A Night Raven College has recently opened a chipmunk-themed diner in town, only for the manager and all staff to become injured on the job due to “a string of hauntings.”
Crowley volunteers Cater, Azul, Lilia and Idia to run the diner for three days while the manager recovers in exchange for an exception from a test or practical exercise, assigning Cater the role of acting manager.
Idia takes kitchen duty while Cater asks Azul to be in charge of support work, with himself and Lilia working the front of the restaurant.
The four students experience the “hauntings” of rumor on their first day, with a hamburger mysteriously going missing from a table, a trash bin being emptied all over the floor in the kitchen, onions being dropped on Azul’s head and the brakes of Cater’s skates getting covered in oil.
When they return to the diner the following morning the stove has been turned on with popcorn all over the floor.
While eating during a break Cater’s popcorn is suddenly stolen by chipmunks, whom he chases through the diner. A frying pan “filled to the brim” with popcorn kernels and a microwave explode with popcorn and the diner’s customers flee “during the chaos, only for angry patrons to accuse the students of bullying and exploiting the chipmunks that they had been trying to catch.
Cater confirms via security cameras that the “hauntings” of the diner had been the work of the two chipmunks. He decides to turn the situation around to work in their favor by getting the chipmunks to spend time with customers, both adding a new attraction to the diner and dispelling the bullying rumors.
While cleaning up the mess in the diner, they discover new popcorn seasoning created by accident when the chipmunks knocked over different condiments, which they decide to sell as a new menu item.
Cater takes the diner’s trash out to a nearby tree as he’d been instructed by the manager, only to realize that the tree is the chipmunks’ home: the diner has been throwing its trash away where they live since it opened, which the chipmunks interpreted as harassment, resulting in their “haunting” of the restaurant.
Cater works things out with the chipmunks through a mix of animal linguistics, body language and popcorn. The students set up a popcorn sampling booth outside, attracting customers with their new popcorn flavor and dispelling the rumors about poor treatment of chipmunks by showing them all getting along together.
On the third day Cater reveals another new addition to the diner’s menu: a combination of gingerbread, popcorn and powdered sugar that the chipmunks pose with for photos.
Cater concludes with, “That’s the story of how we turned a bumpy ride at the diner into a smash-hit success!”
Twisted Wonderland Reference Note 