Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination Read Online Free Page B

have been one of the ones who did as they were told and stayed, or would she have thought for herself and set off down the stairs?

Chapter 5
     
    p. 22 S he sat outside a café on the South Shore Strip waiting for Barry’s morning call and wishing it would stop being so windy. It was sunny and humid, but the wind was a roaring, flapping constant in the background. Breakfast was Olivia’s favorite meal: coffee and something piggy like a muffin. Or a smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese bagel. Or banana pancakes. And as many newspapers as possible spread before her. But this morning the New York Times, the Miami Herald, USA Today and two British tabloids had to be restrained under the salt and pepper. She had ordered cinnamon-apple French toast in order to eradicate the remnants of last night’s apple martinis. Treat apple with apple—like snake bite with snake venom.
    She poured maple syrup onto the cinnamon-apple French toast triangle, stuck her knife in and watched the pureed apple ooze out, imagining confronting Osama bin Ferramo at his party that night: “Killing is so very wrong. We, as nations, must learn to honor our differences and live in peace.” Osama bin Ferramo, breaking down, would sobbingly agree that his Holy War must end and that he would work tirelessly in future for world peace alongside President Carter, Ginger Spice, et al. Olivia would be internationally fêted, elevated to foreign correspondent, awarded an honorary Pulitzer . . . her mobile rang.
    “Hi,” she answered, in a tense, urgent voice, glancing behind her to check for al-Qaeda spies. It was Barry.
    p. 23 “Okay, numero uno: this floating apartment-ship story . . .”
    “Yes!” said Olivia, excitedly. “It’s a really good story. It’s huge. And the people live on it all year round and just fly in by helicopter. I could do it in a couple of extra days.” Olivia had the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder while she tucked into the apple French toast.
    “Oh, I agree it’s a good story. So good, in fact, that, as you apparently failed to notice, we covered it in a full-page spread in the Style section last week.”
    Olivia paused with her toast halfway to her mouth.
    “That’s a section of the Sunday Times, the newspaper you’re supposed to be working for. Indeed, the very section of the Sunday Times you are supposed to be working for. You do, I assume, read the Sunday Times occasionally, are familiar with it, at least?”
    “Yes,” she said, brows lowered.
    “And this other ‘fantastic news story’ you’ve found. What might that be? Miami invaded by walking dolphins, perhaps? The former Iraqi information minister spinning vinyl in the lobby?”
    Thank God she hadn’t e-mailed him after all.
    “Well, actually it’s something I’ve just started working on. I’ll tell you more in a couple of—”
    “Shut up. How are we getting along with the story we are supposed to be doing? The story we’ve been sent out to Miami, at considerable expense, to cover? Any chance of us turning our attention to that at some point? At all?”
    “Oh yes, yes. I’m doing that. It’s all fine. But I’m onto some really good leads for another story. I promise you, it’s really good. If I could just stay one more night and go to this party, then . . .”
    “No. En. Oh. No. You file ‘Cool Miami’ by six o’clock your time tonight. Fifteen hundred words. Spelled correctly. With normal punctuation, not an assortment of strange markings put in randomly, to help. And then you do not go to parties, go shopping, or get waylaid by any other form of irrelevant entertainment. You go to the airport, get the night flight and come home. Got it?” p. 24 By a supreme effort of will, she refrained from telling him that:
     
     1.  He was missing the biggest story of the twenty-first century.
     2.  One day he would be sorry.
     3.  Re his punctuation slur: language was a beautiful free-flowing, evolving thing which should not be