Piper raises her coffee mug and yells, “Here, here!”
I look over and risk a glance at Mr. Andrews and when I meet his eyes he’s smiling at me and silently shaking with laughter. “How about this,” he says. “Instead of you missing out on two tasks, or you both missing out on one, why don’t you both work together for this next task.”
Piper’s answering smile is as wide as the Chesire cats, and Phoebe is much more pale than she was five minutes ago.
I lock eyes with Phoebe and we both just stare at each other with mutual shocked expressions. What did we just get ourselves into?
“Wait, no fair!” Phil yells. “If they get to partner up, then I want to partner up with Austin.”
“Well then I want a partner too,” Piper agrees while crossing her arms and pouting like a child.
Phoebe lets out an irritated groan. “There aren’t enough people for all of us to have partners. I’ll just sit this one out. It’s fine.”
“What if I play?”
We all turn and stare at Kevin.
“Umm, no that’s okay,” Phoebe laughs at him. “You don’t like childish games like this.”
“If I get to partner up with you…then I love playing kids games,” he winks at her.
How did I go from trying to help keep Phoebe in the game, to helping Kevin shoot his shot with her?
Mrs. Andrews walks into the room with a large Santa bowl in her hands and steps close to her husband, whispering something in his ear that makes him smile wide.
“My beautiful wife has just brought a lovely idea to my attention,” he kisses her swiftly on the cheek and takes the bowl from her hands. “We decided that we like this idea of partnering you all up, but there’s no way in heck that you will get to choose your partners. So my kids will come and pick a name from the bowl. Whichever name you choose will be your partner for the remainder of the tasks.”
Now this is an intriguing turn of events. I don’t necessarily love that Kevin is officially joining the game, but I’m hoping that Phoebe doesn’t pull his name out of the Santa bowl.
Piper is up first and she grabs a small folded up piece of paper out of the bowl and unfolds it quickly. She smiles over at Austin and gives him a fist bump from across the table.
Phil shoves his hand into the Santa bowl next, and his groan of frustration has me bouncing on the balls of my feet. Did he get me or Kevin?
“Looks like I’m stuck with Kevin the douche over here,” he pouts.
Mrs. Andrews claps her hands excitedly. “I guess that means Pheebs and Spencer are partners!” She smiles fondly at her daughter before continuing. “I went ahead and picked the next task for you guys. It’s just such a perfect day to…build a snow fort!”
We all look at each other, then back at Mrs. Andrews, waiting for her to elaborate, because we know that building ‘just a snow fort’ can’t really be the task. It’s too easy.
“Oh don’t look at me like that! This is going to be fun!” Mrs. Andrews is literally bouncing in excitement, which earns her smiles from all of us. You can’t be in a bad mood when she’s this excited. “Alright so you girls know how you got me into those blue alien books?” Phoebe and Piper both snicker loudly as Mr. Andrews snorts and rolls his eyes at his wife. “Well I got the idea from them,” she continues. “You guys will have to build a snow fort, and stock it fully…to last an entire night.” She winks in my direction and I feel my body flush.
Wait, what?
Did she literally just say that I have to spend the night alone…in a snow fort…with her daughter?
There’s a moment of silence at the table, and then Austin, of all people, starts laughing. “You’re telling us, we have to build a snow fort, and spend the night in said snow fort with our partner? That’s what you’re saying, right?”
Mr. Andrews just nods, then looks down at his watch. “You all have until 6:00 PM to have your forts built. I don’t care where you build them, but you have to let us judges know by then so we can go inspect them. After that you are on your own until we meet back up at Adalene’s Bakery tomorrow at 10:00 AM.”
“Get going!” Mrs. Andrews shouts and shoos us all away from the table. “We will see you at 6:00! Make us proud!”
Chapter Thirteen
Phoebe
Thishastobesome type of cosmic freaking joke.
How am I supposed to spend an entire night with Spencer when I can’t even look at him without wanting to scream? How are we supposed to work together long enough to build an entire liveable snow fort?
