A Christmas Pinn

Chapter 4

Finn:

I grabbed a pen and sticky note from Nick's desk. 

"Emily's going to kill you for that later," she said, checking her phone to see if her battery life was high enough yet. 

"Then I'll just infuse the Christmas spirit inside of her." This time she laughed at my joke. I smiled back at her. 

"And these were my Christmas gift to Emily." 

"Really? You must know her so well." She giggled. Whenever she laughed, she would always lean over, hiding her smile, which was a shame as her smile was beautiful. 

I snapped out of my thought. "Anyway, should you start or I start?" 

"I'll start," I said. I pressed the pen to my chin, thinking of a phrase that would catch her out. 

I changed my mind. "Actually, you start." I handed her the pen. She quickly jotted down the right amount of lines for her phrase. 

"Guess." She placed the post-it in front of me. It was quite an obvious answer, I had seen this phrase used a million times, but I didn't want to spoil her fun just yet. 

"E?" I asked. 

"Yes." She wrote one E in the middle of the first word. 

"C?" I asked again. She nodded and wrote the first letter for the second word. 

"O?" She smirked and shook her head, drawing the first stick of the hangman. 

"Y?" 

"Yes," she said, writing the letter in the correct place. 

"Is the phrase... Merry Christmas?" She rolled her eyes, but with a more happy attitude. As though she was mad she lost but was still having fun.

"Correct. Your turn." She pulled off a fresh sticky note. 

I had my phrase figured out and began drawing all the necessary dashes. 

"Finn, how long is your sentence?" She leaned in closer to see, her hair getting in the way of my writing. I gently brushed it to one side. 

"Very. Long." I lifted my head and showed her the paper. 

She stared at it in concentration. "I'll start with the vowels. E?" 

"Yep." I wrote down a couple of Es throughout the phrase. She continued to guess. 

***

"Come on, Pipes. You only have one last chance." She began to rub her forehead. She had nearly gotten the entire sentence. 

"I can't think." 

"Yes, you can." I decided to teach her a technique that I always used. "Read out loud what you can see." 

"What? That won't make any sense and it'll sound stupid." 

"Just do it, trust me." 

She took a deep breath and read out the phrase. "Ear stuck at ts an nee help." Realization flashed across her face.

"We're stuck at..." She began. I nodded to encourage her. "We're stuck at TNS and need help." 

"Yes!" I high fived her. "Congratulations."

"That was a hard one." Exhausted, she slumped into her chair.

"I am the master." 

"What should we do now?" I asked.

She sat back up in her chair. "Oh, I have an idea."