This time, we piled up a ton of sand and then got to work shaving away the walls so we were left with a huge foundation about three feet tall. We added a keep in each of the four corners, slicing the rounded bucket walls so they became squares. Walls connected each keep, creating a perimeter for our project. Levi was exacting enough to cut out the battlements just right, while I focused my attention on creating ledges. Holding the knife at a downward angle, I cut into the keep, then dragged straight down. The sand neatly fell away.

Levi paused in his work when I grabbed the melon baller. “What are you doing with that?” he asked curiously.

“Watch.” I hovered the melon baller under the ledge until I had the angle just right, then scooped.

“Whoa.” A grin spread over his face. “Lookout windows.”

“Exactly.”

He crouched forward to study the battlements. “That gives me a great idea. You think I could make arrow slits on these battlements?”

“I don’t know if you could carve out something so skinny,” I admitted. “But you could try drawing them on with the knife and see if that works.”

It did, although the detail was too fine to be easily noticeable. Still, Levi seemed proud to have attempted it.

“We forgot the door,” he said, frowning. “I could try my hand at a really shitty drawbridge?”

“This is easier.” I held the knife in front of the center of the wall and carved out an arch. “Here’s the doorway. Now I’ll just do a second one inside it.” Once they were both carved out, I smoothed down the door to make it flat.

“Here, I collected these.” Levi dropped small shell fragments in front of me. “Maybe you could stick these in the arch so it stands out?”

“Perfect.” I grinned at him. “See? You’ve totally got the hang of this!”

“I’m getting there,” he said. “Super slowly.”

“Seriously, don’t sweat it too much. It’s just for fun.”

“Don’t you want to beat Lucy?” he asked with a grin.

I laughed. “Okay, so maybe I am in it to win it. But you’re already leagues ahead of the partner I had last year, so I’m not too worried.”

“Who did you partner with before?”

“Just whoever else needs a partner. There’s no shortage of sandcastle enthusiasts in town. Note that I said enthusiasts, though.”

He blinked. “No one at your level?”

“Nope.”

“That actually makes me feel a little better about our chances of winning this,” he said. “If I get another practice in, maybe I’ll go pro.”

“And discover your lifelong dream of building sandcastles for a living?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. Everyone needs a passion.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Don’t get too cocky, buddy,” I teased. “Next, I’m going to show you how to do a staircase.”