The Crunch Campaign (2 page)

Lorraine and Dominic said nothing. The trouble was that, although Joel started out negative, he often came up with the best ideas.

Katie turned the Macs on and, one by one, they emitted their distinctive
boing
. She sat down at the machine she thought of as hers and clicked to check her email.

‘Don't do that,' said Dominic. ‘You'll get distracted. We need to put our heads together and work out what this government announcement means for Parfitt's.'

He was right. Katie pulled a bean bag into the middle of the room and the others did the same. She and Lorraine filled Dominic in on the details from ‘First Thing'.

‘So what did your mum say?' Dominic stretched his long legs. ‘I don't reckon she and Liam Parfitt were rapt.'

‘She left before the interview came on. Maybe she'd heard about the government's plans while we were away – those things don't come out of nowhere – but she didn't mention it last night. Or maybe she did. I was pretty out of it. I think I fell asleep in my laksa'.

Katie had asked for her favourite takeaway as her welcome-home meal. Her mum had offered to cook, but Katie told her not to bother. She was the only person in the world who could mess up two-minute noodles.

‘She'll be gutted, though,' she said. ‘She and Liam have been so excited about their new Christmas drink. But if this ban goes ahead we won't be doing the campaign ads – and if no one knows about the new product, they might as well not make it. What a waste! Just as Parfitt's is taking off again.' She thumped her knee. ‘It sucks. It's not like we're telling people to pour soft drink on their kids' cereal.'

‘Some people do that, though,' said Lorraine. ‘I saw it on a talk show in the States. Some people put it in
babies' bottles
.'

‘Yes, but why is that our fault? As if we'd put that in an ad!'

‘Don't get mad at me. I'm just telling you what I saw.'

‘Well, I read this article about a woman addicted to carrots,' said Katie. ‘She ate so many she turned orange. Bright orange. The palms of her hands and the soles of her feet and everything. But they're not banning carrots, are they?'

‘And they're not banning Parfizz, either,' said Dominic. ‘Just the ads.'

‘They might as well.' Katie grumped. ‘If this ban comes in, Parfitt's is dead.' She walked to the window. Looking at the creek that marked the edge of her backyard, she thought no matter how much she learnt about advertising, marketing and promotion, she would never know it all. Two weeks with some of the best creative people in the world had done nothing to prepare her for this. Advertising had been the solution to so many of her problems and now she was being told it would be illegal, for soft drinks, anyway?

‘Parfitt's isn't our only account, remember,' Lorraine said brightly. ‘We've got Barkers, too, and I bet there were other enquiries while we were away. Dom, maybe Katie
should
check the email, okay? There might be some good news.'

Katie just kept staring out the window. Sometimes she wanted to slap Lorraine for her optimism. She was smart, but sometimes she just didn't get it. Her mum would be out of a job and they would be in a deeper hole than they were in a year ago. She had taken a loan to pay for the renovations to the house – thinking that the company was safe. It had been safe – Carole Beauchamp had seen to it by buying into Parfitt's and ploughing money into improvements at the factory and streamlining distribution. But even the might of Global Beverages Incorporated was no match for the federal government.

‘Come on, Katie,' said Dominic, putting a hand on her shoulder, ‘Let's think of something else for a while. Lorraine's right. Sometimes that helps. Joel will be here soon, and Clem will come after school. We'll work it out together. You and Lorraine check the email and the messages. I'll jump online and find out as much as I can about this ad ban. We need to get our heads around it before we decide what we can do.' He gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘What do you think? Sound like a plan?'

Katie nodded, but she didn't want him to take his hand away.

As they knew he would, Joel finally turned up at about eleven and stuck his curly head in the doorway. ‘Anything to eat up here? Mum went vegetarian or vegan or something while we were away. There's no food in the house.'

‘Same.' Lorraine beamed.

‘Get over it, Joel. There's more to food than meat,' said Katie. ‘You could have bread, cereal, fruit, chips, ice-cream, carrots –'

‘Just be careful you don't eat too many,' said Lorraine gravely. ‘You might turn orange.'

Joel flopped onto a bean bag. ‘You need more sleep, Quiche. The jetlag's affecting your brain.'

Lorraine had given up asking him to use her real name.

‘So what's happening? Have you rung the prime minister?' He laughed. ‘What did she say?'

Katie stared at him – that was an idea.

CHAPTER TWO

Calling the prime minister was a long shot, but it was something. Still, Katie didn't want Joel to know she was taking him seriously – his head was big enough as it was.

‘Not yet, but if you've got her mobile number I'll ring her.' She fished a band out of her pocket and tied her hair back.

‘But what will you say?' asked Dominic. ‘Hey there, Ms Whiting, I just thought you might want to know your new policy makes no sense?'

‘That'd be my starting point, for sure.'

Joel yawned. ‘Doesn't anyone care that I'm starving? Can we get something to eat?'

‘Go into the house and find some cereal,' said Katie. ‘You know where it is.'

‘No, I need real food, as in dinner. I want roast lamb.'

‘Joel, it's eleven on a Monday morning. ‘You eat roast lamb at night. Or for Sunday lunch.'

‘I don't care. I need roast lamb and my brain won't operate until it gets it.'

‘It rarely operates, anyway.' Katie needed to get rid of him for a bit. She had a plan and wanted to talk it through with Dominic. ‘Have you got any money?'

‘Sure.' Joel always had a pocketful of cash. His parents thought it was a good way to teach him responsibility.

‘Good. You and Lorraine go to Coles. Buy a leg of lamb, some potatoes and half a pumpkin and I'll cook us a roast. But only if you promise to help work out what we're going to do about this policy. Joel, I don't think you realise, this could be disastrous for Parfitt's and for Mosquito Advertising.'

And for me, thought Katie.

Joel didn't realise. His life had always been cruisy. He'd never had to worry about losing anything.

‘Okay,' he said, standing up. ‘C'mon, Quiche. We'll be twenty minutes. How long does it take to cook a roast?'

‘If you buy a half leg, maybe an hour. Don't bring back a whole sheep.'

Lorraine looked happy to be going to the shops with him. Katie felt a bit sorry for her and hoped Joel would be nice, but mostly she was glad to be left alone with Dominic. He seemed to understand how worried she was.

The tree office was quiet except for the clicking of the mouse as Dominic scoured the net for news stories about the advertising ban. Myna birds ruffled the leaves of the avocado tree and the sound of hammering floated across the creek. There was always someone renovating something round here.

Katie checked the email. Dom was right. There were 87 new messages, some were from journalists asking for interviews – Mosquito Advertising made interesting stories. They were the only advertising agency in the world run by kids. Katie politely turned down all their requests. Their experience with Blade Air had taught her that publicity for its own sake meant nothing. They had to make ads and sell their clients' products. That was the only kind of publicity they needed. Also, she remembered Carole Beauchamp saying, ‘A little mystery is a valuable thing. If you tell the media everything, they'll stop being curious.'

Then there was an email from Andy Barker saying their ad for his dog food had resulted in a 400 per cent increase in sales. Of course, he'd been lucky to sell three sacks of dog food a week before their ad went live, so they'd started from a low base, but even so, it felt great to hear from a happy client. As soon as they were over their jetlag, Andy wanted to talk to them about some more ads – possibly a radio campaign and a competition. Katie liked Andy a lot, so she sent him a note back, saying that they'd send him something on the weekend.

There were also messages from companies asking whether Mosquito Advertising would be interested in pitching for their business. There was a chain of camping shops, a resort in far north Queensland, a sandal manufacturer, and the Southern Cross Bank, who wanted to start a bank especially for kids. Katie thought that was interesting, but she needed to focus on Parfitt's. It was their first account and their most important. She had to look after it. Still, she printed out all the new business emails so she could show them to the others. She had also learnt that making all the decisions herself only led to trouble, and she had enough of that as it was.

‘Kaaaaaaaaato!' growled Joel from the bottom of the tree. ‘I've been hunting and Quiche has been gathering. Have you got the fire going?'

Katie and Dominic grinned at each other and headed for the house.

Before long, the kitchen was filled with the smell of roasting lamb, rich and garlicky. Katie loved cooking. It was funny that people always thought her mother must have taught her, when the opposite was true. She'd taught herself, mainly because it was the only way to get a decent meal at home. Not that she ever went hungry. Her mum just had no idea about cooking and was too busy to learn – and there had never been much money for restaurant meals or takeaways.

‘You need to cut those potatoes smaller if we want them to be cooked in time for lunch, not dinner,' Katie said to Lorraine. ‘And, Dom, slurp a bit of honey and some olive oil on that pumpkin, okay?'

The vegetables went into the oven, but they needed something green. Katie had forgotten about that. There were peas in the freezer – they'd do.

Sitting around the table, they talked about the ban.

‘I'm all for contacting the PM's office,' said Katie, ‘but I'll probably never get through. Why would she talk to me, Katie Crisp, age thirteen? We need to have a plan B.'

‘You think?' Joel picked up two mandarins from the bowl on the table and started juggling them. ‘I don't know if the problem's as bad as the PM says. None of
us
is overweight.'

‘No,' agreed Dom, ‘but the government's done the research. They're not going to admit their numbers are wrong. Getting into that argument would be pointless.'

‘What about we come up with some ads for healthy eating?' suggested Lorraine.

‘They've been doing them for years.' Katie shook her head. ‘And they're always pathetic. You know, there's that one with the smiley face, cherry tomatoes for eyes and celery stick eyebrows. It's not funny.'

Dom nodded. ‘And people
know
, don't they? Everyone knows a bowl of broccoli is better for you than a burger. Those ads have always been a huge waste of money. They make the government look like they're doing something, but they don't change anything and I reckon Clara Whiting knows it. She needs to find a bad guy to take the blame away from the government – and the soft drink makers will make great bad guys, because everyone thinks they're so rich, which they are.'

‘Well, Parfitt's isn't,' said Katie.

‘Okay, except for Parfitt's. You're right, Kato: running more ads isn't the answer.'

Lorraine clicked her fingers. ‘Maybe make soft drinks more expensive? A tax. To make people think twice about buying them.'

Katie's face told her that was a bad idea.

‘Ah, maybe not. Is lunch ready?'

‘Another ten minutes.' Katie filled a jug with water. ‘If anyone wants Parfizz, there's heaps in the fridge downstairs.'

‘I know – what about plain old people-power?' Lorraine wasn't giving up. ‘Get a petition together. Soft drink ads are some of the best. People like them – especially the Parfizz ads. Maybe they'd be sad to see them go.'

Joel put down his mandarins. ‘Nah, that's more idiotic than your tax idea. No one likes ads – even if they're good. They just put up with them. Whiting knows that. The public's never going to slam her for banning ads; she'll probably
win
votes.'

‘But it's so pointless,' said Katie, opening the oven. ‘There aren't any ads for cigarettes, and people
still
smoke.'

‘What?' There was a voice on the back stairs. ‘You kids aren't smoking, are you? Filthy habit.' It was Katie's auntie Nancy. ‘Are you cooking roast lamb? Why aren't you at school?' Nancy's big frame filled the doorway, her red hair frizzing out like millions of strands of copper wire. She was the last person Katie felt like seeing. ‘I went to work at two this morning. It felt like it was eight. So now I need dinner, then a nap. That smells all right, actually. Are you making proper gravy?'

There was nothing Katie could do. Nancy had decided she was staying for lunch and the others tried to hide their disappointment. Weeks of travelling with Nancy hadn't made them fond of her. They were sometimes impressed by what she knew about advertising, and how quickly she could solve problems, but mostly she scared them. Nancy always said exactly what was on her mind – and for someone who was good with words, it was weird that she didn't use nicer ones.

As Katie stirred gravy in the bottom of the pan, the others busied themselves setting the table, mainly to avoid having to talk to Nancy, who didn't seem bothered by the sudden lack of conversation. ‘Anyone seen the paper?'

‘On the front veranda, maybe,' Katie suggested. Her mum often had breakfast there, because it was sunny in the mornings.

‘Why does she do that?' hissed Joel. ‘Just barge in. You'd think she lived here!'

‘This is where she grew up,' said Katie. ‘If you think she should leave, tell her. You won't offend me.' It was a dare Katie knew she'd win, and Joel said nothing. She carved the meat and soon they were all sitting round the table, talking about their favourite parts of the New York trip. For Lorraine, it had been shopping for vintage shoes in SoHo.

‘“Vintage” is just a fancy word for second-hand.' Joel laughed as he scoffed a forkful of lamb the size of his fist. ‘I've got a whole drawer full of “vintage” socks, if you want to go through them. Ten bucks a pair. I'll even sell them singularly. You can make puppets for those kids you babysit.'

Lorraine ignored him and Katie wondered why. There was no way she'd put up with Joel paying out on her like that.

‘Yeah, the shopping was fun and the food was great, but how about what we learnt?' said Dom. Like Katie, he'd got right into the seminars they'd gone to. ‘I liked the Idea Globe sessions best.'

Katie did too. The sessions were a way of coming up with ideas. There was an inflatable ball in an empty room – so big that two people's arms couldn't meet around its middle. You'd roll it from one person to the next and everyone had to write an idea on it for a particular product. It might be a brand of cheese or a type of car. The idea had to be no more than ten words. You needed a big room and lots of people to make it work, but it was heaps of fun.

Nancy thought the Idea Globe was ridiculous. ‘You can do the same thing with a pile of Post-it notes,' she snapped. ‘I've been doing it for years.' She had refused to come to any of the sessions and spent her days in some dive around the corner from the Global Beveridges Incorporated (GBI) headquarters, drinking coffee that she said was terrible and writing postcards to her boyfriend, Amos Gumm.

She stomped back into the kitchen, waving the
Courier-Mail
as if it was a flag.

‘What?' Katie got up to grab a plate for her.

‘This.' Nancy plonked the paper down and tapped an article on page 4. Katie raised her eyebrows. Of course the story had been brewing for a few weeks. The last thing she needed was Nancy banging on about it. Parfitt's was her client, her responsibility.

‘Parfitt's is in big trouble.' Nancy wagged a nicotine-stained finger at Katie. ‘That woman in the Lodge is going to kill them. Stupidest thing I ever heard – banning soft drink advertising. The last time I looked, Australia was a
democracy
. We could choose to pour
glue
down our throats if we wanted to.'

‘Glue doesn't really pour, though,' said Lorraine. Nancy shot her a look that told her to shut up.

‘It's okay, Nancy, we're onto it.' Katie leant across the table to grab a potato from Joel's plate. He retaliated by chucking a pea at her.

Slam!
Nancy's fist banged on the table so hard that the plates rattled. ‘Onto it? You're enjoying lunch like you've earnt it and you haven't. You haven't got a minute to waste – your biggest client's just about to go under – as in under
forever
– and you're having a food fight?'

Katie folded her hands in her lap. Nothing she could say would stop Nancy's rant; she just had to wait for it to pass.

‘I knew I should have hung onto the Parfizz account. I was being sentimental and stupid, giving it back to a bunch of kids.'

‘But Nancy, we're an advertising agency, just like you,' said Katie, trying not to sound argumentative. ‘And I don't know that this problem can be solved with ads.'

‘Of course it can. But you haven't nailed the problem yet.' Nancy got up and walked over to the bench. They watched as she picked up the bone from the leg of lamb. Katie had had her eye on it – she loved to gnaw the little burnt bits at the end. ‘This'll do for Abbott tonight.' Abbott was her slobbering rottweiler.

Katie couldn't see him or smell him. ‘Is Abbott here?'

‘No, he's been staying at Amos's place. I'm going there after my nap.'

They watched as Nancy put the greasy bone into the pocket of her baggy dress and walked away. Katie pulled a face and the others tried not to laugh as they always did when they imagined someone like Nancy in love.

They kicked the problem of the ad ban around for another hour, but even a packet of Mint Slices didn't help fire their creativity. If Nancy's spray was meant to rev them up, Katie thought, it had had the opposite effect, and the big meal just made them all sleepy. They washed up and headed back out to the tree office, where everyone but Katie dozed on the bean bags.

The tree office faced west, so it was a bit hot in summer, but right now in October it was gorgeous. The sun shone warmly through the branches of the avocado tree and the air was sweet and still. But Katie couldn't sleep – fear was gnawing at her and the only way to stop it growing was to keep busy. She googled ‘Australian Prime Minister's Office' and found an email address. She wondered what the chances were of Clara Whiting checking her own email. Minimal. There'd be an assistant to the assistant to the secretary to the advisor to the chief of staff. Tiredness, worry and sheer curiosity made her open a new message and addressed it to [email protected]. Then recklessly, as if her fingers weren't connected to her brain, she typed: