"Oh, it is fun!" she reassures him, forgetting to frown. "I really like this sort of word game. I'm just never sure how much I should temper my own skill or if it's something that I should just go all out with. It wouldn't be fun for the other player, I don't think."

She goes silent a moment, rearranging her tiles, glancing at the board, and running through a few pages of dictionary in her head, trying to find something that fit. No, no, no... Not quite... Hm. She has a terrible poker face, twisting her lips and occasionally counting out letters silently on her fingers. From time to time she brightens, hesitates, then shakes her head, going back to fiddling. She does have something of an unfair advantage, she reflects at one point. She's memorized the dictionary, so she doesn't have to look up words to know if they're spelled properly.

What if... Yes! That would work! She perks up, picks up her letters and manages to lay them in such a way as to get another twenty-seven points, herself.