Stumbling into Mischief

Two

A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

It was a hot summer morning - a few minutes past nine. Richard had been sitting at his desk for two hours, bored, and had spent precisely twenty two minutes carefully lining up four pencils. He enjoyed lining up pencils. He enjoyed lining things up in general. It calmed him. When all went wrong in life, he could always hide away from the world and tidy his desk.

The office was unusually quiet. It was rather peaceful, with the sun shining in through the window, giving the room a refreshing glow.

Feeling quite pleased with himself, Richard slowly placed the final pencil down; making sure it was perfectly in line with the others, which was made more challenging by his shaky hand.

It was flawless.

However, nothing ever actually went that well for Richard.

Seconds after the fourth and final pencil was placed on the desk, the door suddenly swung open. The somewhat violent swing produced a gust of wind which glided across the room, and as anticipated, Richard watched his immaculate line of pencils turn into a pile of chaos. He sat staring at them for a moment, before, very slowly, glaring up to discover who the perpetrator of this appalling crime was.

It was, of course, his new colleague Clare Brent.

The whole concept of working with someone - sharing an office with someone - was turning out to be quite a challenge for Richard. When Richard had the office to himself, all he needed to think about was his own belongings. He could control his own belongings. However, having another, less orderly, individual suddenly thrown in created a problem.

Richard's new colleague was practically his complete opposite. So far he'd identified that Clare was extremely laid back, disorganised and incredibly untidy. Her desk looked like it had been the victim of some kind of bombing, covered in balls of scrunched up paper and empty mugs that once detained tea and coffee. He had also learnt that Clare was awfully cheerful and jolly, which sometimes confused him as he wasn't the best at understanding social expressions.

Richard had nothing against Clare personally. Not really. He was just angry about having to share his office. It was basically his home. He spent more time there than he did at his own house.

It just didn't make sense. No rational human would force two detectives with such differences to work together, especially when one of them had problems like Richard did. But then again, his boss wasn't exactly rational. He probably did it out of spite, as he seemed to dislike Richard - like everyone else Richard worked with.

Apparently, Richard was hard to get along with, although he could never quite understand why. He was a harmless, very intelligent man and a great detective. He just found the social side of life quite difficult. Socially, he was an idiot. That's why he generally liked to do things alone. That way, he couldn't upset anyone.

"Good morning Richard!" Clare called as she strolled in, with a bright, radiant smile upon her lips. For a split second all of Richard's worries seemed to disappear, as he sat watching her, admiring the beauty of this strange, happy woman creature standing before him.

But this feeling abruptly came to an end as he caught a glimpse of his ruined line of pencils in the corner of his eye. He dragged his gaze fully down to them, saddened that he had wasted twenty two minutes on them all for nothing, and then grabbed one to fiddle with in sorrow. And, although he'd never admit it, to help calm the nerves that were created by having a woman present in the room. Fiddling seemed to be one of his nervous things.

"How are you today?" Clare asked, as she made her way to her shipwreck desk on the other side of their rather small office. Too small for two, Richard personally thought.

"Well I was fine before you turned up and destroyed-"

"Oh! And now I'm here, you're even better? Well that's very sweet of you Richard."

Richard glanced up at her again. He gathered it was supposed to be a joke as she was grinning.

Clare continued. "And how are your balls today?"

"Balls?"

"Last night you hit your... Remember?" She had a childish smirk.

Richard glared at her, and sighed dramatically, deciding not to reply. He looked back down at his pencils.

"Ah. I know why you're grumpy. This is about your pen."

Richard shot his stare back up at her, dropping the pencil he was holding. "What pen?"

"I borrowed one of your pens last night." She said. "Sorry. I must have forgotten to tell you."

"What?" Richard frowned, opening the top drawer of his desk to confirm this statement.

One... Two... Three. Only three pens.One was indeed missing.

"It was just lying on your desk looking lonely... So I helped it out." Clare giggled.

Richard looked back over at her. She was rummaging through her bag.

"Pens do not get lonely, Clare!"

"I was just borrowing it!"

"It's not borrowing if you don't give it back." Richard muttered.

"I am going to give it back, Richard. I'm looking for it." She replied, with a slightly uncertain expression. "It's just... Well it's hard to find things in this bag sometimes."

"This is my pen we're talking about!"

"Shh! It's just a pen. Not the end of the world."

Richard had a peculiar anger building up inside. It wasn't like his usual frustration he gets when someone does something irritating - it was a feeling he hadn't felt before. But whatever it was, he couldn't control it. Poor Clare hadn't really done anything wrong, but she was going to get it.

He stood up. "Right, that's it."

He was a man with a plan.

Richard grabbed the roll of tape from his drawer and walked to the door. He bent down and stuck the beginning of the tape on the ground directly in the middle of the door, before standing up and beginning to slowly walk, unravelling the tape behind and pressing it down with his foot on the floor as he did. Once he reached the window on the other side of the office, he ripped the tape and pressed the last bit down on the floor below the window.

The office was now equally separated by the tape into two halves, a desk on each side.

"Right!" Richard began, stepping over the line of tape to his desk and gesturing to the side of the room he was standing on. "This is my side of the room." He said, before pointing to the other side of the tape. "That is yours. And this..." He pointed to the line of tape. "You shall not cross this line to my side, and I shall not cross it to yours. Deal?"

There was silence. Clare was staring at Richard with a smile, giggling slightly.

Richard stared back, but without the grin. "What's so funny? Please tell me, I'd really love to know."

"You." Clare said. "Are you angry?"

He was somewhat confused by her reaction. "Well, yes... Quite."

"I like your angry. It's a nice angry." She replied with a smile, before simply nodding, "Deal."

Richard nodded too, quite stunned, with no clue how to reply. He continued to nod for a moment, and then, avoiding any more eye contact, quickly turned and went back to his desk.

They continued to work in silence. Richard began to feel guilty about his previous overreaction - Clare had a strange innocence about her. Besides, she hadn't really done anything wrong.

Richard began to stare at her, unconsciously. She was very pretty; with a warm face, beautiful brown eyes, and golden curls that sat perfectly on her shoulders.

He started to think about what she had said - what she'd meant by 'I like your angry. It's a nice angry.' His detective instinct was making him want to understand, but understanding women wasn't his forte.

So he pushed the thought aside and got on with his paperwork.