The Unlikely Friendship of Olive and Larry

The Unlikely Friendship of Olive and Larry

Something Smells Fishy.

Quite literally, actually, but that is neither here nor there. It is the name of the café where I reside.

Something Smells Fishy is a small seafood restaurant perched on the edge of the harbour. Tourists come for sunsets and locals come to complain.

Nothing much changes around here.

Every Tuesday, the lady with the enormous yellow sun hat complains that there are too many prawns in her prawn pasta. The owner patiently explains that prawns are, in fact, the main ingredient. This discussion has continued weekly for the last three years.

The freckled waiter still feeds scraps to the seagulls, despite receiving stern warnings from management. The seagulls now recognise him. One of them, a particularly large fellow with a crooked beak, has learned to peck on the kitchen window whenever he feels underfed. The window has broken twice, the silly fool still hasn't learned.

The chef burns his garlic butter every afternoon, without fail. Rather than admitting defeat, he has rebranded it as a "charred, brown butter dish" and charges extra for it. Humans have an extraordinary talent for paying extra for anything with a fancy name.

How might I know all of this, you ask?

You see, I have had the prime seat in the café for the last three years. Right in the middle of the restaurant, between the dining tables. Close enough to hear every conversation and far enough that nobody notices me.

I am Olive. Not an actual olive, but in fact an oyster. I am Olive the Oyster, resident of the lobster tank at Something Smells Fishy Café.

How I ended up here is a rather unfortunate story, if I do say so myself. Like most oysters, I was born in the ocean. My childhood was not particularly adventurous.

Still, I had a dream. A simple dream, really. I wanted nothing more than to grow a pearl.

One moment I was peacefully attached to my favourite rock, growing a pearl. The next I was being hauled through the air in a net alongside several thousand very confused relatives. I was taken across the world and eventually found myself displayed on a bed of ice in a small harbour café.

Then something unusual happened. The waiter, the freckled one, noticed me. To this day, I have no idea what caught his attention. Perhaps I was smaller than the others. Perhaps I looked particularly miserable. Whatever the reason, he picked me up, squinted at me for a moment and then tossed me into the lobster tank. It could have been worse, I suppose. He could have fed me to the crooked-beak seagull.

I sank slowly through the water.

Past startled lobsters.

Past plastic seaweed.

Past a pirate ship missing half its sails.

Until eventually I reached the bottom and wedged myself into a narrow corner between a rock and a hard place, the tank glass.

And there I remained.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks turned into months.

Months became years.

I watched customers arrive and leave. I watched countless lobsters come and go.

It was easier to keep to myself. I stopped thinking about pearls. I stopped thinking about the ocean. I had nothing but time on my hands.

Then came Larry.

I noticed him immediately. He entered the tank as subtly as a shipwreck. Within ten minutes he had introduced himself to every lobster, knocked over the pirate ship, tangled himself in the plastic seaweed and somehow still had a spring in his step.

He marched directly over to my corner and introduced himself. I didn’t look at him when I uttered my name.

“Don’t be so crabby, Olive!”

I nearly choked. The insult. He should’ve known better, coming from a crustacean.

“You’re in the best place you can be. The ocean is in sight. An escape is imminent.”

And so Larry would come over to my corner of the tank daily. He spoke of the ocean and of his family. But mostly, he planned our escape.

These lobsters were on death row after all, but instead of being fed their last meal, they were the meal.

Ever the optimist, Larry woke up every morning and uttered: “Life’s better when you’re not in hot water, my friend.”

Of course, in my case it was hot sauce.

“Today is the day that you and I escape.”

One thing you should know about Larry, he would have been the main character in any story. He was confident, likeable and kind. Our chats slowly became the favourite part of my day.

For some odd reason that I still can’t quite understand, Larry chose me to be his best friend. Not just once, believe it or not.

I asked him once, “why me, Larry?” He looked confused.

“Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you, Olive? We might have different shells, but we come from the same sea.”

And so that day, I proudly but quietly accepted my new calling. Not to grow a pearl, but rather to be Larry’s sidekick.

He was hopeful, I was cynical.

He was confident, I was shy.

He was the risk-taker, I liked to play it safe.

He was everything a true hero of any story needed to be, and his story needed to continue.

This brings me back to Larry’s quest, the great escape.

If you think a lobster isn’t the cleverest of crustaceans, you are right. Dumbest critters on the ocean floor, one up on the self-important crabs of course.

Larry, on the other hand, was different.

He had surprised me with his carefully concocted, meticulously planned escape. One that was, in fact, entirely plausible. Take that for what it’s worth, coming from an eternal pessimist.

There was, of course, as with any good plan, one detrimental flaw. That flaw was Larry’s memory.

This wasn’t entirely Larry’s fault. He was the brightest of the bunch, I must give him credit for that. Rather, it is a lobster problem. Their memory lasts for about twelve hours.

So, as the sun set every evening over the ocean he so desperately wanted to escape to, Larry’s well-thought-out plan went down with it.

Every morning, Larry waddled over and introduced himself. He then started planning his escape, completely unaware that he had a fully working plan the day before.

An oyster, of course, never forgets a thing. Which puts me in a precarious position.

Naturally, I should’ve reminded him. Helped him refine the plan. The problem was that Larry was drawn to me in a way I could not explain and therefore chose me as his best friend daily. As a result, his plan always ended the same way: both of us reaching the ocean. Truthfully, I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life by his side. This, however, was impossible. A fact Larry remained blissfully unaware of.

There had been many mornings when I had considered telling him. Explaining why his plan could not work the way he imagined it.

But then he smiled and talked about the reefs he wanted to show me. So instead, I nodded.

I had tried convincing him to go on without me, using the excuse that the vast blue sea frightened me. A ridiculous notion, if you really think about it.

But he would have none of it.

"It's you and me forever, Olive! If you don't want to leave this tank, then I'll stay right here amongst the garlic butter with you."

That, of course, I could not bear. I had failed at my life’s purpose once before. I could not let it happen again. My only goal had become to help Larry into the sea, regardless of my own destiny.

And so, I kept quiet. I let him dream and draw up plans that included me, waiting for the day that I mustered enough courage to follow through.

However, the lobsters in the tank were getting fewer by the day, and I could not bear the thought of seeing Larry’s tail carried past on a dinner plate.

When Wednesday morning arrived, I knew the time had come.

I had until lunchtime to help Larry rediscover an escape plan he had already perfected countless times before.

The difference was that it had to happen much faster than usual. By the time the lunchtime rush arrived at the café, Larry needed to have perfected the plan.

Why not just tell him the plan, you might ask? Because it is the hero that comes up with the master plan in any story, isn’t it? Besides, I wasn’t going to take credit for a plan Larry had come up with countless times before.

I had to gently steer him back towards it, one conversation at a time, while allowing him to believe he had arrived there entirely on his own.

Larry came up with his escape plan a lot faster than usual. He even called it ‘The Great Lobster Liberation’, something I hadn’t heard before. Gosh, isn’t he wonderful.

The plan had to happen on a Wednesday, because on a Wednesday, calamari is half price. And on a Wednesday, the calamari kid, who had eaten one too many tubes, comes to dine at the café.

When Larry spotted him walking in, he rushed over to me.

“This is it, Olive! It’s go-time!” Larry whispered, careful not to alert the other lobsters. In a life in which I was robbed of so much of the ocean’s beauty, his friendship sure made up for it.

Larry picked me up carefully with his pincers and carried me over to the plastic pirate ship.

“Ready, kid? You’re in for a wild ride!”

He gently nudged me between the ship's wheel and the railing, making sure I couldn't slide overboard.

“See you on the other side, Olive!”

Of course, he would not. But how could I have possibly told him?

“See you on the other side, Larry! The world is your oyster!” I said, trying to sound far more light-hearted than I felt. No easy feat for a bitter mollusc such as myself.

Larry paused.

"No, Olive," he said. "The oyster is my world."

What a ridiculous thing to say. Naturally, it broke my heart.

And with that, our mission began.

Larry walked over to the glass of the fish tank. He started tapping with both pincers on the glass. This made a subtle sound, not loud enough for any of the guests to hear, but loud enough to spark the interest of the other lobsters in the tank.

As Larry predicted, all other lobsters curiously waddled over and started tapping on the glass. Imbeciles! Step one, complete.

Now, you might start to see the direction of Larry’s magnificent plan. You might also think tapping from a dozen lobsters could never break the tank’s glass. You are, in fact, right.

It did, however, make a loud enough sound to catch the attention of the calamari kid. Step two, complete.

The sight of a dozen lobsters tapping with their pincers made the calamari kid run over to the tank with his greasy fries and calamari tubes still squashed in his little fists. He dropped the food onto the floor by the tank and started tapping on the glass. Step three, complete.

Now you might think, one child’s tapping can’t be strong enough to break the tank’s glass. You are, in fact, right again.

His tapping did, however, leave ghastly grease marks and calamari crumbs all over the tank glass. I was appalled. A vulgar sight I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.

Eventually the calamari kid got bored and hurried back to his food at the table.

This, of course, opened the door for the final piece of the puzzle.

As soon as the kid left the tank, the seagull with the crooked beak sneaked into the restaurant. He started eating the fries and calamari left on the floor by the tank and then started pecking at the greasy marks and crumbs on the glass.

Now you might think one seagull’s pecking can’t be strong enough to break the tank’s glass. You are, in fact, wrong. The crooked beak of the greedy bird pecked along, harder and harder, trying to get every crumb on the tank. Step four, complete.

There was nothing left to do but wait.

Larry looked around one last time and winked at me. Everything he had predicted had happened.

I looked around the tank.

Three years in the same corner.

Three years watching the world through glass.

Three years believing my story had already ended.

“Operation Great Lobster Liberation is officially underway!” he screamed, and with that the tank cracked. Water started pouring from the tank. The crack grew larger, until the force of the water broke the glass in two.

Larry and the other lobsters went first. I followed in my plastic pirate ship. For a vessel missing half its sails and covered in algae, the pirate ship handled its maiden voyage surprisingly well.

We whooshed across the café floor in a river of murky tank water, past plastic seaweed, soggy fries and startled customers. In less than seven seconds, we had sailed through the open doorway and tumbled from the deck into the ocean below.

I could see him from afar.

He had never looked so happy.

And with that, my satisfied, but weary smile grew.

My mission was complete.

Larry could continue his dream in the vast, deep, blue sea. Changing lives, one crustacean at a time.

This, unfortunately, he would have to do without me.

For you see, I come from the opposite end of the world. Where the water is much warmer and more tropical.

I can’t survive in this cold water.

Of course, I knew this would happen. But my goal was never to survive. It was to help Larry survive.

I sank slowly into the freezing water and felt my breathing begin to slow. It was better for me now to go quickly. I didn’t want to see the distraught look on Larry’s face when he realised what his plan had done.

But I had thought this through. It was an easy sacrifice. I was his sidekick after all.

He will be heartbroken without me, but not for long. Twelve hours to be exact. Thereafter he can continue his life, the one he’s always dreamed about.

As it grew darker and I sank deeper still, I realised something.

I never grew a pearl.

But maybe, just maybe, I was the pearl.