A/N: Hey guys… it's me, Perilheart, under a new pen name. After I finished AFF, I disappeared to the Land of Nowhere. Now I've returned, two years older and having gained an unhealthy amount of sarcasm, to post this little one-shot and then probably disappear again for another two years. (And speaking of AFF, I recently started editing the utter mess that that fanfic is and replacing the old chapters with the new, edited chapters. So if you're interested in reading a better version of AFF that doesn't sound like a twelve-year-old having an overly dramatic existential crisis… it's there now.)
Anyway, here goes.
This was pointless.
The Shapeshifter could have been anywhere in the warehouse—or anything. She could have been a soccer ball or one of the ceiling beams. She could have even been a speck of dust on the floor. We'd never find her, and we'd never get Ms. O's briefcase back. Otto would be kicked off the squad, and I'd have to be given another partner. Again.
I tried to think like the Shapeshifter. If I could turn into anything in the world, what would I have turned into? My eyes swept over the warehouse… and landed on a feather. I stepped closer to inspect it. The feather was white, and completely ordinary. But then I remembered something about the Shapeshifter.
She was always partial to birds.
I grabbed the thin end of the feather and tried to pick it up, but I couldn't. It was as if the feather had been superglued to the shelf it was sitting on.
"This feather's heavy," I said, talking myself through the steps out loud. "But… feathers are supposed to be light!"
That was the Shapeshifter, all right. I aimed the gadget in my hand at the feather and fired. There was the Shapeshifter, large as life. She growled in frustration, then gave a sickly sweet smile.
"Good job, Jennifer."
The sound of my old name took me by surprise. When Todd turned villain, he just had to tell her everything about me. Typical.
"I'm Olive," I said.
"I could turn you into a Jennifer. Think about it," she whispered.
You mean turn me into a villain, I thought. Never.
"Otto, I got her!" I shouted before she could change my mind. "Come quick!"
"You fool!" she shouted. "You could have been a Jennifer!"
I'll never be a Jennifer, I thought. Never.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and sat down in the kid-sized chair. I ran my index finger over the spiral binding of my little red notebook.
"Hello there."
On the other side of the desk, a young girl in a purple blazer sat across from me, noisily slurping a Shmumbers juice box. I had seen Ms. O in the brochures and the commercials, of course, but in real life she looked so much more… scary.
"You're here for your interview, right?"
I nodded.
"What's your name?"
"J-Jenny," I said quietly.
Ms. O reached down and dumped a huge manila folder onto her desk. She opened it and thumbed through the papers inside. Each sheet of paper was the resume of an Odd Squad applicant. There must have been hundreds of them, and the squad would only choose four.
Her finger landed on my photo. "Jennifer Jasper?"
"No one calls me Jennifer."
"If you choose to join Odd Squad, no one will call you Jenny either," said Ms. O. "You'll be given a name that starts with O and an agent number. Those will be your only names from then on."
She put on a pair of purple reading glasses. "I see you have very few qualifications and no prior experience. And your math grades are average at best. So why do you want to work at Odd Squad?"
I ran my finger up and down the binding of my notebook so hard it turned red. How could I explain that my dream was to be an agent ever since I knew what Odd Squad was? That I loved math, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do problems fast enough or turn in worksheets on time?
"I—I want to help people."
"You want to help people," Ms. O repeated skeptically. "Everyone who comes for an interview says that, Jenny. We all want to help people. It's our human nature."
"But isn't that what Odd Squad is all about? Helping people? 'Our job is to put things right again.' Without Odd Squad, the town would be ruined. You stop villains that would destroy the town and you help ordinary people solve problems that would destroy their lives. The squad helps people every day, and I want to be a part of that."
Half of Ms. O's face was hidden behind the folder, but I could tell she was smiling. "And what about your math skills? Will you be able to keep up with the rest of the trainees?"
"Math is hard for me," I admitted. "I can't solve problems fast."
"But do you solve them correctly?"
"I don't know. I'm never able to finish them."
"Let me tell you something, Jenny. At Odd Squad, it doesn't matter how fast you solve a problem. There are none of those timed tests or math jeopardy you have at elementary school. All that matters is that the problem gets solved. So, I'll ask you again: can you solve problems correctly?"
"I—I don't—"
The glass double doors flew open.
"Ms. O!" A boy wearing a white lab coat, glasses, and a ridiculously curly head of hair burst into the office. He stumbled and tripped on the edge of the rug.
"The gadget!" I yelled as it slipped out of his arms… but he caught it just before it hit the floor.
"Whew!" he said. "If that had fallen and accidentally gone off, it would have multiplied all of us. And that would… not be good."
Then he noticed me. "Oh, hello! Are you applying to the Academy? I'm Daniel Berryman."
"Oscar…" Ms. O warned.
"Right, right! I'm Oscar. Still not used to the new name."
Ms. O frowned. "Is the Doubleinator done yet, Oscar?"
"Almost. There's just this one teensy little problem…"
"What's the problem?" I asked, curious.
"It's tripling, not doubling," said Oscar. "And I can't figure out why."
"That's odd," I said. "Can I see the gadget?"
He handed it to me. The Doubleinator felt good in my hands. Like it was meant to be there.
"When something doubles, it turns into twice the number it was before," I thought aloud. I pulled out my notebook and drew two tables. "So one becomes two, and two becomes four. But when something triples, one becomes three, and two becomes six. It becomes three times the number it used to be."
I stared hard at the neat rows of numbers in my notebook. They blurred together. I couldn't think. Think, brain, think!
The problem had to be with the gadget itself. I looked down at the Doubleinator. The edges were decorated with tiny green triangle stickers—the scientists' logo.
"Triangles have one, two, three sides," I realized. "They're three-sided shapes. That must be the problem with the Doubleinator—the triangles are making everything triple!"
"You think so?" Oscar took the gadget from me. "Well, there's only one way to find out." He peeled off the string of stickers all at once, then fired the Doubleinator at Ms. O's desk lamp.
With a pop, it split into two lamps.
Ms. O stepped out from behind her desk and cracked a rare smile. She held out her hand. A second too late, I realized I was supposed to shake it.
"That was the final part of the admission process," she said. "Welcome to the Academy, Jenny."
I was speechless. I couldn't believe it—I was going to the Odd Squad Academy! My red notebook slipped out of my fingers and fell to the floor.
"From now on," said Ms. O, "you'll be known as Olive."
Olive. I liked the name. It had a nice sound to it. I tried it out on my tongue.
"Agent Olive."
"You're not an agent yet," Ms. O reminded. "You still have to pass training."
"Congrats, Olive," Oscar said, a little awkwardly.
"Thanks."
"Oscar'll take you to Odenbacker to get fitted for your new uniform," said Ms. O.
"Come on." Oscar waved me over.
"O-okay." I followed him out of the office, stumbling all the way. My feet were already starting to dance.
So, I could have been a Jennifer. I had so many chances. I could have given up trying to solve the issue with the Doubleinator. I could have let the Shapeshifter turn me into a villain. I could have joined Todd when we met in front of Polly Graph's lemonade stand.
But every time, I chose to be Olive. And really, I'm glad I'm not a Jennifer. I never liked the name, anyway.
A/N: My Algebra II final is in two days, so I'm totally not self-projecting onto Olive through this fanfic. That's a ridiculous idea. Why would I ever do that.