The Next Big Project!

The home venue reached Rank 6 overnight.

Yanastasia got up early,

and immediately started warming up at the ballet barre her parents had given her for her birthday.

Yevgenya occupied herself blogging about cuisine and applying for college scholarships,

while Yasiu happily jumped rope upstairs.

Genya realized she’d better finish her homework before school, so vacated the computer. Yedrek then applied for his own scholarships.

Before she left for school, Yana too applied for scholarships.

Genya again drove her siblings to school.

Once the butler showed up for the day and helped clean up from the party,

Yulia was able to pack up most of the rental items,

except for the Myshuno and bubble blower, which the home venue customers were still using.

Yulia had a new project in mind, and needed to raise money for it, so—despite knowing that raising the price of her home venue would reduce its traffic, and therefore the pace at which it would earn customer stars—she raised her admission price to $9,999.

She failed to make a sale to Joe Graham,

but succeeded with Andrea Hogan,

failed with Jill Fleig,

and Camryn Lee,

but succeeded with Christy Inaba.

Derek came home from the hospital. “Why is the bubble blower still on our front lawn???,” he asked. “And why on earth is the venue price $9,999—I thought you were trying to get it to Rank 10!”

“Don’t start!,” Yulia told him. “I didn’t even manage to get rid of the Myshuno game until a few minutes ago. You have no idea how addictive these things are.”

She got back to selling, and had her greatest success of the day with Amin Sims,

who, because he was such a good customer of hers generally, could be counted on to stay for hours, paying $9,999 every hour.

She noticed that Komei had dropped by. Interested to hear about his date with Marisa, she asked, “How the heck did it go???”

“And your new haircut’s great!—what finally made you do it?,” she asked.

“Marisa said she’d actually date me if I looked a bit neater,” he answered, sheepishly.

“So the date went well?,” Yulia asked, sounding hopeful.

“I THINK so,” answered Komei. “At least I managed to make dinner for her.”

“I mean, it was only grilled cheese sandwiches, but I didn’t burn them too badly.”

“And she really DID seem to be impressed that I cleaned up after dinner!”

‘Well, cleaning always IS a fine quality in a man,’ Yulia said to herself.

By early evening, the customers had finally abandoned the bubble blower, and Yulia was able to pack it up.

She and her husband asked Genya to meet them in the dining room.

“So, honey, we have an idea for you,” Yulia told her daughter.

“We would like to help you buy your own community lot,” her mother announced. “There’s a very good dance/fitness studio for sale and, since you already have a Gold badge in Sales, you should be able to make money for college very quickly.”

Genya was stunned. “Okay, this sounds great, but why a dance/fitness studio??? That sounds more like something Yana would be interested in rather than something I would be interested in!,” she said, a bit petulantly.

“You shouldn’t look at it that way, cupcake,” her father responded. “That the twins may enjoy it—because Yana wants to be a dancer and because Yed wants to be an athlete—shouldn’t change the fact that this would be a good venue for you to run. Your very savvy mother thinks there’s a market for it in the neighborhood and, if your siblings gain some benefit from it, so much the better. But don’t overlook what it can do for you.”

Though she remained doubtful, Genya took her parents’ advice and, with the money her mother had raised that afternoon, she bought the dance/exercise studio.

She went up to bed, passing her brother, who was studying Cooking,

and her sister, who was again working at the ballet barre.

‘Wait till she hears THIS!,’ Genya said to herself.

“I bet she’ll be a whole lot nicer to me.”

__________________________

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

Okay, so here was the initial unfortunate shot from Marisa’s visit to Komei’s townhouse:

Also, this was the night I finally had Yulia use the Elixir—she had 2 days to elder, and I didn’t want to lose track of it. She still might make her 5 TLB LTW before the deadline, however (though I’m really just letting the home venue tick on, while attending to family matters).