[Kitsumi]

Trixie giggled. "Yep, I guess we do. Thanks for helping with this, Kaleb. It's great!"

"Hey, it wasn't just me," he said. "You did good too." Then, as he heard Adam saying something behind him, he added, "And of course we have to thank Luke and Adam for their hard work, too."

[Kitsumi]

"Hey, come on!" Adam started to complain. "Is the tunnel done yet, or not?"

"Yeah, let us try it out!" Luke chimed in. "Hurry up and get out so that we can use it."

Kaleb rolled his eyes, causing Trixie to giggle again. "C'mon," he said, stretching his hand out towards her.

[Kitsumi]

Shyly, Trixie placed her gloved hand in Kaleb's. It was hard to tell, but she thought she felt him give her a gentle squeeze before letting go. It turned out that he needed both hands in order to crawl backwards out of the tunnel, but she wondered if he would have held on longer if he could have.

[Kitsumi]

Once he was back inside of the fort and out of the tunnel, Kaleb stood and moved a little further back, giving Trixie room to follow him. When her head and shoulders appeared, he offered her his hand again, helping to pull her to her feet so that both of them were standing.

[Kitsumi]

"Yes, my turn!" Adam shouted, about to head into the tunnel. But Trixie stopped him before he could crawl into it.

"I think Luke was right behind me," she said. "If you go in now, the two of you will just block each other's way. You'll need to go in after him."

[Kitsumi]

Adam sighed, although he didn't seem overly frustrated. "Hey, no fair!" he said, his voice teasing. "I did twice as much work as Luke did. Do you hear that, Luke? Hurry up and get out of there so that I can get my turn. You don't deserve to be in there before me."

[Kitsumi]

"Whatever," Luke's voice came from somewhere inside of the tunnel. "Who was the one slacking off while I was piling up all of the snow, huh?"

"I wasn't slacking off!" Adam insisted.

Either way, it didn't seem to matter as Luke soon made it to the other end of the secret entrance.

[Kitsumi]

"There," Luke said, standing up outside of the tunnel. "It's all yours, Adam. You can stop whining about it now."

"Shut up," Adam said, playfully nudging his friend.

When Luke staggered, Kaleb and Trixie were both quick to steady him, not wanting him to fall on the tunnel and collapse it.

[Kitsumi]

"Hey, watch out!" Trixie cried out.

At the same time, Kaleb said, "Careful, guys!" Then, he added, "No shoving in the snow fort, okay? Otherwise we might accidentally mess it up, and then all of our hard work will have been wasted. Nobody wants that, do they?" He looked from Adam to Luke.

[Kitsumi]

Adam, however, barely took notice. He was already on hands and knees, crawling into the darkness of the tunnel. He stopped once he was just barely inside, staring at the circle of light at the other end. "Whoa, okay, this was a really cool idea," he said. "I feel like a spy."

[Kitsumi]

"Yep, Trixie always has the best ideas," Kaleb said, smiling at the girl.

She beamed back at him, basking in the praise from her friends... and more specifically, from the boy she had a crush on. It felt amazing to get compliments from him, and made her feel warm and tingly inside.

[Kitsumi]

Once all of them had tested the tunnel, the kids decided to go back to building up the walls. They had been reenergized by their small accomplishment, and attacked the task ahead of them with renewed vigor. They all knew that they wouldn't complete the wall today, but maybe they could get a lot of it done.

[Kitsumi]

That energy began to wane after a little while though, when the kids once again started to get bored. They had almost finished one wall of the fort when Adam finally sighed and flopped down in the snow on his back.

"I'm done," he said. "No more wall building for me."

[Kitsumi]

"Do you wanna go back inside?" Luke asked. "I bet the gingerbread cookies are cool and ready to be decorated by now. I'm not really hungry yet, but if you guys are we can go do that."

The other three looked at each other and shrugged. None of them wanted to be the one to decide.

[Kitsumi]

Finally, Trixie answered. "I'm not that hungry yet either," she said. "Kaleb, what about you?"

"Nah," he said. "I want to stay out here a little while longer. I'm not ready to go back inside just yet."

After a moment, Adam nodded. "Yeah, let's stay outside for a little while longer."