Picfor1000 Fic
Title: Get Your Kicks
Author: attempt-unique
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Spoilers: general for the series
Pairing: None
Length: 1,000 words exactly
Summary: Olive sets out to get her blue bonnet trimmed, and ends up going on a road trip. Written for round 7 of the picfor1000 challenge.
Olive Snook looked out the road and began to hum. After a few moments, she forgot her company in the semi and began to sing: "Get your kicks on Route 66."
"Big voice for a little person," said Jane Deere, truck driver to the stars, "You making your way west to find your fortune?"
Olive started at the interruption, waving her hands about. She grimaced when they came in contact with the window with a smack. "No, I'm just going on a road trip."
"Without a car?"
The facts were these: Jane Deere has once been a child star in Hollywood, specializing in screaming in horror at monsters created by prop departments. When she became too old to play childish characters, her voice reduced to a growl by the constant screaming of her youth and face unfortunately scarred by a vicious case of acne, she parlayed her industry contacts into a growing business as a discreet truck driver, ferrying furniture and other objects for bi-coastal celebrities.
Her business in decline due to the speed of air power and the rise of reality television, Jane had been making one final trek across country when she spotted one Olive Snook standing with thumb stuck out, clutching a pink flowered hat box.
"It makes it more of an adventure that way!" exclaimed Olive, "the open road is really open that way." She drummed her fingers against the window. "I thought it would be romantic, me and my hatbox against the world."
This was a lie. The road trip she rhapsodized about had been so spur of the moment that all her hatbox contained was a hat. All she had actually planned to do that day was go to the home Mildred Montenegro, milliner, to have her blue bonnet fixed in time for the annual Blue Bonnet Gala.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at the home of Mildred Montenegro, milliner, she found the door open. When she walked into the beribboned workshop she found the Pie Maker standing above the very dead body of the hat maker, whose neck was all wrapped up in the trimmings she loved.
Olive watched aghast as the Pie Maker adjusted his watch before reaching down and touching the milliner's mortal remains, which were almost as blue as Olive's bonnet. Mildred sat up and began speaking.
Olive screamed, fainted, and dropped her hatbox.
When she woke up, she was being slapped in the face by one Emerson Cod, Private Eye.
This series of events was repeated several times as the Pie Maker explained that ever since he was a young boy, he could raise the dead with a touch, and return them to death with a second. He had been at the home of Mildred to ask her about a recent spate of milliner murders, only to find her one of them.
Olive Snook was unprepared to hear this. She grabbed her hatbox containing the fetching blue bonnet she had pictured herself wearing at the Blue Bonnet Gala, as the Pie Maker had once complimented her on it, without much prompting at all, and left the home of Mildred Montenegro, Milliner, without any idea where she wanted to go.
So it was that she was on the side of the road when she spotted the star spangled semi driven by Jane Deere and decided what she really wanted to do was get as far away as possible.
Riding in a big rig, however, left Olive with plenty of time to think. After considering the odd events she of that day, she decided she was still unprepared, unfortunately the idea, no matter how ridiculous was given credence by the life, and supposed death, of Lonely Tourist Charlotte Charles, also known as Chuck.
So to avoid thinking at all, she had begun humming.
When Jane Deere didn't deign to reply to her comment, the cab of the semi was once again filled with silence, leaving Olive with far too much room to think about things she really didn't want to think about.
She was happy then to hear her cellphone ring, and picked it up quickly.
After that, silence was not such an issue, because as soon as Olive flipped her phone open, Chuck began speaking at a fevered pace.
"Olive, Olive, I am so sorry about Mildred. When Ned told me she had died I remembered about your bonnet and how wonderful you found her trimmings to be. I had even wanted to have her make me a new hat, for the Blue Bonnet Gala, but of course that won't happen now, since she is dead.
I am too, dead. Though not really dead, because Ned brought me to life again, but still I died, and I thought that might be upsetting to you. Because we are friends. You know that Olive, and losing your friendship over being dead, something I can't really control, would be awful." Chuck panted into the phone, having talked her way out of breath.
Olive, startled by the outpouring of words, said the first thing on her mind. "Are you a zombie?"
On the other side of the semi's cab, Jane flicked her eyes over to Olive, and pointedly raised her eyebrow. Dying in so many horror films as a child had given her opinions about zombies.
"I don't feel like a zombie, I actually feel more alive than I did before I was dead. Also, I think if I were a zombie I would want to eat brains, and I really don't want to eat brains. So if you were worried about me eating your brains, you don't need to." Olive actually was relieved by that. "And Digby and Pigby both miss you terribly. Are you coming home?"
Olive thought about the Pie Maker, and Chuck being dead, but not really dead. She thought about her hat, and the milliner who would never be able to trim it. She thought about Emerson Cod and the Pie Maker, searching for the malicious murderer of milliners.
"Yes."
Inspiration:
Author: attempt-unique
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Spoilers: general for the series
Pairing: None
Length: 1,000 words exactly
Summary: Olive sets out to get her blue bonnet trimmed, and ends up going on a road trip. Written for round 7 of the picfor1000 challenge.
Olive Snook looked out the road and began to hum. After a few moments, she forgot her company in the semi and began to sing: "Get your kicks on Route 66."
"Big voice for a little person," said Jane Deere, truck driver to the stars, "You making your way west to find your fortune?"
Olive started at the interruption, waving her hands about. She grimaced when they came in contact with the window with a smack. "No, I'm just going on a road trip."
"Without a car?"
The facts were these: Jane Deere has once been a child star in Hollywood, specializing in screaming in horror at monsters created by prop departments. When she became too old to play childish characters, her voice reduced to a growl by the constant screaming of her youth and face unfortunately scarred by a vicious case of acne, she parlayed her industry contacts into a growing business as a discreet truck driver, ferrying furniture and other objects for bi-coastal celebrities.
Her business in decline due to the speed of air power and the rise of reality television, Jane had been making one final trek across country when she spotted one Olive Snook standing with thumb stuck out, clutching a pink flowered hat box.
"It makes it more of an adventure that way!" exclaimed Olive, "the open road is really open that way." She drummed her fingers against the window. "I thought it would be romantic, me and my hatbox against the world."
This was a lie. The road trip she rhapsodized about had been so spur of the moment that all her hatbox contained was a hat. All she had actually planned to do that day was go to the home Mildred Montenegro, milliner, to have her blue bonnet fixed in time for the annual Blue Bonnet Gala.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at the home of Mildred Montenegro, milliner, she found the door open. When she walked into the beribboned workshop she found the Pie Maker standing above the very dead body of the hat maker, whose neck was all wrapped up in the trimmings she loved.
Olive watched aghast as the Pie Maker adjusted his watch before reaching down and touching the milliner's mortal remains, which were almost as blue as Olive's bonnet. Mildred sat up and began speaking.
Olive screamed, fainted, and dropped her hatbox.
When she woke up, she was being slapped in the face by one Emerson Cod, Private Eye.
This series of events was repeated several times as the Pie Maker explained that ever since he was a young boy, he could raise the dead with a touch, and return them to death with a second. He had been at the home of Mildred to ask her about a recent spate of milliner murders, only to find her one of them.
Olive Snook was unprepared to hear this. She grabbed her hatbox containing the fetching blue bonnet she had pictured herself wearing at the Blue Bonnet Gala, as the Pie Maker had once complimented her on it, without much prompting at all, and left the home of Mildred Montenegro, Milliner, without any idea where she wanted to go.
So it was that she was on the side of the road when she spotted the star spangled semi driven by Jane Deere and decided what she really wanted to do was get as far away as possible.
Riding in a big rig, however, left Olive with plenty of time to think. After considering the odd events she of that day, she decided she was still unprepared, unfortunately the idea, no matter how ridiculous was given credence by the life, and supposed death, of Lonely Tourist Charlotte Charles, also known as Chuck.
So to avoid thinking at all, she had begun humming.
When Jane Deere didn't deign to reply to her comment, the cab of the semi was once again filled with silence, leaving Olive with far too much room to think about things she really didn't want to think about.
She was happy then to hear her cellphone ring, and picked it up quickly.
After that, silence was not such an issue, because as soon as Olive flipped her phone open, Chuck began speaking at a fevered pace.
"Olive, Olive, I am so sorry about Mildred. When Ned told me she had died I remembered about your bonnet and how wonderful you found her trimmings to be. I had even wanted to have her make me a new hat, for the Blue Bonnet Gala, but of course that won't happen now, since she is dead.
I am too, dead. Though not really dead, because Ned brought me to life again, but still I died, and I thought that might be upsetting to you. Because we are friends. You know that Olive, and losing your friendship over being dead, something I can't really control, would be awful." Chuck panted into the phone, having talked her way out of breath.
Olive, startled by the outpouring of words, said the first thing on her mind. "Are you a zombie?"
On the other side of the semi's cab, Jane flicked her eyes over to Olive, and pointedly raised her eyebrow. Dying in so many horror films as a child had given her opinions about zombies.
"I don't feel like a zombie, I actually feel more alive than I did before I was dead. Also, I think if I were a zombie I would want to eat brains, and I really don't want to eat brains. So if you were worried about me eating your brains, you don't need to." Olive actually was relieved by that. "And Digby and Pigby both miss you terribly. Are you coming home?"
Olive thought about the Pie Maker, and Chuck being dead, but not really dead. She thought about her hat, and the milliner who would never be able to trim it. She thought about Emerson Cod and the Pie Maker, searching for the malicious murderer of milliners.
"Yes."
Inspiration: