-

Summary

Everyone needs a little bit of wonderful every day. Prompted by a teacher's assignment, Emily Ravell endeavours to find a way of making this happen – or finding out just -how- it happens.

--

A LITTLE BIT OF WONDERFUL

nightfly

--

-one-

the assignment

-

A lack of inspiration was a concept that was somewhat new to me. (Un)fortunately for me (and the people around me sometimes, I'd like to think, hehe), my stubbornness and will to persist were as natural to me as using my limbs. You see, this was why it baffled me that I couldn't come up with a decent idea for the latest assignment my teacher had set.

I can remember the way she said it now... “Go out and pay it forward in your own way,” as if everything was roses and candyfloss and good ideas were something that could be picked out of a field. As if they were bright and yellow like... I dunno... sunflowers! Yea, sunflowers work. They're tall (unlike me, cough, under five feet, cough), they're bright (I'd like to think I am, but my friends tend to disagree) and they smell nice (no comment on this last one).

And so those words tumbled around and around in my mind like clothes in a dryer, which reminded me, I needed to do laundry when I got home or else my mum would kill me.

Drumming my fingers against the desk, face screwed up in concentration, I thought long and hard. Long meant a whole five minutes before I dropped my head on my desk in despair and crossed my arms with a disgrunted expression on my face. Hard consisted of more of the screwing up the face thing – it made it look like I was actually thinking, but, really, I was more into letting my imagination wander and wondering what I could do to get out of the assignment.

“You look like the baby that's had its lollipop taken away from it.” I looked up to see my best friend, Sarah, about to sit down on the desk next to me.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “So help me!”

“With what, the assignment?”

“Do you really need me to say “dur”?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I'd've thought you would've been more blunt about it.”

“Well, it is one of my better charms.”

“You like to think of it as that.”

I snorted in reply.

She was right, but I was right in thinking that being blunt was one of my better charms, but then again... that doesn't exactly leave much room for nicer things. Nicer things would include being a friendly person, going out of my way to make the world a better place for everyone (ding: assignment idea) and, in general, being lovey dovey, treehugging and happy. I love trees as much as the next person, but you won't see me wrapping my arms around a tree in public (unless I was very, very, drunk, which is also very, very, illegal and I think my ma would probably have a heart attack if she found out I had alcohol). You see, I'm a seventeen year old student, but I was moved up a year in school, so I'm first year university at the moment. I love it a lot, but the classes I'm taking have some really obscure assignments.

Example: we'd been reading Catherine Ryan Hyde's book Pay It Forward, and we'd just finished watching the movie of the same name, when our tutor had the bright idea of assigning us a task that none of us had any idea was coming.

“Pay it forward in your own way.”

I'm not a nice person. I don't smile at people I don't know. I don't sugarcoat things. I'm rude – and honest. I'm blunt.

Therefore, “paying it forward” just doesn't work for me.

“You're so lady-like.”

“If I were lady-like, I wouldn't be dressed up like a whore at the weekends just to take the piss out of people,” I shot back. “Lady-like is saying 'please' and 'thank you', and being all dainty and fragile and it's just all so... so-- bleh.”

“I'd titter and giggle right now for the hell of it, but you'd probably never speak to me again.”

I cut my eyes to her. “Hey,” I proclaimed, “I never said I was that shallow.”

“No,” she replied, grinning cheekily, “you just implied it.”

I rested my head in my hand and repeated what I was saying in the first place. “Help.”

“Okay, okay, fine. I'll help you.”

Yay.

“Stop with the mental dialogue already, having conversations with your conscience is a sign of madness.”

“I can't exactly stop it answering me.”

Sarah rested her elbow on the desk and leaned on it, turning over sideways so she was using the desk as a bed, and twirled a lock of hair around with her left finger. “Well... if you were going to 'pay it forward',” she used her fingers to emphasise the quotation marks, “how would you go about it?”

I contemplated that for a moment. It was a good question, of course – it was the question. My ma had always told me to “treat people how you want to be treated” and I'd tried to apply that to every day life (not)... but our teacher, Miss Reed, wanted us to go that little bit further and make someone's day a little happier. She wanted us to make wonderful out of normal. “... I'd treat people the way that I want to be treated.”

Small talk with people I don't know is my idea of personal hell. One of them, anyway.

“You have to think beyond that, Em. That's something you can do every day without thinking. Miss Reed wants you to move above and beyond that.”

“Har, easier said than done.” I sorted through the school books on my desk, haphazardly arranging them into teetering stacks.

Sarah's eyes watched them move. “You know... if I blew too hard on those, they'd fall over.”

I cut my eyes to her again. “Don't you dare, missy.”

Sarah grinned widely. “What makes you think I'd ever do such a thing?”

“I can think of a number of occasions when you've done such things. I can count them on more than two hands, even. There was the time where you told that guy I liked that I liked him...”

Sarah stifled a snort. “Tyler? That loser?”

I held up a finger. “You're interrupting. Shush. And then there was the time...”

Sarah's hands flew up in front of her in a surrendering gesture. “Okay, okay,” she said hurriedly, interrupting me again before I managed to spell out any more interesting episodes, “I yield.”

I grinned. “Wicked. Now help me.”

“Since when did I become the hired help?”

“Since you became my best friend and you, of all people, know me better than anyone.” I inspected my nails with a bored expression on my face. Hmm, they needed trimming. “Besides, you owe me.”

“You're never gonna let me live down any of that, are you?”

“Ooh no, I am not, missy moo.”

“So I'm a cow now?”

“Whatever floats your boat, sunshine.” I like Disney songs. A lot. The song 'A Whole New World' from the movie, Aladdin, was in my head and, before I knew it, I was tapping out the beats to it. Unfortunately for me (and everyone else, but mostly me), Sarah started singing.

“I can show you a world, shining, shimmering, splendid, tell me princess, when did you last let your heart decideeee?”

I ducked my head under my arm in embarrassment – Sarah was still laying on the desk, singing her wee heart out to me, but, to be honest, I thought she sounded more like a banshee on crack. Make that a banshee with an inability to walk.

“I can open your eyessss, take you wonder by woooonder, over, sideways and under, on a magic carpet riiiiideeee!”

I wish she'd open her own eyes to how out of tune she was. My eyes were almost watering.

“A whole newww worrrrrrllddd, a new fantastic point of view! No one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we're only dreeeeeaming.”

I scuttled off my seat and crawled on the ground towards my friend, Riley. She was my other best friend, somewhere about the height of five feet, two inches (which I was insanely jealous about, I want her extra inches!) and she was one of the quietest people I'd ever known. She also had an infectious giggle and the ability to be the level-headed one of the group – something that offset my impulsiveness and Sarah's... I eyed the close-eyed “singing” banshee... tenacity.

Sarah trilled out the rest of the song in a high-pitched voice, severely out of tune.

“I don't know her,” I stage whispered to Riley.

She giggled in response. “Oh, I know.”

“Help me,” I muttered back, somewhat desperately.

“Not even I can save you once she gets started.”

“But you could try knocking some sense into her!”

“You're looking at the wrong person.” Riley shook her head.

I eyed Sarah up and then looked at the teetering stack of books on my desk. I was awfully tempted to grab them – mainly because they were very close to toppling over – and drop them all on her head. Maybe that would've knocked some sense into her.

“I know what you're thinking,” Riley whispered, “and that won't work.”

I cut my eyes to her. “Since when did you become a mind reader?”

“Since never, but the way you were looking at her and those books, I could tell.”

“Oh, great, so now I'm transparent too.”

“I know of some guys who'd like that...” Eva chipped in.

“I'm tempted to throw these books at you instead of Sarah, Eva.”

Her hands flew to her face. “No, no, anything but the face. Anyone but me. Please!” She batted her eyelashes at me and I threw one at her anyway. She bit her bottom lip and tears filled her eyes. “Why... Emily Ravell, you are heartless. Heartless, I tell you!”

“And you, missy, are full of bullshit.”

“I know,” she replied, grinning widely, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “It's a shame that they never took me in for the theatre group.”

“Maybe they thought you were too dramatic.”

“There,” she proclaimed with an air of snobbishness, “is never such a thing as being too dramatic in the world of theatre.”

I pointed at Sarah. “Yes, there is, and she's a prime example. Look at her.”

“Sarah's a special case,” Eva wrinkled her dainty nose, “and if she's serious about that, she needs singing lessons.” She added as an afterthought, “A lot of singing lessons.”

Aforementioned banshee decided to get off her desk and come to socialise with the rest of us. Of course, she was unaware that we were criticising her (lack of) singing skills. “So, what're you guys going to do for the assignment?”

“I was thinking of helping my mother out at work --” Riley cocked her head.

“Our mother,” Eva corrected. “And I was thinking of joining her.”

“Hey, it was my idea first!”

“Yea, well, you're my sister, and I'm younger, so I'm allowed to tag along.” Eva stuck her tongue out at Riley. “What about you, Sarah? You got any ideas?”

“I'm doing more volunteer work with animals at the local SPCA. You could always come along if you like,” she offered to me. “I know you're kinda stuck for ideas.”

I didn't want to rain on her parade, so I refused nicely. “I want to do something else, Sarah. She's always saying to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary, but when the ordinary is pretty ordinary, that's hard to come by.” I grimaced and sighed. “I was reading the prologue just as she finished the lecture and this stuck with me: 'You don't need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you've got.' I want to do something like that. I want to change the world.”

They all looked at me like I was crazy for a moment then burst out laughing.

“What, you don't think I can do it!?”

“Em, if Pinky and the Brain couldn't do it, you definitely can't,” Sarah deadpanned, her voice solemn.

“Party pooper.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

She mock-bowed. “Always happy to oblige.” She grinned. “Though, seriously Em, what's so wrong with doing something about volunteer work or whatever?”

“I just want to do something different.”

“You're always wanting to be different,” she pointed out.

“I can't help being that way.” I shrugged. “You know... if I want to change the world, maybe I'm going about it the wrong way.”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe instead of trying to do something, I should try to show how something is done. Like... how people are made to feel happy, what gives them that little bit of lift or that little bit of happiness in their day.”

“You mean, showing how everyone gets their daily dose of wonderful?”

It clicked. “Sarah, you're a genius. Thank you!” I squealed happily and hugged her tightly. “You are seriously the bestest friend ever. You just helped me with my idea for the assignment.”

“I half wish I'd thought of it for myself,” she replied jokingly.

I grinned. “Too bad, too late.”

“That's not a half bad idea, Em. How are you going to go about doing it though?” Riley asked. “It's one of the more obscure ideas. How are you going to show how people get their daily dose of wonderful?”

Eeehehe, I hadn't given that much thought. “Let me get back to you on that.”

Sarah slung her arm over my shoulders. “Well, while you're thinking, we're going shopping. I need shoes and, by the looks of it,” she glanced down at my feet, shod in shoes that were nearly bursting apart at the seams, “you do, too.”

-

I was in my own personal hell. At four foot eleven, of course I needed all the help I could get in the height department, but when help came calling in the form of four inch stilettos, it was all I could do not to throw down everything in my hands and run like the wind.

“Come on, Em, it'll nudge you over the five foot mark,” Sarah wheedled, expertly grasping my foot and shoving it into the shoe.

“Yea, and so does standing on my tippy toes,” I shot back.

Sarah finished putting on the other shoe and stood up and back to survey her handiwork. “You know, Em, with a pedicure, your tootsies would look pretty fantastic.”

“I wish verrucas and athlete's foot on you,” I replied and made a face before attempting to stand up. Sarah moved away quickly (“I just want to give you plenty of room in case you fall.” Insert scathing look from me here) under the pretence of not wanting to make me fall over. I waddled along in the stilettos, doing a fantastic impersonation of a penguin, windmilling my arms often as I nearly fell.

“Sarah,” I announced, “I still feel like I'm on stilts.”

Sarah covered a smile with a hand, but I could see her shoulders shaking.

“You're laughing at me, aren't you!? Sarahhhh.”

“This is so a little bit of wonderful,” she giggled.

Hmm.

-

Sometimes trying to do certain things can be like trying to bake a cake, results vary depending on the way you mix things, the quality of your ingredients and the environment it's put in to cook. Success means it tastes great, failure means it tastes worse than a shit sandwich. (Possibly un)lucky for me, I have little to no experience in the kitchen.

So think of it this way, your day could be like a cake – and all the wonderful things are what help it to rise to be the best damn cake ever. I therefore propose that “wonderful” has a recipe. There's hundreds, possibly thousands of variations for it and even more ways to put ingredients in. Such ingredients could be a smile, a friend, laughter, happiness – and of course these can happen at the same time, but I'm going to show you just how wonderful “a little bit of wonderful” can be.

And it just makes me realise that everyone needs a little bit of something wonderful in their lives at least once a day.

Watch as I bring it to you.

--

-

-

-

A/N: I've had the idea for this story for forever. I've only just managed to get the story out of my head and into some sort of legible form though – so I hope you enjoy this. The next chapter's in progress, and I am looking for a beta for this story, so please let me know if you're interested. Emily is so one of my favourite characters that I've ever written, kekeke.

Thanks for reading!

-Emma