting the witch.
Mordred was under no such inhibitions. “You damn bitch, stop screwing with me!” She raised a fist, struggling to one leg. Her other leg went numb beneath her, and her attempt to stand instead spilled her chest-first onto the ground, armor loudly clanking beneath her.
“And why would I ever, when this is so much fun?” BB kneaded Martha’s head like it was putty, stretching it rounder, into a cute puffy sphere. The saint’s eyes glazed over into beads, and a teddy bear’s muzzle stretched from her face. Her pursed lips stitched themselves into a silly smile, and her body began to shake as it shrank, clothes falling limply from the second plush of the night.
Gudako stared in mute horror, mind scrambling to think of a way to dispel whatever was happening. Unfortunately, her knowledge was more reactive than proactive. She’d learned how to deal with any of the hardships she’d faced, but this was new.
“Master, do-urk-somehrk!” Mordred coughed as she felt stuffing slip up her throat. Her gauntlets fell from her hands, clanging to the ground to reveal a teddy lion’s stitched paws. She looked down at them with a whimper. Her eyes lifted towards Gudako, only to freeze into an inked print on her new cloth face. A goofy grin spread across her face as it shifted into a muzzle, and soon she began to shrink too.
BB hummed as she picked up the newest plush, juggling them in her hands casually. “I hope you don’t mind if I tried juggling a few at once. If I did them one at a time, we’d be here all night.” She giggled, then tossed them onto three separate platforms.
Gudako noticed four empty ones beneath the three, and gulped. “You’d better get ready. I’m going to fix them.”
“Really, now,” BB’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t threaten a girl with a good time.” She tugged her hands forward, and another two Servants were pulled into the carnival.
True to character, Minamoto no Raikou wasted no time with words. As Gudako’s self-professed mother, her protective streak was only matched by her penchant for violence. Her katana whisked towards BB, who narrowly ducked past the slash.
“Ooh, scary!” BB giggled, holding onto her hat. “But a mother hen like you-”
Raikou’s other arm snapped forward, lance gripped tightly in her fingers. The movement was nearly supersonic, her formidable strength given even more power by her incarnation as a Servant.
But even if it was at the speed of sound, it still couldn’t compete with the computing speed of an AI from the future. Her fingers spasmed and fluttered into a cottony wing, and the thrust went wide.
“-really shouldn’t have let her ‘daughter’ get into this kind of trouble in the first place.” BB winked, tapping Raikou on the nose. She pulled her finger back, cackling as the woman’s pretty features stretched into a yellow plastic beak.
Raikou closed her eyes serenely even as faux feathers overtook her form. She’d known from the beginning that there was a chance she wouldn’t be able to defeat the AI with brute strength. Which was precisely why she’d made her motions as flashy as possible, to capture BB’s eye.
“Now, Ishtar!” Gudako called, hand on the Mesoamerican goddess’s shoulder.
Ishtar’s finger was outstretched towards BB in a classic shooting posture, her mana tuned perfectly with her Master’s. With just her own mana, she could blow a hole clear through a building. With a boost like this, she could core a mountain.
BB gasped, eyes wide and innocent. “Huh?” She whimpered, dropping an already-shrinking chicken plush.
Ishtar had no connection with the expression she’d made. But, in order to manifest into this world, Ishtar had to hijack a body—a body whose heart clenched in guilt.
It was just a moment of indecision. Still, it was enough to turn mana to milk, then to cotton. Ishtar’s body jerked violently as a warm, sloshing udder erupted between her soft thighs. She clamped them around it, feeling the skin turn to velvet. A muted moo burst from her throat, lips frozen into a ridiculous ‘o’ as she warped into a black-and-white bovine plush.
“Sucker.” BB’s surprised look twisted to a cruel smirk. She caught the falling hen plush with a foot, kicking it up and catching it with one hand. She pulled her other hand forward, yanking the cow plush from Gudako’s startled hand.
“N-no…” Gudako gulped, looking over her shoulder to the silhouettes of the two remaining Servants, scrambling for a plan. But… With five changed, shouldn’t she have three left?
“Senpai!” Mash grabbed into Gudako’s hand, turning and throwing her towards the glimmering wall that separated the girl from her last two Servants. “Run!”
BB’s nose crinkled. “Ah, the False Kouhai. However did you get in here?”
Gudako watched, in horrified slow-motion, as BB’s shadow stretched, enveloping Gudako’s oldest friend. A small tear slipped from Mash’s eye as she was swallowed in a sphere of coalesced darkness.
Then Gudako hit the wall between worlds. And bounced off harmlessly.
“A cute plan, but did you really think that would work?” BB scowled. She dropped her two newest plushes off, then held out a hand towards the sphere that imprisoned Mash.
“D-don’t!” Gudako begged. “Please, don’t make her into a stuffed animal. You know what she means to me.”
BB’s gaze hardened. “I do,” she said cooly. “Which is exactly why she’s not joining them on the wall.” BB balled a hand into a fist; and with a wet crunch, the shadows compressed to a ball a little larger than her fist.
Gudako screamed in anguish, a sob wracking her body. The sphere dropped to the ground, and the shadows began to unpool from their victim. She didn’t know if she could bear to watch, but she couldn’t look away from no doubt what was going to be the broken body of-
A purple-and-pink ball with two green eyes looked pitifully up to her, blinking in confusion.
“Come on, really? Name one time where I’ve been that bad of a sport.” BB shook her head. “It’s not about winning, it’s about the game. And today’s game is almost ready to begin. Once we deal with those last two pesky Servants of yours.”
Gudako looked to the Mash-ball, whose eyes widened as the last heroes were brought to the present.
One of them didn’t even get a chance to speak. As BB’s daughter, Meltryllis shared a near-mirror image of her face. BB seemed to take a perverse amount of pleasure in turning that face into a beak, bulging the girl’s slender body into a stuffed penguin’s tuxedoed sphere. Her long sleeves turned to flapping triangles of cloth, and her sharp legs flattened into cute flippers.
“I don’t need to hear any lip from this one,” BB hummed, scooping up the new penguin. “But you, on the other hand… Explain. How’d you get that annoying ball,” she gestured towards Mash, “into my little world?”
Koyanskaya giggled nervously. She was a pink-haired vixen from another world, an arms-dealing gun goddess who’d recently taken a job protecting Humanity’s Last Master. “Sorry, trade secret. You wouldn’t hold that against me, would you?”
For a fraction of a second, BB’s face darkened with malice. There was nothing, nothing, she hated more than not knowing how someone had broken the rules of one of her games. Then the look melted away to her typical smirk—though she still spoke through gritted teeth. “You know what? Hop over here and find out.”
Koyanskaya’s eyes widened in surprise as her body jerked to obey. It was like she was a marionette, her hands dropping between her legs, which tensed and bunny-hopped towards the AI. When she landed, her feet bulged into a pair of plush bunny’s paws, embarrassingly popping her designer heels.
Koyanskaya’s nose twitched furiously, and it was clear she was struggling for something, anything to do against the purple-haired girl controlling her. But she was utterly helpless, and hopped her way closer and closer, until she was just a limp, fat, full bunny that fell face-first against BB’s shoes.
“See? No hard feelings. Only soft ones,” BB cackled. She grabbed the stuffed animal harshly, practically throwing her onto her podium. Then she spun towards Gudako, looking down at the girl with an amused expression. “And as for you… I think it’s about time you learned today’s game.”
Gudako looked to Mash, picking up the changed girl. Of everyone that had been changed, she was the only one who could still communicate—even if it was just expression. Gudako ran a thumb along her new form, feeling stitches and smooth leather. It was surreal, the girl’s eyes didn’t have any texture to them. It was like she was inked into the surface of the ball.
But that meant she was just like any other softball… Which, coupled with the prizes…
Gudako stood, glaring at BB. “Let me guess. You want me to win them back?”
“Bingo! I knew you were a smart one,” BB snickered.
“I don’t like how you said ‘were’ there…” Gudako scowled. “But you’re on.” She wiped under her eyes, clearing the last of her tears.
“Ooh, fighting spirit! See, that’s what I like about you. You always bounce back. A lot like Mash there,” BB giggled, then outright guffawed as Mash rolled her eyes. She snapped her fingers, and a sexted of milk bottles stacked onto the carnival booth behind her.
“You know the rules. Toss’er and knock’em down, you get your pick of prizes. But careful, Master. Each toss is going to cost you a hundred million Quantum Pieces.”
Gudako blinked. “Wait, then that means…”
“You have three shots. Good luck!” BB giggled. “But, tell you what. Because I’m a good sport, how about a spin on it: you knock ‘em all down, and I’ll give you a free toss. How’s that sound?
It sounded like pressure. Too much pressure. Gudako might have had a good arm, but her aim was off, hitting only three of the six. Her next was a little closer, but one bottle remained stubbornly spinning at the end of things.
BB held up her hands innocently after a pair of dubious glares from the Master and her new ball. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s no fun if you don’t have a chance, I swear it’s not rigged. The only way you’re going to lose this is if you make it happen yourself.”
Gudako closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself. Then she snapped her eyes back up towards the restacked bottles. She whipped her arm forward, privately hoping Mash wouldn’t hold all these throws against her, and hurled the ball towards the bottles.
All six crashed from their stand, and despite the horror of the situation, Gudako beamed. She snapped a hand towards the plush lion. “Mordred first.”
“Yeah, yeah. She’s your favorite and all, right?” BB chuckled, picking up the lion and tossing her towards Gudako.
Gudako caught the teddy, who was admittedly cute. It still had Mordred’s hair, though it also sported a showy mane for good measure. Still, ‘cute’ didn’t mean ‘human.’
“Well?” Asked Gudako.
“Well, what?”
“Change her back!” Gudako held up the plush carefully, both of her hands tucked under the teddy’s limp arms.
BB blinked. “You need to win all seven for that. Was that not clear?” She stuck out her tongue teasingly. “Oops.”
Gudako blinked, a small knot of despair building in her stomach. She looked down to the Mash-ball, then to her newly won Mordred-lion. “You mean I need to…”
“Do that six more times, yes. In a row.” BB picked Mash up, blowing some dust off her softball body and snickering at the look in her eyes. Then she dropped the ball in front of Gudako, smile widening, uncannily reminding the girl of a shark.
“Right…” Gudako gulped. She looked to Mordred, and quickly scooped the teddy into a big hug for luck. Then she picked Mash up, and thumbed the ball’s stiches for good luck.
Unfortunately, Mash had been keeping a secret—though it wasn’t like she’d have been able to tell it even if she could. Being a ball like this… It felt good. Too good. Being held, being thrown, and especially being rubbed; it was all a new, unexplored kind of sensation. She’d been trying to keep her expression as neutral as possible, but feeling her senpai’s thumb against her threads was enough to make her eyes roll in her head.
And, at the worst possible moment, Gudako noticed. Her arm was almost fully forward when something compelled her to look at her kouhai’s expression. Seeing the girl’s eyes roll in silent bliss made her hold onto the ball for a second too long, and she ended up pitching the ball into the podium.
“Oops.” BB grinned. She picked up the ball, strutting casually towards a defeated Gudako. “At least you got the one, right?”
“Again,” muttered Gudako.
“Hm?” BB tilted her head to the side. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Again! I don’t care what it costs, tell me what I can barter with. You wouldn’t gloat like this if you didn’t have some gimmick, right?” Gudako slapped a hand against the table. “So what is it? ‘Each throw costs a piece of clothing?’ ‘Each throw costs another Servant?’ Tell me!”
BB pouted. “Wow, am I really that predictable?” She sighed, placing a palm against the table. Then she lifted it, a stack of coins appearing beneath her hand like magic. “But you’re not wrong. A carnival like this needs a new worker. And I’ve got my eyes on just the new hire. Call it a first paycheck, but taking a deposit in advance like this is going to cost you.”
“Cost me what?” Gudako picked up a coin curiously, then handed it to the AI.
“You’ll see.” BB rolled Mash towards Gudako, a twinkle in her eyes.
Gudako didn’t like it, but she still picked up the ball. Her arm pulled back. Her eyes narrowed. Her nose tingled. “Ah… Ah.. TCH-HWONK!” A loud, cartoonish noise burst from Gudako’s nostrils as her nose bulged, swelling, violently rounding into a rubber, red sphere. The honk was echoed by a thwack as Mash bounced against the wall, a foot to the right of her target.
Gudako could see her new nose in her peripheral vision, but she still crossed her eyes to get a good look at it. She reached a hand up to it, stunned. “Wait, what the fuHWONK!” When she squeezed it, she made an embarrassingly loud honk again.
“What? You can’t blame a girl for getting you into uniform, right?” BB smirked, holding her hand out expectantly.
Gudako considered cursing her out for cheating, but it would be like trying to argue with a wall. Instead, she took a deep breath, then dropped another coin into BB’s hand. She pulled back to toss again, only her fingers bloated as she hurled the ball forward.
Another miss, and Gudako fumed silently as she looked at her hands. It was like they’d been swallowed by a pair of inflated gloves, cartoonishly stretched as large as possible. Delicate tasks like typing would be beyond her, but she was sure that she could still throw with them. Oddly enough, she was confident about it.
“Whoopsie,” BB snickered, giggling louder as Gudako slapped another coin into her hand.
This time, Gudako waited to throw. Sure enough, her feet started to tingle this time. She looked down to them, gasping as they stretched within her combat boots, bulging the leather and fabric. The seams started to stretch, but there wasn’t any pain in Gudako’s feet. The odd numbness was explained an instant later as her boots popped, revealing another pair of blue boots beneath. They were oversized, red, and felt just like Gudako’s feet.
“Seriously!? A HWONKing clown!?” Gudako crossed her eyes to glare at BB’s fingers, which were still squeezed around her nose.
“Language, honey. My workers have to be family-friendly.” BB took a step back. “But, right now, you’re still somewhere between worker and guest, so why don’t you be mine? Take your best shot.”
Gudako rolled her eyes, but snapped a perfect pitch forward—which soon became a stumbled fall as she tripped over her own two shoelaces. Her nose hit the table with another humiliating HWONK, and she bounced back onto her oversized feet, windmilling her bulging hands to catch her balance.
It was all silly and overstated, and if Gudako wasn’t in such a mood, she might have noticed. Instead, she dropped another coin onto BB’s hand, but this time a giggle cost her next throat. Her clothes grew baggier around herself, skin paling to complement her new red-and-blue uniform. Cute circles settled on her cheeks in a mockery of a blush, and her lips grew thick enough to blow any balloon without pause.
Gudako blinked. Weird. Why would she make that kind of comparison? It didn’t matter. She dropped another coin, giggling a little, only to jerk backwards as her chest and hips bulged. She could swear she heard a pair of timed bwongs with them, which was so hilarious that she couldn’t help laugh.
Mash looked, concerned, at her senpai. But there was little else she could do like this other than look. BB shot her a conspiratorial wink; then Mash’s world was swallowed by her senpai’s swollen hands. They felt too good… She couldn’t keep herself from silently moaning, even when she crashed into the bottles, knocking all six from the podium in a perfect shot.
Gudako beamed, catching one of the bottles as it sailed past her head. Her hair curled to a frizzy red afro that tingled at her brain, and she tossed the bottle back onto the podium with a proud grin. “Well, guess that, like means I totally win another, right?”
BB tilted her head. “You sure about that? Because only five of those bottles hit the ground.” She pointed to the still-wobbling bottle, arching an eyebrow smugly.
“But-that’s-what-you-” Gudako sputtered, but she couldn’t think of any good argument against it. In fact, she was starting to have a hard time thinking about anything at all. She puffed up her cheeks, screwing up her eyebrows in concentration.
“Listen, I can’t help it if I train my employees well,” BB chuckled, “or if I have a maximum intelligence requirement. Don’t worry, you’re on your way there.”
“I am?” Gudako perked visibly. “On my way where? Wait… Uh… Hold on…” She scratched at her white forehead.
“Sorry, but you take any longer and we’re not gonna be able to open to customers,” BB chuckled.
Gudako absently dropped another coin into BB’s hand, lobbing Mash at the balls distractedly. “That’s, uhm, not the… Point? I…” She shuddered, eyes rolling for a moment. When she was able to focus properly again, her irises looked like twin stars, and her eyes were a mismatched vibrant red and blue.
“Yes?” BB held out her hand expectantly, chuckling as Gudako dropped another coin into her palm.
“You! You’re totally doing somethin’ to my brain! I feel all dumb and,” Gudako shuddered again, dropping Mash onto the ground this time. She felt REALLY funny now. A giggle slipped past her throat, though she had no idea why. She looked to her favorite cuddly teddy lion, but no answer was coming there. Then she looked to the counter and saw all her coins were gone.
“No! No no no!”
“Oh, yes… Don’t worry, you’ll be a perfect fit,” BB smirked.
Gudako could feel a new personality pressing against her brain. “Muh… I, like, don’t wanna be a dummy clown! Boss, you gotta… Boss? No, you’re not my boss! You’re, uh…” Gudako’s eyes swirled. It was really hard to keep her thoughts straight, and her boss’s giggling wasn’t helping things at all.
“Well, if I’m not your boss, what am I?” BB reached out, giving her new clown’s nose an affectionate squeeze.
“You’re-HWONK-I’m-HWONK-Uh-HWONK!!!” Gudako’s lips curled at how silly the sound was, and she soon doubled over with laughter. Her nose was so silly! Gosh, she loved honking it. Her plump fingers wrapped around it and she crossed her eyes. “HWONK HWONK HWONK!!!”
“Wow, maybe I made you a bit too much of a nitwit,” BB mused with a blink. She clapped her hands. “Hey, bimbo! Up here! Come on, what am I? Focus!”
Gudako pouted, looking up at the purple-haired Servant. Servant… She knew that. And… Her eyes glanced to the wall behind BB, a wall that was conspicuously missing a prize. Her starry eyes lit up. “Oh! I know!”
“Yes?” BB leaned back, closing her eyes smugly.
Gudako lifted her right hand. Despite sporting a clown’s appearance, she still had Command Seals, which could be used to bind any Servant in any way. The old her would never have considered using them in such a reckless way, but… Well, the old her was boring.
“You’re the missing prize, of course! Heehee!” Gudako beamed, flaring a bit of mana into her Command Seals.
“Wait, what!?” BB screeched. “No, what did you just do!? Take that back, I’m your boss, remember! Uh’m yurr bawthh!” Her tongue bulged as she tried to talk, flopping loosely from past her lips. Instead being heavy and wet, it was light and velvety to the touch.
Gudako darted an inflated hand out, grabbing the new plush tongue and tugging BB violently towards her. Her eyes swirled dangerously, and she giggled again. “Aw, come on! We both know you’re all bark and no bite!” Her other hand wrapped around BB’s throat, giving it a big squeeze.
“Arf arf!” BB’s eyes watered as an artificial yip sounded from her throat. She tried to speak, but it was rather impossible to do anything other than bark through her new speaker. “Arf arf! Arf arf! Arf arf!”
“Aww, what a cutie!” Gudako giggled, grabbing BB’s ears.
The purple-haired girl’s eyes rolled with pleasure at the feeling of big, useless clowny hands grabbing her ears, tugging them, stretching them. Tufts of purple fur fluffed up at their tips; then they flopped heavily against cheeks that were turning to a light purple of their own.
BB tried to do something. Anything. But when she lifted her hands to cast a spell, Gudako simply clapped her palms around them. BB didn’t need to see her fingers to feel them deform into cute but overstuffed paws incapable of everything but snuggling.
“Aw, none of that. You’re gonna be just the cutest, heehee! Someone’s totally gonna wanna win you!” Gudako beamed, then yanked BB forward again, mashing her lips against BB’s.
Normally a kiss would have been enough to turn BB to butter, but this time it was enough to make her cotton. All strength left her limbs and she sagged against Gudako. Then Gudako puffed her cheeks up and BLEW.
Thick wool bulged from BB’s wrists and ankles. They were poodlish pom-poms, soon partnered with a mane of curly wool around her teddy collar. She flopped lifelessly against Gudako, eyes flitting left and right in a panic as the clown started to suck in air, pulling her head back.
BB’s face stretched like teddy taffy, and she panicked at how close she was to being a plush. Her eyes finally lit on the only one who might feel sympathy for her predicament—Mash. Unfortunately, the only look in the ball’s inked eyes was a smug contentment, at seeing BB’s deserved comeuppance.
Then BB’s eyes turned into an adorably idiotic cross-eyes stitched expression, and her brain stuffed with cotton. She was stuck staring at her own poodle muzzle, and could only watch from her peripheral vision as Gudako lifted her and plopped her fuzzy butt onto a shelf.
“Aaaand done! Heehee, it’s all so perfect!” Gudako leaned against the counter, picking up her special teddy lion and giving it a good cuddle. She didn’t quite remember why it was so important to her, but she knew she loved squeezing it. So that’s just what she’d do, until the first of her customers arrived.