Summary: In a world where Bella never came to Forks, a girl who more than exceeds the definition of 'weird' arrives to live with her grandparents-- and she doesn't give a flying fig about vampires, real or not. How will the Cullens deal with this anti-social and semi-psychotic newcomer who seems more than happy to drive off anyone who comes too close?
Disclaimer: I only own Philomena Morgan and her family, but that's as far as it goes. The Twilight series and all its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, and any other mentioned media or characters or sayings that you will probably recognize are not mine.
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Well, it was finally official: my life sucked. Call the press and declare a national fricking holiday.
I banged my heels childishly against the floor and twisted around to look over my shoulder again, still not seeing Grandpa anywhere in the sea of humanity. I hated waiting-- especially in unfamiliar places with even more unfamiliar people who can't seem to register the concept of 'staring is RUDE'. Like the kooky-looking woman in pink on the next bench over, who was currently 'discreetly' staring at me from over the top of a People magazine. I can't for the life of me figure out what is so fascinating about staring at a teenage girl with about eight different piercings in each ear and enough necklaces, bracelets and rings to make a phony fortune-teller cry. It couldn't be the black T-shirt with 'The World is Going to Hell and I Am Driving the Bus' splashed on the front or the jeans I'd sewed random things on and doodled all over in my boredom. It had to be my shoes' fault. My plain old ratty white and gray sneakers with absolutely nothing noteworthy on them. That she couldn't even see.
Hello, Denial, how are you this fine evening? Say, did you know there's a river in Egypt named after you?
I pulled a grotesque face at Mrs. I-So-Do-Not-Have-A-Staring-Problem, sticking out my tongue and crossing my eyes. She gasped and gave me a deeply offended look before hiding behind her magazine. Huh, imagine that. You'd think I was being rude or something...oh well.
"Hey there, Susie Q!" a (thank God!) familiar voice boomed behind me as a hand clasped my shoulder. I tipped my head back to grin up at my Grandpa Bob's craggy face, crinkled in a friendly smile. "What's new?"
"Not much," I said companiably, and leaned down to pick up Rosie's kennel. She whined pleadingly and wriggled, her tail thumping against the walls of her cage in her eagerness to get out. I poked a finger through the wire to assure her, which she immediately began to gnaw on. I frowned and tugged my finger back-- I had forgotten that she was still teething. Heck no was the Demon Dog going to sharpen her little fangs on my flesh and bone (any more than I could help). I handed her up to Grandpa and scooped up Puu and Meow-Meow's kennel. Meow-Meow cracked her eyelids open, uttered a hoarse mew, and then laid her head back down. Puu didn't even stir from her position curled up at her older friend's side. At least they weren't trying to tear each other apart, which happened more often than not when they got crammed too close together.
"Ready to go, Phil?" Bob asked, shifting Rosie's kennel to a more comfortable fit in his hand. I glanced at him fondly, idly wondering if he'd gotten shorter or if I'd actually gotten taller. Considering I was barely five foot one, that was saying something.
"Yeah, I'm ready," I assented, swinging my knapsack onto my right shoulder. Grandpa strode back the way he came and I started to follow, then stopped and looked back over my shoulder at the nosey woman. Unsurprisingly, I had caught her staring. Again. I blew a raspberry at her and scrambled after my grandpa, snickering as her dumbfounded expression registered in my head.
The car was new-- from what I could remember, Grandpa and Grandma used to have a silver Buick, not a purple whatever-it-was. A Honda? Was that it? I squinted at the rear fender, irritated at myself for taking my contacts out before napping on the airplane. Would it be worth finding out after digging through my luggage in the middle of the parking lot for my glasses? No, it wasn't like I spoke car anyway.
The luggage was tossed into the trunk, my evil little pets were strapped down securely in the back seat, and I was sitting in the front with Grandpa, more than ready to get out of the little outcropping of hell called an airport. I grinned as we veered out of the parking lot and onto the highway, heading straight into the heart of my new home (for a while, anyway).
Good God, who swallowed the rainforest and threw it up in here? I thought with a grimace ten minutes down the road. I had forgotten how damn green Forks was. The verdant color dominated over nearly everything else, muting out the browns and grays. I was a country girl born and raised, and while I liked green as much as the next person over, I preferred the softer colors that didn't induce fits of wanting to gouge my eyeballs out. Or get the paintball guns and go wild so it would at least be a bit more interesting to look at.
"Hey, there's your school!" Grandpa pointed out cheerfully, gesturing out the window to my side of the car (which subsequently caused us to veer alarmingly close to the side of the road and forced my heart to do a highly uncomfortable and amazingly correct rendition of turning over in my chest). I turned quickly to look out the window so he wouldn't see my big-eyed expression of panic, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a squat gray building that crouched sulkily against the concrete. Yikes; that wasn't exactly promising. It looked like one of those freaky possessed buildings that grew fangs and turned its windows into creepy glowing eyes, then started murdering people and sticking their bodies in the basement. Or in this case, the janitor's closet.
"It's...nice," I said reluctantly, not wanting to outright disparage the possessed penitentary just yet. After all, it might be all rainbows and fluffy clouds and Hello Kitty sparkliness on the inside. But then I'd have to steal a wrecking ball and destroy the damn thing, because there was no way in hell that I was going to go to a cutesy-kitty school. Give me a cheesy horror movie prop any day over that torture.
Besides, there was always the off chance it really was possessed. Then it would just eat me, and not torment me with sparkly evilness.
And people said I had no imagination. Honestly.
We turned up a small hill into a gravel driveway and I smiled crookedly when I saw my grandparent's tan and brown one-story house, nestled in a corner where a section of the hill had been removed. The rock wall that I vividly remembered our whole family helping Grandpa create ran along the part of the hill that the house didn't occupy, stretching out and a few feet beyond his dark brown workshop that was parallel to the house. Another, smaller rock wall that came up almost to my knees was across from the larger wall, hoisting up a strip of earth that had several strategically planted trees, two of them apple trees, and a flower garden that ran along the side of the house. Beyond that and down the hill was the rhubarb garden and their prized chokecherry bushes, which were taken the utmost care of, and used to make Grandma's completely awesome rhubarb bars and chokecherry jelly.
More importantly, it looked like home.
The car came to a stop inside the darkness of the garage and I unbuckled my seatbelt, my hands shaking a little from exhaustion. Airplane seats weren't exactly the best place to catch a snooze from all the uncomfortable angles the chair made you bend at, but I wasn't about to be rude and drop my seat back into someone's lap. That wasn't at all nice-- not to mention completely embarassing, because I'd know that someone was staring at me while I was trying to fall asleep. Creepy...
"We're here," Grandpa declared, and killed the engine. "Come on, let's get your stuff and your critters in the house."
"They're not 'critters'," I huffed, sliding out of the front seat and opening the back door. "They're evil little demons who destroy everything in sight and then give you a big innocent-eyed look that warps your brain into cuddling them and forgetting about ever punishing them."
"Well, don't tell your grandmother that," he advised, pulling my two suitcases out of the trunk. I was already at the door, pet carriers in hand. Rosie howled frantically, scratching at the wire and making horrible grating sounds with her nails. Shoot, I'd have to clip them soon too, and claim yet another bunch of battle scars from grooming my dog. I just had to make sure she didn't scratch my forearms this time. It was embarassing as hell to be hauled off to the counselour's office in the middle of class because someone had seen the fresh scratches on my arms and freaked out. After at least twenty minutes of getting lectured on the dangers of self-harm, I still hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise, and the whole mess had escalated until the principle called Mom and Dad in. Honestly, how was I supposed to know Rosie would freak out so badly when I gave her a bath for the first time?
"Hush, you," I told my dog sternly, set her kennel down, and then knocked loudly on the door before pulling it open and stepping inside. "Grandma, I'm home!"
Here's to new beginnings and hoping I don't screw myself over too badly.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
It's possessed. I KNOW it's possessed. If it even thinks about trying to eat me, I'll set it on fire, I thought grimly, clutching my bag closer to my chest and glowering warily up at the penitentiary where I would (hopefully) finish up my last two years of high school. I only had so many relatives that lived near high schools that would be willing to take me in, after all. I glanced back over my shoulder at the disappearing taillights of Grandpa's purple whatever-the-hell-it-is car before stiffening my spine and forcing myself to march into into the Source of All Evil.
On the plus side, it wasn't all rainbows and fluffy kitties on the inside. Rats, there went my fun with a wrecking ball!
Thankfully, I'd arrived just after the first bell had rung and there weren't very many people around to gawk at me like they always seemed to do. I approached the receptionist's desk and fidgeted in front of it for a few seconds, wondering if I would actually have to open my mouth and admit I was there. Fortunately for me, she looked up and gave a little jump and startled 'oh' when she saw me standing there, stark and plain as day.
"Hi," I offered after an awkward pause. "I'm the new student."
"Ah, yes," she said, shuffling a few papers nervously. "Miss, er, Morgan..."
Why the hell couldn't people just say my name and get it over with? Although there were times I wanted to cuss out the great-aunt who had insisted on naming me, it was still my name and for God's sake, it's not like Philomena was hard to pronounce.
"Just call me Phil, ma'am," I interjected flatly. "Everybody else does."
Everybody who didn't think I was psychotic freak, anyway. Wait, that was just about everyone outside my family! Damn, I needed to get a life...
"Right," the woman agreed dubiously. "Anyway, here's your schedule and a map to your classes," two white pieces of paper was thrust into my hands, "and a slip for all your teachers to sign. Make sure you get it back to me at the end of the day, alright?" she finished sternly.
As if I'd run off with the damn thing. Oh yes, that's me-- Philomena Morgan, stealer of slips and all-around poodle snatcher. Fear for your lives, people. Nonetheless, I nodded my head like the good little drone that I was and trotted off to the first level of Hell.
I followed the map to my first class (English) and paused outside the door to collect myself before I walked in front of my so-called peers and the teacher-- Mr. Mason, I noted from the nametag on his chest. His jaw dropped when I thrust my slip at him and stared back expectantly....Come to think of it, everybody behind me was gaping too.
Okay, maybe wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed 'I Hate You All. A Lot' and Goth eye makeup was not exactly Good Impression material. Well, tough break. I had to let them know where I stood and not to expect miracles, a.k.a. me being nice and not my total-bitch self to everyone who so much as crossed their eyes at me. Though for the sake of Grandpa and Grandma's continued health in their old age, I would try not to make a lot of scenes like I did back home. I didn't want to think about what would happen to their blood pressure if they got a call from school informing them that their granddaughter had stuffed someone into a trash can and rolled them into the girl's locker room for calling her a crazy skank. Not that that had ever actually happened. Really.
...Ahem. Back to reality.
"Um...there's a seat in the back," Mr. Mason ventured timidly. What, was he afraid I was going to bite him? I'd only do that if he stuck his finger in my face. Actually, that was the one thing I didn't get in trouble for last year because I'd managed to pass it off as a reflex action. Needless to say, that girl whose name I could never bother to remember had never stuck her perfectly manicured digit in my face ever again.
"Thanks," I said absentmindedly, and made my way to the back of the room to my desk. Mentally, I filed Mr. Mason under the 'scared of the shadow I cast' section that I used for certain teachers that I tried to be nice to, if only to avoid lawsuits about giving them heart attacks. The two others were 'too nice for your own good' and 'you really need to pull that stick out of your ass'. Hopefully I wouldn't find too many instructors that I had to put under the latter file.
"Alright, class, turn to page 219, we're going to start on Macbeth today..." I flipped open the book he'd given me and ignored everything else he said as I began to read. I'd already read pretty much everything by Shakespeare, but it never got old all the same. Even if my now-official scaredy-cat teacher called on me to answer a question (which was unlikely), I'd already read Macbeth front to back and back to the front again. Shakespeare was just plain awesome to me, and I'd more than happily deck anybody who said otherwise.
The bell rang just as I finished Act III, Scene V, and I shut the book with a content noise. It was a good enough place to leave off that I could finish it later without too much trouble in the form of Good Samaritans and Annoying Nuisances.
"Hey--"
Speak the devil's name and he shall answer.
"You're Philomena Morgan, right?" asked a lanky boy with acne and black hair that was as greasy as yesterday's cold pizza. I could have banged my head on the table for jinxing myself, but refrained on the grounds that I didn't want brain damage on my first day of school.
"I dunno. You tell me," I returned dryly, shifting my books to a more comfortable fit in my arms and shoving in my chair with my foot. "Can I help you?" I addressed a little blonde girl who had turned around to stare at me with big eyes a trifle sharply. She blushed and shook her head furiously before scurrying off.
"Wow. So, Philomena...that's kind of a mouthful," Mr. McStork, as I had named the lanky boy in my head, chattered as he bobbed along beside me as I hurried out the classroom door to my next torture session-- oh, excuse me, I meant class.
"My friends call me Phil," I said, wondering what I had done in my past life to deserve this. I was probably a mass murderer, or an arsonist...or a mime.
"Really?" Mr. McStork asked, seemingly delighted for some odd reason. I eyed him warily out of the corner of my peripheral vision and decided to throw him a bone and run for it, or else I'd never shake him off.
"Well, they would if I had any friends," I amended dismissively.
"Oh," he said, obviously not knowing what else to say. What did he want me to do, lie? It was the cold hard truth that I had never made a friend outside my family. The little snot-nosed brats I went to school with had thrown all kinds of hissy fits when we were younger because I found books a hell of a lot more interesting than sitting around gossipping and giggling over older boys, never mind that we hadn't even hit the double digits yet. And God, when those little shits hit puberty? They hit it with a vengeance. Drama, drama, and more drama, that's all my old high school was.
"Well, I'm Eric," Mr. McStork chirped in a heartfelt, but still transparent effort to change the 'painful' subject.
"Well Eric, since you've already introduced me to myself and I try not to get in the habit of repeating what other people say, I'll say thank you and see you later," I stated calmly, before abandoning dignity to the winds and taking off like Severus Snape confronted with shampoo. Screw tact-- if I didn't shake him off now, I never would.
The rest of the morning passed in a similar manner-- I was approached by a hopeful at least once every period and did my best not to be rude, but I wasn't exactly friendly either. The only hitch was when the Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, made me stand up in front of the class to introduce myself and earned himself my undying enmity for all of eternity. I vowed to be as much of a smart-ass as possible in his class now that he had landed himself a prime spot in my 'you really need to get that stick out of your ass' file.
By the time lunch had rolled around, I had successfully dodged all attempts to be friends with pretty much anyone without ruffling too many feathers. I was fairly proud of myself as I sat at an empty table and took out my lunch that I had packed last night. No murder attempts, no catfights, no sobfests....I was doing good. I might actually make it here.
Famous last words.
A perky girl from my Spanish class plonked herself next to me, introduced herself with a name that I promptly forgot, and immediately began gossipping about whatever lonesome tumbleweed thought that crossed her fluffball brain. I ignored her for the most part, nodding and 'uh-huh'-ing when she paused for breath, and tried to keep my brain from disentegrating in the general airheaded-ness of the conversation. I'd just pulled out my bottle of water and was debating if I could committ harakiri with only one participant and the blunt end of a bottle when I looked up and saw them.
I tilted my head and gazed at them with the morbid fascination I reserved for roadkill and sitcoms. They were all exceptionally attractive and pale, but they looked like they hadn't had a decent night's sleep in the last ten years or so. There were two girls and three boys-- the largest boy had curly black hair and a cheerfully youthful grin, looking like he was meant to be tanned to the point of random people asking him if he was worried about skin cancer. The girl sitting next to him and preening herself had the face and figure that supermodels would commit homicide for, only without the tan-- and she knew it too, from the way she held herself. The second girl, a tiny pixielike thing with short black hair that stuck up in disarray, was seated next to a slender honey blond-haired guy. For some reason my diarrheal mind christened them Peter and Tinkerbell, which I decided not to even think about.
Then my gaze slid to the last boy who had, will wonders never cease, turned his head around to meet my stare. He had messy bronze hair and a lanky build, not unlike Mr. McStork but definitely a lot more graceful and none of the jerkiness of limbs still being grown into. His eyes were a gleaming topaz that were set into what the masses would have termed a 'gorgeous' face. I raised an eyebrow at him, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. My eyes narrowed at him-- was he making fun of my eyebrow? He damn well better not be, it had taken ages to perfect my eyebrow-raising. Those who laughed at my hard work often found themselves taking up the source of their humor with Mr. Spork and me (all very diplomatically, of course).
"Oh," Little Miss Sunshine giggled next to me. I broke my staring contest with the boy across the room and glanced over at her. "Those are the Cullens."
"Mm," I said neutrally, focused on plotting revenge against the eyebrow-disser as I stabbed viciously at my pudding. And let me tell you something, it takes talent to stab pudding with a plastic spoon. Mwahaha, suffer, little pudding, suffer....
"The three boys are Emmett, Jasper, and Edward. The girls are Alice and Rosalie," my self appointed high school tour guide announced, indicating who was who with a flick of her immaculately kept nails. I really needed to learn her name sometime in the near future-- she seemed like the type of person who'd take serious offense if I couldn't remember it later on. "They live with Dr. Cullen and his wife."
"That's nice," I said absently, rooting through my lunchbag for the pack of Trident gum Grandpa had dropped in on my way out. Now where did it go-- ah, got it.
"Oh, totally." Her name started with a J, I could remember that much. "They're all together though-- Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice." I stopped unwrapping the piece of gum in my hand and stared at her. What the HELL?!? I may come from what's classified as a hick town, but you have to at least be second cousins to have a relationship like that! At LEAST!! And what the hell does she mean, they 'live' with Dr. Cullen-- oh. Oh, stupid me, they're foster kids. Sheesh, good thing I didn't open my mouth...
"...think she's their aunt or something," J-something babbled. I frowned as I caught the tail end of her monologue. Now what was she talking about?
"That's nice," I said again, resigned to the fact that there was no escape from the endless stream of chatter that poured from her mouth. As time ticked at the speed of molasses, I was becoming uncomfortably aware of what it was that drove a trapped coyote to gnaw it's own foot off in order to escape its fate.
"I guess so," she said, her eyes narrowed with dislike and jealousy at the table where the Cullens sat. "I don't think Mrs. Cullen can have any kids, though."
Snap.
Whoops. There went my spoon. Good thing I'd finished my pudding.
"And what's that got to do with anything?" I said mildly, my skin buzzing like a hive of bees had taken up residence underneath my epidermis. The table rattled warningly underneath us and the section of lights above our heads blinked threateningly for a few seconds. "It doesn't affect the kind of person Mrs. Cullen is. If anything, quite a few mothers could take a page out of her book, because it looks like she did a damn good job raising her kids. Give me someone like Mrs. Cullen over women who don't give a flying fig about their kids any day."
"B-but--"
"Look Janet... no, Jackie--Janie? Dammit, what is your name?" I exploded irritably, slapping my hand down on the table in frustration. "And don't lie to me 'cause we go to the same school and I'll find out who you are!"
"It's Jessica," she snapped, highly affronted. I had to give her brownie points-- the last kid I blew up on because I couldn't remember his name fell out of his seat and hid under the table. I still didn't like her, though.
"Ah. I knew that," I replied, nodding sagely and popping my forgotten stick of gum in my mouth.
"Weren't you going to say something?" Jessica demanded after a few beats of blessedly sweet silence.
"Was I? Well, there's no point in saying anything if I can't remember what I was going to say in the first place," I murmured, flapping a hand at her. Out of curiousity, I glanced back at the Cullen's table to see Edward (at least I thought it was Edward) watching me with that same tiny smile on his face. I almost raised my eyebrow again, but thought better of it, and simply propped my chin in my hands and stared back at him shamelessly.
"Gorgeous, isn't he? Don't waste your time, though. He doesn't date. Apparently, none of the girls here are good enough for him," Jessica sniffed, obviously nursing the age-old grudge of being turned down. I applauded Edward (was it Edward? Bah, who cared) for knocking the Queen Bee down a few pegs.
Alright, I freely admit that I was still annoyed from the jibe about Mrs. Cullen being barren and her snooty attitude wasn't exactly endearing. So, I decided to have a little well-deserved fun. Besides, I'd been good all day.
"Maybe he just doesn't like twitterbrained shrews," I returned, raising my eyes to the ceiling.
"Wh-what?" she sputtered. Did I just hear a choking sound from the other end of the room?
"I said that must be such a shame for you," I said cooed, batting my eyelashes innocently. "Being turned down because you're such a fluffhead."
"I am not--"
"What are you getting so upset about? All I said was that I'm sure you'll find someone else instead," I protested in wide-eyed obliviousness. Yep, someone across the room either needed the Heimlich maneuver really badly or had really good hearing. "Though you're never going to get a steady boyfried if you always act like you're on the rag."
"Y-you- you FREAK!" Jessica half-shrieked, half-hissed, the color of her face bringing to mind a boiled lobster as she shot to her feet.
"Are you okay, Jessica?" I asked, tilting my head in mock confusion. "I just asked if you'd seen my bag..."
She glared, but she looked like she'd had enough for now. I let her be, satisfied that the thrumming beneath my epidermis had ceased and I had taken vengeance for Mrs. Cullen and my poor talked-off ears.
On my way out, I happened to look over at the Cullen's table. All of them, even the perfect Rosalie and stoic Jasper, were laughing to themselves, and I had a fairly good idea of what they thought was so funny. My eyes lingered on Edward, with his head thrown back and a grin showing plainly on his face, and I felt an inexplicable surge of tender satisfaction as I turned to go.
Like all other unexplained feelings, however, it was ignored.
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
However, unexplainable feelings or not, it turned out that Edward Cullen was a jerk of the highest caliber.
I had walked into Biology II after lunch, given the teacher my slip as per usual, and was then directed to the only open spot which was, wouldn't you know it, by one Mr. Cullen himself. I'd turned around, not sure what to expect from him, but I sure as hell hadn't thought he would start glaring at me! Nothing like those pansy-ass glares that Jessica had given me-- I'm talking about literal daggers and bolts of lightning that were attempting to bore into my skull like a power drill through new wood. And when I'd sat next to him, he'd scooted away like I had the Ebola virus-- he hadn't even bothered to be discreet about it either!
Fifteen minutes, I'd gotten heartily sick of his glowering and LOoMing over me (though to be honest, it wasn't that hard to loom over short people like me, but he took it to a whole other level, thus making it LOoMing). I didn't stink, I knew that. I'd made sure to take a shower last night and scrub thoroughly. I raised a hand inconspicuously to my face and sniffed, just to make sure. Nope, no nasty body odors here. So what the hell was Edward's problem?
I glanced at him and saw he was still staring at me furiously before rolling my eyes inwardly and ignoring him again. Was I ugly to him? I knew I wasn't exactly the most attractive person in Forks, but I didn't feel the need to pull a paper bag over my face and break mirrors. Physical appearance couldn't be it-- if it was, he'd have shown some sign of this grouchiness in the cafeteria. After that, I drew a total blank. I know I'd never met him before in my life, so there was absolutely no reason for this blatant hostility.
No reason, but he was doing it anyway.
Whatever reason he thought he had, it was pissing. Me. OFF.
I tapped my favorite pen thoughtfully against the desk, scowling at Edward when the familiar buzzing infiltrated my skin once more with a vengeance. The epidermal layer itched, and my skin crawled and twitched like it was going to split and peel off. The back of my eyes burned and a pressure began steadily mounting itself in the same place.
This could not be allowed to continue. If I just let him sit there and shred me to pieces with his eyes, he'd think he could get away with it all the time. I pulled a loose sheet of paper from my notebook and began to write, and gradually the pressure began to cease and my skin to settle, though the thrumming still persisted. When I finished, I looked it over and smiled in approval. Then I turned back to Edward and smiled my best 'you are going to regret the day you ever messed with me, you shithead' smile, and stabbed him in the arm with my pen.
Edward choked faintly, his eyes growing as large as dinner plates when I withdrew my weapon of choice and a small bead of blood rolled out of the puncture mark. Funny, I thought I'd stabbed him quite a bit harder than that, but I'd probably just angled the pen wrong. I dropped the note in front of him and smirked victoriously when I heard his low growl of anger after he'd read what I had written. While he had gotten his just desserts today, I would make sure to bring Mr. Spork to my next class with him in case any thoughts of retaliation crossed his mind.
The bell rang shrilly and Edward took off like a shot. Hmmmm...wonder what got his panties in a bunch? Couldn't possibly have been me.
Yeah, I'm a sarcastic little munchkin, aren't I?
I hurried out the door to my next class, which thankfully was not Gym. Due to the 'accidents' that happened nearly every period in my old school (i.e. smacking people in the face with rackets, volleyballs breaking people's noses, concussions from being hit with baseballs...), I was banned from P.E. and that ban had carried over to Forks. The list of injuries had been long enough to scare the faculty into keeping me away from their precious students in Gym while equipped with things like baseball bats and tennis rackets.
Instead, I had been given private tutoring with the school's music teacher on the piano. All the kids in my family learned the piano from a young age and I really did enjoy playing the instrument as opposed to the clarinet, which I had tried in fifth grade. I just didn't have the lung capacity for things like that, unlike certain other people (cough, Jessica, cough).
The music teacher, whose name was Mrs. Ziolkowski ("Call me Mrs. Z, Phil,"), was immediately placed under the 'too nice for your own good' file. We went over what I had already learned in the piano books I had brought along from home, with her asking me to play a song every few pages or so and me complying. She didn't make me use the repeat bars or the codas, so I decided that I had caused enough trouble in school for today and didn't complain or mouth off.
"So how do you like Forks so far, Phil?" Mrs. Z asked, leaning back in her chair as I played 'In the Hall of the Mountain King'. I had decided that I liked her, if only because she actually called me Phil instead of Miss Morgan like the rest of the staff did. Honestly, was my name so offensive to their delicate sensibilities they couldn't bring themselves to say it? They're probably just jealous that they didn't have an awesome name like me. I'd rather be a Philomena than a Jessica or a Katie that seemed so predominant in this day and age.
"Eh," I muttered, gnawing at the inside of my mouth when I hit a sour note and going back to correct it. Damn those F sharps, those were usually the easiest ones to remember. "It could be worse, I guess."
"It'll get better," the music teacher promised. "It's only the first day, after all."
"I don't know what I'll do if I hit rock bottom here," I said quietly, hitting the ending chord. "I've already made at least two enemies, and I didn't even have to say anything to Edward Cullen."
"Edward Cullen, huh? He's usually a pretty nice kid, if a little standoffish. Maybe he was just having a bad day," she offered. I snorted softly. Bad day. Riiiiight.
"If you say so," I aquiesced tonelessly as I turned the page and got started on 'An American Hymn'. To be honest, I really was a little hurt. I mean, I hadn't done anything to him, hadn't said a single word or made a single offensive gesture and he went at me full force with his Glare of Almighty Rip-Your-Arm-Off-And-Slap-You-With-It DOOM. Was he upset with me for staring at him? He'd stared back at me and he hadn't seemed to mind in the slightest. I raked my leaky-kettle memory over furiously, trying to think if I'd said something, done something, anything, from lunchtime to the beginning of Biology.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Okay, explanation number two: He was the asshat I had named him for and was hiding behind a mask of sweetness while waiting for the perfect victim, a.k.a. new student nobody cares about, a.k.a. ME.
If that was the case, then there was absolutely no reason to feel guilty if I wound up snapping and beating him to death in some dark alley with a rubber chicken and a golf club. But I wouldn't, if only because his siblings might come avenge his death in some grotesque and horrifying way. Usually, siblings sat with their cliques and not their family, choosing to deny they are related to anyone inside the walls of a school. They had to be pretty tight-knit if they sat together every day.
"Hey!" Mrs. Z exclaimed in startled delight. I broke out of my reverie and gave her an inquisitive look. She held up the music for 'Boston' by Augustana that I had brought along, half-hoping that my assigned teacher would let me work on it during my free time. "This is one of my favorite songs! How well can you play it?"
"I'm pretty good at the beginning, but I start fumbling a lot in the middle because of all the tied notes," I admitted shamefacedly, tapping high and low C alternately in distraction.
"Let's hear it," she instructed, and opened the booklet to the first page before settling it in front of me. I obeyed, enjoying the meandering beginning and singing under my breath. I loved this song, hell I loved music period-- not that crap where the singer just screamed incoherently and the guitar was amped up loud enough to blow your eardrums out, I refused to even acknowledge that as music. Chimpanzees on crack and caffeine would probably sound better than that crap.
"You don't know me, you don't even care, oh yeah," I sang quietly along with the chorus. "She said, you don't know me, and you don't wear my chains...oh yeah, yeah...."
Snap out of it, Phil. You know things are bad when you start drawing parallels between your life and a song.
As mortifying as it was to stumble through the third (and longest) verse, I made it with a few shreds of dignity intact and ignored the little smile on my instructor's face, not really caring to know what it was that she was thinking. She was nice enough as teachers went, but I wasn't going to push my luck with her. I finished with a thankfully easy ending chord and smiled in relief.
"Not bad at all," Mrs. Z praised. "The middle does need a bit of work, but it'll get better with practice. Is there any other independent music you'd like to bring with you next time?"
"I have 'Fallen' and 'Answer' by Sarah McLachlan, and I ordered a bunch of Vienna Teng sheet music a while back, so it should be here any day now," I told her, twisting in my seat to get rid of the crick in my neck. "I just brought Boston today because I wanted to see if you'd let me work outside the book."
"Ah, I see," she said, her eyes twinkling mischieviously behind her thick-rimmed glasses. "You thought I was some old fogey that would turn up my nose at anything modern and force you to slave away on Mozart and Beethoven over and over."
I didn't know how to answer that, and so settled for an apologetic shrug. She smiled kindly and then glanced at the clock, which I followed. Exactly thirty seconds till the bell rings. Excellent timing. I scooped up my music and stood up to leave, wincing a little as my spine protested the abrupt change in position.
"Don't forget that sheet music," Mrs. Z called out after me as the bell shrieked authoritatively. Did I mention that I hated bells? I just know there's some aliens up there in space laughing and watching the high schoolers run to their classrooms at the chime of the bell like trained rats. They were probably making bets on the ones who got there first, too. I groused under my breath, wondering why I was thinking about aliens when school was finally done for the day and I could get the hell out of here.
I tossed what homework I had in my backpack, slammed my locker and took off out the door. Grandpa had let me take the white pickup that he used to cart rock and other things with to school, trusting me to find the way back home. I thought that was a bit of a stretch, considering the state of my mind, but I'd made sure to memorize the route on the way here this morning and Grandpa had driven ahead to make sure I didn't get lost. Even in a tiny town like Forks, my memory was just that bad.
I spotted my white pickup farther back in the leftmost row and trotted toward it, shifting my backpack farther up my shoulder and digging for my keys in my jacket pocket. I untangled them from my MP3 player's cord and grinned in triumph when I finally pulled them out of the black hole that made up the bottom of my pocket. Seriously, I kept everything in my pockets-- gum, cell phone, car keys, pencils, you name it, I hoard it. I unlocked the door and tossed my bag into the passenger seat and then swore loudly when my cell phone fell out of my pocket. I don't know why I kept the frigging thing with me, it wasn't like I had anybody to call. If I wanted to talk to Mom and Dad, I'd use the phone at my grandparents' house.
The hair on the back of my neck rose when I bent to retrieve my errant phone and I looked up quickly, meeting cold topaz orbs with my own. I straightened up and gave Edward a bright smile, then waved merrily in his direction. If he wanted to be a jerk, that was fine, but I'd carry on being annoying in my own little way (and hopefully getting to stab him a few more times). His eyes narrowed furiously at my nonchalant greeting and his lips turned down in a fierce scowl.
God, but he really was an ass.
Without the slightest change in my expression, I turned my hand so that the back was facing him and lowered all my fingers but the middle one. Edward's face slackened in a stunned expression for the second time today. Laughing at his expression, I climbed into the truck, revved it up, and pealed out of the parking lot toward home.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Edward glared after the disappearing rear fender of the truck before reluctantly turning to face his smirking siblings. Emmett grinned teasingly and leaned forward as Alice giggled behind her hands and Rosalie trained him with a smug stare. Jasper gave no hint of his feelings in his expression except for a tiny quirking of his lips.
So that little human is what had you up in arms all hour? Emmett's mind voice drifted to him teasingly. Got to hand it to her, she's got guts.
I like her, Alice announced, sounding incredibly pleased about something. Edward resisted the urge to make a face at her vague answer, concentrating on breathing the air deeply in an attempt to clear out all traces of her scent from his lungs. Mint chocolate and honeysuckle, he thought absently. ....and lightning.
Philomena "Phil" Morgan was an enigma-- he could hear only the vague murmurs of thoughts in her mind, too faint to hear completely. It was as if she was speaking underwater and he had human hearing, a fact which both frustrated and fascinated him. He had enjoyed her spat with Jessica and how she had risen to Esme's defence and been prepared to get to know her on that basis alone, but when he had caught her scent in biology... it had taken everything he had not to kill her on the spot.
When he'd sat there, stiff as a board and staring furiously at her mane of black corkscrew curls, a distant part of him had noted that the more agitated Phil became, the louder and clearer her thoughts became, like whales coming to the surface of the sea for air. Edward had heard a few less than flattering phrases that were obviously directed at him, and for a moment he'd caught the scent of lightning singhing the air and the inside of his sensitive nose-- and then everything had cleared and her thoughts had dimmed back to their original incoherency.
And then Phil had stabbed him. With a pen, of all things-- and he had actually felt it, she had actually broken his skin. That was shocking enough in itself, as well as worrying. Nothing but a vampire could harm another vampire, and she was human through and through. The venom cooling in the back of his throat now was proof enough of that.
"What's this?" Emmett said suddenly, golden eyes dancing when he caught hold of the note sticking out of his pocket that Phil had dropped in front of him after so unceremoniously flipping his world upside down. He dodged his brother's halfhearted swipe and read it aloud with a broad smirk:
Dear Jackass in the next seat whose name I don't care to know,
If you don't stop glaring at me, I'm going to poke your eyes out. Just what is your problem, you buttmonkey? Did you run out of Iviprofin or are you physically incapable of pulling that thirty-nine and a half foot pole out of your ass? If I offend you so much, then say something to me about it-- don't just glare at me like you're a mentally constipated asshat. You asshat.
Hoping you fall into a pit filled with rabid goats,
Your poor partner who is not going to give you her name in case you're a stalker. Which you probably are.
P.S. Truth hurts, don't it?
P.P.S. I hope a llama bites your nose off.
None of the other Cullens could speak for laughing as Edward scowled and was supremely grateful that he was no longer human and could not blush.
At least life wouldn't be so boring anymore.
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Wooooowwwww... that took a long time.
Read and review, please!