Valentine, who liked being called John B. about as much as Jack Sensational would have liked being called Puddin' head, folded his hands comfortably and turned to Rose with a sweet smile.
Rose was that rarity, an artist oblivious to power politics within the team. She liked her creation, and she liked Sparky, and had no idea how much Valentine and Peppy detested each other.
"It's true, Mr. Valentine," she enthused, and hurried over to take Sparky by the elbows and boost him onto the table, where he swaggered around in the middle, careful not to get too close to either end, where there were tigers. He struck a few poses, watching himself in the mirror.
"The one-piece look is already the thing in the Mercury Commune, and you know how they've bellwethered all the newest things for the last two years. Simplicity is the statement. One garment, loads of makeup. Both sexes. And not just the tiny tots, either. Just a shirt, or a pair of trousers. Sometimes just one sleeve—just a sleeve, no shirt—or a legging." She illustrated on her own body, with graceful hand gestures, then joined Sparky on the table. She herself wore a garment similar to his, but a little longer. She went down on one knee beside him, pointing out features of her handiwork. "Depilate from the neck down. Oil up. One item of clothing. That's the key to the new look. Lots of skin. Heck, on Mars the upper classes aren't dressing their children at all until they reach puberty, as if we were back in the fifties. I think that's reverse snobbery, and besides, you can't make money selling nudity."
"You can make more money selling more clothes," Valentine pointed out. "That's true," said Peppy. "And we'll sell caps, and T-shirts, and whatever the marketing department dreams up. But that'll be with pictures of Sparky, and with the Sparky artwork and logo and characters. If the kids want to wear the Sparky look, they'll wear the vest dingus. And they'll buy it from us, because we'll be the only ones selling Sparky vests with the official Sparky's Gang seal."
"Only to eight-year-olds," Valentine said.
"So what? We figure three-to-ten, actually, but eight is the target, for now. This thing takes off, takes off big, we'll get up to the teens as the Sparkster gets older. I'm telling you, John B., the Victorian Kid is history. You can pack away all his lacy duds, his velvet shirts and ruffled collars and knee britches. Coupla months, everybody's kid's gonna dress like this."
"If he wears it at all," Valentine said, dangerously. "I don't know, Pepsi. There's something about it that rubs me the wrong way. Call me old-fashioned. Nudity is fine, at home, at the playground, in the swimming pool."
"But this isn't nudity, Mr. V," Rose piped up, honestly trying to be helpful. "Nudity is dreary. This is style."
"Not to put too fine a point to it, Rose, my darling," John said, "I was raised to believe a young gentleman should wear pants in public."
Rose—who, like most third-generation and younger Lunarians, had no more body modesty than a mink—had no idea what he was talking about. She had made costumes faithfully for a hundred Earth-era pictures without ever really grasping the genitalia taboo. People wore lots of clothing on Earth because it had been dangerous down there, to her way of thinking. Blistering sunlight, lethal cold winds. There was nothing like that to protect oneself from on Luna, and people wore clothing almost exclusively for decoration, sometimes a lot of it, sometimes very little, depending on the fashion of the day. If the fashion now was no pants, what's the big deal? She looked to Peppy for help.
Gideon Peppy carefully removed half his lollipop from his mouth, and chewed on the rest. He had never eaten his hard candy treats until he met the Valentines, father and son, but now he found himself frequently biting down hard on them. Pepsi, is it, you prick?
He laughed indulgently, one friend to another, and shook his head.
"Johnny, Johnny, honestly! I don't know where you get these ideas! He's a riot, isn't he, fellas? A riot. Sometimes I think you're just kidding us, and I'm too dumb to get the joke. But I'm here for you, paisan. I care, I really do. If you have concerns I'm always willing to listen. If you're not happy, nobody at this table is happy, so what I want from you is to talk to me, John. Blue-sky it for us. What would you like to see here? We all want your input and my mind is a blank page, costume-wise. So draw on it, John B., draw on it. What kind of pants are we talking here?"
Sparky, who had not been following the exchange at all closely, chose that moment to pipe up.
"I kind of like it, Father," he said.
The silence that followed was mercifully short, as one of Rose's assistants arrived with a girl in tow. Now it was Sparky's turn to frown dubiously.
Peppy stood up to greet the girl. He lifted her up onto the table where she stood confidently, hands on hips, looking a challenge at Sparky.
"Folks, meet Sparky's new sidekick. I'd like you to say hi to Kaspara Polichinelli!"
"Sidekick? Sidekick? I didn't see anything about a sidekick." John Valentine reached for his script.
"All action heroes have sidekicks," Peppy said, smugly. "We figured from the start Sparky'd have one. We wrote her in last week."
Sparky walked slowly toward the young lady. Eight years old, he figured. Dressed exactly as he was, only the waistcoat was blue with silver highlights. Hair trimmed the same, only silver instead of brass. Zigzags, eye shadow, all the same. The black lipstick was a trifle bee-stung, a little Betty Boopish, but other than that, she looked just like him.
He stopped a pace away and looked her up and down. She smiled. Her two front teeth were prominent.
"What kind of name is Kaspara?" he asked. He was aware that an argument was happening down at Peppy's end of the table, but he tried to ignore it. He knew he had made a major mistake in his comment about the costume, but he was hoping this new sensation might make it seem less important in retrospect. Perhaps Kaspara Polichinelli's arrival would distract his father from his son's innocent gaffe. And that was good.
But he was far from sure anything else about her arrival was so great.
"I don't use it," she said.
"What do they call you? Kassie?"
"Everybody calls me Polly."
Sparky had edged a little closer, trying to see if his shoulder was higher than hers. She smiled, and came around him to stand back-to-back. The two of them looked in the mirror. He had an inch on her. Maybe two if he stood up straight. Well, that was okay, then.
She laughed, and bumped him with her hip.
"Come on," she said. "Don't be such a flip. I know how to stand downstage and not get in your shot. They told me the part was a sidekick when I tried out."
"You're going to be my buddy? Is that it?"
"I don't think they planned any sexual involvement until the third season, at least," she said. "Which is fine with me. I'm old-fashioned, like your father. I figured I'd wait till my blood day, just like my mother did."
Sparky was saved from replying to that by the sound of rising voices at the power end of the table. Storm clouds were forming over there, and the outlook was excellent that the long-delayed cataclysmic confrontation between producer and parent was about to break out. Aides were scurrying for cover as John Valentine came around the table, slapping his script into his open palm while Peppy slapped a copy of Sparky's contract into his.