Giggling woke me the next morning. I didn’t open my eyes, but asked, “Lily, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” my familiar innocently answered.

I cracked an eye open but couldn’t spot the pixie. I opened my other eye and stared at my hands. Not seeing anything on them, I wiped my eyes and sat up.

“What have you done then?” I asked finally catching sight of my familiar as she sat on the clothes dresser swinging her legs and letting her heels tap the wood. Surprisingly, no other pixies were in the bedroom.

“Can’t I just be in a good mood?” Lily asked. She was looking off to the side instead of looking me in the eyes.

“You dodged my question,” I pointed out. “But yes, you can be in a good mood.”

“I’m just happy you’re finally awake,” Lily replied looking me in the eyes.

“Uh huh. What kind of prank have you pulled?”

“A good one!” Lily exclaimed and then slapped her hands over her mouth.

I smiled. “What have you done?”

“I’m not telling! It’s best if you find out for yourself,” Lily replied giggling again. She then motioned like she was zipping her mouth shut.

“It’s going to be like that this morning, huh?” I asked. Lily nodded her head yes. “You know the silent treatment would work better if you couldn’t speak to me telepathically.”

“Good point,” Lily replied as I stretched and got out of bed. Lily slapped her hands over her mouth again as she started laughing. I shook my head, smiled, which made her laugh harder, and walked into the bathroom.

“What the heck?” I asked as I looked in the bathroom mirror. There was writing on my forehead. It took a moment for me to parse out what it said since I was reading it backwards in the mirror. “Property of Lily?”

“Yep!” the pixie cheerfully shouted while flying into the bathroom. She landed on my shoulder and hugged my face. “You’re all mine!”

“I love you too,” I replied.

“Not mad?” Lily asked.

“Does this wash off?” I asked pointing at the writing.

“Yep.”

“Then no, I’m not mad,” I said. “Let me have a few minutes to clean this off and do my morning ablutions.”

“Ok!” I’ll go start a pot of chicory for you,” Lily said flying off my shoulder.

“Wait. Why are you offering to do that?” I asked. Her offer made me thing she might have pulled another prank.

“I want to process those carob pods we soaked yesterday and left out to dry!” Lily replied.

“You just want me to make sweets with it and a hot coco…carob out of the powder,” I said giving her a smile.

“Yep! You want all that too,” Lily replied. I agreed with her. “And yes, I did pull another prank. You know me too well.”

“I should start pranking you,” I muttered.

“You can try! It’ll be fun!” Lily replied before zipping off laughing all the way.

*

“You two did good yesterday,” Trillium said.

“Thanks!” Lily replied for us.

“You’re using the simplest method to make carob powder?” the elder asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“There’s not a lot here,” Trillium observed.

“There’s much more in the storage device,” Lily replied spinning in a circle. “Jase thought it would be better to just do a small batch before really diving into things.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Trillium said.

“We soaked and laid out two gallons worth of pods to test,” I said. “According to the research we did, that should give us about 8 cups of powder when processed.”

“Plus, the seeds and end pieces,” Lily added. “We’ll give them to the cows and other wildlife to eat.”

“That’s good,” the elder said. She examined a few pods. “They’re still not dry.”

“Yeah, I suppose we’ll have to wait a while longer,” I said. The pixies laughed. “What am I missing?”

“Children, pull the moisture from the pods,” Trillium instructed the pixies she brought with her.

“You’ll like this,” Lily said landing on my shoulder. “The pixies flew over to the pods and did something. I could see the heat shimmer in the air. A moment later, my familiar said, “They’re done!”

“I should get a knife from the kitchen so I can slice open the pods,” I said.

“Don’t waste one of the good lab knives for this,” Lily replied.

“Then do you suggest I go into the village and buy one from the blacksmith?” I asked.

“No. Well, yes,” Lily said after thinking it over. “Buy one from the smith so you can have one to use whenever someone else is around.”

“But right now, we’ll show you another trick,” Trillium said. She nodded to the other pixies. They skimmed the top of the pods and it looked as if they just split open.

“What? How?” I asked.

“We used the wind to cut the pods open,” Trillium answered.

“Oh…” I replied as what the pixies had just done hit me.

“Don’t worry. We would never do that to people,” Lily assured me.

Trillium then had the pixies remove the seeds and end pieces from the pods. Those went into two buckets that Lily provided. The other pixies took the buckets of waste to the cow pasture.

“Thank you,” I said to the pixies. “Now, I just need to put these in the automatic mortar and pestle so it can grind them up.”

We gathered up the seedless carob pods and took them into the basement. This was good telekinesis practice for me. Lily only helped instead of doing most of the work for me, which I appreciated.

Half an hour later, I applied labels that Lily made to eight 8-ounce bottles full of carob powder. The pixies cheered.

“Well, let’s try hot carob and see how it tastes,” I said. The pixies cheered louder.