Two rabbit girls, an A-rank speedster, and a Harpist cheered on Hadiza as she walked across the room. Her long elegant dress swooshed back and forth with the swing of her hips. Layers of golden jewelry of different textures shone brightly, her back was straight, and her feet were bare. But everyone’s eyes were on the top of her head, where a china plate of radishes sat perfectly balanced.
“When you said Radish Balancing, I was thinking, you know, holding the plate in your hands and trying to keep them from rolling off,” Winston said.
“That is a fine way to do it,” Hadiza spoke softly. Her voice was warm and friendly, with a comforting richness. “This is my way. It is not so difficult.”
She reached the coffee table and, lifting the skirt of her dress with both hands, stepped up onto it. She kept the plate balanced as she crossed, picking her feet up high to step around the cups and decor on the long low table.
“Maybe it’s not hard for you! I never put stuff on my head. I don’t have putting stuff on head practice,” said Natalie.
remarked Emilija,
Hadiza made it to the other end of the coffee table, and then spoke to Winston, who was sitting in an armchair in front of her.
“Stay seated, if you please, Mr. Heelfeather.”
“Okay?”
Hadiza extended a bare leg from under her skirts and placed her bare foot onto the oversized armrest.
“If this doesn’t work, leave me and save the radishes,” her low voice murmured.
She shifted her weight onto the armrest as Winston’s body kept the chair from tipping. Hadiza had a moment of triumph standing on the armrest with the plate still balanced on her head, her skirts fluttering down from where she had held them, before the squishy armchair material began to stretch and flop off of the side of the frame.
She nimbly hopped to the floor with a swirl of her skirt, managing to get her feet under her without getting tangled in the fabric. The plate of radishes went tumbling, but before Hadiza could even finish her quiet cry it had already been rescued and stabilized by the speedster.
“And that is why speed is cool!” Winston crowed, handing Hadiza back her radishes.
“Because speed was of great assistance to my shiny perfect radishes?” Hadiza asked, straightening back up into a poised posture and smoothing her outfit.
“Yes! Speed for the win!” He pumped his fist.
“I will grant speed the assist” Hadiza pronounced serenely. “Shiny radishes are for the win.”
“Yes! Shiny radishes for the win!” Natalie echoed, her perky voice a contrast to Hadiza’s smoothness. “But your skill is really cool too, Winston,” Natalie smiled at him.
“I gracefully accept your assessment,” Hadiza said.
“Let’s get back to basics, y’all!” Natalie said brightly. “It’s radish balancing, not plate balancing. We don’t want to drop the plate. We want the radishes to be what’s balanced and what could fall off. I think we need to cut the tops and prepare them the same way they were prepared when Alden had them at that tacky Velra party.”
The instant Natalie said those last words, she remembered Lute was in the room and her face turned to one of horror.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! What I meant, the party was… looked… I’m sure they…” she began stammering.
“Please make fun of my awful relatives’ tasteless disaster of a theme party,” Lute said, leaning back comfortably on the sofa. “It would bring me no greater joy, I promise you.”
“Um…” Natalie began in a small voice, and then brightened back up again. “Right! I never said that and also it’s fine and we’re all moving on.”
Natalie started walking over to the kitchen part of the open floor plan as she spoke.
“The radishes can’t roll and fall if they’re all attached in a bunch with their greens, so we’ll just prepare them the same way we would for a definitely not tacky crudités that includes small whole radishes. Tops off, ready to eat.”
She pulled out a cutting board and waved a kitchen knife.
“Not my radishes!” Hadiza gasped, stepping back and hugging the radishes into her chest with a jangle of jewelry.
Winston laughed at her meme-worthy reaction. Hadiza was usually the calm one. “If only I’d recorded that. You could be Radish Famous too.”
“The sacred rule?” asked Lute.
“No recording, no gossip, what happens in the burrow stays in the burrow,” Natalie explained.
“This is the burrow,” Hadiza clarified as she fixed the arrangement of her jewelry. “It’s our rabbit home.”
Natalie stuck her tongue out at Emilija, and then turned to Lute.
“Winston has a social media presence,” she said. “He’s always worried about his image and about people recognizing him when he’s in public. And since I get a bit too much attention sometimes too, when we first met in The Warren we made a pact to have eachother’s back and never be creepy at each other!” She nodded at Winston and he nodded back.
“The Warren was what rabbit intake was called,” Hadiza explained smoothly.
“Oh. Yeah, I know the feeling,” Lute said. “I get drones following me around because of my family, and I want nothing to do with them. Both the family and the drones. I try to lure them into private spaces so that I can legally destroy them. Uhh… just the drones, on that one, so far.”
Winston lifted his nose.
“If I were you, I’d leverage that attention by…”
“So we all have something in common!” Natalie interrupted Winston brightly. “You can join our pact, Lute!”
“Sure. Basic human decency and respect, count me in. Even when Hadiza makes a very funny face about radishes.”
“You cannot murder these innocent radishes,” Hadiza said with finality as she carried the plate to the kitchen part of the room.
“Could the game use a prop instead?” Lute asked. “A substitute for radishes?”
“Yeah! That way we don’t waste food by dropping radishes on the ground,” Winston agreed.
“I think you could just wash them if that happened,” Lute said.
“Yeah, five second rule!” Winston cheered.
Natalie smiled and went into teaching mode. “Radishes are root vegetables! They come out of the ground. Their natural state is to be covered in dirt. They are hardy vegetables that can be easily washed and scrubbed.”
“These radishes are for Alden’s party. We must present them properly and unharmed,” Hadiza said from the kitchen, posing with the perfect-looking radishes as she gently touched her hand to them. They suddenly took on an extra layer of angelic beauty.
“Hey, you can stack your skill? That’s impressive,” said Lute.
“I’ve been practicing,” she said with a small smile, and then turned to put them in the fridge.
“Real sports use balls,” Winston said. “You could use ping pong balls instead of radishes, or golf balls.”
“What’s a golf ball?” asked Lute.
All four non-native Anesidorans turned to look at him.
“They don’t have golf here?” Winston asked.
“I guess not? Maybe it’s just not as popular,” Lute said.
“Probably for the best,” Winston tossed his head dismissively. “It’s a really slow and boring sport anyway.”
“I’ve actually got a couple trophies,” Natalie brightened. “They’re back home, I mean, at my parent’s house.”
“They weren’t very competitive games,” Natalie blushed. “It’s just fun to be outside and with friends!”
“I think this calls for a radish-off,” Lute announced. “Natalie versus Emilija, since Hadiza has already shown us how it’s done. Get the paper plates and the golf balls!”
“I don’t think we have any golf balls…” Natalie said.
“We could use eggs?” Winston suggested.
“NO,” the three rabbit girls said together. Natalie got up to rifle through her cabinets, looking for inspiration.
“Potatoes?” Winston tried. “Oh, what are those little glass spheres? Alden had a whole bunch that fell out of his bag one time. Are those common on Anesidora?”
Winston had a clear memory of the cascade of little spheres, and opted not to go into detail about the circumstances.
“Are you talking about the temper spheres he uses for his haunting sphere spell impression?” Lute asked, remembering them from their shopping trip to the wright supply store before their second day of obstacle course runs. They had been there for the spheres, for special survival paracord with fishing line inside, and for a multitude of jerky.
“Haunting sphere? Never heard of that. The spell impression didn’t seem to do anything, but I was looking for a threat, not a rabbit spell that makes them… haunt you?”
Winston thought about it and realized that he did feel haunted by the spheres. He’d thought about that moment many times. It was good to know it was magic, and not his own insecurity.
Lute was also hit with his own memory of that moment, when Alden dumped thousands of argold worth of spell ingredients inertly onto an annoying speedster’s head. He hadn’t quite placed Winston before, since he’d only peeked in on the obstacle run from afar, but now he smiled. Winston had been a source of great amusement during that run.
“Unfortunately, as I’m now living independently of my family’s wealth, I don’t have the spare cash to afford a plate full of temper spheres,” he said.
“They’re expensive? But Alden dropped all of the…”
“Radishes!” Hadiza said smugly, turning around and showing that she had several more bunches hidden in the fridge.
******
A few minutes of preparation later, involving dramatic laments from the onlookers as Natalie took a knife to the extra bunches of radishes Hadiza had picked up because she “has learned to be prepared whenever those two start getting ideas,” the games were ready to begin.
Lute, Alden, and Hadiza sat together on the couch, facing Natalie and Emilija who were standing side by side across from them. Natalie was still in her usual outfit of jeans and a patterned silk blouse, and Emilija had quickly changed from a miniskirt into yoga pants so that Natalie wouldn’t have a pants advantage. Each held a paper plate balanced on top of their right hand, and each plate held eleven individual radishes.
“Now remember, the plates are china and these are eleven innocent young radishes,” Natalie reminded them.
Hadiza gracefully leaned forward and lifted herself off the couch, sending both hands forward to touch each plate. When she sat back down again Lute found himself under the distinct impression that the plates were indeed the fine china of paper plates, and the radishes somehow held the blush of innocence.
“I’ll try not to lean too much into my physical enhancements,” Natalie smiled sportingly at Emilija.
“I have complete faith in your physical prowess, Emilija,” Lute said confidently.
He moved his fingers as if he were sending a system text, and the two caught each other’s eyes. Emilija shook her head slightly.
“Winner fights me in the next round!” Winston claimed, eager to show off his speedster skills and looking forward to winning against Natalie after she beat Emilija. Even if she was a rabbit and it didn’t really count, he could still add it to his list of S ranks he had beaten.
“Round one!” Hadiza announced with a professional sounding voice, sitting up straight with her legs crossed under her skirt. “Turn to the right, three times!”
The two girls both spun in circles, carefully keeping the radishes from rolling off. Both completed their circles without spilling any.
“Point goes to Emilija!” Hadiza announced.
“You were faster,” Hadiza explained.
“Oh! Is that how it works?” Natalie asked.
“It is for now. Drop a radish and be disqualified. If no one drops any, the most points wins. Also, if we don’t like these rules, we change them until we all have fun.”
“I’ll do my best!” Natalie smiled.
“Three turns to the left, then!”
The two competitors complied.
Hadiza made them jump, do squats and touch the floor, sit down and roll over onto their backs, and do laps around the room. The girls were neck and neck through the challenges, with whoever was ahead on points at the moment taking things slower to not risk a disqualification.
With Emilija ahead by just one point, and both girls making it look easy, Hadiza made the next challenge more difficult.
“Next you must touch the wall, and then hop backwards on one foot until you touch the other wall,” she instructed.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
To avoid interference, they took turns. Natalie went first.
She carefully walked with her radishes to the far wall and placed her free hand on it, lifted one foot, and waited for Hadiza’s countdown.
“Ready? Set? Start!”
Everyone, including Emilija, cheered her on as Natalie craned her head to look behind her and took a tentative little hop backwards. And then another.
A normal person might have looked awkward trying to hop backwards, but she made it look like a perfectly lovely endeavor, from the curve of her neck to her nonstanding leg lifted in a crane position with pointed toes. Her off-hand was still reaching forward, from where it had been touching the wall, fingers held gracefully like a dancer.
Every hop was balanced and steady, her ankle barely wobbling in her converse shoes. A bow at the front of her blouse bounced with every hop, and though the plate jerked up along with the rest of her body she managed to catch everything on it with precision each time.
“Faster! Faster!” Winston cheered.
“I’m trying! They’re so rolly!” Natalie yelled, her voice disturbing the illusion her visuals had created. She jerked the plate to catch a radish that was about to fall off, and then jerked it more in compensation as the others rolled the other way. She was over halfway across the room by now, and was starting to reach her other arm behind her in anticipation of tagging the other wall.
“Thirty seconds,” Hadiza announced with calm.
“Eeee!” Natalie was yelling as the oscillation of the radishes continued with every hop, her efforts to catch them becoming more and more dramatic. Everyone cheered encouragement as it became a race of whether she would hit the back wall before she finally lost control.
“Nooo!” She cried as one went off the edge, and she scooted backwards with S-rank force to tap the wall before it hit the ground. The sudden move made all the other radishes fly to their doom, but by the time they dropped all around her she was leaning against the wall with one foot still up, posing a winning pose and smiling her best smile at Hadiza.
“Did I do it?” She asked brightly.
“Thirty eight seconds, and the sad death of eleven innocent young radishes,” Hadiza said neutrally. “If Emilija can get to the wall without spilling any, she wins.”
Hadiza readied her timer.
“Ready. Set. Start.”
Emilija’s hopping posture did not look graceful the way Natalie’s did. Rather than posing upright and craning her neck up and over her shoulder, she was a bit hunched and had her head tilted down and to the side, looking at the ground underneath her arm. Where Natalie had tucked her free leg into a perfect static fold, she had it held out at a random angle, wobbling around. And instead of holding her plate out and to the side like a server, she had it held close in front of her chest.
When she hopped backwards, her leg kicked out a bit and her free arm flailed. Her hunched shoulders bounced. But while her body hopped backwards, the plate of radishes stayed still, now extended a bit further from her chest. She brought them back towards her slowly and steadily, and when they were almost at her chest she flailed and hopped backwards again as her arm extended to keep the radishes moving smoothly.
“Oh!” Natalie exclaimed. “I should have done it that way!”
As Emilija found her rhythm, she was able to hop faster and faster, keeping the plate moving at a steady pace with her arm, hopping back away from it whenever it got too close. Every part of her bounced chaotically except for the hand that held the plate.
“You’re really good at that!” Natalie said.
“Faster!” cheered Winston.
Emilija smoothly decellerated as she neared the other wall, so that her radishes would stay in place even at the end. She brought the plate to a stop just as she reached the wall. Only then did she reach back and tap it.
“Time,” Hadiza announced. “24 seconds.”
“Yay, congratulations!” cheered Natalie.
“That’s faster!” cheered Winston.
“Art talent for the win!” Lute raised his hand for a high five, and Emilija’s hand met his with a satisfying smack.
******
For Winston’s round against Emilija, Hadiza decided to mix up the format.
“We could repeat the same tasks, but Hadiza has practice so it would be unfair for you, Winston,” she explained gently.
“I like my odds,” Winston said with a shiny white smile. Lute swore he saw an unrealistically dramatic sparkle of light glint off of the speedster’s teeth, and wondered if it were possible to get appeal points specifically put into cartoonish tooth glint.
“This is your panel of judges” began Hadiza, gesturing to the others on the sofa. “Impress us with your creative radish balancing skill. You will be given points for technical skill and artistic merit, and deducted points for errors. Your time lasts until the eleventh radish hits the floor. You may proceed.”
Winston stood facing the seated group, plate of radishes placed on top of his hand, in a carefully casual pose.
“Prepare to be amazed by the speedful skill of Winston Reginal Heelfeather!” he crowed. “First, I must calibrate with a short run around the room.”
His form blurred as he moved, and came back into focus about four feet to the right as he realized that the plate of radishes hadn’t come with him. It was like swiftly pulling a tablecloth out from under a table setting—at those speeds, his hand had simply slid away from the plate and left it hanging in mid-air.
He stopped, looked back at the plate that was just beginning to fall, and zipped back to get his hand underneath before it hit the floor.
He made it in time, but the radishes bounced against it and a few went flying in different directions. Winston tried to move the plate to catch them all, but his hand once again zipped around in the air without taking the plate with it. There was a series of whooshing and pshhing sounds as his hand brushed past the bottom of the plate from various directions.
He tried to slow himself down to let gravity stick the plate to his hand and move it where he wanted it to go, which only sent more radishes flying.
His audience gasped as the first radishes started to hit the floor, but there was hope for the few remaining.
Emilija said.
“Physics, Winston! Remember physics!” Natalie cheered.
Winston was quickly figuring out that he had to tilt his hand to push the plate through the air if he wanted it to stay with him, but keeping the radishes in front of it was still difficult because they had a habit of rolling off in different directions. If he went for the one rolling to the left, he’d lose the one rolling to the right. If he then came back for that one, they might bump into each other and ping off in different directions again. He was flailing chaotically, faster than all but Lute could really track, several radishes pinging around through the air across the room as he ran back and forth, pushing the plate face-forward across the room to get it under a radish only to have it bounce away. It was like he was playing three games of ping pong with himself at once, and he was losing.
Eventually he slowed down and managed to stabilize himself with one radish left on his plate.
“You have saved a radish and have kept yourself in the game,” Hadiza announced. “Points for style and for a dramatic recovery. A ten point deduction for the loss of ten innocent young radishes. Carry on.”
Winston recovered his expression into a smile and a pose for the group, as if he’d meant for it to go that way.
“Don’t worry, it’s not mistakes if it’s calibration. Everything is going according to plan. Now let it not be said that Winston Reginal Heelfeather and his amazing radish cannot overcome every challenge!”
He raised the dish above his head and spun around three times to the right, hopping on one foot. His limbs flailed with the quality of flail only a speedster can do. He hopped three more turns to the left, and then moved into doing super fast squats, echoing the challenges the previous competitors had been given.
Lute’s mouth hung open, caught unprepared for the level of absurdity in front of him. It wasn’t just that Winston was moving in extremely silly ways while holding a plate with a single radish of great importance, it was how those silly movements combined with his extreme overpowered smile. The Pact may forbid him from taking a video to remember this beautiful moment, but he captured a mental image to keep in his heart, of Winston confidently smiling as he squatted at lightning speeds.
He felt the need to heckle surge up within him, and he managed to channel the instinct into a rhythmic cheer instead, moving his arms like a cheerleader.
“Go Winston, you’re so fast! You’re so fast you won’t be last!”
Natalie took up the rhythm.
“Go Winston, you’re so great! Keep that radish on your plate!”
Winston started blurring into dance moves that followed the rhythm of the chant. The radish was bouncing all over the place, but with only one to worry about he was able to keep it in the air.
Hadiza took up the chant next.
“Go Winston, you have speed. …Radishes are what we need.”
They looked to Emilija, who paused and then gave it a go in english.
“Go Winston! You are fast! Eat your
They ended all together with a “Goooooo… WINSTON!”
Winston finished doing a speedster version of the robot, and struck a victory pose. He then gave a bow, sweeping his arm in front of him. His audience clapped and Winston basked in his glory for a moment before noticing that during his bow the last radish had rolled off of his plate and onto the floor. He shrugged, and took another bow.
******
Emilija said as Winston zipped around the room, picking up the scattered radishes.
“Only Winston can be so Winston,” Hadiza said with a hint of fondness. “You must be Emilija, Emilija of the Steady Hand.”
“Winston did lose almost all his radishes immediately,” Natalie said. “The panel of judges must take that into consideration.”
“It’s not like you could compete with me on speed anyway,” Winston said, and then caught himself and looked embarrassed. “Which is fine! Maybe you could try for… most slow? Is that a thing? Yeah! Slowest wins!”
She caught Lute’s eye as he finger typed something to her, and she gave him a small nod. A moment later her eyes widened and she shifted back and forth, feeling the ground.
“Ready. Set. Begin,” Hadiza announced.
Her feet hit the ground smoothly, not with the pointed grace of Natalie’s dancer feet but with the grace of a hunter, meeting the ground with a flexed heel on the outside edge before smoothly rolling forward. Her shoulders were hunched, as before, but now rather than looking like bad posture it reminded Lute of the hunched shoulders of a predator. Like a leopard, he thought.
The impression was increased as she crawled up onto the backs of the couches, using her free hand to help her climb around behind them with a surreal smoothness. She wasn’t particularly fast, but the plate of radishes gave the illusion that it was floating along steadily on its own rather than being carried by a person.
“Wow,” Natalie breathed.
Emilija reached the end of the couch and hopped back down, her body stretching out to meet the floor while the radishes continued to move steadily around the room.
“You’re moving differently,” said Winston. “What did you do?”
Emilija winked at him, and then pointed at Lute.
She pointed at the ground in front of her, and Lute knelt on one knee before her like someone about to be knighted.
“Is that allowed?” Winston asked.
“Lute hasn’t had a turn. Therefore the judges allow his participation. It is now time for the pairs event” Hadiza decided.
Lute continued to kneel steadily, and by the movement of his and Emilija’s hands, it seemed that they were conspiring together while Winston and Hadiza spoke.
When the panel finished conferring, Emilija surprised them by hopping herself up onto Lute’s shoulders.
Emilija stood balanced on one leg. Lute stayed perfectly still, bracing his hands on his knee.
“How?” Natalie gasped, rapt with attention.
Emilija started by slowly rotating the plate and her upper body to the right, still standing on one foot on his shoulder. Lute squeezed his eye shut as her upper body reached 90 degrees and he felt her tense to jump. In a single motion, she hopped and whipped her lower body around 180 degrees, perfectly coordinating the motion so that she landed with her one foot on Lute’s shoulder facing the other direction, her upper body now twisted 90 degrees to her left and the radishes still moving perfectly smoothly.
The landing was slightly wobbly, but as she repeated the process each of the following jumps increased in smoothness. Natalie squealed and gasped with every jump. By the last few, Lute had stopped wincing in anticipation of the hop, instead looking out at their audience with the impassive face of a squire doing his noble duty.
She completed her turns without a single radish so much as hinting at escape.
“He’s helping you somehow, isn’t he?” asked Winston. “You couldn’t move like that, earlier. It’s as if you’re on the same performance enhancing drugs Alden used for the obstacle course.”
Emilija announced, ignoring Winston and planting one foot on each of Lute’s shoulders.
“I live to serve,” Lute said as he stood up in slow motion. Simultaneously, Emilija squatted lower on his shoulders. Between their two motions, her upper body stayed the same height and the radishes stayed still.
Lute then squatted slowly down again, while Emilija stood up, having completed one single squat from her frame of reference.
“Oh my god, you’re doing squats!” Natalie squealed.
“But you did something to…” Winston began.
“Leave questions until after the performance,” Hadiza hushed Winston’s complaints. “Allow yourself to be entertained, Mr. Heelfeather.”
After their squats, Lute hopped backwards until they were behind the armchair where Winston sat. Emilija loomed over him, perched on Lute’s shoulders like a gargoyle, and held the plate over his head.
“I just think it’s a fair qu…” Winston began.
“Oops my radishes!” Emilija interrupted him in english, dumping the plate onto his head.
The speedster jerked his head upward to face the incoming deluge of little spheres, eyes going wide.
“One million points for Emilija and Lute,” Hadiza said stoically. “Minus twelve.”
She and Natalie applauded the performers while Emilija hopped off of Lute’s shoulders. The two bowed together.
Winston stared into space, a haunted look in his eyes.
“Winton?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, haha! Yes, congratulations Emilija!” he clapped, snapping out of his stare.
“Yes, good show!” Winston nodded, and settled back into an overly charming smile. “We all went out there and did our best, and it was a tight race. But I’d like to congratulate the winners and offer them my appreciation of a competition well fought!”
Hadiza gave him the side eye, unconvinced by his speech.
“Well, now that you mention it,” Natalie perked up, “I’ve got a cake chilling in the fridge for a new recipe I’m testing. It’s a carrot cake, actually. Small, but enough for five. I’ll pipe some radishes on top and it can be a victory celebration cake!”
“Hmmm,” Natalie pretended to consider, and three suddenly ravenous faces looked back and forth between her and Emilija.
“You would share a slice with your noble squire, of course,” Lute said.
“You would share a slice with the head judge and announcer, of course,” Hadiza said.
“And a slice must be held in reserve for the chef, for research and quality assurance purposes,” Natalie said.
“And… I would really like a piece of cake?” said Winston.
Emilija looked down at him cooly.
“...please?” he tried.
“Congratulations to our champion.”
“I hope you like it and it turned out okay!”
“Behold the generosity of Emilija, of the Steady Hand!”
“Caaaake!”
******
The cake, like everything Natalie used her best skill on, was more than simply delicious.
To Natalie herself, it tasted like a pat on the back for a job well done, and the phrase “you’re going places, kid.”
To Hadiza it reminded her of having a proper sugar cake with frosting, on her seventh birthday. It was like having cake for the first time all over again.
To Emilija it tasted like sweet, sweet victory, as well as the love and support of her friends.
To Lute, it tasted like he’d managed to sneak into his family’s kitchen and steal cake from a party he hadn’t been invited to. He was struck by the image that none of the terrible people he’d grown up with got to have a single taste of this incredible triumph of baking.
When Winston tasted it, something in his heart lifted. He felt cared for, as if this cake had been baked just for him to enjoy. He felt like he should be eating this cake. No one was going to take it away, or tell him he didn’t deserve it, or leave comments with unsolicited opinions on proper speedster nutrition.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” he said.
“Is it really the best? No, don’t answer that,” Natalie raised a hand.
“I’m pretty sure it is, but I can’t think of any other foods right now. There is only cake.”
Other voices around the table hummed in agreement, mouths full of cake.
“Good enough for me! Thank you, Winton!” Natalie smiled at the praise.
“I should be the one thanking you,” he said.
“Well, you could if you wanted,” she suggested.
“I didn’t think of that,” he said, busying himself with another bite of the cake. He paused mid-chew, to savor the experience, and then noticed her looking at him expectantly.
“Oh. Uh, thank you?” he mumbled hesitantly, mouth full.
“You are welcome!” Natalie’s perky brightness settled into a steady glow, her smile warm and satisfied.
“And thanks Emilija for sharing,” Winston continued, “and thanks Lute for helping her win so that she could share. I don’t even care how you did it, since it was the pairs event anyway.”
Emilija nodded smugly and Winston continued. He’d been coached in post-competition sound bites, but this time he felt like he really meant it, and it felt good to be generous with his thanks when it was to people he felt like were really on his side.
“And thanks Hadiza for Judging Emilija as winner so that she could give me cake, and thanks to all the hard work that has brought me to this moment in my life. Because I like this cake and I like this moment!”
Wintson finished his speech with a definitive but gentle pound of his fist against the table.
“Cheers to that,” said Lute.
“Cheers!” the girls echoed.
For the next little while their individual good moods settled together into a warm sense of companionship, accompanied only by the sound of forks scraping on plates. In the center of the table, eleven richly colored radishes with fresh green tops sparkled on their china plate, standing as a centerpiece on a cut crystal cake stand.
Alden’s party was still yet to come, but their impromptu test-party had been a success. The five of them basked in the moment as they sat around the table, cake finished down to the last crumb and bellies feeling satisfied. Not a single one of them could hold back their most genuine grin as they looked up from their plates and noticed everyone else sharing the same happy feelings.
No matter what the future brought, this golden moment of peace would live in their hearts for all their days.