Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets

The Pizza Monster by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat, 1989.

Olivia lives in a penthouse in San Francisco with her chauffer, Willie, and her housekeeper, Mrs. Fridgeflake. Her wealthy parents live there, too, but they are often traveling and are rarely home. When her best friend, Taffy, moves away, Olivia is lonely. She buys herself a pet owl named Hoot, but that still doesn’t completely help.  She needs something to help keep herself busy. Olivia realizes that she is good at keeping secrets and at helping people with their problems, so she decides to busy herself running a service to help people with their secret problems. She has a bunch of flyers made and hangs them up around town saying that she is an agent for secrets and will help people.

A boy named Duncan, who Olivia knows from school, asks her to help him with his friend, Desiree. He says that they were together at the pizza parlor when she suddenly got angry and walked out.  He doesn’t know what made her angry, but he asks Olivia to help him find out and fix their relationship.

Olivia’s attempts to help are a matter of trial and error. At first, Olivia thinks that Desiree was merely offended that Duncan gave her the smallest slice of pizza. She suggests that Duncan buy her another whole pizza, but that doesn’t work. Even Olivia’s idea to buy her a lot of different kinds of pizza doesn’t work. Eventually, Olivia talks to Desiree herself and learns that there is another reason why she is angry with Duncan.

It turns out that the problem doesn’t have anything to do with pizza but with Duncan himself.  He’s always full of doom and gloom and criticism for everything.  What Duncan needs is an attitude adjustment.  He doesn’t realize that his pessimism and negativity makes it difficult for others to be around him.  Olivia encourages him to be more positive and to develop his sense of humor.  Once his attitude improves, so does his relationship with Desiree.