I'm not sure what to call this... It's based on a true story of me and my fried, but all names [Apart from Ed. Cullen] have been changes around. I'ts not fact, yet not fiction! Enjoy!
“Edward. Cullen. Is. Ugly.” I pronounce it nice and slow as if to drill it into her head. I look to my side, and poke my tongue out at Tina, who is walking beside me.
“No, he is not! Use your ‘I’ statements, Gemma,” she protests. And so, the age old battle begins. You see, Tina has some kind of thought that, if you put ‘I think’ in front of anything that you say, then the world will agree to disagree and everything will be peaceful in the land of make-believe. “I think Edward Cullen is ugly,” just to emphasize her point. As if I wasn’t tired of hearing this junk already.
“No, Tina. I will not use my ‘I statements’ because it is a fact. Edward Cullen, Robert Pattinson, is ugly. And you can’t make me change my mind,” I sigh, knowing that she won’t give in. She never does. “What do you think, Emma? Is Robert Pattinson ugly, or not?” I twist to my other side, smiling at her; surely she can see some sense. There have to be some people in the world who aren’t brainwashed by the Twilight phenomenon. Except me of course, but (as I am ever-so-readily reminded) I don’t count.
“Hell yeah! He is like… the ugliest thing on the planet! He’s the ugliest thing in the universe! He is even uglier than my mum in skinny jeans!” We all shared a laugh, but Tina was back onto her ‘I statement’ idea soon enough.
“I think he is the ugliest thing on the planet; I think he is the ugliest thing in the universe… and I think we can all just leave that last one alone.”
I was quick to pounce on the opportunity, even though it wouldn’t change her mind. “See! You just admitted it! You do think he’s ugly!”
“No… I was merely using an example,” she shied away. If we weren’t walking I could envisage her flexing her foot, or twiddling her thumbs on the desk. “Come on Gemma, this whole thing is stupid.”
“No, it is not! He is ugly, and I can prove it,” I looked around us for inspiration, but all I could see were the teachers’ cars parked by the drive, and the ‘cool’ kids playing with basketballs on the main quad. “Look; you see that car over there?” I pointed to the nearest car. “What colour is it?”
She was unsure of herself, as if I was asking a trick question. I was. “White?”
“And you see the car, your eyes pick up the light patterns and chemical impulses tell your brain that the car is white?”
“Yes… but what has this got to do with Edward?”
“He’s ugly, of course. But this is me proving it. So the car’s white, and I see the car as white, and you see it as white. And we can both safely say that there is a white car over there, by which we draw our attention to?” all three of us look back at the white car, which is now behind us. Emma takes the opportunity to wave goodbye and disappear into the canteen.
“And that means that, because you can see the car, and say that it is white, we call that a fact. Based on what waves of light your eyes pick up, what the chemical impulses say and what your brain interprets them as, you call the car white. That is a fact; the car is white!”
“And…?” She pushes the door, walks through and holds it open for me. There is a very disapproving look on her face. I follow Tina inside with a smile on my face.
“I see a picture of Edward Cullen. Waves of light;” I curled my arm up and down again a few times to represent the waves, “eyes; chemicals; to brain,” this again was accompanied with me dragging my index finger from my eyes to behind my ear “and I see him as ugly. I see Edward Cullen as ugly. It is a fact, and therefore it is true. The car is white, Robert Pattinson is ugly. No ‘I statements’ needed.”
I bask in the glory of proving her right, practically skipping through the hallway to the wooden benches where we hang out. I drop my bag on the ground, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment.
Tina digs into her bag and fishes out her lunchbox. She’s smiling. Somehow the sight wipes mine off my face, and I just have to ask. “What?”
“You know I stopped listening, right?”
I sighed, just like any other time. “You know I don’t care, right?” Before I could re-instate my win, I hear the booming voices of my other friends. They bounded around the corner with smiles on their faces, which immediately disappeared when they saw the sour mood Tina was in.
“What’s up?” Sarah asks, plunking her bag down on the bench.
“Gemma is trying to prove me wrong… again,” she sighs. It was quickly followed by a groan from the others. So what if it’s the fifth time I’ve brought up a scientific argument this week? So what if it’s only Wednesday? I always win, right?
