Roseanne turned to look behind her.
She had no idea when Owen Reynolds had shown up or how long he''d been standing there, but he was watching her now, a smile ying at the corners of his eyes.
When his gaze drifted to the pile of snow at her feet-now reduced to a heap of crumbled slush—his amusement only deepened.
"ying in the snow again?"
Roseanne nodded, feigning nonchnce. "Yeah."
"Trying to make a snowball?"
"...Didn''t work out."
"I''ll show you how." Owen was already rolling up his sleeves as he spoke.
Roseanne''s eyes lit up. "You know how?"
"It''s all about the physics. Once you get that, it''s easy."
"There''s physics to this?" Roseanne asked, her curiosity piqued. "What kind of physics?"
Honestly, she''d never thought about it before.
Owen scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it firmly into a small ball.
"First, you need apact starter like this. At the beginning, you need a little extra force to get it rolling. As the ball grows, the pressure between the snowball and the ground lowers the melting point of the snow just enough to create a thinyer of water. That water helps the snow stick to the ball as you roll it along."
"When that wetyer isn''t touching the ground anymore, the pressure drops, the melting point rises, and it refreezes more snow sticks to the ball."
"Repeat the process over and over, and the snowball just keeps getting bigger as you go."
Roseanne blinked. "Uh... what?"
Owen shot her a look. "What''s with that face?"
"Professor, no offense, but just exining it isn''t very convincing." She was trying to look serious.
"Oh? So what do you want?"
Roseanne grinned. "Prove it. Make a snowball in front of me, and I''ll believe you actually know what you''re doing."
Owen straightened up, all confidence. "No problem. Watch and learn..."
Five minutester-
Roseanne was struggling to keep a straight face. This was... really testing her limits.
Owen stared at the crumbling mess of snow in his hands, lookingpletely baffled.
"But it workedst time... What the heck?"
Roseanne blinked innocently. "Last time? When was that?"
Owen thought back for a few seconds, brow furrowed. "...Must''ve been when I was ten? Or maybe eleven."
Roseanne couldn''t help herself.
There were times she really didn''t want tough-but it was just impossible not to.
She burst outughing. “Hahaha—!”
Owen stood there, defeated.
So much for showing off. Instead, he''d managed to fail spectacrly.
Sigh.
They''d already been downstairs for over forty minutes. Not wanting to make things any more awkward for him, Roseanne pretended to check her watch and hurriedly announced she had to go.
Then she dashed off, leaving him behind.
Owen''s embarrassment lingered all the way back into theb, and even as he climbed up onto the tform to check his experiments, heo couldn''t shake it.
Two sets of data came out fine, but the "snowball incident" still gnawed at him.
He stepped off the tform, headed
to the break room, and took a long sip of hot tea. On his way back he made a detour around Stoddard''s workstation.
He''d almost made it past, hands sped behind his back, but couldn''t resist circling back and stopping beside him.
Stoddard waspletely absorbed in his work, so when someone suddenly appeared at his side, he jumped out of his skin.
"Dude! You can''t just sneak up on people like that trying to give me a heart attack?"
"Ahem." Owen cleared his throat with a practiced cough.
"Something up?" Stoddard pulled off his safety goggles and paused his experiment.
Owen hesitated, then asked, "Do you know how to roll a snowball?"
Stoddard blinked. "Excuse me?"
Was this some new physics problem?
Sphere equations? Applied ballistics? Rolling dynamics...
In the space of two seconds, Stoddard''s mind ran through every ball-rted
equation he knew-Newton himself would''ve been intimidated.
Owen repeated the question, this time miming the rolling motion with his hands. "Do you know how to roll one?"
Finally, it clicked for Stoddard-Owen was talking about an actual, literal snowball.