Momo: A Jinx in Pure Heart

Chapter 3: The Candy Cup Witches

It only took about an hour or two, but Harvest Moon had officially begun. Everywhere on the plains of Pure Heart Valley was louder and livelier than it once was when the festival decorations, vendors, and other entertainment tents were being set up. Everyone was having fun, both in the energetic kind and also the safe kind, though it mainly applied to most Sweetypies. Slim Pigguns and Pinky were already running around with a roll of toilet paper in each hand.

Momo and her friends were going about the streets as normal. She and her little fox and frog friends pranced happily in their costumes. Apart from Momo's Honey costume, her frog friend was dressed as a pirate – the maritime kind – and the fox friend was dressed like a tiny cuboid robot. All three of them held their baskets at the ready, eagerly setting out to find households who would hand them lots of yummy candy at their doorsteps. The three of them didn't get far when they noticed a familiar sight once again.

"Hi there, kids. How's the hunt?" Mao Mao the sheriff called to them.

Momo smiled and held up her basket. "Oh, it's off to a good start." Mao Mao, along with Badgerclops and Adorabat behind him, peered into the basket to see a few bits of never-before-seen candies, wrapped in clear plastic – they certainly didn't look like any kind one would find mass-produced and sold in conventional stores.

Badgerclops was already drooling from the sight of these unique confectionaries alone. "Homemade one-of-a-kinds..." he whispered, his voice and lower lip quivering and his eye glistening under the starlight as he salivated enviously. The pupil of his eye trailed over to look at Momo, who slightly fidgeted in discomfort from the way the badger's stare appeared to pierce into the little black cat's soul. "Can you spare a sweet?"

Momo didn't really need to answer, though. Mao Mao was right on the scene and put himself between his badger friend and the little cat girl. "Don't listen to him, Momo. He's so easily overridden by things much smaller than your candy."

Momo giggled, remembering how seriously, if not dramatically, the sheriff took even small matters out on the streets. "It's okay. Everyone learns how to make their own candies, but I guess Muffins makes the best."

"Ol' Blue makes pretty good candy too," her fox friend added.

"Yeah, he does too," the frog friend chimed in agreement. "But I'm thinking we should stop by at Muffins' place again after we're done with the other houses, maybe put on another costume. You can't get enough of her candy." To no one's surprise, though, he found himself being approached by Mao Mao who looked at him a bit sternly.

"Yeah, sure," Momo sedged in with a bit of nervousness in her tone as she watched the bigger black cat intimidating her friend, "is that even legal?"

"No, it isn't," Mao Mao responded lowly, sounding like he was growling, "That's costumer fraud, and there'll be no such attempts at confectionary embezzlement while I'm sheriff." He waved an arm to the side for emphasis on his forbidding of such a 'criminal' activity.

"Costumer..." Adorabat hesitantly parroted what Mao Mao said.

"...fraud?" Badgerclops finished for her.

Momo felt the need to approach the sheriff on behalf of her other two friends. "It's okay, sheriff. We won't do anything illegal. Besides, there's no limit on candy in the valley." She turned back to face the frog and little fox. "We can have candy to our hearts' wildest content, right, Candy Cup Witches?"

In response, the two let out a joyous yell of affirmation. Mao Mao, on the other hand, looked like he just heard something new. "Candy Cup Witches?"

"That's what we're calling ourselves tonight," Momo said. "We're on a quest to get the most candy out of all other Sweetypie kids tonight, and we're gonna win!"

"But there's no contest," Badgerclops warily pointed out to her, "Not that I know of."

The frog standing behind Momo decided to answer. "That's what's fun about it: No rules!" He and the little fox next to him danced a little, along with Momo who was the most excited out of all three of them.

Hearing that made Badgerclops make his own giddy dance and squee in response. "Now that's a real party! You hear that, Mao?" he looked at Mao Mao both excitedly and rather pridefully, "We're allowed get as much candy as we want! You can't forbid us!"

Mao Mao, as averse as he was to lawless fun, couldn't find a way to refute Badgerclops's mater-of-fact words spurred on by Momo and her friends' exposition, so he took the easiest argument out, going megaphone-mode. "I'm the sheriff and I'm charged with your health and safety, so...No excess candy after dark!"

Not that it mattered, as Badgerclops, Adorabat, Momo, and her fellow Candy Cup Witches agreed with him in the most playfully insincere response conjured by their imagination.