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“Okay, Parker, why are you making us do this?”
“Come on, Torres, it’s a team building exercise!”
“No,” he counters, motioning dramatically to the equipment set up on the table, “it’s pumpkin carving.”
Biting back a smile, Jess pats him on the shoulder, “Let out your creative spirit, Nick.”
“Oh no, the last time Nick let out his creative spirit, he punched a guy,” Jimmy chimes in cheerfully, already picking out his pumpkin.
“He did what?” Kasie shrieks as Tim winces.
“Oh, we don’t talk about that.”
“Come on man,” Nick protests, “that was six years ago.”
Jimmy leans in to whisper seriously, “Art doesn’t forget.”
“Neither does this room, which is why we’re christening Ducky’s with something fun,” Parker ushers them over, “now, chop chop.”
“Parker,” Jess scolds teasingly, “you can’t rush art!”
“You can when Vance will be down to judge in an hour.”
“An hour? That’s not enough time!” Kasie’s eyes go wide as she grabs a handful of spoons and begins frantically distributing them, “scoop everyone, scoop!”
“Done.”
“Nick. It’s been ten minutes, you can’t possibly be…” Kasie trails off as she catches sight of the roughly carved pumpkin, orange mouth open wide in a menacing growl.
“Done,” he insists, brandishing his knife.
Neutrally, she observes, “It’s throwing up its guts.”
“Yes,” he agrees solemnly, “it’s nauseated by the sight of its brothers being slain.”
“Hey, don’t you be assigning a gender to my pumpkin,” she protests, anthropomorphising it in her own way by putting her hands over where its ears would be.
“I’m using ‘brother’ in the gender-neutral sense! Like… is that bacteria?”
Setting down her pen, she picks up a knife. “Yup. All cute and cartoonish.”
“Cute?! Kase, pumpkins are meant to be scary.”
“Bacteria are scary!” she protests, her frown morphing into a blissful smile, “and beautiful.”
“Okay,” he scoffs sassily, ”agree to disagree.”
“Jess, what do you reckon, triangle eyes?”
“I’ve gone sort of triangle with the short edge on the outside,” she squints critically down at her sketch, “looks a bit angrier that way?”
Sighing, Tim gives his pumpkin a forlorn pat, “I’m going for menacing, think it might be coming out a bit more gormless.”
“It’s alright,” Jess teases, “mine can be the brains of the operation.”
“Does that mean mine is the personality?”
“Nope, yours is what’s left of Stingy Jack as he-“ she puts on a gravelly voice, holds the pumpkin out in front of her ominously and crosses her eyes-“ wanders about the earth for all eternity.”
He chuckles, “Ah, you know your history!”
“I know your history.”
“Of course, Irish folklore,” eyes twinkling, he adds, “a blacksmith tricking the devil so he didn’t go to hell but not getting into heaven either so being left to walk earth with only a burning coal in a hollowed-out turnip.”
“I love myths and legends like that,” Jess smiles, slicing a careful nose into her pumpkin, “stories behind the little traditions, they feel like they connect us all the way back to our ancestors. And who’d have thought that scooping the slimy guts from a vegetable would be so much fun!”
She wrinkles her nose at the odd smelling bowl of seeds next to her right as Parker retrieves it. “Hey, no slimy guts are going to waste here, they’re going straight in my compost!”
Fixing an encouraging grin on her face, she waits until he’s moved to persuade Torres to part with his guts to lean in and whisper conspiratorially to Tim, “Do you think we should get Parker a pumpkin patch for Christmas?”
“Come on Jimmy,” Nick prompts impatiently, “the Director is ready to judge!”
“Just one second and… there!” he finishes with a flourish and sets it on the table to light the candle inside.
Vance hits the lights so they’re plunged into an eery orange glow then stands with his hands clasped behind him, contemplating all the pumpkins with what would be complete seriousness if he wasn’t betrayed by the sparkle in his eyes.
“They’re all amazing but, Doctor Palmer wins.”
At his side, Parker laughs, “Oh, hands down!”
Together, the team crowd around to see.
“What the hell?” Nick splutters while Tim’s eyes go wide.
“How did you get time to do that?!”
Jess enthuses, “Jimmy, that’s incredible!”
“Oh damn J, you just casually creating a masterpiece?” Kasie pushes him playfully on the shoulder and he smiles bashfully down at his Starry Night inspired carving, the light shining through to show carefully created layers.
“Hey, we all created masterpieces,” he protests, looking around fondly at the non-identical twins, the disgruntled brother and the spikey bacteria ball, “but as the ‘winner’, I demand a team photo to be taken and stuck up just there,” flicking the light back on, he smiles softly, “I think we should add to the memories.”
“That’s a great idea, Jimmy,” Kasie whips out her phone and ushers them all into place with their pumpkins in hand, “you too, Director! Okay everyone. One, two, three, HAPPY HALLOWEEN.”