Captain-Introvert

    In the hallway of her apartment, Olive Snook took one last look in the mirror, checking herself over. Chuck had picked out a garishly pink dress Olive couldn’t quite believe she owned, which she had then swapped for a slightly more sedate yellow one. She patted her short hair, smoothed the bodice of her dress and picked up her handbag. Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about. Moments before unlocking the door, her eyes came to rest on the discreet can of pepper spray sat on the hall table. Emerson and Ned’s separate but distinct misgivings about her date tonight drifted idly through her mind. Spurred on by New Olive, sh

    The last person Olive Snook was expecting to see that Saturday afternoon was Randy Mann, ex-boyfriend and taxidermist. But then, given the number of unexpected visits already received that day, she found she was not at all surprised when he walked into the Intrepid Cow and ordered lunch.    Olive and Randy had dated for only a month before mutually calling it off. He was far too shy and she was far too loud. They were not suited to each other, but they had been good for each other — Olive had pulled Randy out of his shell and into the world, and Randy had set Olive on the road to Getting Over Ned. This was the reason she trott

    As it turned out, Olive Snook had two dates. As she emerged from the kitchen later that day, carefully balancing a soup of the day, a cheese toastie and a pear salad in her arms, she was met at the counter by the familiar faces of Chuck and Emerson — smiling and scowling, respectively. Olive jumped — actually jumped and nearly spilled the soup into the salad — and said “Oh. Hello. What a surprise. One moment.”    She delivered the dishes to their various owners and returned to the counter. A little ashamed of her blunt greeting earlier — brought about by genuine surprise and Old Olive’s distracte

    At home that night, Frederic Foster made a list. It was a list of all the ways you could kill somebody without making a mess. It went something like this;    Electrocution (already tried)    Poison    Hypothermia (unlikely)    Drowning    Starvation (equally unlikely)    Multiple organ failure (…how?)    Asphyxiation    Of those options, Foster circled the ones he thought reasonable given the time-frame and circumstances, which were three; poison, drowning, asphyxiation. It seemed logical to start at the top and work his way down, and so for his next visit to the Pie Hole Frederic Foster prepared his first method; poison.

    It was 8:11 in the morning. Today, Olive Snook strode over to the door of the Giddy Goat, pushed, and marched straight in without hesitating. New Olive was very proud of her.    Taylor the latte-boy smiled as he recognised her from behind the counter.    “Well, good morning Olive,” he said. “The usual?”    Olive grinned at him and said “Yes, please, Taylor, thank you very much.”    Taylor gave her a little salute and turned to the coffee machine.    In a rare burst of confidence — and genuine curiosity — she said “Say, what do you call someone who makes coffee for a living?&#

    Just say hello to him.    This is what New Olive whispered in Olive’s ear as she stood once more on the doorstep of the Giddy Goat, hand on the door handle, deliberating with herself. The coffee shop was relatively empty this particular morning and so through the glass door Olive could clearly see the latte-maker whose name she did not know. She watched him as she waited.    No, exclaimed Old Olive, too scary.    New Olive gritted her teeth. If you don’t say something, they don’t notice. They’re men. Olive’s mind briefly drifted back to countless afternoons spent batting her eyelashes, lowering her necklin

    “I ain’t surprised the fuzz thought Franklin Foe zapped himself to silicone heaven,” said Emerson Cod. “This place is a violation of personal safety.”    The private detective looked around Franklin Foe’s office with a curl of his lip. Books and papers lay strewn in piles around the floor. A threadbare armchair peeped out from one corner, layered in all manner of cardboard packages that time forgot. A small congregation of half-empty mugs huddled on the desk, silently plotting the next outbreak of food poisoning.    Chuck pursed her lips. “Well, if Frederic Foster hadn’t got to him first,

    For two years, four months, nineteen days, nine hours and twenty-seven minutes the Piemaker and the girl he called Chuck had been unable to touch. If his skin met hers in so much as an accidental brush, one of them would die, and the other would be left with a broken heart. So they lived their lives in a carefully calculated dance of avoidance, moving in tandem but never in contact, utilising a variety of tools and precautions with astounding ingenuity to ensure the safety of their unusual love affair — bells were stitched to the Piemaker’s slippers in order to alert Chuck of his whereabouts, twin beds in the same room al