Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“You’re failing.”
“Yes, thank you, Sherlock.” I stood up straight with a huff. “Funnily enough, I’d realised that.”
His eyes twinkled. “Would you like some help?”
“No, but I’m going to have to accept the offer anyway.”
With a laugh, he nudged me over and put his hands on the snowball. “Come on. Yours is bigger than mine, so this can be the bottom part of the body.”
“Ugh. No wonder I couldn’t move it. It’s twice the size of yours!”
“It’s hardly my fault that you’ve overachieved. Come on before my hands freeze off.”
“We’re wearing ski gloves,” I pointed out, bending over to push the snowball. “One, two, three.”
On my count, we pushed off, heaving the ball over. It took us several more shoves and more than one colourful string of words from William to get it to the spot he wanted to build it on, but we finally did it.
He stepped back and looked at it. “Not bad. Now let’s lift my ball on top of it.”
“Oh no. I have the upper body strength of a mouldy potato,” I muttered.
“I noticed.”
“Hey!”
He laughed and beckoned me over to the ball. Begrudgingly, I joined him, and together we hefted it up onto the bigger body, only just stopping it from rolling right back off and presumably smashing into smaller bits.
I packed some snow into the gap between the body parts to steady it, and William slowly backed off.
“Okay, it’s good.”
“Now the head,” I pointed out.
“I’ll do the head. You find some eyes.”
“How am I going to find eyes? There’s nothing but white here!” I looked around, throwing my arm out to emphasise my point.
“Stones on the path,” he replied. “Bruce will find sticks. He’s good at that.”
“Where is Bruce?”
William pointed to a space under a huge pine tree where he was happily curled up, napping. “He’s found the only spot in the area with no snow, it seems.”
It was true—the tree’s branches were so dense that no snow could get through.
“All right, fine. I’ll see what I can find, but don’t be mad if pine needles are all there is,” I warned him.
“We’ll figure something out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – GRACE
Snow Isn’t Always Cold
“Its eyes are pine needles,” William said. “Just… one pine needle each. And he’s wearing your scarf.”
“He’s sleeping,” I offered, looking at the snowman. “And I didn’t want him to be naked. That’s an offence, you know.”
“I’m not even responding to the latter part of what you just said,” he replied. “Why would a snowman be sleeping?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s tired of your shit.”
He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, laughing quietly. “If I go to sleep now, does that mean I don’t have to listen to yours?”
“No. I’ll talk while you sleep. Like those hypnotherapy tapes people use.” I sniffed and cast my gaze over the snowman. “He’s not bad. He kind of looks like Brock.”
“Brock?”
“Yeah, from Pokémon.”
William looked at me, amused. “You watch Pokémon?”
“I’ve been known to enjoy it now and then,” I replied nonchalantly. “Who doesn’t love Togepi?”
“I always found it annoying with its little chirps,” he mused. “I was more of a Charizard guy.”
“Of course you were.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everyone was always a Charizard or Pikachu guy. You know who didn’t get enough credit in the original series? Gengar.”
“I can’t quite believe I’m having this conversation with you right now,” he said slowly. “Are we really about to debate Pokémon?”
I shrugged. “Is there anything else to do? Should we go back now?”
“Do you want to get roped into wedding prep?”
“Depends on your sister’s mood,” I replied honestly. “If she’s like this morning? Then no. I’d rather throw myself into the loch.”
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance of that being the case, but we can walk down. It’s not far to the loch from here. Maybe a couple of minutes. It’s pretty in the snow.”
“Okay, then let’s go, and I’ll tell you why Gengar is the best Pokémon.”
“Bruce.” William whistled, and the black and white collie perked up, quickly sparking to life from his nap.
I envied dogs. I couldn’t wake up that quickly. It took at least fifteen minutes, three complaints, six groans about the sun being in my eyes, and too many doom-scrolls through Instagram to count.
“I have to admit, Gengar isn’t the one I thought you’d say was underrated. I always thought he was popular,” he said after a moment.
“No, I think most people went for Alakazam. He could bend spoons.”
“I always wanted to be able to bend spoons with my mind,” he agreed. “You’re right. Alakazam was cooler.”
“No. Gengar wins, hands down.” I shook my head. “He’s big, he’s purple, and he’s a ghost, and everyone is scared of him. Not to mention he looks like he’d give the best hugs. He’d be the best pet ever.”
“How can you hug a ghost?”
“We’re talking about animals that can shrink down into a capsule the size of a tennis ball. I think we can suspend disbelief about being able to hug a ghost.”