I know, I know,Ollie said desperately.But that's not what she means.
How do you know? Maybe she knows about shifters. Maybe we should tell her she's our perfect fated mate and run off into the trees to makepassionate luuuuuuurvto her. Maybe?—
"But I try to listen and notice if I'm being kind of an arse," Ollie said hastily, and probably too loudly. "And I was, kind of. You know your business. I don't."
"Well, thank you." Tiffany looked slightly pole-axed, as if she didn't know how to process his apology. The waitress came by with a tray that had two glasses of lemon-colored liquid and no cans on it, which Ollie thought was a little odd, although Tiffany didn't seem bothered by it at all. She took her glass with a nod of thanks, swirled her straw to clink the ice around, and had a sip. Her perfect pink mouth puckered into laughter. "Woo! That's good! Your friend out there was right!"
"Oh, good." Ollie took a sip of his own lemonade and froze. "Wh…what is this?"
Tiffany, still beaming sort of painfully around her own sips, furled her eyebrows in confusion. "Lemonade?"
"It's…flat. And…" Ollie didn't know what to do with his tongue. It was recoiling at a lemon-tart-but-sweet flavor thatwas really nothing like lemonade as he knew it. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing? It's amazing?"
"No," Ollie said with sort of earnest frustration, as if he could make her understand how badly things were going wrong in his mouth right now, "no, it's weird, it's…it's not like lemonade at all?"
LEMME FIGHT IT,the koala yelled.I'LL SHOW IT WHAT LEMONADE IS!
For a moment, Ollie was sort of tempted, although he didn't know exactly how one would fight lemonade. This stuff, though, certainly tasted like it could put up a fight. It was sharp and bright andsweet. And flat, and had bits of pulp in it, and he swore there might even be actual sugar granules collecting at the base of the glass. "It's not lemonade? Why is it flat?"
"What do you even mean by flat?" Tiffany asked in bewilderment. "It's not flat at all! It's great, all sweet-tart! That's not flat! It's sharp!"
"But it's not…there's sugar at the bottom of the glass!"
"It's…probably homemade? Not commercial? It's really good?" Tiffany stared at him in complete confusion as Ollie's jaw dropped.
"Americans make lemonade by hand?" He guessed it was possible. With lemon syrup and—"But where's the soda water?"
"Who puts soda water in lemonade?!"
Very slowly, almost terribly, a thought began to trickle through Oliver's mind. It was an alien thought, one he'd never had any reason to consider before. Slowly, cautiously, he said, "…is American lemonade not a fizzy drink?"
"A fi—what? Like a soda? No! Obviously not! If you want lemon-flavored fizzy drinks you get, like, 7-Up or Sprite, not lemonade, not that they actually taste very much like lemon, but…what?" The horror Ollie felt on his own face now crossedTiffany's, etching lines around her mouth. "Are you telling me Australian lemonade isfizzy? Ew!"
"Fizzy and…" Ollie took another tentative, unpleasant sip of the weird American lemonade. "…this is sosweet."
"It's supposed to be!"
"No, it'slemon, it's supposed to be sour!"
"What? No! Oh my God." Tiffany stared at him. "Is all Australian food that messed up? Wait." Her expression went suspicious. "Wait, you're the Marmite people, aren't you?"
"Vegemite," Ollie said, offended. "Marmite's British."
I'LL SHOW HER WHAT VEGEMITE IS! SEE IF SHE MAKESTHATMISTAKE AGAIN!
Oh my God,Ollie whispered to the koala.Please don't.This was why he never let himself get agitated. Calm, cool and collected. That was Oliver Campbell. Because at the slightest hint of personal outrage, his koala went full Mad Max.
"Is there a difference between Marmite and Vegemite?" Tiffany asked, still suspicious.
"Yes," Ollie said weakly, "but I don't think it's a lotta difference.."
It's an important difference!the koala bellowed.Vegemite's SALTY!SAVORY!Marmite's SWEET! And YUCK!
Ollie gently put his head in his hands and squeezed, like he might be able to squish the koala's combativeness into calm silence. It had never worked yet, but it might today. There was always hope.
At the very least, he could make himself breathe deeply, counting the breaths, letting them go slowly, untilhiscalm floated over the koala and gradually convinced it that a death match wasn't worth it. Ollie had a lot of practice at this kind of thing, although the topic wasn't usually Vegemite.
