Isobel Asks The Internet

XXVI - The Collusion

Our worst enemy has entered into a dangerous partnership! What should we do?

Hey everyone!

So, the other day I was sitting in Mavis's memorial garden, eating lunch with Heini and Katie. We were discussing the best strategy for the upcoming legal case that was about to filed against the newspaper society by Winona (the ex-president who was ousted in an election by Katie). All of a sudden, we saw Mallory galloping towards us from the other side of the quad; she was looking alarmingly frantic. She panted for seven minutes (she had run from a different university campus on the other side of town) before telling us something SO shocking. 

What happened was, Mallory was doing some modelling for the typography society who had just invented a new font, and were doing a photoshoot to promote it. Mallory is one of the most beautiful people in town, so they hired her and got her to wear a white blouse and a pencil skirt (and heels!), and pose with office supplies such as staplers and ink cartridges. Basically, they wanted to give the impression that this font is for people who are SERIOUS about business (I'm thinking about using it). So anyway, once she left she decided to grab a nitrogenated cold-brew at a coffee shop near the restaurant she works at. 

Once she had got her coffee and was walking towards the exit, she felt the chills of unease permeate her flesh (and it wasn't from the liquid nitrogen). She stopped in her tracks, and looked around the coffee shop, and to her dread saw Brindie sitting at a table with another girl. Although Mallory knew that lingering in the situation would endanger her health and wellbeing, she knew that it was of paramount importance to find out who Brindie was sharing a hot beverage with. Because she was wearing a white blouse and a skirt, she grabbed an apron and a serving tray and looked like a waitress, which gave her an excuse to walk around and clean tables without being noticed! Mallory was able to get SO close to Brindie's table without her noticing, and she discovered that the other person on the table was a girl from our university called Fumiko. 

My heart plunged several centimetres after hearing this.

Fumiko was the most unhinged student at the university by far. Once, she broke into a bakery on campus and mixed COCAINE into the flour which caused loads of students to have allergic reactions; one girl almost died after having a slice of birthday cake (she had just turned 20). Another time, she drunk an entire bottle of sambuca during a morning lecture and threw up on the girl sitting in front of her not long after going to a buffet. Most recently, she brought an axe into the library and was being very disrespectful to everyone trying to work (you're supposed to be silent in there). After this incident, the university decided to kick her out, but while they were processing her expulsion she won SUCH a prestigious international poetry competition, so they changed their mind. Plus, her parents are the joint heads of a huge refrigeration conglomerate and they donate so much money to the university, which means that she can basically do whatever she wants. 

While this news was almost certainly a disturbing omen of doom, it did line up with current events. Yesterday, Zelda-Mae had told us all about the unexpected fate which had befallen her estranged sister Debra. 

Basically, Debra had been PREGNANT but she didn't even know about it! In my mind, this made sense as she had been suffering from a significant amount of nausea around seven months ago (before the death of Mavis, when we were still friends). When she consulted a physician, they told her that it was actually because of an undiagnosed intolerance to gluten. On top of this, the foetus was tucked beneath her abdominal muscles, so she didn't show at all. She only found out when her waters broke while she was giving a presentation for one of her courses (she was given a zero for disrupting the class). 

Debra was in labour for 36 hours, and she eventually gave birth to a baby girl who she was so happy with. She wanted to make sure she gave her SUCH a beautiful and meaningful name so she called her Colleen. However, the next day when Debra woke up she looked at Colleen and did not want to be around her at all and the very sight of her baby filled her with nausea. This went on for a few more days, and Debra was getting more and more unstable so eventually she just put Colleen up for adoption. She thought that this would fix the issue, but she went kind of crazy and ripped out all of the asbestos from her loft. 

Debra's parents were quite worried about her behaviour, but luckily they knew EXACTLY what to do to deal with her emotional instability. Their next door neighbour had a daughter who lapsed into a psychotic meltdown after her scented mood ring business went into administration. They knew that they couldn't deal with her behaviour, so they sent her to this therapeutic retreat compound in the Swiss Alps where EVERYONE has to wear long white smocks and they shave your head. They also grow all of the food themselves and refuse to import anything so everyone who lives there is so healthy. The neighbours told Debra's parents about this, and they thought it would be a great idea to send her there as well (especially as there would be someone familiar there). So that's where Debra's at right now. 

I was SO happy to hear that Debra is out of the picture, but finding out that Brindie had replaced her with Fumiko (who is at least five times as dangerous) instantly transformed my joy into horror. Fumiko does not care about the death of Mavis, but she is an agent of chaos for whom Brindie is planning on using as a weapon against us! 

So anyway, we were all sitting there thinking about the dangerous situation we had found ourselves in, when I suddenly remembered that I was meant to go to a honey-tasting at a local bee farm that afternoon! I was looking for a new supplier of locally-produced honey to sell at the supermarket as the last beekeeper I had partnered with was recently charged with falsification of parking documents and taken into custody. I decided that it would be a great idea to take Heini, Katie and Mallory with me too so they could help me pick!

As soon as we got to the reception of the bee farm, we were greeted by a chirpy, middle-aged lady who told us that her name was Joan. I told Joan that I was the part-time head manager of a local supermarket while studying for a degree in physics, and that my associates and I were here to sample the honeys; Joan opened a latch in the wall and screamed at someone to bring out some honey. While we were waiting, Joan told us that she was SEVERELY allergic to bee stings, but the farm was the only place that would employ her with a criminal conviction for trespassing on a landfill site. Thankfully the samples honey came out soon afterwards.

There were four types of honey for us to try; regular, lemon, jasmine and horseradish. They laid out four brittle plastic sampling spoons for us, however we spurned these in favour of the varnished mahogany enamel dippers that I had commissioned specifically for this occasion. We tried the regular honey first, moved on to lemon and then to horseradish; they were all adequate. We were advancing on the jasmine, when an unknown woman (who's name badge said 'Therese') slammed through the door, SCREAMING at Joan that one of the beehives had been compromised and she needed to come and help contain the situation. Joan asked why the beekeepers weren't handling the situation and Therese told her that they were missing (omfg). 

As Joan sprinted towards the hive areas, we decided that it was time to sample the jasmine honey. We soon discovered that it was the worst of the four options; we were all RETCHING for three minutes after the offending substance had touched our tongues. After the bile had subsided, we left. On our way to the car park, we were rendered in shock to see Joan slumped against a tree, however she had looked quite tired during the honey tasting, and bright sunlight can make some people sleepy, so we surmised that she was fine. A couple of minutes later, my eyes lingered on something that filled me with an equivalent amount of disgust as the jasmine honey; Brindie and Fumiko! 

Our enemies were getting into a car, and preparing a drive away from the chaos that they had (undoubtedly) unleashed. There didn't seem like much we could do here, so I thought it would be best to let them drive off and fight the battle another day. Heini, however, had other ideas and THREW a jar of jasmine honey through Brindie's windshield. It broke on their dashboard and splattered them. Brindie was so disgusted that she had to stop the car to dry heave, however Fumiko didn't seem particularly phased. We decided that this was enough to show them not to mess with us, and so we drove home.

Anyway, we heard from the local news that Joan is in hospital (from sunstroke, I presume) and the bee farm fired her for some reason! Also all of the beekeepers were found in a maintenance closet after overdosing on cocaine! They all survived but everyone is in hospital, and Therese is working at the farm by herself.

HELP! What should we do about Brindie and Fumiko? Should I offer Joan a job at the supermarket? Should I go back to my old supplier of honey?