“Accessary,” Tina said.

“Ooh, let me think,” Daniel said, tapping his chin with his finger as he thought very carefully about his answer. “9.”

Ethel scribbled something down on the book her and Tina were reading and nodded in agreement.

“Accumulation,” Tina said.

“Hmmm,” said Daniel. “8.”

“WRONG!” Claire shouted from across the room. “The actual answer is 13!”

“What actual answer?” Ethel said. “You don’t even know what we’re doing!”

“I do!” Claire said, throwing her hairbrush on the floor and then running over so she could loom authoritatively over the others. “You’re playing “how many letters does this word have“. And the answer is that accumulation has 13. A. C. C. U. M. M. U. L. A. T. I. O. N.”

She counted the letters off with her fingers and then finally also Daniel’s fingers.

“We’re not playing that,” said Daniel, taking his fingers back under his own control again.

“We’ve never even heard of that,” said Ethel.

“And if we were playing that, the answer would be 12,” said Tina. “Accumulation only has one M.”

She showed Claire the relevant article in the dictionary as proof.

“Not when I spell it it doesn’t,” said Claire. “And anyway, that’s still closer than Daniel’s answer. So I still won.”

“But we aren’t playing that,” Tina said again. “So no one won.”

“We aren’t playing anything,” Daniel said. “We’re reviewing. And I gave “accumulation” 8 marks out of 10!”

“You’re reviewing… words?” Claire said.

“Yep!” Daniel said. “Straight from the dictionary!”

“But… ” Claire said. “But… WHY?!”

“Daniel’s looking for a new favourite word,” said Tina.

“He’s totally over abyss,” said Ethel.

“I never want to see an abyss ever again!” said Daniel. “Or smell one.”

“Well how about boring, then?” Claire said. “Or stupid? Cause that’s what this game is!”

“We’re still on A,” Tina explained.

“So those words are (2) absolutely (7) anti (6) appropriate (5)!” Daniel said, holding up the requisite number of fingers as he said each A word.

“Anti is not a word,” Claire said. “It’s a bit of a word.”

“You’re a bit of a word,” said Ethel.

“Yeah, well you’re not even a word at all,” said Claire. “You’re just air!”

“That’s only a 2,” said Daniel.

“If we were playing by my rules it’d be a 3,” said Claire.

“But we’re not playing by your rules,” Tina said.

“Because your rules are annoying,” Ethel said, holding up 6 fingers.

“At least then the answers would mean something,” Claire said. “Instead of being Daniel’s opinion.”

“What’s wrong with Daniel’s opinions?” Tina asked.

“Everything,” Claire said. “And we all know it.”

“Only because we’ve made a list,” Ethel said, pointing to the annotations they’d made in the dictionary. “Otherwise we wouldn’t know what Daniel thinks about… acciaccatura!”

“10!” Daniel said, with alarming alacrity.

“You don’t even know what that word means,” Claire said. “What’s the point of rating a word on how it sounds?”

“It’s really fun to say!” said Daniel. “Acciaccatura! See?”

“You don’t know what it means AND you don’t know how to say it,” Claire said, even though she didn’t know how to say it either. But it definitely wasn’t how Daniel said it, she knew that much.

“Also, ‘an acciaccatura is a very short appoggiatura’,” Ethel read out loud. “So now we all know what it means.”

“11!” Daniel announced with astonished adoration. “I wish I was an appoggiatura!”

“You probably are,” Claire said (apoplectically). “You probably all are!”

“Claire, you can’t just end every conversation we have by shouting at us,” Tina said.

“I can,” Claire said. “And I will.” She stood up on tiptoes so she could see over the top of the dictionary and then tried to read it upside down. “Accordionly! So THERE!”

__________

Notes:

1. Written on May 21, 2024