I hadn't even meant anything by it, that day in Dymocks. I was over by crime section, trying to figure out where they'd moved the general fiction and I overheard someone talking about Operation Ivy.

I stood there for maybe two minutes, listening to them talk about it, before I busted in with, "Hey, are you talking about Operation Ivy?"

The guy ignored me, but the girl -- maybe half an inch shorter than him, with bright red hair -- stared at me. "Yeah," she said, as if it wasn't the strangest thing in the world for a total stranger to break in on her private conversation, "Why?"

And that was how I met Abbi.