by Reyansh Vashishtha (10 yo)
Joshua Pek had always been dreaming about rolling in dough.
Nope, not pizza dough, but money dough. But whatever he and his business partner, Matthew Burns, did, was never enough until one fateful day in 1953.
"Brrr..! It's so cold here in winter and the cold is making me so hungry!" exclaimed Matthew Burns.
"The cold must be making others salivate and starve too," Joshua said.
"Hmmm...how about opening a restaurant?" Joshua suggested.
"I had a dream yesterday that we opened a restaurant named King!" said Joshua.
"Jinx! I had a similar dream too that we opened a restaurant and it was named Burger!" exclaimed Matthew Burns.
"Burger King! Burger King! Let's name it Burger King!" Joshua squealed in delight.
Soon, they bought a small house and customised it to look like a proper restaurant.
"Now, I'll be the chef and you'll be the manager," exclaimed Matthew Burns.
And the two began their little burger venture. But when they started, business was bad.
"Why were we rated one-starred only?" they exclaimed in shock when they saw the weekly ratings in the local newspaper.
Nobody wanted to take the blame, so they squabbled over who should have done this or done that.
The next week was as rough as a rock. Instead of gaining money, they were losing money, and losing money fast.
"What should we do?" they wept frantically.
Finally, Joshua had enough.
He said, "No use crying. Let's find out why people don't like our burgers."
They mustered enough courage to taste their burgers. Upon eating it, they nearly threw up.
"Time to upgrade our burgers," they said.
So, they spent every last dollar in their bank focused on improving their burgers. They added different spices and more fresh ingredients. They even concocted a special sauce!
"Let's call it the Whopper!" they chorused.
Business then began to go well as more and more people enjoyed it. Even the then US president Donald Trump thought it to be supreme.
Encouraged, Joshua and Matthew created more burger varieties and heavily invested in advertisement. Soon, Burger King became a success.
As they witnessed their sales go up, Joshua sighed, "In every cloud, there is a silver lining."
"Indeed, indeed," said Matthew as they gave each other a brotherly hug.