He looked up at me like I'd just materialized out of nothing. "Yeah, you must be Katie." News really did travel fast around here. "I'm Ralph."
"Hi, Ralph. I need to talk to you about the packaging design."
"Cool. I've been trying to get them to jazz it up for ages." He showed no signs of even thinking about unfolding himself and getting off the sofa to head to his office, so I assumed we would conduct the meeting where we were.
"I don't know how much we'll be able to jazz things up, but we will add more corporate messaging."
"Aw, hell, we might as well give 'em a makeover while we're at it." He put down his Gameboy—now I was pretty sure that's what it was—and waved his hand in the air.
A packaged spell fell into my hands. It startled me enough that I had to juggle for a second to keep from dropping it. "What do you think?"
Once I managed to get a good grasp on the package, I took a look at it. Then I had to blink, and I wished I had some sunglasses handy. It certainly was different. The packaging I'd seen on the previous day's visit to the store had been basic and straightforward, just stating the spell and its possible uses in an attractive layout.
This used wild graphics and bright colors that blinked at me. "It's very eye-catching," I said, trying to think of a diplomatic way to say, "Hell, no!"
"See the scrolling text?" He pointed to a spot on the packaging where information rolled across like a news ticker in Times Square.
"Yeah. That's . . . interesting."
He beamed. "I figured out how to do that a while ago. We can have it say whatever we want, like putting things on sale or announcing a special offer—buy that spell, get another at half price."
I had to admire his initiative, even if I couldn't admire his design. It was giving me a headache. "That's a great idea," I began. "I'm just worried that it'll be a little confusing to our customers. If they have to wait for information to scroll past at the right time, they might miss something." That always happened to me when I watched the mom-ing news shows that used the scrollingtickers. I usually caught the tail end of a headline and had no idea what the story was about, then didn't have time to wait until it scrolled around again.
"But it's cool!" he insisted. "I bet the competition won't have it."
I restrained myself from suggesting that we give the idea to our competition as a form of sabotage. Was it possible to perform a spell with a splitting headache? If we could inflict pain on anyone who bought one of the bad spells, we'd be able to nip this problem in the bud. "It might be too much for us to do at this stage, but keep working on the idea."
He did something with his hand, and the scrolling ticker disappeared. I felt the muscles around my eyes relax. "What about the rest of it?" he asked.
"It's certainly bright and colorful, but I'm not sure it conveys the message we want."
He glared up at me through bangs that fell across his eyes. "What do you want?"
"I'm sure you know about the situation we're in. We need to make sure people know we're the only med-and-true source for reliable, safe, well-tested spells, and we have been for more than a millennium. You can't trust anyone else to give you the results you want."
"Okay, so more boring-like. Got it." He waved his hand, and the package I held changed. Now it looked positively corporate, with the information I'd given him included as a tagline under the logo on the package cover. Better still, it didn't give me a headache to look at it.
"Perfect! I'll just run this by Mr. Mervyn and see what he thinks, and then we can roll it out. How long will it take to get this in production and out in the market?"
"Say the word, and it's out there."
I stared at him for a second, not sure what he meant. "You mean, you can change what's already on the shelf?"
He shrugged. "Sure. Why not? You want posters, too?"
"Yes, of course. Thanks. This is great." There had been many times when I'd wished that it was this quick and easy. I'd be spoiled for working at any company that didn't have a designer who could make retroactive changes to materials that had already been produced. Then again, someone like Mimi would abuse that power to keep changing her mind indefinitely.
I left the dungeon and headed toward the turret. Merlin's receptionist looked up from her work as I reached the top of the stairs. "Go right in, he's expecting you," she said. I wondered just how much he knew, and how he knew it. The explanation could be as simple as Ralph calling ahead, but just as I was pretty sure Owen didn't stand around all morning on the subway platform, waiting for me, I was pretty sure Merlin didn't need a phone call.