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Alicia poked her head inside Leo’s room. “We’re ready for you! Remember that mine wins so you don’t get in trouble!”
“Is that a threat?” Leo teased. He knew what she meant. He’d been drafted as a judge for a snow sculpture contest between his sisters and his boyfriends. If he picked one boyfriend’s sculpture over the other, he could be in real trouble. Leo didn’t take the threat seriously. Guang Hong and Kenjirou were both good at accepting defeat, so relationship drama over a fun contest was unlikely.
Alicia skipped off, as best as anyone can skip in snow pants. “Not a threat! Just remember to pick the penguin!”
“And how do I know you’re not trying to set me up? You’re not even part of the competition, silly, because it’s not fair since you were in charge of organizing everything. You didn’t have as much time to work on your sculpture.” Also because his mother would make him pick Alicia’s because she was so much younger than the others, but Leo had the sense not to actually say that. She’d get mad and tell Mamá and Leo would have to name her the winner even though she’d agreed that she wasn’t competing.
The sculptors met Leo at the back door. Their snow sculptures were scattered around the house, having spread out for privacy so others wouldn’t steal their ideas. Leo followed Alicia as she led the way to, as promised, the penguin. “This one’s mine!”
Mayra shushed her. “You’re not supposed to tell him whose is whose!”
“It’s okay!” Alicia told her. “Right, Leo?”
“It’s okay this time, but don’t tell me any of the others, not even hints. We want this to be fair,” Leo reminded her. “Your penguin is awesome! Is it life-sized?”
“Yes! Emperor penguins are usually around four feet tall, and I’m almost four feet tall so I made it the same as me, see?” She stood with her back to the penguin and demonstrated with her hand.
“Yes, I see,” Leo said. He was impressed, too, getting it up that high must have taken a lot of patience on his sister’s part. “You did great! Where are we going next?”
Alicia darted off toward the back of the yard. Leo followed. He didn’t need Alicia to tell him whose sculpture this was. The vase with flowers spilling out had to be Guang Hong’s. The attention to detail was amazing for the medium and tools available, and made sure to get photos to send out. “I am amazed. Someone put a ton of work into this, and it shows!”
From there, Alicia led him around the corner into a side yard. Leo was less sure about this one. The two poodles fighting over a toy were an obvious nod to Viktor and Yuuri, which would seem to point to Kenjirou, but on the other hand, Espy was sneaky enough to do something that obvious to try to trick Leo. No matter whose it was, it was cute. Less detailed than Guang Hong’s, but there was a life to it that amazed him. Once again, he made sure to get good pictures of it before moving on.
The next one had to be Mayra’s. She’d done a pair of legs sticking up out of the ground, with the snow around them arranged to look like a splash from diving into a pool. The legs were in beautiful form for a high dive, which made sense, because her current boyfriend was a swimmer and diver for their school team. Leo barely even hesitated before letting his thumb slip to send the pictures to Gabriel.
The poodles turned out not to have been too obvious to be Kenjirou, as the last sculpture was actually a series of tiny sculptures. Each one was a different sea creature – Leo recognized the octopus, jellyfish, squid, and starfish, but there were others he didn’t recognize. They were all done quite well, and Leo had to admit that he was impressed. Espy usually wasn’t much of an artist, because she didn’t care that much, but this one she’d gone all-out for. Leo didn’t know whether it was because of the competition or because of her fascination with the sea, but whatever it was, it showed.
Now came the hard part. He flipped through the pictures, considering each one carefully. They all had their pros and cons, and he couldn’t see any wrong answers here. No one had slacked off or made a joke out of the competition, so Leo couldn’t make a joke out of the judging either and give it to Alicia after all.
“Leo, you asshole!” Mayra shrieked.
Leo looked up from the pictures, putting on his very best I Am An Innocent Angel Who Has Never Even Thought Of Doing Anything Wrong In My Life face. “What’s so wrong that you’d risk Mamá hearing you use that language toward your own brother, in front of Alicia?”
“You know what you did.” Mayra crossed her arms and glared at him. “I can’t go to school now!”
“Well, that’s a shame, because you know Dad won’t let you stay here,” Leo said. “Guess you’ll have to go spend your days on the streets hoping not to get picked up by cops for truancy. Of course, if you don’t go to school, you’ll probably never get to see Gabriel again…”
“Ugh, I hate you!” Mayra stormed off toward the house. Espy shot a glare at Leo and then ran after her sister, catching her just before they got to the house. Alicia wasn’t far behind.
“You should probably go apologize,” Kenjirou said. “If your parents are anything like mine, you’re going to have to anyway, and it’s better if it happens before they get involved.”
“What did you do, anyway?” Guang Hong asked.
“I… sent pictures of her snow sculpture to her boyfriend,” Leo admitted. “It’s a great sculpture and I thought he’d like to see it, but it seems to have upset Mayra more than I thought it would. I was just teasing her.”
“Yeah, definitely go over there,” Guang Hong said. “Tell her she wins.”
“But… I haven’t decided a winner yet…” Leo protested. Then again, he could see Guang Hong’s point. He looked to Kenjirou, who nodded. He ran over to the girls. “Mayra?”
“I’m not a snitch. You don’t have to ask me not to tell Dad or Mamá.”
“No, I know that. I came to apologize. My intentions in sending Gabriel the pictures were good, but it ended up hurting you, and I’m sorry for that. I just thought he’d be happy to see that he inspired a winning snow sculpture.”
“Well…” Mayra tapped her foot a couple times. “Okay. I guess I can forgive you, this time. Why do you even have Gabriel’s number, anyway?”
“When you two started dating, I gave him my number so that if you guys needed a ride somewhere or got into a situation where you didn’t feel safe, he could call me. He’s texted me a couple times, and I saved the number.”
“Oh.” A pause, and then, “Wait, I won?”
“Yes, you win, let’s get inside so that you can claim your cookies.” Leo gave his sister a hug. “I’ll make everyone cocoa, you guys all did great.”