Page 25 of The Prince and the Puck
“So, haven’t you ever seen one of those firefighter calendars?”
I guessed that I had, though there weren’t a lot of things like that in Murdan. “I think so? They make those to raise money for the stations, right?”
“Exactly. It would be like that. Wombats are famous for their butts, so we can play on that and make our guys famous for their butts too,” Joey said.
I wasn’t sure I totally agreed with the statement that wombats were famous for their butts, since I’d literally just learned about this, but I let her go on.
“So what do you think? Can we make our Wombats famous for their butts?”
It wasn’t a terrible idea, now that I gave it a little bit of thought.
“Clothed, though, right? Like, not totally naked?”
“Of course,” Joey said. “We could sell them at all the games and give the whole thing an extra dose of PR magic if we usedall the proceeds to help some kind of charity. And we could do a huge push on social media.”
As a member of the King’s Guard and someone fairly focused on security, I did not spend much time on social media. I did, however, understand that social media was probably necessary in a public relations effort.
I didn’t want to reveal to Joey that I knew almost nothing about PR, but I asked her the question on my mind anyway.
“Social media… What would we do there?”
Joey assumed her thoughtful pose for a moment longer, sipping her wine and looking upward, as if all social media problems could be solved by something hanging from the ceiling of the Teakhouse Tavern. Then she said, “I’ve got it! Wombat wisdom.”
Again, Joey delivered her idea and then waited, as if I would immediately understand the importance and genius of it. And again, I did not.
“Gonna need more.”
“Well, you of all people now know that wombats are super interesting. What if each calendar image that we share on social media is accompanied by one of these awesome facts—wombat wisdom? And we could also share facts about the player whose butt is being profiled in each post.”
Joey looked extremely excited about this, her eyes were glowing, and she was practically bouncing on her stool. I wasn’t certain that the palace would be excited about me being responsible for revealing the prince’s butt on social media alongside facts about marsupials.
When I didn’t answer immediately, Joey started talking again.
“Come on, Lizzy, it’s a great idea. Why don’t we run it past John and Deck and see what they think?”
I wasn’t opposed to running the idea past the guys, but as far as I could tell, the prince was no more of an expert at public relations than I was. He would likely be very little help, and he seemed to have a rather goofy sense of humor, which would probably mean that he’d think this was a great idea.
I was fairly certain the king would not think this was a great idea. More importantly, I did not see how taking pictures of hockey players’ butts would help me convince Declan to return to his place as heir in a timely fashion.
Joey was on her phone again, furiously poking at the screen and continuing to bounce around in her seat like whatever she was looking at was so exciting she could hardly contain herself.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Sorry,” she said, looking up at me. “I just had an idea. And you’re not gonna believe this.”
I was already having trouble believing the previous conversation, let alone the fact that I had agreed to the whole butt idea. I could hardly wait to find out what this one would be.
“What is it?”
“Well, you know I work with animals, right?”
“Yes...”
“Well, I remember hearing about an exotic animal rescue nearby. It’s a place where people who have illegal exotic pets surrender them, and they live out their days being taken care of and fed.”
“OK...”
“Wombats are exotic.”
