All That Glitters: A comedic spy adventure

Release Date: 13 April 2026

Click to Buy the Ebook at the eRetailers of Your Choice

Elaine is just an average young woman. If you ignore the wealth she inherited when her family died in an accident and the greenhouse holding a talkative yellow (read: golden) flamingo with a flair for drama and theatrics. She's living a completely normal life. Clearly.

Until the stormy night a talking aye-aye in a bomber jacket breaks into her house and drags her along into a world of spies and evil scientists attempting to take over the world. And her best friend is in danger.

All That Glitters is a novella full of glorious nonsense and amusement as Elaine tries to deal with a world in which animals talk, her best friend has been kidnapped and life isn't what she always believed it to be.

Tags: This book contains warnings for:

• Parental death (discussed)
• Animal torment (implied)
• Major character death (implied)

Excerpt

"You what?!" Goldie's head shot up, making Elaine wince. The yellow flamingo's neck was stretched to an unnaturally straight rigidity and she had to strain her own to look up at him.

"I thought it'd cheer you up."

"Hmph," the flamingo remarked and turned back to the water to feed. Elaine had had a whole greenhouse enclosure built just for him. Well, and a little for her. She didn't like Gestu's dreary rain and wet cold except for that one month a year. A greenhouse was warm and she could fill it with blooming plants all year long. At the centre lay a massive lagoon, surrounded by a comfortably sized lawn so she and Goldie could spend time together in comfort. She'd also made sure there were plenty of mudflats and water, interspersed with tropical trees in small copses. And, of course, the giant white wall with a screen projector to one side, so they could both indulge in their bingewatching whenever they wanted.

"You've always wanted to be a star." It wasn't like he talked about it sunrise to sunset if she didn't distract him. Oh, Goldie hammed up the dramatics tremendously, but she'd always seen how much he cared. It wasn't exactly his fault that he couldn't go out into society without becoming a scientific specimen and that what he was would, in the eyes of the world, overshadow who.

"I've had my share of fame, thank you." Goldie said it in between the filtering of water. The effort of parsing his words meant they stung Elaine less than they could have. She'd expected discussions on plagiarism and ownership, to have to draw her friend sharing his stories with the world instead of just her.

"So sayeth the ever-attention-demanding flamingo?" she teased without expecting a reply. Goldie had shown up in her bedroom the night her family had died, full of stories and a love of theatrics. He'd hidden when the police came, when security escorted unscrupulous reporters off the estate. But he'd told her stories about adventures he'd been on with his long-suffering companion, a capercaillie named Angus. She'd grown up with a history of a golden flamingo getting himself into outrageous, and not always dangerous, situations only for his friend to rescue him. She'd have worried he was just a figment of an overimaginative brain, but Goldie had never hid from the staff her father had hired, only strangers and outsiders.

And, in those months after she'd learned her last family had died, Goldie had never been far. Not even when he'd had to hide. He'd always been there with a wing or his neck to wrap around her when she cried. He'd sneaked her into the kitchen to abscond with biscuits, only to stumble into pots and pans with a loud clatter. He'd introduced her to musicals, serenaded her with the latest pop songs in his off-key screaming. He'd kept her company while she did her homework, talked her through her fashion choices when she'd been a teenager and had wanted to try partying and dating. He'd preened her hair the handful of times she'd been into a someone and the feeling hadn't been mutual. He'd done his best to support her when she'd gone for a one-night-stand attempt and come back in tears because she could not. Though admittedly his best in that case had been to get the housekeeper to ask Thomas over to sit her down and explain a few things about sexuality and romance and the absolute crime that was compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity.

Elaine just wanted Goldie to be loved as much as he deserved to be loved. She let herself fall back onto the grass, tucking her hands under her head and stared up at the clouds visible through the great glass dome. White and fluffy, stark against the darkening sky of an early autumn evening. One. Two. She yawned. Goldie had a story about thwarting a mad scientist's plot to turn rainclouds into mercury by accidentally transforming the clouds into rainbow-coloured, talking masks.

"What're they called?" she asked. He'd given them a name, but she'd forgotten.

"Clouds."

"You've become a grouch in your old age, you know that?"

"Let me."

Elaine kept her eyes on the clouds. If she shifted or moved to look at her friend, she'd just see him standing despondently in the water. Or worse: grumpily. She'd hoped so badly that a chance to see his stories come to life would've cheered Goldie up that she hadn't even considered what she'd do if he didn't agree. "Do you want to hear a story about the tinkerer who rescued a prince?" she asked, eyes firmly trained on the sky.

"No."

"What if you star in it?" Because that story had been one of her own inventions for the script. It'd cost a fortune to make Goldie look convincingly like a puppet, but she trusted Jordan could make it work if she asked.

"I said 'no'."

Elaine fell silent again. Goldie made no attempt to talk to her and she wasn't sure what to do other than spend the night in the greenhouse, be a presence when her friend wanted it, a quiet reassurance he wasn't alone. Unless he told her to leave, but Goldie never had before.

But then perhaps she was the one who needed a sleepover and companionship. The past months she'd done nothing but work at the manuscript she'd presented . She'd practically slept in her office. Maybe that was the problem: flamingos were social creatures and Goldie had no one but her and the staff.

Watching Goldie sifting his bill through the water, she sighed. Perhaps she should see about setting up a small office area in the dome and work here. It couldn't hurt, surely. Or perhaps Goldie needed to get out, do something new. The greenhouse was huge, but it was the only place he could safety be. "Hey, Goldie?" she said eventually. "What about a change of scenery?"

Silence. Just when she wanted to ask again, Goldie said, "Sounds different."

Elaine didn't look over. He hadn't sounded grumpy or dismissive. She took a chance and tinged her voice with a hint of amusement. "What kind of answer is that?"

"A logical one." That sounded like Goldie. Like the drawl she was used to hearing in his responses.

"Since when are you logical?"

The lack of answer didn’t worry her. Much. Goldie had always had his moments of silence and she’d always been bad at predicting them. She screamed when he flew over her, though. She probably should have heard the rustle of his wings — or at least the movement in the water — but she hadn’t. And in all the years they’d been friends, she’d never seen Goldie fly. It looked oddly majestic, awkward yet beautifully elegant. And impossibly lonely.

“I’m a glow-in-the-dark, yellow flamingo!” Goldie cried when he reached above the tree tops. He circled the dome, and Elaine thought she really ought to have made the building even bigger. It wasn't like she didn't have the space. “I’m allowed to be logical for the sheer reason that there’s otherwise nothing logical about me!”

The flamingo’s laugh was a deep, gruff sound. Even after all these years the strangeness of it settled uncomfortably in Elaine’s stomach, but she hadn’t heard him laugh like this in so long and she couldn’t help joining as she spun around along with him even as it made her dizzy and nauseous. Goldie was right. There was absolutely nothing logical about him. “And that’s just the way I like you!” she called up.

“It’s going to rain,” the flamingo called down. “Rain, rain, rain!” He fluttered, insofar as a large flamingo can, about the greenhouse. Elaine knew better than to assume he was genuinely upset. Night darkness obscured the clouds gathering, but Elaine trusted Goldie's instincts for the weather over her own. Hers were rubbish.

Goldie moved from fluttering to aerial bird acrobatics, singing something about storms and battles. Elaine hugged herself. As much as her friend loved acting like a dramatic fool, there was only ever one reason he acted that way about the weather.

"Get down here!" Elaine called out. If they hurried, they could still make it into the main house before the lightning started. She'd be safely inside, where she could close all the windows and pretend the weather was clear and calm.

Goldie didn't listen to her, though. He was singing at the top of his lungs, faster and faster until his voice sounded more like a bird's wordless noise than Elaine was prepared for. He'd never, ever, sounded like the bird he was. "Goldie!"

The first flash of lightining made her jump with a squeak. The thunder came in seconds later. Goldie was so far up. The greenhouse would keep them safe, she'd made sure of that, but even so. "Do you want us to be stuck here all night?" she called up. She didn't. There wasn't anywhere in the dome that she could hide from the thunderstorm. But the walkway to the house only had a roof and she didn't particularly want to walk through it in a storm either.

Goldie only began to sing a new song. Loudly.

"Cut it out!" she cried when another crash of thunder sounded like it wanted revenge for not being on the solarplane with her father and grandmother over a decade ago. "This isn't a time for antic!" She didn't look up. Couldn't. She kept her eyes fiirmly focused on a bit of dome that was more tree than visible glass.

As such, she screamed when a muffled voice behind her said "You forgot something?" She hadn't noticed Goldie land. And she wasn't entirely sure that was what he'd said. He'd been speaking around a golden chain in his mouth and she'd been too busy trying to calm her heartbeat to parse as well as she might've otherwise.

Instead of responding, she started to push the flamingo in the general direction of the door. The next flash saw her throw her arms around his long, slender neck. Goldie wrapped a wing around her and finally, finally, began to move with her towards the exit. He was an impossibility that shouldn't exist, but he was her family. She wasn't alone.

Elaine let the bird ruffle her hair with his beak. She didn't protest when cold metal touched her neck. She just wanted to get into the main house and solid, opaque walls as soon as possible. Stay as dry as possible and then hide away in the cellar.

Wind and rain blew past them, though Goldie's body shielded at least some of Elaine from the cold and wet. She stuck as close to her friend as she could manage, trying not to huddle. Partway down the covered path, she couldn't take hearing nothing but the wind and thunder anymore. "How would you feel if I said we should see if there are more yellow flamingos out there?" She'd asked him every so often over the years. His refusal didn't surprise her anymore.

"Hurt. I'm unique. That makes me special. I don't want to lose that." The flatness in his voice spoke volumes. No matter what or when she'd asked, Goldie always made the rejection into a joke or something that they could both laugh at. He'd never sounded sincere. Would he truly be that hurt not to be so alone? Perhaps she should've looked, with or without his approval, a long time ago. Abruptly, she stopped. She should have. He'd always had excuses or reasons why it was a terrible idea. And they were never any better than the lie he'd just told.

"You all right?" Goldie pressed his head against her cheek lightly a moment. He moved his wing so she was no longer enveloped in feathers and warmth. Her tank top was soon as soaked as the rest of her.

"I'm fine," she said. Lightning struck distressingly close. Elaine started moving again at a brisk walk.

"Mhm."

"Let's go travelling," she blurted out. "You deserve to be with some flamingo just as special. So what if you're not the only yellow flamingo in the world? You'll always be unique and special."

Goldie kept pace beside her easily, his steps stately beside her attempt to keep some semblance of control over her movements. The walkway illumination wasn't that strong. It was designed to provide as little light pollution as possible whilst still ensuring no one would walk face-first into one of the columns holding up the roof.

"You're just as special. Why do you have to look for something that doesn't exist."

He didn't know that. He couldn't. "Stubborn perseverance. Restlessness? I don't know..." Elaine just wanted to do something useful. She knew how old normal flamingos could get. She had no idea how old a sentient, talking, yellow flamingo could get. She couldn't bear it if somehow Goldie outlived her and he was left all alone.

Goldie's only reaction was to stop walking. It took Elaine a few paces to notice. When she looked back at him, he looked miserable. Perhaps it was her turn to be silly and theatrical and cheer him up, but she'd never been comfortable with acting. She forced a giggle. It came out high-pitched and something more akin to a hurt mouse, but she didn't let that stop her. "How soaked am I?" She'd never been particularly good at being silly either.

Goldie glanced around and stretched his neck to nudge her in the side. "Just about as much as the clouds above, I imagine." He shook himself in a poor imitation of a dog ridding its fur of water. He didn't even need it and just made Elaine even wetter. She tried to follow his example, even as another bolt struck further into the distance. "That's hardly going to help if you do it in the rain." He honked deeply at her and threw his long, long neck back in utter indignation. "You poor thing," he continued. "Oh, you precious, darling child, don't catch your death!"

"Oh, shut up." She said it more out of habit than out of any real desire to quiet her friend. She knew where this went, even if he wouldn't fly outside the dome. Sure enough, the flamingo was already wiggling and hop-skipping around the covered path. It was only moments before he was dancing outside, getting wet and ignoring the streaks of light and rolling of thunder still in the sky. His voice drowned out some of the noise as he began to sing.

"You know you're not immune to water!" Elaine called out to him, staying very firmly put in the middle of the path. Goldie took no notice and kept up his dancing, managing a swing around one of the columns and spraying her with more water as he twirled.

After an indignant squeak, Elaine began to laugh. The garden outside was as carefully unkempt as her gardeners could keep it, rocks and ferns and other such plants carefully placed to create a sense of wild growth. Goldie was stepping around them all with ease. All he needed was a top hat. Perhaps a tie for good measure.

With the lightning, the will-o-wisp lights of the walkway and the luminescence of Goldie's feathers the only true sources of light, the flamingo looked... breathtaking. Ethereal. He looked like he was having the time of his life. She caught herself the second step away from the walkway. "It's gorgeous," she whispered and spun around slowly. Before her father's plane had disappeared, Elaine had loved sitting in his lap, watching storms. Goldie danced about the rock and ferns and shrubs like a fairy. The plants silhouetted against the glow like foreboding miniature regiments, eyeless and like a group of fuzzy void creatures just looking for a hug. She filed the thought away for later. Marketing would adore them if she could find a good project to fit them in.

"Let's get you inside before you catch a cold." Goldie appeared beside her, nudging her between the shoulder blades with his head. She'd always flowed along when he did, even now still fearful she'd break his neck if she didn't, and moved towards the middle of the walkway and the house once again. "Don't want to have to deal with a sick human," Goldie continued. "Did enough of that when you were younger. 's a waste of my talents."

He really should not be able to preen while he walked, Elaine thought, but he could and did. "Or," she countered, "you could view it as a chance to show me just why you're the best and more amazing nurse in the whole world."

He did have a point, though. Elaine loathed being ill and she certainly didn't want to catch a cold. Those were terribly annoying. She resumed the brisk almost-run she'd started with. The sooner they got inside, the sooner she could wrap herself in something warm and fluffy.