"NOW who's gonna tell me what a lily symbolizes?" Leaning back in a woven chair, Jule stared at all the tiny hands raised next to her. A swarm of children formed a radiant pool on the grass as Jule involved the little ones in an interactive study with her. On evenings, Jule worked as a tutor. Her major had been botany. Jule always kept an exercise or extra-curricur activity between every two subsequent csses to jolt her kids up and energize them. This was one of those exercises.

  She overlooked all the heightened arms and spotted the notorious little Henry among the students. Henry and Ben were the infamous twins, sons of Uncle Felix. While Ben was upright, confident and cheerful, Henry always wanted a way out. "You! Henry."

  She smiled in satisfaction at the roll of his eyes. The css awaited his response, the breeze waving past them. Kids started discussing the answer and Jule winked at Emily, her star child and Emily audibly pondered, "Don't lilies symbolize hate and enmity?"

  Henry grinned, having overheard it.

  He scoffed proudly. "Who doesn't know of stupid lilies? People send them to eachother in wars! It shows enmity." He made a grudgeful face.

  The whole css started ughing. Even Jule couldn't hold back when Henry suspiciously eyed Emily.

  "Nah-uh, Henry. It's quite the opposite." Jule walked up to Henry and ruffled his hair, squinting upon noticing a deep burn mark on the edge of his temple. She reached for her pocket and pulled out a little lily. She'd had it on her by chance. "L for lilies and L for love. Like you love me."

  "Who would love you?!" He scoffed again, turning away boisterously. Jule only smiled at his antics and cpped her hands.

  "That ends today's css. Run home."

  Jule collected her stuff and positioned herself on the bicycle, fastening the helmet on. In her periphery, she saw Henry approaching. Jule turned to him with a smile. This kid was her life. Despite his troublesome attitude, he sure livened the css up.

  "Hey uh-" he began, troubled.

  "I know it's your birthday party tonight. Are you here to invite me?" she offered.

  "Nah! As if." He looked away and Jule musingly awaited his words. "So, uh... Today's my birthday." The corner of his lip twitched on hearing Jule's ugh. His chest reverberated too and he took a sprint after saying, "Well, you know the drill already so."

  "Thanks for the heartfelt invitation!" She called after him and passed over the Barley bridge. "Oops, I forgot to lock the shop!" Epiphanies like that were normal for her. One time on her ritual weekend picnic, which she carried out religiously every weekend, she realized it was actually Wednesday. Both her customers and students ate away her ears with taunts the next day.

  Taking a U-turn, Jule ascended the three stairs of her shop before she stepped on the threshold and pulled the doors close. And again, an envelope with a cerulean bow flew in the air, crashing against the stairs.

  Jule took in a surprised ball of air and looked around. The st envelope a week from today had introduced many doubts to her. Some third party unknown to Uncle James, who knew of Uncle James' anniversary, and the unlikely fact that he'd forgotten the flowers had ordered a delivery of flowers that day. Nothing about it was normal. Although things had turned out merrily at Oolong orchard for the elderly couple, the letter and it's writer were a mystery Jule bit away two of her nails thinking about.

  And now it rested in her hands again. She unfurled the envelope, tentative, and extracted a page. The writing over it was the same as st time, the words however different.

  Yelena club, two bouquets of gdiolus flowers, rainbow colour. If not avaible then yellow.

  Jule coughed, offended. "Excuse me, I have rainbow!"

  Six thirty. Please enter from the kitchen side.

  Jule rolled her eyes and slid the letter inside the basket of her bike. The sack of coins beside the letter, she left untended. "I'll just pretend I mistook it for six thirty AM instead of PM." She shrugged. She had a birthday to attend to anyways.

  Wait, birthday party?

  Yelena Club. That's where Uncle Felix was holding Henry and Ben's brithday party. Thirty minutes past six was the starting time. And the particur flower mentioned in the letter; Gdiolus was the flower for August birth. Today happened to be mid August.

  The load of information wrecked her nervous system to pieces.

  Distractedly enough, Jule unlocked the door of her shop and dragged the dder to the attic, retrieving two healthy bouquets of rainbow coloured gdioli from the flower cooler. She carried out the procedure of livening and freshening them through the readily avaible equipment.

  As she gnced down at her wrist, the infernal watch, cursed and rotten be it's generations, revealed that Jule barely had five minutes to pedal to the club situated half a town away.

  Jule hurried down and sprinted with the bouquets in her arms. She remembered just how important the timing was in Uncle James' case. She couldn't be te for Henry and Ben's party.

  The moment she approached the stairs, she saw Julian freestyling on the sidewalk.

  "Hold these."

  She abruptly pced the bouquets in his arms, walked him to the backseat and settled him there. Wanting no more second wasted, she raced away while the tter cluelessly stared at her.

  Julian pestered her the whole ride with genius questions like, "How do you drive so slow? Where are we going again? Will you hold these bouquets for a sec, so you can drive instead?"

  She rode as fast as she could with a mammoth seated behind him and skidded to a spontaneous halt next to Yelena. Snatching the bouquets from the backseat rider, she dashed to the backside of the club, entering brazenly from the kitchen door just as the letter said.

  Contrary to her belief, it turned out no one paid attention to her. The kitchen was in roars. Uncle Felix and Andrew—the club owner—were teaming up against William and she saw why. Next to Will's dejected face id bouquets of yellow coloured Gdioli, now wilted and withered.

  "I specially bought these expensive flowers for my children, but of course, a cheapskate like you wouldn't understand!" Uncle Felix groaned, reddened.

  William was Jule's next door neighbor, a friend and a waiter at Yelena club. Despite the occasional slip-ups, he was a hardworker by heart. Seeing him being let down agitated Jule more than having her cupcake stolen by him did. Or having her bike crashed by him did. The list could go on but what mattered was that she wouldn't let this slide.

  Andrew reprimanded Will, shing, "You assured you'd take care of these!"

  "I sincerely apologize sir-"

  "There is but no need to apologize, my fellow," Jule announced, emerging from the crowd of onlooking waiters. "Here are your gdioli, fresh and ready. Go and give each to one of your little ones." She passed the bouquets to Felix, keeping the bitterness to herself although she slitted her eyes at him. The fragrant floras captivated everyone's nostrils and Jule could audibly hear the delightful sighs. The crowd slowly departed but Uncle Felix remained, thanking Jule but she pointed straight at Will.

  "Oh I didn't do anything, Will ordered these," she told Felix. Puzzled, Will looked at her but she nudged him to py along. "He's only surprised because he didn't think I'd be on time. Isn't that so, Will?"

  "That's," Will began but Jule's wink sold his honesty. "She's right."

  Uncle Felix apologized for his harsh speech, to which Will breezily forgave, ushering the elder inside the club so that he won't be te for the party.

  "Hm," expressed Andrew, skeptically eyeing Jule. "I didn't know you handled deliveries."

  "Today was an exception," Jule denied instantly, seeking to prevent futuristic trouble. If she were to deliver flowers all the time, who would tend to the shop? She marked it in her mind to find the writer of these envelops soon and teach them a nice lesson.

  Now that Will knew he'd been spared his job, he turned to Jule, on the brink of exploding. He took her to the storeroom and covered his mouth. "Juliet- what sorcery!" His grin covered 80% of his face and Jule gave him a warm smile.

  "Someone else arranged this, but yeah, you're welcome." She then gasped at a realization, pinching Will's ear. "You didn't say thank you, did you? Where's my well-deserved thank you!?"

  He answered her shriek with a hug. "You've no idea how grateful I feel. I've been messing up and Andrew was gonna fire me this time for sure had you not arrived. Thanks a pile."

  "Well, you're welcome." She patted his shoulder. "Also who told you to store the flowers in the fridge? Are you an idiot?"

  "I-" he whisper-yelled. "I got it from you. I saw you store flowers in some fridge back at Subtle Miracles so I thought I'd try and store them there too."

  Jule rolled her entire head, snapping, "Idiot, those are special floral coolers not your typical kitchen fridges!"

  Will ughed sheepishly. "Well, either case, you saved me some." He squeezed her shoulders and went back to work, muttering, "Owe ya."

  Jule spent a long moment there in the storeroom before she blew out a rexed sigh. She trudged to the lounge and reached just in time for the chantings and the cake cutting. Almost all of her students were present so she got creamed a big deal for the times she'd been a witch of a teacher.

  The flowers decorating the background faded to an ephemeral blur but this memory would remain clear, eternal.