“D'you start off with the edges first or –?” Jason rattled the base of the box with the puzzle pieces to separate them and winced.

He's going to wake the kids up again. Satara looked up from the blue corner piece in her hand with a faint frown. “Are there people who don't start off with the edges first?”

Jason coughed and raised a hand, rummaging through the rest of the jigsaw pieces with his other one.

“How?” She scanned the box with the middle pieces. “Where do you even begin?”

“Same as when you start with the edges, I guess.” He tapped the picture of a festive village on the lid of the box. “You just choose which part you wanna focus on first and get all the pieces that match it. I'm gonna start with the Christmas tree.”

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“I always start from the corners though.” She indicated the four puzzle pieces carefully laid out on the special roll up mat she bought for him a week ago in the beginnings of a frame. “Once you join them up, its easier to work on the part with the biggest surface area.”

“Oh god … Don't bring maths into it,” he groaned, sorting pieces of various shades of green from the rest. “This is supposed to be fun.”

“Oh. Really?” She clicked the last piece of the lower edge into place. A large barn took up half the picture and picked out the brown pieces from those closest to her.

“Wait, why else d'you think we're doing this then?” Jason's incredulous voice drew her attention to his face.

“To pass time until your mum gets back from shopping?”

“Does that mean you're not having fun?”

Did he really just ask me that? Satara paused in the middle of placing a piece against the upper right corner and simply blinked at him. Jason half groaned, half laughed, and started talking about something completely different.

Until he heard his little sister call out for their mum. And then he swore.