“Crassus, don’t you think that Esmer looks lovely today?” Asked Marinus as he was eating his rice.

“Yes, sure.” Said Crassus, not even looking up.

Theanore looked between her parents and then at Marinus. She didn’t understand what was going on.

“Mommy looks pretty every day, Mari. What a silly question you are asking.” Said Theanore and Esmer petted her hair.

“Why, thank you, Thea. But men are not very observant. Go back to eating now.”

“We are observant. I am just thinking about a question that one of my students asked me.” Said Crassus, again not looking up from his meal.

“And what was it?” Asked Esmer, amused at the slightly annoyed look Marinus was giving Crassus.

“Well, Ariadne asked, how does a market recover if the goods have not been introduced to it in quite some time. I said with advertising, but she said that was too costly. And, I suppose, it is.”

“Well, yes, but look at it this way. Do you want to bank on the nostalgia of your customers, or do you want to get rid of all your wares?” Asked Esmer.

“The cheapest advertising campaign in history costed a thousand gold coins. Not all merchants have such funds.” Said Crassus, this time looking up and straight into Esmer’s eyes.

“How about giving out some of your wares to test customers? That would make the cost of advertising half as much as it normally would cost.”

“You mean, have the test customers advertise for us? But it won’t be enough.” Said Crassus, although the idea had merit.

“No? There was this product that is a household name now but was quite unknown five hundred years ago. I am speaking about the enchanted items.” Said Esmer, and everyone looked at her with interest.

“When grandpa Thinker came up with them, people thought that they were simple witchcraft and were mistrustful. Still, he persevered and began to hand them away. Then, one day, a fair was made by the test customers and the enchanted items became famous overnight. History has many such examples, but I was not there for all of them.” Finished Esmer.

Crassus couldn’t believe it. Enchanted items had needed advertising once? But that had not been quite his question.

“Would something like this work on a product that has fallen out of favor because something in it changed?” Asked the merchant. Esmer smiled.

“I don’t see why not, if the change was reversed, and it was proven to the diehard fans that what they loved was back on the market. And you can do this by giving away some products. Maybe put a clause that the test subjects would still need to pay for the product if it is something expensive.” Said Esmer.

Marinus finished his rice and he looked at the plate of the other two children in the house. They had done the same. Marinus nudged Theanore, and she nudged him back, giggling.

“I know your secret.” She said, as she looked as Crassus and Esmer, kept speaking about the proper way to advertise a product. “And they look good together.”

“Well, let us go outside and leave them together, shall we? Nudge Luca and let us go.” Said Marinus and Theanore did just that. The three made it out the door with a distracted command from Crassus to grab their winter clothes.

When they were outside, they fell on the ground, giggling.

“They are so boring and yet so adorable.” Said Luca, and he was swatted over the head by Theanore.

“My parents are not boring.” She said, and Marinus smirked at her.

“But they are adorable?” He teased and she nodded. Then she grabbed Marinus’ and Luca’s hands and began leading them to the bamboo forest. Then she, with all the seriousness she could muster, made them name pandas with her.

That proved to be very hard as the panda were identical and some ended up being named twice, even trice. Then Luca came up with an elegant solution. They would call the male pandas Pandaran and the female ones Pandita.

Or at least it was elegant until more than one Pandaran or Pandita began answering their calls. Some confused pandas answered to either name. Still, the nicknames stayed, and the two made a turn around the forest.

Crassus was back teaching his students, and on the blackboard was written an advertising campaign plan. Theanore read enchanting and grandpa Thinker and she smiled. Her father had listened to her mommy.

Then they decided to spend the day with Esmer fencing. From all the training they had gotten in acrobatics, Theanore and Marinus were better than Luca, but they were still not at the top of the class.

Tired, they sat down to watch Diana facing off against Elmar. So far, they were five points to five. When they reached ten points, the fencing match would be called off.

Diana made a false feint, but Elmar didn’t fall for it. He sidestepped at the last minute, and he touched Diana with his stick right under the armpit.

“Diana, if that had been a sword, then you would have lost that arm. Eyes on his hands' girl, not his feet.” Called Esmer and Diana nodded.

It was five to six now, and Diana was determined to make it ten to six. She followed Esmer’s advice and stared at Elmar’s hands. Just as he was about to try to make a stab to the left, she went to the right and sliced at his feet with the stick.

Elmar tripped and fell and just like that the match was over with a six to six, but in favor of Diana.

“Elmar, how are you going to protect yourself if you can’t defeat anyone?” Asked Esmer. Then she turned to Diana. “Good job, dear. Next time, trip him up faster. No real opponent will wait for you.”

Then the two bowed at each other and a new pair of children climb the improvised stage and began fencing.

“You two stay and watch.” Said Esmer to Marinus and Luca. “You might learn something.”

Both Marinus and Luca went next to Elmar and sat down. They spend the reminder of the day watching others fence, but just before Esmer let the children go to have dinner, it was their turn.