A/N: Yay, I finished this chapter! Thanks loads to animationiscool, my first reviewer!

Um . . . so, this chapter isn't my best. It's still pretty good, but not my best. Don't be too cruel.

One more thing. I am not a shipper of Bebe/Calvin. As far as this fic is concerned, they are just friends. Plus, Calvin is married. (I only hint at that once, so I thought I needed to make that a little more clear.) Please don't confuse this chapter with a romance story!

Please review!

"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present my latest masterpiece: The True Way to Measure Art!" Bebe announced as she yanked the tarp off of an enormous canvas. She looked out to the crowd of people standing on the lawn in front of her (mostly consisting of her old classmates and teachers and her family), eager to see their reactions.

Unfortunately, their expressions were pretty much unreadable. Todd was scratching his head. Louis was twirling his moustache. Dana was blinking furiously (she was just getting used to her recent laser eye surgery, so Bebe really couldn't blame her). Those were all pretty much catchalls in terms of emotion for them. So Bebe shouted, "Well, what do you guys think?"

She was met by a disconcerting murmur from the crowd. They were obviously not going to give her a straight answer. She would have to pry it out of them.

"Jenny! What do you think of my drawing?" Bebe asked, pointing directly at Jenny.

Jenny crinkled up her forehead and shouted back, "I actually can't see it all too well through my helmet . . . and don't tell me to take it off, because I already tried and it's stuck."

Bebe frowned. "Joy?"

Joy tilted her head and replied, "Can I see it in another color?"

Bebe rolled her eyes. "Anyone?" she cried. But all she heard was murmuring.

They hated it. She wasn't stupid. She knew they just didn't want to hurt her feelings.

Bebe rested her forehead on her hand and closed her eyes. Calvin, her events manager as well as best friend, knew that when she did this, it wasn't good. "Everybody, it appears that Ms. Gunn is having an artistic, um, problem," he announced, coming to her rescue. "I think it would be best that you all leave."

A bunch of the people in the crowd looked at him funny, but they all shrugged and walked away anyway.

"Thanks for that," Bebe said when they were all gone. She was sitting on the ground next to her drawing. Calvin sat down next to her. Bebe looked up at him and asked, "It's not that bad, is it?"

Calvin's face scrunched up as he looked at the canvas sitting on the easel above him. "Uh . . . it's . . . well . . . " He grabbed the canvas and set it down in front of him to get a better look. On it was a crudely drawn picture of a cat. "Well, it's not- it's not horrible, it's just not-"

Bebe rested her forehead in her hand again. "Calvin, be honest."

"Alright . . . " Calvin shifted in his seat. "Bebe," he said, pointing to the drawing, "this picture isn't worth crap."

"Oh, I knew it." Bebe started crying. "Obviously-" (sniffle) "-Mrs. Jewels w-wa-was-" (sob) "-wr-wrong. Quantity is so the same as-" (sob) "qu-qu-quality." She buried her face in her hands and the tears started pouring down her cheeks.

"No, no, that's not true," Calvin stammered, though it was obvious he wasn't quite comfortable with this whole "sympathy" thing. "I'm pretty sure she didn't say anything like that."

"You know that didn't help at all," Bebe sniffled. Usually, it was a pretty good thing for her that her best friend was the most normal guy out of the Original 28. Unfortunately, the operative word in that was guy. Calvin was one of those friendly, macho, good-looking men who were friends with everyone, were married to supermodels, and had three kids, but were afraid to show their feelings. He pretty much sucked at this whole sympathy thing. Luckily, Bebe didn't get upset too much. But when she did, it was usually pretty bad and Calvin had trouble comforting her.

At least he was aware of it. "C'mon, Bebe, you know I suck at this whole sympathy thing," he said. "Maybe quantity doesn't necessarily have to do with quality. Maybe you just do a better job when you draw quickly. I mean, you worked on this piece of junk for 21 years." He motioned to The True Way to Measure Art. "That could just be way, way, way, way, way too much time for you. I remember that most of the fast drawings you did when we were kids were pretty good."

Bebe wiped her eyes on her arm, realized that her tank top had no sleeves, and took off her hat and wiped her eyes with that. "You really think so?" she asked.

"Uh . . . sure," Calvin replied warily. "Um . . . here!" He picked up the hideous drawing and flipped it upside down to the blank side. "Draw another cat. As fast as you can. Maybe it'll be better." He handed it to her and smiled weakly.

Bebe couldn't help but smile. "You are such a jerk," she laughed. "I'll try."

She put her hat back on her head, took the canvas from Calvin, and took the pencil out from behind her ear. She bit her lip as she drew at a manic pace. She hadn't drawn this fast in a long time. She had been too busy trying to prove to Mrs. Jewels and Calvin and everybody that she wasn't just a fast artist, she was a good one, too. Had she been wasting her time? Maybe, but that didn't matter anymore. Speed drawing gave her a rush that made up for it all.

Okay, so maybe she wasn't as fast as she had been as a kid. You get slower at everything as you age. Sure, she hesitated at some points. She was just thinking it through a little more. Bebe's old record time for drawing a cat had been thirty seconds. She finished this one in one minute and forty-seven seconds.

She set her pencil down and shut her eyes. She was scared of what she would see if she took a close look at it. "What do you think?" she asked as she held her breath. "Be brutal." Calvin took the canvas from her and looked it over. Bebe could feel him scrutinizing it. She could hear him thinking about it. Although she couldn't hear exactly what he was thinking.

Finally, he spoke. "Bebe, do you really want to know what I think?"

Bebe nodded. "Yes, I need to know."

Calvin sighed. "Alright. If you want to know what I think of this drawing, just open your eyes and look at it." Bebe cautiously did as she was told. Then she gasped.

It was the worst drawing she had ever seen. It was lopsided and disconnected. One of the cat's ears was upside-down, its nose was on its forehead, and it looked like it was stepping on its own tail, which was full of knots. If there really was a cat that looked like that, it would be put to rest. Although it would probably be dead already.

Bebe opened her mouth and then closed it. She did this again a few times, and then she lost it.

She grabbed the awful piece of junk she had created from Calvin, stood up, and hurled it across the Wayside lawn, screaming with rage. She stood there with her fists clenched for what seemed like forever. Then, without warning, she screamed again and lay down on the ground, sobbing.

Calvin just stood there dumbfounded. He had no idea how to handle this. Then, he remembered something that he had brought in his knapsack.

"Bebe?" he said cautiously.

"WHAT?" she screamed back.

"I just remembered – I brought something that I think might make you feel better."

Bebe's crying slowed down as she sat up. "I'm listening," she sniffled.

Calvin took a sheet of paper out of his knapsack. It had some sort of writing on it, but Bebe couldn't see what it was through her tears. "What is it?" she demanded.

"Oh, for God's sake, Bebe, wipe your eyes!" Calvin said. Bebe complied. Suddenly, she could see what it was.

"It's a mentally retarded kitten!" she cried. Without warning, she was happy again. "I had almost forgotten that you were twice as bad at drawing as I am!" She stood up and hugged her friend.

Calvin hugged her back. Then he asked the question he had been wondering about all day. "What is this, like, PMS?"

Bebe laughed. "Probably." She let go of Calvin and sighed. She felt a lot better now. "Maybe I'm just not meant to be an artist, after all. I've lost my touch."

"Or maybe you never really were that great an artist and we were all just impressed by your speed in elementary school," Calvin replied.

"Yeah," Bebe said. "That could be it." She sighed again. "You know, I realized something when I was drawing that last piece of crap. I realized that I really like drawing, even if I am bad at it. I'm going to keep doing it."

"Alright, but don't plan on making a living that way," Calvin joked.

Bebe laughed. "You really are a pathetic pep talker. You know that?"

"Yeah. I know."

A/N: Please R&R!