"Odd Squad! Hey, thanks for coming, dudes!"

Otto and Olive hurried across the theater stage to where the rock band had set up. Olive, Otto, and the band exchanged high fives, then got down to business.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

"It's this axe, man!" The bass main guitarist handed his guitar to Otto. "It's... Like, just try it, okay?"

Otto clutched the instrument, grinning from ear to ear. "Seriously?"

Olive winced. "Seriously?"

Whooping, Otto struck a rock star pose and strummed the guitar strings. "THANK YOU CLEVELA..."

A deluge of water fell on Otto, drenching him.

He stood there a moment, blinking and dripping, then tried again. "THANK YOU CLE..."

Another deluge. Otto spat out a stream of water.

He tried again. "THAN..."

After the third deluge, he stood there, sopping wet, nodding and scowling.

The drummer leaned over. "Can you, like, not do that, dude? We've got electrical equipment and stuff here..."

Otto glowered at him.

Olive reached over and unplugged a small cord from the electric guitar. "Try it now."

Otto looked at her suspiciously. Then, bracing himself, he strummed the strings. Nothing happened.

"THANK YOU CLEVELAND!" He struck a pose.

"Whoa!" The guy took his guitar back and tried it himself, playing some chords. "Thanks, Odd Squad!"

Olive nodded while Otto wrung out his jacket. "Happy to be of service, sir! Have a nice day!"

They turned to leave, Olive producing a gadget and zapping it at Otto. "Towelinator."

A big, fluffy towel materialized in Otto's arms; he used it to dry off. "So, what'd you do?"

Olive shrugged. "I unplugged the wah-wah pedal."

"The... wah-wah pedal." Otto considered. "That's the best he could do, eh?"

"It's Fan-Fiction. We'll be lucky if we make it through without being completely out of character."

They ducked behind an amp and disappeared.

#

"THERE YOU TWO ARE!" Ms. O glared at the duo as they entered her office. "Nothing very odd has happened!"

Olive and Otto looked at each other. "Don't you mean...?"

"I know what I mean!" Ms. O pounded her desk, then leaned back. "As it happens, I didn't call you to give you a case." She took a sip of juice to draw out the suspense. "Instead, I'm asking you to mentor an agent."

She gestured toward the couch where a young girl in an Odd Squad uniform sat fidgeting nervously and pulling at the cuffs of her shirt-sleeves. She had a pudding-bowl haircut and bright, curious eyes which gleamed behind a thick pair of Coke-bottle glasses.

"That's Agent Ostara." Ms. O rustled through the papers on her desk until she found the right forms. "It says here she's an agent in training who's recently moved here from Moose Factory and she needs someone to show her around." Ms. O looked at Olive and Otto. "That'd be you."

"Hey, no problem!" Otto went over and shook the nervous young lady's hand.

Olive followed, smiling. "Happy to have you on the team!"

"Thanks," Ostara adjusted her glasses. "I've heard so much about you both. I just hope I won't be too much of a bother..."

"Don't worry about it!" Otto grinned. "The more the merrier!"

"Right!" Olive nodded. "We can always use an extra hand..." Then she remembered where she was. "FIGURATIVELY! I MEAN FIGURATIVELY!"

Ms. O put the extra-handinator back in the drawer.

Just then, Oscar bustled in. "Hey, guys! Ms. O, you wanted to see me about...?" Looking around the room, he suddenly noticed Ostara. "Oh! Um... hi!"

"Hi." Ostara smiled gently at him.

He couldn't help smiling back. "Hi. Um... hi!"

Ms. O cleared her throat. Shamefaced, Oscar wheeled back to face her.

"That's Agent Ostara. She's going to be working with Otto and Olive awhile. She'll need some gadgets before going out in the field. Agent Ostara, this is Oscar, our head scientist."

Oscar fiddled with his glasses. "Hi!"

Ostara nodded. "Hi!"

"So..." Oscar swung his arms, coughing. "Um... Heh, heh... Let's... Um, let's... get you some gadgets!"

He led her out of the room down to the lab.

Otto giggled as soon as they were gone. "Was he BLUSHING?"

Ms. O sighed. "They grow up so fast..."

#

A few weeks later...

It was a lovely spring afternoon in the park and the birds were singing opera. L'Orteo, Pagliacci, The Marriage of Figaro, dozens more, all at the same time. The cacophony was indescribable.

In the midst of the din The Noisemaker danced, the bells on his costume jingling.

"Oh beautiful, beautiful noise! Oh, I love my lovely, noisy noise! More, I must have more!" He spun about, brandishing his new gadget, and zapped a sparrow. The sparrow immediately launched into an aria from Carmen.

He twirled, freezing in mid-spin when he saw Otto and Olive running towards him.

"ODD SQUAD, ODD SQUAD, STOP RIGHT THERE, NOISEMAKER!"

"I.. I... I won't!" The Noisemaker stumbled. "And you can't make me! So there!"

He pointed his gadget at the two agents and fired. Olive dodged just in time. Otto found himself singing Seid uns zum Zweiten Mi Wilkommen from The Magic Flute.

"Ha! And now... I flee!"

While Olive saw to her confused and vocally challenged partner, The Noisemaker ran through the park, almost colliding with a waste-bin, slipping on wet leaves, then dodging and leaping between two trees.

"Oh, I am getting away! I have succeeded in defeating Odd Squad!"

"NOT SO FAST!"

Ostara stepped out from behind a tree, zapping him with a gadget of her own. "Hushinator!"

The Noisemaker's mouth moved but no sound came out. Gasping silently, he shook his bells. No sound. Agent Ostara circled him as he flapped his arms, trying to make his accordion flaps work. They didn't.

Frantic, the Noisemaker yelled and raged noiselessly, then fell to his knees, pleading.

"Only after you fix all the trouble you've caused!"

Whimpering, The Noisemaker nodded.

#

"That was AWESOME, Ostara!" Otto said as soon as he got his voice back.

As Owen's team led Noisemaker away, Olive bought three soft pretzels from a street vendor.

Ostara stared at the ground. "Well, I... I'm glad I was able to help... I just happened to be in the right place..."

"Will you stop it?" Olive gently chided her, handing her a pretzel. "You just took out a villain single-handed!"

"It was only the Noisemaker..."

"The Noisemaker can be tricky," Olive reminded her.

"Exactly," Otto chimed in. "Will you stop being so down on yourself? You're doing great!"

"Thank you..." Ostara smiled weakly. "I... Everyone's been so nice to me..."

Otto eyed her pretzel. "Say, y'gonna eat that?"

She handed it over to him. Olive took a bite out of her own pretzel to establish ownership.

"Just keep at it!" Olive said around a mouthful of food. "I'm sure you're gonna have a great future at Odd Squad!"

Ostara looked away, sighing.

#

At the end of the day, Ostara went to the lab. She found Oscar fiddling with a battered old record player.

"Oh! Uh... Hi, Ostara!" Oscar made some adjustments to the record player. "I'm just trying to fix my Great-Aunt Fay's old phonograph." He pressed some buttons and checked over the power cord. "It hasn't been playing right lately. And she gets fidgety if she can't listen to her music. Lately, she's started baking stuff."

"Oh?" Ostara walked over to a pile of old records. "Is she a good cook?"

"Well, that's kind of the thing. She doesn't bake food." He sighed. "Totally ruined Mom's ceramic clown figurines..."

He flipped the machine over and plugged it in. "There, that should do it! Could'ja hand me one of those records so I can give it a spin?"

A few seconds later, a scratchy old 45 was playing.

Ostara half-smiled. "That's a... That's a really nice song..."

"Really?" Revolving his head, Oscar read the name off the spinning disc. "It's... Uh... Oh yeah, that Paper Moon song, by the guy who played Jiminy Cricket."He blinked, a bit dizzy. "So, um..." Oscar tried to lean casually against his workbench and missed. Stumbling, he recovered quickly and grabbed his lapels. "What brings you to the lab?"

"Oh yeah," Ostara fished around in her pockets. "I need to return these." She produced a couple gadgets and handed them to Oscar.

"Thanks!" Oscar looked the gadgets over. "Hey, the cherry-on-topinator! Nobody ever takes that one! " Ostara's face had gone blank. She started, as if waking up. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Everyone's been so nice to me..." She stopped, like she was about to say something else but had been cut off.

"Yeah, well, that's Odd Squad! One big happy family!"

Ostara was trembling.

"Come on, what's wrong?"

"I..." She made a clicking noise deep in her throat. "I..." She clicked again and shook her head. "I wish I deserved it."

"Okay, look," Oscar adjusted his glasses. "I don't know why you feel that way. And maybe it's none of my business. But you're welcome here. Everything's fine. Ms. O says you're shaping up to be a terrific agent."

Ostara's mouth opened and closed and she still kept making the clicking noise in her throat. "I'm... I'm not... I'm not a good person... I don't belong here..."

"Listen," Oscar was very serious now. "If you did something wrong, you can tell Ms. O." He chuckled. "I know it's kinda hard to believe, but she's very understanding."

"It's not that..." Ostara's face kept almost going blank, then snapping back. "I like all of you so much..."

"And we like you too." Oscar smiled at her. She couldn't help smiling back.

"But I'm... I..." She shook her head, unable to get the words out.

"Look, something y'gotta know. It's like Ms. O always says, what a person does is way more important than what they are." He pondered. "Or maybe that was on a plaque somewhere. Or maybe Ms. O has it on a plaque, I dunno..."

Ostara chuckled.

"Yeah. Um... So, I'm almost finished up here. I... Um..." He started blushing ferociously. "I was thinking about going to the zoo after work." The blush became even deeper. "Y'know... If you wanna come too, that'd be great." He looked away quickly. "I mean, you don't have to do if you don't wanna, it's just... I mean, if you wanna..."

Ostara beamed. "I'd be glad to."

"You would?" Oscar fumbled nervously. "I mean... Great!" He stumbled around the lab. "Just lemme get my coat and stuff and I'll walk you to the tube lobby!"

#

Hours later, Ostara stepped from the bus onto the sidewalk in a quiet, desolate part of town. She stood a second, smiling at the tiny multi-colored glass platypus Oscar had bought her at the zoo giftshop. Her eyes closed.

A moment later, all expression faded from her face. Her arms dropped to her sides. The little glass figure slipped from her hand and shattered on the concrete.

She walked across the street, through a vacant lot, and into an abandoned building. She turned left, went up a flight of stairs and into a sideroom.

Odd Todd looked up from his pizza. "About time you got here."

Ostara stood, swaying slightly, her face blank, her eyes staring straight ahead. Todd got up from the battered old couch he'd been sitting on and wiped his hands on his lapels.

"Working late or something? Good girl. Build up their trust."

He took a small screwdriver from his pocket, flipped up Ostara's glasses, and undid the metal bolts behind each of her ears, sliding off her face to expose the circuitry underneath.

"Oscar thinks his Oscarbots are sooooooo great..." Odd Todd sneered. "I'd like to see him come up with a robot like this. Artificial personality, simulated emotions, working thoughts and feelings..." He made some adjustments. "I'll bet you're even dreaming now..."

He replaced her face, bolting it on securely, and patted her arm. "And tomorrow, you're going to help me destroy Odd Squad forever."

#