The phone rings.

My flat is still dark. Why is the phone ringing? I stumble out of bed. It's Sunday… I think. Aren't I off? Have I slept through something important?

Shaking sleep out of my eyes, I pick up the receiver. "…H'lo, 'mmy 'ltava."

"EMMY IT'S SNOWING!"

I yank the phone away from my ear, wincing. "…Luke? What time is it…?"

"It's snowing!" Luke chirps. "Look outside! There's half a meter already! It must have been coming down all night!"

Twisting my head toward the window proves pointless: the blinds are closed. I rub my free hand across my eyes. The clock reads half six in the morning. On Sunday. God, it's too early.

Luke continues chattering, oblivious to my groggy silence. "…And will you come over and build a snowman and an igloo with me, Emmy, pleeeeeease?"

"I'll build you into a snowman," I mutter, but I catch myself smiling.

Luke's voice gets distant, and I hear the professor in the background. Seems I'm not the only one who was roused early this morning.

"…true gentleman never, ever disturbs a lady before she's had her morning tea!"

"…but snowing…"

Professor Layton's voice comes on the line. "Emmy?"

"G'morning, Professor…" I can't hold back a yawn.

"Apologies…" He yawns himself. "Luke's quite excited. I'm sure it didn't occur to him that he would wake you."

"'S'all right." Does Luke even sleep? Of course he does—I've seen him sleep. "Tell him… tell him I'll be over later, all right? Maybe around noon. Right now I'm going back to bed."

"I'll tell him." The professor sounds amused. "For my own part, I believe I'll brew some tea and take Luke over to my office."

"In the snow?"

"Consider the number of ungraded papers I have waiting for me." I chuckle; he's not wrong. The stack's begun to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa. "Additionally, the university plaza is well-suited to snow construction, and I don't believe our young snow monster will be tamed by any other pursuit."

"I'm not a snow monster!" Luke shouts faintly in the background.

I laugh out loud. "I'll meet you there."

I doze for a bit, but two hours later I find myself peeking out the window. A layer of white coats London like glittering royal icing. I dig out all my warmest clothes. Skis or snowshoes would be nice, but boots will do.

Getting ready doesn't take long. Getting to Gressenheller is another matter; the snow is knee-deep and my scooter is totally buried. The stalled bus further up the street rules out public transit as an option. Oh well. It's really too bad I don't have snowshoes, but a girl has to stay in shape somehow.

The Gressenheller archeology building comes in sight just about the time I'm starting to crave a fireplace and a hot cup of cocoa, or maybe tea with a lot of sugar stirred in. There's a splash of blue out front; Luke, pushing a snowball almost as big as he is. I stretch my arm up and wave. "Ahoy! Second assistant!"

A snowball whizzes by my ear. "Hey! It's apprentice number one!"

I lean down and lob a handful of snow right back. Luke shrieks. I'd run over and whirl him around if running were even possible in half a meter of snow. I settle for plodding up beside him and taking my place on the snowman-rolling crew. Every inch of him is bundled up except his eyes and a sliver of very-pink cheeks, but that's all I need to know that he's beaming up at me and I'm pretty sure I'm grinning right back.

Together we roll Luke's snowball into the middle of one of the spots he's cleared. "I'm going to make the middle now, Emmy," he says. "You do the head!"

Shouldn't I do the middle and you do the head? Too late; he's already run off to the nearest mound of snow. I make a note to help him lift the middle when he's done. Once I've got a head the size of a basketball, I tromp over to a patch of still-untouched snow in the corner of the courtyard.

"What're you doing?"

I flop down on my back. "Making a snow angel."

Luke's eyes light up and he flops down beside me. When we stand up we have two adjacent, perfect angels. Luke tugs on my sleeve. "Look, Emmy! They're holding hands!" And so they are: one wing of Luke's small angel bumps into the wingtip of my bigger angel.

A small, mittened hand slips into my own. "Help me put Mr. Snowman together?" Luke asks.

"You bet, kiddo," I say, swallowing the sudden lump in my throat.

Mr. Snowman's torso proves almost as tall as his base, which makes lifting it a tricky thing. We just manage it between us, leaving the icy fellow headless in the middle of the plaza. Luke stretches to tippy-toes and barely touches the middle of that second snowball. "How're we going to get the head on?"

"I've got an idea. Pick it up and hang on tight!" Luke complies. "Okay—one, two, three—upsies!"

Luke shrieks with glee as I lift him up into the air. He's in perfect position to plunk the head on top of our snowman, now taller than even the professor with his hat on. I plop him down on the ground again.

"Um… Emmy?" Luke produces a carrot and a couple pieces of black rock from his pocket. "He needs a face, too."

"Is that obsidian?" If I needed proof that I work for an archeologist, this is it.

"Yep! Dad gave it to me! It's from a real dinosaur dig site!"

I stand corrected.

Luke holds out the carrot. "Can you reach?"

"Yeah, I think so." I accept the eyes and nose and stand on tiptoe.

"No, wait! Put them on the other side!"

I cock my head. "Huh?"

"So the professor can see from the window," Luke explains.

I grin, and circle the snowman. I press the chunks of obsidian into place and finish off by stabbing in the blunt end of the carrot. "Perfect."

"Now he needs arms, and a hat, and a scarf…"

As Luke runs off in search of the perfect arm branches, I glance up at the professor's window. He's up there watching us; when he sees me, he lifts a hand in greeting. I wave back.

I guess it would be a little undignified for him to come out and join us, but it's nice to see a smile on his face.

By the time we've finished the snowman (complete with Luke's scarf, my mittens, and a long argument over what it would take to "borrow" Professor Layton's hat), the shadows are getting long and Luke's teeth are chattering. My fingers are starting to go numb. "Let's go inside, kiddo."

"B-b-but we still have to b-build our igloo!"

"Nope! We are going inside and having hot chocolate and getting you out of that wet coat, young man!" I scoop him up and head for the front steps. Luke yelps, and squirms, and starts laughing.

"Put me down, Emmy!"

"And let you stay out till you get hypothermia?"

He sticks out his bottom lip.

I raise an eyebrow. "Honestly. What would I tell the professor?"

"Okay, okay." Luke sighs. I set him on his feet at the top of the steps and pull open the door. "But I don't think he's got any hot chocolate in his office, Emmy. Just tea."

I grin. "We'll soon see about that." I stashed a tin of instant cocoa in the office days ago, when the weather forecasters started talking about a big storm. Luke doesn't know about it—yet.

We scrape our boots against the doormat, strip off dripping jackets, race down the darkened hall in our stocking feet. The office door bangs; the professor's warm chuckle greets us.

I still don't know how playing in the snow with a boy half my age got to be part of my job description. And maybe it isn't; this is my day off. But, curiously, I can't think of another place I'd rather be. Perhaps I'm getting soft. (I wonder if that's really so bad.)

"Professor," Luke is saying, "tomorrow we're going to build an igloo!"

I flip on the electric kettle, smiling, and reach for the cocoa.