Friends Fight ~a photostory~

Hello, wonderful blog readers! Thanks for taking the time to look at another one of our posts! It’s Ellie speaking, by the way. Yesterday, on Friday, Chloe and I had a little squabble, and I thought our friendship was ruined! Turned out, I learned… Oh, wait a second. You’ll have to read on and find out! He he he!

 I had come in from a day of playing outside and painting. The colors were so vibrant and beautiful, I begged Madison to let me do school later in the day so I could capture everything I could in a painting or at least a sketch while it lasted. When I finally came inside, I had missed lunch and it was four o’clock! I promised Madison I would do school later, so I quickly changed clothes and headed to the computer. Friday’s are easy days for us dolls and our homeschool, because we don’t have any written work, like our Math, English, and Language Arts. Just our computer History and Science.

But Chloe beat me to the computer! She had already done school, I knew. She rushed through it as fast as she could and as soon as she could so the rest of the day was all adventure and creativity. I hoped she was just getting her reading glasses that she kept at the computer and was going to go find a book to read. Please don’t let her be working on a story, please, please, please, I silently prayed.

But Chloe sat down. Oh, great.

“Hi, Ellie!” She greeted me when she saw me standing helplessly there. The wheels were turning in my head already – to get the computer from Chloe, I had better start with a compliment. I wanted it to be true and heartfelt, though, so after saying “Hi!” cheerfully back, I noticed that the late afternoon sun illuminated and made golden her flawless curls.

“Your hair looks beautiful today, Chloe!” I told her, brightly smiling.

“Really?” Chloe asked, her eyes widening. “I tried a new style today! I was hoping it didn’t look awful. Thank you so much!”

Seeing how good Chloe felt hearing my compliment, I was glad that I really felt that way and didn’t just say it to butter her up. Okay, maybe I did say it to butter her up. But I truly meant it.

“Um, Chloe,” I began uneasily. “Can I have the computer for a little bit?”

“Oh, um, no,” she replied, turning to get her glasses.

Then she tapped a key on the keyboard and cleared away the pretty butterfly screensaver she had picked out. “I’m working on a story.”

Gee, whiz. I guess this is gonna be harder than expected, I realized.

“But, Chloe,” I continued. “I still have to do school, and we’re about to eat dinner. You know after dinner we usually watched a show together. I won’t be able to watch it because my school isn’t done – that’s Madison’s rule, don’t you know. I’ll be so lonely, in here by myself, doing school while everyone else is enjoying the TV show. Please let me get my school done really quick? I don’t have much to do. Just history and science.”

By now, the screensaver had turned back on and Chloe was staring at me unpersuaded.

“No, I can’t break this inspirational moment! I finally figured out who Henrietta the Third picks out of Edward and Claude. It’s such a romantic fairytale, Ellie. I’m sure you understand.” She replied firmly.

I tried to keep my voice steady, but it relentlessly rose anyways. “No, you don’t understand! I have to do school. If you let me get on and do it real quick, I promise to be the illustrator for ALL of your stories, not just Sapphire the Sprite like we agreed.”

“Ummm, let me think about that.” Chloe chewed the inside of her lip and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, appearing to be considering this.

I should’ve known better.

She sat up and looked me straight in the eye. “No!”

“Chloe!” I pleaded. “Please!”

“No, that’s my final answer. Now stop bugging me!”

My eyes smarted and felt wet. I hurriedly blinked back the tears of frustration.

I could handle this in a calm, mature way. I was sure of it. I am a strong, stubborn fighter, and I was going to get my school done in time to watch TV with my roommate-friends – more like my family – no matter what.

“How can you be so heartless?” I asked, grabbing her arm. “I’d think you’d have more understanding than this! Just let me on the computer already.”

“I understand perfectly well that if was your own decisison to wait until later to do school, and now you’re paying the consequences.” She replied cooly, turning back to the computer.

The huge bubble of anger that had been rising inside of me burst.

“I’m going to get get Madison! I’ll be sure to tell you how digusting you’re being! Spending all your time writing worthless junk instead of taking time to get good grades in school and care about your education! Nobody cares about your stories anyways!” I exploded.

Chloe gasped. Her eyes went wide again, this time with disbelief. I saw them fill with tears and I instantly regretted what I said. She looked so shocked and hurt. “Junk?” She repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. “How could – how could you say something like that?”

I didn’t answer. I was trembling in anger, and I felt horrible about saying that to Chloe. She worked really hard on her stories, and they were honestly really good. But I was so mad, I didn’t know what I was doing.

So I rammed the side of the desk with my foot, giving it a huge kick. It knocked over the cup of pencils, a little toy, and a plant, spilling dirt all over.

“You’re so immature, Ellie-Joy Ivy Ling!” Chloe shouted so loud it hurt my ears. “You’re such a crybaby!”

I just made a face and stomped off without looking back once.

“Chloe won’t let me on the computer to do school!” I complained to Madison. “Tell her to get off!”

“Ellie, calm down,” she told me. “Tell her I said she has five minutes to wrap up whatever she’s doing, and then to let you get on.” I nodded, and then hastily scurried to go tell Chloe that.

“Madison says you have five minutes to get off-” I started triumphantly, but Chloe just got up and pushed me out of the way.

“You can have it,” she mumbled, shocking back a sob. “Why spent my time writing worthless junk, like you said?”

I wanted to cry. Her words came to me like a punch in the throat. I hadn’t meant any of what I said, and now Chloe had taken it to heart! I wanted to call out to her and tell her I’m sorry and tell her to keep writing her amazing stories and to keep her aspirations of becoming an author someday, but I couldn’t find the words to begin.

So I just sat down hard in my seat and stared after her. I finally forced myself to clear away the screen saver and get started on school, but my mind wasn’t focused and I ended up not understanding the lessons.

When I was done, I went to go find Chloe. I wanted to tell her I’m sorry.

I found her by Josefina, petting Coconut. She was pouring out what had happened to Josie, who was known for her wise advice.

“-And I was so mean to her and I didn’t mean to be at all! And I wanna say sorry, but somehow, I just don’t have the words. My characters in my stories always make elaborate, dramatic apologies, but I don’t have a clue how to start off now! What do I do?”

“Start out with ‘I’m sorry,’ and own your fault. Then the ball’s in her court to forgive you. Just don’t worry about what you’re going to say. Just say what you mean – make it heartfelt.”

That’s when Chloe noticed me. I had planned on starting out with, “Chloe, I’m so sorry,” But apparently, she did, too. We both ended up blurting out, “Ellie/Chloe, I’m so sorry!”

Then, in perfect unison, “Me too!” We giggled in spite of our sorriness.

After a blur of long, drawn-out “I’m sorry”‘s that didn’t make sense, mushy quotes like “Words spoken in the heat of anger are never from the heart,” and taking back everything mean we said, we ended up laughing and crying and hugging and basically, we forgave each other.

After finally pulling apart, Chloe asked with wide, hopeful eyes, “Friends again?”

I grinned. “We never stopped,” was my hearty answer.

And that started a whole ‘nother round of hugs and laughs and happy tears.

I learned that friends fight sometime. It just happens. You just gotta make it right and keep moving on.

Have you ever had any fights with your friends that you resolved?

Love,

                                                                         ♥       Ellie       ♥