Perhaps my "beef" isn't quite so beefy as it was when I last posted. Emma and I became better friends through an instance that was actually pretty insignificant.
To start off, our school is just a little bit weird.... okay, very weird. I don't know what started it, but for no apparent reason, Rilla was pronounced "Queen of the school", and someone started up a little popularity contest to see who would be her "princess".
One of my friends, Stacy, caught me looking at a flier for the contest. She started teasing me about it, calling me a softie, and jokingly asking if I would enter the contest.
I guess Emma thought I was being bullied, because she interrupted Stacy.
"Actually, Olivia is entering."
Stacy looked surprised for a minute, but then started to laugh.
"Of course she is," Stacy scoffed, disdain fairly dripping off her expression.
Emma stood up a little taller and said, "Well, I hope you come to the contest, then, to watch Olivia sweep the judges off their feet with her amazing... princess skills. Good day."
Emma took my arm, and swept off down the hall, her head held high.
"Emma!" I hissed once Stacy was out of earshot. "I don't have amazing princess skills. What were you thinking, saying that?"
"Well, I... um..." she hesitated, looking rather deflated for a minute. Her confidence returned in scarcely a moment, however. "Since I'm the one who got you into this mess, I'll get you out of it. You'll see."
~ ~
She got me all dolled up, and finished just before my name was called.
I stepped out from behind the curtain, my heart racing, just a little.
"I so do not belong here," I thought, fighting the urge to hide under a convenient backstage bucket.
Then I saw a slightly smug "I-told-you-so" face from the crowd. Stacy's expression was enough to make me angry; it was enough to make me ready to prove her wrong.
Even though I didn't win, I didn't do too badly.
And maybe if you had been there, you would have seen me skip onto stage, and do a little twirl. But perhaps it would have just been a trick of the spotlight, for it shone very brightly on my triumphant face. Only I know for sure whether it was a dance or the crowd was just hallucinating. Only Emma and I, and we'll never tell.
As Emma and I walked home that night, for once, I took the time to admire the scenery.
The trees whispered and rustled in the breath of wind, and the cold made all my nerves tingle.
It was a night made for music, and so I began to whistle some of Grieg's Symphonic Dances.
Emma isn't quite as polite as I thought. Right in my favorite part, she blurted out,
"You like Grieg, too!?"
I suppose at that moment, we became friends.
Guess what? I don't even mind sharing my room anymore.
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