DISCLAIMER: I did not write this fanfic, I merely edited it and republished it with permission.

Olive watched the object glint in the dim warehouse light. "It's absolutely perfect, O'Heather, well done!"

The little blonde girl blushed with delight. "Thanks! I don't think I've ever made one with such a close deadline, but I'm glad it turned out well."

"It turned out wonderfully," Olive smiled, snapping the small box shut. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Ms. O!"

"I've got to get to an appointment now," she said, wiggling the box, "so I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, have a nice meeting!"

* * * * *

Oona held up one of the black leather jackets for Ms. O to examine. "Well, whaddya think?"

"Great work, Oona! I'm sure Olive and Otto will be happy," Ms. O said approvingly.

"Thanks! Olympia thought so too. At least, I think she did. She kinda just made pterodactyl noises and squealed something about her OTP dressing as her OTP. Which confused me, because Olive is dressed as Sandy, and obviously Otto isn't dressed like Danny Zuko. Danny would've been wearing a letterman's sweater. Still, I was a little afraid she was going to explode into a pile of glitter."

Ms. O cringed. "Yeeeaaahhh, I think this whole thing has been a shock to her system... Anyways, Oscar will be here in five minutes or so. He said he needed help picking out his costume."

"Oh, yeah! Olympia and I made a Pinterest board for him. He'll probably want you to help look through the pictures. Otto should be here soon to pick up his and Olive's outfits, so I should get going, too. See you at three o'clock to start getting ready?"

"Yep!"

* * * * *

Olive flipped the box in her hand as she walked down the corridor to the far boiler room. With a last glance at the object, she pocketed it and pushed the orange triangle in the center of the door. It slid open, and Oliver looked up with eager eyes as she entered.

"Hi, Ms. Olive!"

"Hi Oliver! Hey, look what I brought." Olive pulled out a lumpy gadget from behind her back. "Beanbag-chair-inator! That'll be a little better than the concrete, don't you think?"

Oliver jumped into the air and Olive fired the gadget, a beanbag materializing just before he hit the ground. The tan-skinned, sandy-haired boy grinned. "Much better. So, Ms. Olive, how did you do it? If you were born aaaaallllll the way back in the 1990s, how are you only 12?"

Olive chuckled. "Well, it's all in the badges."

"Like yours?" he asked, pointing at it.

"Actually," she replied, pulling the box from her pocket. "Like ours."

Oliver stared at the box wide-eyed.

"Go on, look inside."

The boy gingerly opened the lid and gaped at the badge within, a crisp number "81" printed in the middle. "This is for me?"

"Yep! Now, would you like to know how it works?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Well, if you look here..."

* * * * *

Otto shifted the bundle of clothing in his arms as he waited an eternity for the elevator to reach his floor. Finally the doors opened with a ding, and he began the long descent to basement level.

Why on earth is she having a meeting in the basement? There aren't any meeting rooms down... Oh.

Otto stepped out of the elevator and looked slowly around the corridor.

That's amazing, it's a perfect copy of 13579. Which means...

He cautiously crept forward and pressed his ear to the orange triangle door, barely able to make out what sounded like Olive's voice.

"Vous pouvez choisir l'une des trois options suivantes—"

Suddenly the door hissed open, throwing him and Olive's outfit ungracefully to the boiler room floor.

"Qu—I mean, what in the world? Otto?"

Otto jumped to his feet and dusted off his suit. "Just, uh, testing the shoulder activation feature on the door. You'll be happy to know that it's, uh, working fine."

Olive raised her eyebrows. "Good to know. Have you met my friend Oliver?"

The little boy scrambled from his beanbag chair to shake hands with Otto. "Bonjour, Monsieur O! Comment ça va?"

Otto looked helplessly at Olive, who rolled her eyes and spoke in a rapid stream of French to Oliver.

Oliver looked confused. "Vraiment?"

She sighed. "Oui, c'est la troisième fois cette semaine." Olive turned to Otto. "He said hello and asked how you were doing."

"Oh, I'm doing well. I think we met a few days ago, right? I gave you your headquarters tour."

"Yes, that is right!" Oliver confirmed in slightly uncomfortable English.

"I was just explaining how our badges work. Oliver has an important choice to make," Olive explained with a small smile. "Would you like to tell him his options?"

"Oh, sure! You have three choices: either you can keep aging normally and leave Odd Squad when you turn thirteen, stay the same age for as long as you have your badge, or age slowly until you're almost thirteen and decide what to do then."

Oliver bit his lip. "How slowly?"

"It's different for each person," Olive answered. "Usually about half as fast as normal."

Otto leaned towards the little boy. "Almost everyone chooses the third option. At least the first time through," he whispered with a wink.

Oliver looked between his Mr. and Ms. O with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Olive smiled at him reassuringly. "And don't worry, if you change your mind later, it's not permanent."

With a final bite of his lip, Oliver squeezed his eyes shut and thrust the badge towards Olive. "Nombre de trois."

Olive flicked the hidden switch and put the badge back in his hand. "Try it on."

With shaky hands, Oliver brought the badge to his chest. As it clicked into place, he drew a sharp breath. "Incroyable!"

Olive and Otto smiled.

Suddenly, Oliver ran to Olive and hugged her. "Merci, Mademoiselle Olive, merci beaucoup! And thank you, too, Mr. O!"

Olive hugged him back. "De rien, mon ami. You have a bright future, Oliver. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? Maintenance workers have one of the most important jobs at Odd Squad. Without you, nothing could run smoothly."

Otto tapped her shoulder. "Olive, we really do need to go now."

"Oh, right. Oliver, I have to tr—I mean, get back to work. I'll see you later!"

"Alright, a plus tard!" Oliver called as he bounced out the door, hand still on his badge.

Olive waited for the door to close, then elbowed Otto. Hard.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked, rubbing his arm.

"You have got to learn French, Otto! We work in Montréal! A lot of our agents and clients speak French. In fact 56% of everyone here is bilingual and about 67% prefer French. Besides, I can't always be here to translate. That's the third time this week."

"I know, I know! I'm working on it."

Olive raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, so I'm not exactly working on it. But I am listening to the French translations of Soundcheck's songs! You gotta give me points for that!"

Olive shook her head in defeat and picked her new leather jacket up off the floor. "Come on, I need to try on my outfit."

Otto zapped the beanbag chairs with an un-beanbag-chair-inator and helped her pick up the rest of her outfit. "Hey, Olive?"

"Yeah?" She took the last piece of clothing from his hands and started towards the door.

"Our boiler room, it wasn't always like this, was it?"

Olive stopped in her tracks, silent. She took a deep breath. "No. No it wasn't."

* * * * *

Oprah slammed an empty juice box onto her desk. "I have a half hour. Let's see the pictures."

"Heh, pictures? What am I, crazy? No, I made all of the outfits already," Oscar said, proudly ripping away his lab uniform to reveal a full 50s tux and tails.

"And you want to show me all of them? IN THE NEXT HALF HOUR?"

Oscar cringed. "Yeeeeeeesssss?"

Oprah smiled. "Okay, let's see 'em."

* * * * *

Otto looked at Olive out of the corner of his eye. "Oliver's changed a lot in the past few days. He barely said a word during the tour."

"Well, your first few days in a new place are always a little scary. He's probably getting settled in now."

"Probably." Otto leaned his head against the elevator wall. "That, and he found someone who's really good at making a kid feel welcome here."

Olive gave a little smile. "Well, I learned from some of the best."

They both were silent for a moment, then Otto looked at her with just a hint of a grin. "Yeah. I miss them all, too."

 * * * * *

Oprah sipped on a juice box as Oscar ripped away the twenty-seventh outfit. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. "That one."

Oscar tugged at the sweater. "Are you sure, Oprah? There's still a lot of outfits to—"

"Listen to me, Oscar. That. One."

"But why? It's just a black shirt, letterman's sweater, and jeans."

"Like Danny Zuko during the fair in Grease."

"Yeah?

"It's perfect, definitely that one."

"O-okay, heh! I guess I better go get ready and make sure Oswald can handle everything this evening." Oscar stepped into Oprah's private tube. "See you at six o'clock?"

"Yep, bye!" She watched as his green capsule shoomed off. Once it was out of sight, she stomped to her balcony. "OLYMPIA, OTIS, OONA, IN MY OFFICE! NOW!"

* * * * *

Olive looked at herself in the mirror. "This is probably the best costume I've ever had to wear."

Otto raised an eyebrow. "I dunno, your Kooky the Clown costume was pretty awesome."

"Ugh, don't remind me. I'm still finding rainbow hairs on everything."

Otto laughed. "Well, I guess this one is cool, too. Does Oona need to adjust anything?"

"Nope, it's perfect! Did you talk to Ms. O on the night shift to see if we can get off a little early?"

"Yup, it's all taken care of. We just have to get our paperwork in by 5:30."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get to work!"

* * * * *

At precisely three o'clock, the agents filed into Ms. O's office and watched shutters drop over the glass door.

"Okay people, we have three hours to showtime!" Ms. O said, pulling up a blueprint of the Club 24 on her screen. "There are four tube entrances around the club, two in front, one in back, and one on the side. Oscar and I will meet there, Olive and Otto will come together."

"But what if Olive and Otto use the same tube entrance as you and Oscar? Won't they see you?" Otis asked.

"Nope," Ms. O replied confidently.

Olympia furrowed her eyebrows. "How can you be so sure?"

Oona scrambled to her feet and turned to Ms. O. "May I?"

Ms. O held out her remote. "Be my guest."

Oona pressed a button, and a chart appeared on the screen. "This bar graph shows how many times Oscar has used each tube entrance at the Club 24. Whichever bar is highest is the entrance he uses most often and therefore—"

"The one he's most likely to use this time," Olympia finished.

"So if we want Olive to avoid accidentally running into him at the tubes, we should tell Otto to bring her through the tube entrance with the least amount of uses, or the shortest bar," Otis concluded.

"Right!" Ms. O affirmed.

Oona brushed her hair back as she leaned towards the graph. "So, as you can see here, the front south tube entrance has the highest bar, with ten uses. That means Oscar will probably use that entrance. The front north tube entrance and the back entrance are tied at four uses each, so Olive and Otto should go to the side entrance. It only has two uses."

Ms. O took back her remote, and the screen went dark. "Great, I'll call Otto. Well, what are you waiting for? Get dressed!"