Petunia

"Can I help you?" Petunia stood from where she'd been taking bolts out of their storage tray to pass to Elice and turned to approach the new arrival. He looked much too young to be walking around the restricted areas of the stadium building on his own, but a blue-framed press pass hung from the lanyard round his neck.

The boy looked around, eyes wide, then fixed on Petunia. She braced, expecting him to ask her to direct him to whoever was in charge, but he gathered himself, shook his head with his floppy hair bouncing between his crownfeathers, and said, "I'm sorry, are you Ms. Platt?"

Caught out by the courtesy, Petunia blinked. Phoebe was approaching, her face pensive. Petunia said, "That's me, what can I do for you?"

"Hi, um, I'm Peter, a production assistant for DNN." He took hold of his lanyard and flapped his pass around, which actually made it much harder to read. "Sorry for barging in, we hadn't had much luck getting in touch with you."

Petunia glanced at Phoebe, frowning in puzzlement. The team's official contact details should have been available to DNN as the licensed broadcaster for the sport. Phoebe looked a little sheepish, but she wasn't the one with control over the phone and email account, so it shouldn't have been her purview. Turning back to Peter, Petunia said, "Don't worry about it, what can we help you with?"

"We'd really like to get an interview with a team representative for the pre-race programme on Sunday, for the start of the show." He looked at the floor, a little apologetically, "Y'know, with all the rumours, and stuff. Sorry, we kind of have to ask."

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Phoebe was fidgeting. She didn't like interviews, and she really didn't like the rumours that were going round. Before she could speak, Petunia said, "Can we get back to you? We don't really have anything like a team spokesperson, we'll need to think about who to send."

"Oh, uh, we'd normally ask for the Team Principal," Peter said, looking from Petunia to Phoebe and back again. "But we weren't sure, uh, which of you that was."

"Oh yeah," Petunia said. "We're kinda not sure either. Do you have a business card or something? Let me give you a call when we've talked it over."

"Oh, right, ok." Fumbling, he fished a card out of the little breast pocket on his t-shirt and handed it over. "That’s the producer's number, just give him a call whenever. Um, thanks for your time."

He was out of the door again before Petunia had time to wish him goodbye. She blinked and looked at Phoebe. "What do you think?"

"I don't think we should do it, Petunia, I think that'd be a really bad idea." Phoebe's voice sounded tight.

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to do it and just say the rumours aren't true, though?"

Phoebe leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Some of the rumours are true, though, Petunia, remember?"

"No but I mean-" Petunia cut off. You lied to me about them, why not to DNN? But Phoebe was a hopeless liar when actually confronted about anything. Petunia had relied on that herself to get the truth out of her. She took a deep breath. "Well what if I do it, the interview? I'm sort of like the Team Principal, even if you're the owner."

"Are you sure? You hate lying, interviews are a lot of lying even when it's not… like this."

Petunia glared at her. "I'll do it, I'll find a way to make it work."