Match #1

[James]

TOPIC: Children's Story

Deadline: Sunday, 3rd May

Simply put, write us a children's story. No other restriction than that. Go for it.

[Kaez]

"Come on, Lizzy. We need to go get Charles from pre-school," her mother called across the playground cutting through the noise of squealing children. In one hand she had several pieces of paper and in the other her mobile phone. Lizzy knew it was probably another business person on hold. Mum always had her phone plugged to her ear.

The playground was full and Lizzy was in the middle of an exhilarating game of pirates with the other children. The jungle gym was a gigantic ship and the swings were an island of buried treasure. Lizzy was the captain, as she always was, while everybody else was a weird rendition of a limbless swash-buckling pirates trying to steal her jewels. Petunia, who sat comfortably in Lizzy's shirt pocket, was her adviser and first-mate aboard the great ship Victoria The Third; her wish fairy dressed in pink with sparkly wings. Wherever Lizzy went Petunia had no choice but to follow.

"But, mum! Five more minutes," Lizzy moaned, stepping away from the ship that became a jungle gym again the moment she let go. The great white sails snapped and disappeared and the wooden deck sunk to wood chips. Her auburn locks were matted, knees dusted with mud and button-nose bright pink. The small dress her mum had put on her this morning was already filthy.

"No, Lizzy. We need to go now." Her mum took another step towards the playground. It looked like she meant business with the phone held against her collarbone and other hand crushing the report on her hip. Lizzy's mum wore a suit most days and pastel blouses and worked at a laptop that she placed on the kitchen table. Every now and then other people wearing suits would visit the house and deliver more paperwork and sit around to talk about boring stuff.

"We're playing," Lizzy's hands formed into little balls. Her face was steadily turning red which was usually the precursor to a little captain tantrum.

"No. If we don't go now we'll be late." It looked like mum was going to hang up the phone and come over. She'd already turned around and was putting the paperwork down. She'd resumed the conversation with the person on the phone. Lizzy could hear her talking about deadlines and picking up Charles as she told a stranger about her life and made apologies.

It was time to go whether or not the game was finished and Lizzy knew she was pushing her luck. "I wish I didn't need to go. I wish she'd leave me alone," she muttered under her breath, ready to give up and leave.

Petunia stirred in her pocket. "Beware what ye wish for, Captain," she snarled through rose-painted lips. "What is done cannae be undone."

"But don’t want to go," Lizzy moaned and took her eyes off mum to look at Petunia. The fairy simply smiled and waved her wand. Fairy dust floated down from the star at the end and a tiny blip could be heard as it bounced around the park. "As you wish, ma’am," the fairy chipped in.

When Lizzy looked up again her mum was gone. She wasn't with the other mum's any more. Lizzy couldn't even see the buggy with her coat and bag on it. Everything was gone. There were other mum's still there and the rest of the children but no sight of her mum. Lizzy wasn't scared though. In fact, she grinned. Petunia was truly her best friend. One Christmas Lizzy wished for snow and Petunia waved her wand. Later that day enough snow fell to make several snowmen and have a snowball fight. During Easter Lizzy wished for a bunny rabbit and mum gave her one as a pet because Petunia had made it so. Anything Lizzy wanted Petunia gave to her and today was no exception.

"Thank you, Petunia!" With a hop and a skip Lizzy went straight back to the game brandishing her stick that became a great curved sword. She jumped aboard the ship and started to fight back the invading pirates. Her sword swung wide and hard as the marauding thieves were chased off and finally taken home for dinner.

While Petunia suggested Lizzy lock up her jewels new invaders arrived. The great multiple-sailed ship transformed, wood being replaced by metal and sails zipping away to become thrusters, into a spaceship. The new influx of children wanted to play an alien race and Lizzy went along with it – as a princess alien from the planet Zong. On Zong everybody walked backwards and had antenna that sprouted from their foreheads and talking was done with weird wooshing sounds. In their little spaceship they zoomed around the galaxy fighting the Imperium, which were obviously the bad guys, and trading sweeties. Lizzy didn't have any but she did end up with a lollipop from a girl around the same age who felt sorry for her.

The aliens had to leave quickly but Lizzy agreed to meet them tomorrow to finish the game. It wasn't long before she'd invited herself to a game of cowboys, Indians and robots. They only had a robot because one of the smaller boys insisted on playing one. He moved only with squeaky sounds and in jerky movements and flat hands. Lizzy told Petunia to zap him away but she was on the wrong team and instead shot at her. Lizzy was the saloon-owner and gunslinger extraordinaire and Petunia a local American Indian shaman who could do magic.

Slowly, one by one, the park started to empty. Lizzy didn't want to leave but there was another problem. "Petunia? I'm hungry. Can you wish me food?" She was sat on a swing with her little legs dangling. The white knee-high socks had wrinkled down around her ankles. The sky was tinged pink as night was approaching and the air was getting cold and crisp.

"Don't you want to keep playing?" Petunia was still grinning, oblivious to Lizzy's now growling stomach.

"I wish I had a big bowl of ice-cream," Lizzy pouted using her best puppy-dog eyes, "and chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top."

"I already did one wish today, Captain." Petunia reverted to the pirate voice she had been using earlier. She was sat on the swing next to Lizzy legs also dangling as she rocked back and forth. "Removing your mother took up a lot of energy. Wishes like that don't grow on trees."

"Not helping."

"What am I supposed to do? It's dark now. There won't be ice-cream vans. Wrong time of year, Lizzy."

The wish fairy was trying to sound comforting but it was all coming out wrong. There weren't solutions only problems. She needed a solution! (It was something her mum used to say.) Petunia couldn't placate Lizzy like her mother could. Mum's only had to say one thing and everything was alright again. Remembering her mum and the terrible wish Lizzy got tearful as the puppy dog eyes drooped and sunk to look straight at the floor. "I want to go home now …" she mumbled.

"No you don't. Come - we'll find something for you to eat. Once you've got something in your belly you can play." Petunia jumped from the swing, interrupting the tears and the moment, to search for food. Eventually, after a good few minutes of searching, she was able to find a packet of left-over crisps from one of the other children. They must have dropped it and ran off to play.

All that Lizzy could think of while crunching her way through the salt and vinegar crisps was that paradise had suddenly become imaginary. Petunia said nothing at all while she continued to eat and instead just laid staring at the sky with her large stitched blue cartoon-like eyes. The cold was definitely settling in as she shivered on the freezing metal bench at the playground. Mum would have made something warm for dinner tonight. Lizzy would have asked for fish fingers and baked beans (her favourite meal) and mum would have happily obliged. All she had now was a cold packet of crisps.

"I want to go home. Why did I wish her away?" Lizzy asked the empty space and for once her dolly didn't answer back. She sat in silence then not touching the swings or running for the roundabout or jumping down slides. It was all just hunks of metal and wasn't exciting any more. It was lonely.

The silence didn't last long before it was interrupted. A few older girls had come to the park. The moon had replaced the sun and was casting a blue tinge around the playground as it reflected off of everything metallic. The girls were definitely teenagers, Lizzy decided, and one was smoking. They took over the swings and were talking loudly about boys. Lizzy tried to make herself small; she was trying to hide mostly but also wanted to preserve her warmth. Being snuggled up made her feel a lot more safe as she imagined her mum covering her up and giving her a big hug. Petunia was left on the end of the bench.

For a moment Lizzy was almost asleep, exhausted from an exciting but also scary day on her own, until one of the intruders startled her. "Where's your mummy, little girl?" One of them poked at Lizzy.

Another grabbed Petunia. "What's this? Your dolly?"

"I don't know … give her back," Lizzy looked like she was ready to cry. She was cold, tired, and still hungry despite the crisps. Most of all Lizzy wanted to go home. "I wish I never made that wish! I want my mummy to come back."

"You wished your mum away?"

"Yes, but I didn't mean it!" she yelled.

"Don't, Laura. Just give her the doll back," one of the other older girls stopped the messing around and gave Petunia back. She was still in her school uniform with the logo over the pocket and had a long ponytail of black hair. "Where is your mum?"

Lizzy grabbed the dolly with both hands – keen to hold on to anything now that she had lost everything. The tears were welling but before one had even had the chance to fall across her face it stopped. Across the playground was her mum. Lizzy hadn't noticed her before. She had Charles with her and a few other friends. They were all calling her name. They were all shouting for Lizzy.

As soon as Lizzy spotted mum she dropped Petunia, her wish fairy, and darted across the playground. Her mum hadn't been erased. She was still alive and in this very park! How had she not seen her before? Lizzy wondered. Or heard her? She dodged the swings and zipped under the slide, and grabbed her mum's legs. "I'm so glad you are still here!"

"Lizzy," relief flooded her voice as her shoulders sagged, "of course I'm here. I'm sorry. I thought you were with me." The stress was gone in an instant.

"I didn't mean to wish you away. Can we go home, please?" Lizzy sobbed.

Lizzy's mum picked her up and simply nodded.

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

Today we went to the beach. But we did not go to just any beach, oh no, we went to Cape Cassaday, the very best beach of them all. Every other beach around was rocky and cold, but Cape Cassaday had sand. Real, so-hot-you-have-to-hop, gets-all-between-your-toes, honest-to-goodness sand, and buckets of it. Cape Cassaday had no equal in my heart, except for maybe Holland's Landing, where they make the biggest ice cream cones around. My older brother Charlie always got his in a cup though. “I don't like being rushed,” he'd say. What a spoilsport! The best part was licking it off your hands at the end, everyone knew that.

We had to take a ferry to get to Cape Cassaday. It was a twenty minute trip, so Mom let us get out of the car and go up to the observation deck. I loved the observation deck, you could see the whole ocean from up there and the wind played with your hair in funny ways. It was a magic place. I asked Mom if we could build a house on the observation deck and live in it, but she said the captain of the ferry probably wouldn't appreciate that very much.

The captain tooted the horn very loudly, which made Charlie jump in surprise and then cringe. This of course made me smile immensely. Apparently they did this to let the dock-people know we were close. Why they needed to be informed of such a thing on a clear and sunny day was beyond me. Mom ushered us back to our car and then it was just a few more minutes between me and the beach. I couldn't wait, squealing almost the entire nigh-unbearable anticipation-building drive.

“Charlie, help me with these bags, will you? Amelia... stay out of trouble for a second, hun?”

Charlie nodded and helped mom with the numerous bags of picnic supplies and sand-toys from the trunk. Mom was a notorious over-packer. When they had divvied up the bags, Mom went about making sure I had smeared a satisfactory amount of that icky, ooey-gooey sun-screen glop on my skin. It was seriously gross stuff. I felt like a corn chip dipped in sour cream.

“The beach, the beach-beach, the beach-beach-beach-beach-beach!” I chanted as we trudged down the path to the beach, much to my mother and brother's annoyance. Mom just wanted to sit in her chair and read boring books about economics. Whatever an economics was, surely it could not have been better than the beach. There were some things about Mom I just didn't understand.

The path was long and winding, carved through dunes of that disagreeing combination of rough sand and jagged spikes of dry grass that hurt to walk on with bare feet. The sea breeze picked up as we crested the final dune, then it was just a hop, a skip, and a jump to the inviting waves. I could hear them crashing against the beach like a battering ram. I'd always wanted a battering ram. Nobody ever said 'no' to someone with a battering ram.

Charlie and I helped Mom set up camp, though the wind tried to steal our blanket when we tried to spread it out. We held on, playing tug-of-war with the wind, but the wind really wanted it. I didn't know why, maybe the wind was cold? I didn't think the wind could get cold, but stranger things have happened. It took to combined force of my me and my brother, but we got our blanket back. While Charlie sat on it, I gathered rocks to pin it down, in case the wind tried anything while we weren't looking.

Charlie wanted to swim and talk to girls, but I was not here to do anything so mundane. I was here to build. I took my well-worn and treasured tools from the bag: a pail and scoop, molds for walls and towers with little parapets. I would shape my empire from the earth itself and rule, justly and fairly, from my throne on the beach. It was a good plan and I set about bringing it to fruition. The first task was obvious: I needed a throne room. But where to build it? The answer came to me instantly. The perfect place, a magic place: Pirate's Island.

To get to Pirate's Island, you had to wade until you had to swim, then swim until you could wade again. No one was ever dry when they arrived on Pirate's Island. But that was okay, things dried quickly in the sun. I put all the tools I needed in my pail and dragged it behind me as I went, I even brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, at Mom's request. It was double-layered in plastic wrap, because saltwater-logged sandwiches made for a very disappointing lunch, as I had learned last time.

Pirate's Island wasn't very big, but neither was Great Britain, it would do nicely as the hub of my Amelian empire. But before all that, I had much building to do. I wanted my throne room to have a nice view of the ocean, so I found a nice spot on the beach and set to work. I could make anything I wanted with my tools, but first I needed a nice supply of wet sand. I dug the first great quarry of the Amelian empire right then and there.

I would need more than just sand, though, so I combed the beach for any sticks or shells or pretty rocks that caught my eye. Pirate's Island was littered with lovely things I could use: I found a tarnished metal lighter that no longer worked, a couple of glittering green plastic gemstones, and a sizable collection of sand dollars. I put them all next to the quarry in what would become the grand treasury.

Walls ten feet high and trenches ten feet deep, palisades of stick and stone, let it never be said that the Amelian empire did not take its defense seriously. Oh, and a moat! Everybody needed a moat. But we were a peaceful people, under the wise, happy-go-lucky leadership of me, Empress Amelia, first of her name. I giggled at my own title, it just felt right.

We were powerful in peace, too, a quick tour of our financial district could tell you that. The Bank of Sand Dollars was a very well respected name in the regional community, after all. We had an arts district too, where the citizens could relax and catch a showing of Attack of the Economics at the local theater, where popcorn was always free. The Amelian scientists were hard at work as well, always finding innovative new ways to use our nation's supply of plastic wrap for the betterment of science.

At the center of it all was a great spire of sand and crystal, where I lived. The Tower of Royalty and Other Good Things, it was called, though most folks just called it the Tower. I could see the whole of my empire from up there, and what a pretty empire it was. Maybe we didn't have as much land as the Romans, but we had integrity and we had fun. No one was ever unhappy or lacking ice cream in the Amelian empire. I don't think the Romans ever had ice cream. Amelia one, Romans zero.

A missive from the nearby village of Smelly-Upon-Sunset was waiting for me in my throne room when I returned from my walk in the seaweed gardens. Villagers had been going missing, it said, a wizard was to blame. I needed no time to make my decision.

“Saddle up the finest, fairest, fastest crab we have, Empress Amelia is coming to the rescue!”

The crab in question was all too willing to serve, a majestic thing as pale and graceful as the moon itself: a steed worthy of the Empress. His name was Barnilium Driftwood and he could scuttle like no other creature on this earth. And scuttle he did, for in no time at all we arrived in Smelly-Upon-Sunset, hot on the trail of the notorious wizard.

The villagers were a scared bunch. They had been living in fear of the wizard for some time now, they informed me. Sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, would disappear in the night, never to be seen again. The whole thing made me uneasy, but I could not waver, I was the Empress and my people needed me. I gripped Barnilium's reins tightly as he led me to the scene of the crime, where the latest villager had vanished.

A simple cottage of sand and sticks on the outskirts of town, devoid of original inhabitants, but a small crowd had gathered around. I pulled back on the reins and Barnilium came to a stop. The crowd started to disperse, to make way for their Empress, before my feet even touched the sand. Now I was on the hunt, not for game, but for clues, and I drew a polished sea-glass lens from my pocket to aid me in my search.

The lens made everything a funny sort of yellow-brownish hue, but I did my best not to giggle. An Empress should not be laughing while her subjects lived in fear. The sea-glass lens revealed hidden things to me and coupled with my inquisitive nature and natural detective's instincts, I soon found what the others could not.

A trail of footprints in the sand, leading away from the cottage. Not unusual to the untrained eye, lost in the foot-traffic patterns of the swarming villagers. But to me it seemed so obvious: wizard's boots. No other shoe could have left those marks. I saddled up once more on my albino crab-steed called Driftwood and followed the trail.

The wizard footprints led me on a zig-zag route inland, towards the very heart of Pirate's Island. Barnilium got scared once or twice on our journey, but I never did. Eventually we arrived at the mouth of Sharktooth Cave, so named because the stalagmites and stalactites were so frequent and so sharp, that it resembled the mouth of a shark. A perfect lair for an evil wizard. Barnilium could not safely come with me, so I thanked him for his service and told him to wait for me outside. I also told him that if I did not return within three hours, he should return to the empire and tell the sad tale of my demise.

I steeled myself with several deep breaths before stepping into the mouth of Sharktooth Cave. It was hard enough to navigate by daylight and the cave only got darker and darker the deeper I went. Every now and then I could hear the wizard's evil voice echo through the cave, though I could not make out what he was saying.

Then all of a sudden there he was in front of me. Illuminated by ominous light from his magic wand and robed in garish hues and runic patterns: the wizard. He stood over a demented shadow of a village, constructed out of stolen architecture and populated by stolen villagers. It was a mockery of everything I held dear.

“Evil wizard, I offer you one chance at mercy! Return that which you have stolen and say you're sorry and all will be forgiven!”

The evil wizard stared at me, somewhat amused and a little confused.

“Amelia? Where have you been?” said Charlie, pointing the beam of his flashlight directly into my eyes. “We've been looking all over for you.”

[Matteo ((Taed))]

Team Kaez

Not bad, not bad. I don’t know if enough happened for me to call this really good, but it definitely had its charms. I liked the little twist a lot, more so in this entry than in the other one, because there was more doubt here over whether or not the magic was actually real.

However, by the same token, to maintain that level of doubt, it does stretch credulity a bit. That is some laughably terrible parenting that mom did, to just up and leave like that. And to not notice her mistake for so long.

I also think it would have been more entertaining if you varied the activities a bit. For all that this is a story about the magic of imagination compared against actual magic, the kid didn’t exactly go too far off the script. She hung around in a playground for a few hours, and played a few variations of the same game. It would have been cool to see her adventures range a bit further afield. I don’t think a vivid imagination and an interesting imagination are necessarily the same thing.

Team Zovo

This entry also had a pretty solid approach to the child narrator voice, although it did slip a few times. I think the word choice was actually fine—you shouldn’t have to limit yourself to a child’s vocabulary—but there were just a few places where the sentence structure felt off-style when compared to the rest of the piece. However, you also had a few really nice little phrases that were very clean, and felt very childlike, without banging the reader over the head. In particular, the description of the wind stealing the blanket because it was cold, and the description of wading until you could swim, and then swimming until you could wade, were really good.

Like the other entry, I thought that the imagination-reality connection was a tad tenuous, and also that it was a bit samey. I was weaned on kid’s TV that used this premise (showing the world through the eyes of a child) a lot, and something that “genre” always did very well was to mix up the real-world location, and to draw a clear line between inspiration and imagination, so that at the end of the episode they’d go back through and see that, you know, the fire-breathing dragon was actually the furnace, or whatever.


Point - Team Zovo

[James]

Team Kaez
This was a really delightful, little children’s story. There was a bit of whimsy to it, there was a childhood fear of being left behind, there was a nice little message for children to learn from. There was everything you wanted from a children’s story. You even wrote at an appropriate level for your hypothetical readers. Well done. I particularly loved the imagination that shone throughout the piece. The ship turning back to a jungle gym as Lizzy moved away from it was a really nice touch to highlight that. Also, how the kids just rolled with the fact that Steve wanted to be a robot. You didn’t name the kid, but I did it for you. He’s Steve and he wants to be a robot no matter what game is being played. He sucks at tennis.

There were a few things I had problems with, though. I’ll briefly touch upon the fact that you were probably underutilising commas. Listen to how you read a sentence. For example: “... her mother called across the playground cutting through the noise of squealing children.” Did you take a little pause between playground and cutting? Comma. “Her face was steadily turning red which was usually the precursor to a little captain tantrum.” A little pause between red and which? Comma. I don’t want to harp on about it, but I also don’t want to say anything and to have you think you’re getting it right. That’s not fair to you. So it’s not a big issue, but it is something you can be aware of. Similarly, I’d like to see some more consistency in the narrative, at times it was “her mum”, then “mum” and then “Mum”. You need to pick one and stick with it. Preferably, “Mum” because you were using it as a name.

Okay. Grammar stuff out of the way.

I had a little trouble with the wish fairy. I’m still not sure exactly what was going on there. You never really described her to me, so I struggled to really get a picture of what she was. I knew she was small, but then she was sitting on a swing with her legs dangling off the side and suddenly I was thrown. You brought it together when the teenagers mentioned it as her “dolly”, but yeah, a little less confusion around something which is obviously already meant to be subjective (as actual fairy or just a doll) would have been nice.

What the wish fairy did do is allow you to highlight two things I really liked. First of all, the teenagers who showed up weren’t arseholes. That was nice. The story felt real when you saw that one of the teens realised that Lizzy was actually really upset. Secondly, you got a message in there. Children’s stories always have morals and lessons to be learned, you knew that, and you made sure that you got it in there without being too blunt about it. Really well done.

However, be careful about what you might say unintentionally. Children take messages away from the stories they read and I was kind of bummed that “career mum” was treated with disdain at the start and we never quite got the pay-off at the end to recognise that being busy with work isn’t bad. Lizzy realised she shouldn’t have wished her mother away, but she didn’t realise how important work is to her mother and that her mother cares about both her work and her. I don’t know. I just feel like “parent is too busy with work” is a cliché and I didn’t get that challenged in this story. And I think it should.

So what does that leave us with? A good story, but room for improvement. It was imaginative; it had the appropriate tone and voice for children. The grammar could be tidied up, but there were some nice moments of description and characterisation. Also, well done on getting a message across, but make sure you think about unintentional things too.

Good job.

Team Zovo
I love me the beach. I also really enjoyed that first paragraph. It was an excellent start to an excellent story. There was a really distinctive voice that came through right from the start. It made Amelia feel real. Right from that definitive statement “today we went to the beach”, to the really spot-on description of sand, and the important discussion about ice cream. By the way, both Charlie and Amelia are wrong. Ice cream should be eaten in a cone, but who wants to lick it off their hands? Ugh. Kids.

What I really enjoyed was the way the scene was described to me. You painted really vivid pictures with a really child-like, innocent, wonderment tone. It was fantastic. The observation deck, the wind trying to steal the blanket, it all just came across great. The kid logic about the wind being cold and “Attack of the Economics” just provided the story with a light comical touch that was perfect. In fact the way it was written was the main entertainment I got from the story. Because without it, this would have been a “what I did at the weekend” story that wouldn't have too much else going for it. So you treaded a really fine line.

Sometimes I think you pushed too far to really write well. In fact, this is my biggest concern with your story. Team Kaez’s story played to its audience and I think you forgot about them at time. “Disagreeing combination”, “bringing it to fruition”, “tarnished metal”, all of these are where I think you’re pushing at the limits of vocabulary for a children’s story. It was something I was on guard for before I read either story and yours started to sound alarm bells. Especially in contrast to the wonderful kid logic that I think was so relatable, as I said earlier.

On that note, I think you also failed to capture a “message” that children’s fiction nearly always has. This was just a fun day out and nobody learnt anything at the end of it. If you give me an entertaining fantasy story with no theme/message, I’m probably not going to think twice about that if I enjoyed myself. Same for sci-fi or horror. But for children’s stories? Not so much. How many children’s stories have you read where there isn’t some sort of moral?

The other thing I wanted to point out was just keep an eye on sentence structure. It’s how you get the story to flow. If it flows well, a reader can get sucked in. If it doesn’t, a good story can be undone. Most of the time, you had a really nice flow going to it. But that wasn’t the always the case. For example:

“Pirate's Island wasn't very big, but neither was Great Britain, it would do nicely as the hub of my Amelian empire. But before all that, I had much building to do. I wanted my throne room to have a nice view of the ocean, so I found a nice spot on the beach and set to work. I could make anything I wanted with my tools, but first I needed a nice supply of wet sand. I dug the first great quarry of the Amelian empire right then and there.”

Do you notice that the middle three sentences follow the exact same beat? That’s the type of thing you want to avoid. It’s like the needle suddenly scratched the record. Whoever you are, you can write. So start thinking about the next level of writing as well, things like sentence structures, flow, pacing and so on.

But I seriously enjoyed that story. Brought back a lot of memories. Great job.

Result
This is a tough one. When I first read them, I decided that Team Zovo had the win despite some concerns around the use of topic. Now that I’ve actually written my reviews, those concerns are way more substantial.

I don’t think Team Zovo handled the topic very well, and I think Team Kaez did. However, Team Zovo was better written and I enjoyed it more. Ugh. This is exactly what happened the last time we had Children’s Story as a topic. I feel like now I’ve explained my thought process, whatever I decide may be controversial.

Here’s the crux of the issue. While being a good story, I don’t think Team Kaez was close enough to justify me saying “you didn’t get the topic right, Team Zovo, so you lose.” It’s not like Team Zovo ignored the topic, they just didn’t get it quite right. But for being a better story, I’m going to award the point to Team Zovo by a very small margin.