I was right about the long night part. What I was wrong about was thinking I’d come up with any brilliant ideas.
I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to think of what I could do with six hundred and fifty dollars that would be better than a Florida vacation. I made mental lists of business ideas. I calculated potential profits. I even got up twice to write things down in my notebook, only to cross them out ten minutes later when I realized they were terrible.
A candy store? I didn’t know anything about running a real store.
A bigger snack stand? The park probably wouldn’t let me build something permanent.
Buying snacks in bulk and selling them to other kids to run their own stands? That sounded complicated and boring.
By the time the sun started coming up, I had a headache, tired eyes, and exactly zero good ideas. Maybe my friends were right. Maybe I should just go to Florida and have fun like a normal twelve-year-old.
I must have finally fallen asleep around three AM, because the next thing I knew, Mom was shaking my shoulder.
“Kiora, honey, you need to get up. It’s almost ten o’clock.”
I groaned and pulled my pillow over my head. “Five more minutes.”
“You’ve been sleeping for hours. Come on, we need to talk about Florida.”
That got my attention. I sat up, my hair probably sticking out in twelve different directions. “What about Florida?”
“If we’re really doing this trip, we need to book everything today. The flights, the hotel, the rental car. I’ve been looking online, and the prices go up every day we wait.”
My stomach did a little flip turn. “Today?”
“Tonight, actually. I want to have everything reserved by bedtime.” Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. “Are you feeling okay? You look like you didn’t sleep much.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just excited.”
But as I dragged myself downstairs for breakfast, I didn’t feel excited. I felt confused and tired and like I was about to make a huge mistake. I just wasn’t sure which choice would be the mistake.
I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen table. Mom had left the newspaper spread out next to the sugar bowl, open to the classifieds section. Normally I wouldn’t even glance at it, but my brain was too tired to focus on anything else.
“Lost Cat – Reward $50”
“Garage Sale – Saturday 8 AM”
“Piano Lessons – All Ages”
I spooned cereal into my mouth and kept reading, not really paying attention to what I was seeing. Most of the ads were boring adult stuff — cars for sale, apartments for rent, job openings.
Then one small ad in the bottom corner caught my eye:
“SODA VENDING MACHINE – Excellent condition, holds 72 cans, coin operated. Perfect for small business. $400 OBO. Call Mike at 555-0847.”
I stopped chewing.
A soda machine. For four hundred dollars.
My heart started beating faster as the possibilities hit me all at once. I could buy that machine, stock it with sodas, and put it somewhere people would use it every day. Not just when I was there running my snack stand, but all the time. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
It would be like having a business that worked even when I was sleeping.
I stared at the ad until the words started to blur together. Four hundred dollars for the machine, maybe fifty dollars to stock it the first time. That would leave me with two hundred dollars. Not enough for Florida, but enough to see if this crazy idea could actually work.
I read the ad one more time, my cereal getting soggy in the bowl.
Maybe I had found my idea after all.