Overactive Imagination
Amelia Gates had been looking forward to high school. Ever since last February she had been yearning for freshman year. A new school, a new start, and she could leave behind the tumultuous days of middle school. Granted, they hadn't been tumultuous until February.
But she wasn't going to talk about that here.
Here, no one knew her. Yet. No one was privy to the gossip and lies that had followed her every step for the last few months of eighth grade. She could make new friends here. However, she would be very cautious about choosing those new friends.
Never again would she have people close to her betray her.
Amelia found her desk in the back of the world history classroom, plopping down before dutifully pulling out her pencil case to arrange her multicolored pens. She like the organization that gel-pens offered note-taking, and her mom only bought them if she promised to use them for school work.
A loud gasp interrupted her work, and her consequent jump disturbed the pens so that they slid off the desk.
"I'm so sorry." The girl squeaked, bending down to pick up the fallen utensils before Amelia could get a good look at her face, "I was just so excited to meet a fellow gel-pen user! Though mine are the glitter kind."
The girl's head came up, her hands full of pens and face full of smile. Amelia almost winced at the painfully stretched, brace-face grin, but the girl's honest enthusiasm won out. A tug at the corner of her mouth informed her that she was smiling in return, "Hi." She said with as much confidence she could muster.
"Hi back." The girl answered breathlessly, "I'm Mabel."
"I'm Amelia."
"Amelia, I am so glad I found you." Mabel voice was brimming with unrestrained enthusiasm, "Prospects have been very bleak this past. I was starting to think I would never again meet an intelligent life form. Color is a necessity of life!"
Amelia thought Mabel was being just a bit dramatic, but instead she nodded along seriously, "School is intolerable without gel-pens."
Mabel squealed with delight as she carefully laid Amelia's collection back down on her desk, "It's such a bummer we don't sit closer, though," she said with more restraint as the classroom began to fill in earnest, "I'm all the way at the front where I get spit showered every time Mr. Fay gets picky about the correct pronunciation of Egyptian pharos."
Laughing, Amelia agreed, "That must suck."
"But hey," Mabel started to inch away as the bell was seconds from ringing, "It would just be better to sit together at lunch so we can talk. You should join me and some other friends."
"Oh, okay." Amelia felt her cheeks warm at the unabashed invitation. Needless to say, up until lunch, anticipation was brewing in her stomach. It made her wonder if she was even going to be able to eat anything.
But the bell rang, and Amelia grabbed her sack lunch from her locker, and she followed the crowds of people to the cafeteria. She was worried she wasn't going to be able to find Mabel among the throngs of students, but only a few seconds after she had walked through the doors there was an energetic brunette standing on her chair and waving both hands over her head like she was signaling for an airplane to land.
Though if that made Amelia the airplane, then she'd been offended.
Dismissing her idle thoughts, she waved back, letting the other girl know that Amelia had seen her. The stares that Mabel had accumulated were quickly being reabsorbed by their lunches; very few things distracted a hungry teenager from food.
"Here," Mabel pulled out a chair for her, glowing, "I saved you a seat like I said!"
"Thanks." Amelia sat down and opened her lunch as two more girls arrived. The first was a short, black girl with dyed red hair of tight coils held back by a bandana; her dark eyes glimmered as they studied Amelia. The other was a pale girl with long, ash-blonde that appeared much older than a freshman as her arms folded across her chest looked like they could bench more than any boy in the school.
"Amelia, this is Tia and Katie," Mabel introduced both girls in turn. Tia gave Amelia an impish smile and Katie just shrugged her wide shoulders.
"Hey." Amelia squeaked.
"Sometimes my brother joins us too." Mabel said offhandedly as the quartet started to dig in to their food.
Between bites of her sandwich, Amelia asked, "You have a brother? What year is he?"
"Same age." Tia answered for Mabel, taking a ferocious bite of her apple and chewing loudly as she continued, "They're twins. Mabes never shuts up about it."
"You're just jealous!" Mabel stuck out her tongue.
"Speaking of Dipper," Amelia quirked her eyebrow at the strange name as Katie spoke, her voice low and slow, "I'd like to hear more Mystery Twins stories."
"Mystery Twins?" Amelia queried, "What's that?"
Mabel's eyes began to glow with unbridled fervor, and Amelia – while only knowing Mabel for less than a day – could tell that she had just gone down a road of no return.
"During the summer, my brother and I go to stay with our great uncle in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Grunkle Stan isn't much of a caregiver, so we get into a lot of… shenanigans, if you will."
Amelia could have sworn there was just the slightest hint of evil in that smirk Mabel was wearing, but she was already in too deep, so she said, "Define shenanigans."
"Ooooo, here she goes." Tia hid behind her bag of Sun Chips, preparing for the oncoming storm. Katie looked more interested than she had since lunch period started, but it was still only a mild inclination of her head and a less-dazed look than before.
"Well," Mabel began, leaning into the center of their gaggle and lowing her voice dramatically. The other girls followed suit. "There was this one time that our Grunkle Stan tried to take us fishing, but Dip and I weren't liking that idea, since the last time our Grunkle wanted to do something with us, we ended up in jail. But anyway, we were about to make an excuse and escape when the local coot came running down the docks ranting about a monster in the lake. Now Dipper is a huge mystery geek, so he had to see it, and there was no way he was leaving me behind…"
Mabel went on to spin a tale about seventeen disposable cameras, getting chased by Oregon's version of Loch Ness, and a crazy old man that built mechanical monsters.
But Amelia found that she couldn't quite mask her skepticism. Sure, the account was semi-believable; probably laced with a healthy dose of exaggeration and embellishment. It was an interesting adventure, but surely it could have been told without breeching the fantasy genre?
And yet, when the story was over, Tia and Katie went back to finishing lunch, accepting it all as if the facts had come straight from an encyclopedia.
The subsequent lunch breaks that Amelia spent with Mabel and her friends followed the same pattern. But Mabel's narratives grew more far-fetched by the day: video games coming to life, crystals that shrank/grew stuff, and magic spells that summon zombies only to be destroyed by a three-part harmony. The other girls didn't seem to question it, but there was a painful knot growing in Amelia's stomach.
She hated being lied to. If someone couldn't tell the truth in the little things, well… how was she supposed to trust someone like that to be her friend?
On one of those rare days that Mabel's mousy, bookworm brother sat with them, while Mabel was telling another Mystery Twins anecdote, she leaned over and whispered to him, "Doesn't it bother anyone that she is always stretching the truth like that?"
Dipper looked up from his book, brown eyes wide and startled. He stared at her for a few seconds longer than what was comfortable before he answered, "Mabel doesn't lie." his tone was flat, "She hates it when people lie." And then he promptly went back to reading his book, his pen sneaking its way up to his mouth for a good, thoughtful chew.
"Geez, Dipper! Actually eat something edible!" Mabel replaced his pen with a cracker slathered in cheese – Dipper didn't seem to notice the switch – and then went back to her story.
"So where was I… Oh yeah! Dipper convinced the gnomes to help us by telling them that Gideon was a girl!" Tia and Katie laughed.
After a minute of consideration, Amelia picked up her lunch and stood up from the table, "I need to go to the bathroom before class." She said by way of explanation.
Amelia didn't sit with them the next day.
When Mabel found her after lunch, Amelia decided that being frank was the best course of action.
"Your stories bug me, Mabel."
"What about them?" the other girl's brow was furrowed in concern and confusion. Did she really not understand?
"Maybe there's some foundation of truth in them, but you fabricate everything else. You lie, Mabel." Amelia noticed Mabel blink rapidly as her eyes started to glisten at the accusation, "I just can't be around someone who thinks that's alright."
"But…"
Amelia cut her off, "Just tell me you made it up. Be honest. Otherwise, I know it won't work out between us, so I rather not even try."
Mabel's voice was smaller than Amelia had ever heard before, "Amelia, those things really happened. Tia and Katie believe it. Why can't you?"
"I don't want to be lied to again." Amelia's throat felt achy – constricted – as she repeated the mantra she'd held on to since February. "Please don't ask me to hang out with you."
With finality, Amelia turned and walked away.
She would find a friend.
Someday.
The next day, she was relieved to find that Mabel still smiled in her direction. A look of understanding – though tinged with sadness – graced her features. But Amelia also noticed that Dipper's uncharacteristically focused scrutiny was anything but forgiving.
Sorry, this was a bit of a sad one. Amelia is not meant to be an antagonist in any way. She simply demonstrates the glaring difference in standards of "normalcy" for the Pines twins. I also would like to point out here that I allude to each individual's history and show how it affects their perceptions of the twins, but I'm sure you all have already realized that.
It is canon that Dipper is a little vindictive, and I hope to delve into that in the next few chapters. I have ideas for said chapters, but anything beyond that is up in the air. If you have a suggestion – I can't make any promises that they will come to fruition, but – I would like to hear them!
Lastly, these chapters are in no particular order chronologically. I just write whatever springs into my mind :P
Thanks for reading!