A/N: Hope you enjoy, just a bit of humour about Nessie's life. This story takes place in 5 years after BD, and Nessie is 5 but looks 13 or 14. C'mon, everyone has been through this, right? Review please!
Nessie POV
Although I would never admit it to anyone, I was scared. It was Halloween night, and of course both my aunts were fussing about. I didn't want to go out; it was a dark night and really scary. I didn't even want to get a costume. And my aunts didn't want me to be like those "other children" who wore costumes of ghosts and witches and vampires. (For vampires, they didn't even need costumes) Instead, they decided to dress me up as "the Nessie pretty princess". Everybody went along with it, as long as "Nessie was happy". So annoying. But I just…couldn't find the courage to tell them. Hey, a real-life half-vampire scared of Halloween? Get real.
But I was.
Jake, my, er…imprinter was to accompany me through the streets with the whole "trick or treat" stuff. He'd keep me warm, sure thing, but all those ghosts, not knowing if they were real…Renesmee Carlie Cullen, get a grip. They're not real. Just some popular fancy-dress party with a ghost theme that the world celebrates. Only a party. You're not scared of mere PARTIES, are you?
"Bye, Ness, have fun!" my vampire family called out their goodbyes and I waved back to them. Jake slung one arm around my shoulder half-casually and walked me out the door.
Outside, the strong wind blew and leaves fluttered down from the trees. The sky was more purplish than it was black. I could just barely make out the shapes of the dark clouds moving quickly across the sky. Jack-o'-Lanterns lined the streets, and most flickered on and off. Beside the doorsteps of a particular row of houses, plastic standees of witches and one-eyed men wearing blood-soaked shirts greeted every guest. There was even a moving one, with a fair-haired, blood-dripping-fang-wearing vampire trying to get out of its coffin. The vampire wore a completely dark suit with a scarlet scarf tied around its neck. It bared its teeth and snapped at the passing people. So not true. None of my family was like this. But, then again, humans know nothing about this secret world, don't they?
Jake handed me a brown paper bag loaded with candies. I sighed quietly, but fortunately he didn't hear. The wind blew again, this time in our direction. I shivered. Jake wrapped both arms around me and pulled me snug against his inhumanly warm chest. To outsiders, what would we look like? Jake looked too young to be my father, and he couldn't be my classmate or friend, Waaaaaaay too old.
"C'mon, Nessie, let's go trick-or-treating." Jacob smiled down at me and produced his own bag of candies. I rolled my eyes.
"Isn't this a little too childish for you?" I asked, cocking my head.
"Nothing's too childish when I'm with you," Jacob told me. "Do you really care so much about what people think?"
I shrugged. "If it suits you, I'm fine. I get the point."
I stopped at my classmate Alicia's house. Her house didn't have the plastic standees like some of the others' did, but the top two floors were lined with mini Jack-o'-Lanterns around the windows and the lights were glowing on them. Blood-red paint-were spattered in a random pattern on the porch.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked. Alicia answered the door on the first knock.
"Hey, Renesmee!" Alicia cried, hugging me. I hugged her back, but paused when Jake looked confused. I then realized what was going on, he must find it funny. "My friends call me Renesmee," I explained quietly, low enough for Alicia not to hear. "So you should call me Renesmee, too, to avoid some…mix-up." Jake nodded once.
Alicia was dressed in a peculiar fashion for Halloween. She wore a silver tank top and a white miniskirt with thick silver stripes down the sides. Her shoes were slightly heeled silver shoes. I should have known. Alicia loved fashion and aspired to be a fashion designer when she grew up. "What are you dressed up as?" I asked her.
My friend-of-two-years winked at me. "A witch." She gestured for me and Jake to enter the house, picked a broom lying near the door and twirled around with it.
"Witches aren't supposed to be glitzy," I muttered. "You're unbelievable."
Alicia beamed. "That's my whole point! Who said that witches had to be all doom and gloom and wear black all the time? Is there a rule? And, anyway, rules are meant to be broken. Fashion, my darling, is all about being trendy, new and creative," she added in a "posh-lady" voice. Then she looked hard at Jake. "Who's this?"
Jake started to answer, but I stopped him quickly. "He's an old family friend," I answered. Jake gave me a knowing look. "My mother's ex-colleague's son…"
Alicia nodded, but judging by her expression, she didn't seem to believe me. Luckily, she didn't press me for answers. "I know you're just supposed to stop at the door and say "trick or treat", but why don't you come in and sit for awhile? The weather's chilly. They've chosen a good date for Halloween, you know. Whenever it's this day of the year, the night is always cold, and there are always winds."
Alicia's mom was a chef at the neighborhood restaurant, Rockwell House. She invited us to dinner in her house, but Jake and I both declined. We'd already had dinner (*cough, cough*, dinner was a herd of deer). Besides, it wasn't nice to eat a whole meal at somebody else's place if that person hadn't invited you specifically to a meal, right?
Jake and me, we left Alicia's house soon after. Alicia wanted to go with us, but thankfully her mom wanted her to stay home and help to greet visitors at the door. It wasn't that I didn't want Alicia with us. She was one of my closest friends. But wouldn't it have been odd if she came along?
Immediately after I'd taken the first step outside Alicia's house, I missed the warmth of her house. I wish it would rain, then all the spooky celebrations would stop and all the Halloween partygoers would return to their blood-streaked homes. I'd persuaded Aunt Alice not to line the house with those stupid decorations. The whole family had been against it, anyway. I was dead sure that I was the only one who'd sided against Aunt Alice out of fright. The others just didn't want to "tarnish the vampire image", not that anyone knew the truth.
I shuddered at the thought. Jake pulled me against him. "You ok, Nessie?"
"I'm just…it's just…" I struggled to find the right thing to say. "Cold."
"You brought the right person with you," Jake remarked, rubbing my shoulder carefully. "If it had been anyone from your vampire family, you would have been shivering."
Aunt Alice and Aunt Rosalie had tried to understand my human temperature, but apparently it didn't work out. They were used to not feeling any heat or coldness in the temperature, and their skin was icy cold…
Anyway, my aunts had decided on a handmade, strapless ice-blue dress which reached until just above my knee. I also wore matching fingerless sapphire-blue lace gloves. Starting from my waist was a lengthy blue satiny sash that that puffed out and covered part of my dress; it dragged on the floor. I was glad for that, though, because it reduced some of the coldness. A sky-blue choker was around my neck, and on my feet were deep blue ballet pumps with ribbons on the front. So, altogether I was kinda like the Blue Ice Princess…yeah, right. This was what happened when you had two aunts who made you their ultra-exclusive Barbie doll and bought you heaps of designer clothing on a daily basis.
And so, I hated leaving my shoulders and arms exposed. I'm fine with it, basically, but I just find discomfort in not having every part of my body covered up nice and warm on a cold day, especially in the night. I enjoy my privacy as well, though one of my hobbies includes Jake. Now you're probably wondering how can a person be a hobby, but he just is. Everything about him, just being with him, doing anything with him, I just like it. Which is why I hate that my father has mind-reading abilities, so most of the time my mother helps by shielding my mind. And, which is why I'm really certain that we're going to be "as happy as Sam and Emily" when I grow up. There are common phrases that I've heard, regarding imprinting. For example, "It's hard to resist that level of commitment and adoration" and "he'll be the perfect match for her, like he's been made for her and her alone".
I love that I grow up quickly, faster than a human child, because I just can't wait to be with a certain guy called Jacob Black…Not quickly enough. But I mean, hello, a thirteen-year-old girl in love with a sixteen-year-old guy (okay, werewolves don't age and are as gigantic as anything, so make it twenty)? It's gotta be impossible in the human world. Hold on a sec. Human world, right? Neither of us was human. Even the fact that 'impossible' really states that 'I'm possible'. Come on, Renesmee, snap out of it. Can't you just be patient for a little longer? He's willing to wait forever for you…
"Nessie?" Jake's voice broke into my reverie. I glanced up at him. "You told me before, that your friend, Charlene, was it, lived on this street?"
Yes, he was right. Charlene Scherable was the coolest girl in the school, but I wouldn't call her a friend. She was really stuck-up to everyone else except for her own chic friends, her own little exclusive group of three.
"You remember?" I asked Jake.
"I remember everything, every single word you tell me," Jake sighed and touched my hair adoringly.
A smile twitched at the corner of my lips at his words. But I wouldn't be a coward, I would find Charlene…
Charlene's house was hard to miss. It sat right in the middle of the street, with four towers and three grand floors. Charlene didn't like me very much, apparently she hadn't gotten over the fact that my family, the Cullens, was richer than her family was. Of course, before I was born, nobody ever needed to spend money on water or food, and spent little on electricity. So, naturally, we would have a lot of money to spare, and besides, Grandpa Carlisle worked as a doctor, and that earned him quite a lot.
I stepped over Charlene's porch and reached the gate. It was made of wrought-iron, and very intricately patterned and designed. Two doves sat on the top of the gate, facing each other. Before I could knock or call, a woman I recognized as Charlene's mother came through the door and spotted me at the gate. She was a tall, elegant woman whose every movement was as graceful as that of a ballerina's. Mrs Scherable wasn't dressed for Halloween. She wore a long pearl necklace with a strapless, tight dark pink dress that reached to her knees, with a long-sleeved gray sweater with unbuttoned white buttons. She had just gotten a perm, and her deep-fried blonde hair was curly at the ends with light-brown streaks and her hair fell past her shoulders. Upon her feet were pointed-toe black heels. She seemed to be moving in a hurry. Where her blonde hair flew outwards in the wind and revealed her ears were silver hoop earrings with crescent-shaped pendants hanging on them.
"Hello, Renesmee," Mrs Scherable greeted me. She looked at Jake, who towered over her even with her height and heels. "And this is your…" Unlike her daughter, Mrs Scherable was friendly, if not sometimes bragging a little.
"A friend," I told her quickly, like I had with Alicia. "He's, uh, very tall for his age."
Mrs Scherable seemed to shudder slightly as she took in fully the size of Jake. "Oh. Well, it's pleasurable to meet you. Come on in."
Mrs Scherable led us to the grand front door. It was completely white, with three extra fake-layers. A furry plush black cat with enormous green eyes stared straight at me from the door. Around its feet was a thick sheet of fake-fur. A heavily bleeding man laid on the floor, blinking his white eyes and choking, next to two bloodied corpses. I cringed into Jake's chest, away from the sight, and closed my eyes, but the image appeared in my mind still. Jake, thinking I was cold, put his arms around me and let me huddle in his vast, inhumanly warm chest.
Inside the house, on the first floor, there was some kind of party going on. Charlene, her long, wavy blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, was chatting to her friends and furiously tapping her thumb on her mobile, probably sending a text. She was dressed in a deep blue halterneck top that was cut off at her stomach. Her stomach was covered by one large black cobweb in the centre, with thousands of smaller webs surrounding it. Spiders of all kinds, black and red, hung from the cobwebs. Then was followed by a navy-blue, ankle-length skirt. Her feet were bare except for some twisty black-blue wire twisting around her toes and ankles.
"Charlene," I stated flatly. Charlene looked over, the surprise in her dark blue eyes unmistakable. "Renesmee Cullen," she drawled in boredom. "I don't think the Scherable household welcomes slobs like you. Maybe you should go to the rubbish dump, it seems a more suitable place for you." Charlene's two friends (or the Sidekicks, as Alicia and I called them) laughed at her sides.
Jake was shaking. I silently willed him not to shape-shift right in front of the humans. "Jake," I whispered in a low voice. "Jake, stop. They're like this. Take no notice." Jake steadied himself, but I saw his knuckles turning white.
Charlene eyed Jake interestingly. "Who're you? I've never seen you around here before. You're…very tall."
Jake smiled. "I'm Renesmee's boyfriend." He must have decided to make Charlene and her clique jealous.
Charlene looked at me indifferently. "I don't believe Renesmee is capable of getting herself such a nice guy like you. She's such a baby, really pathetic. You should see a wider range of girls before you decide; there are many more, much better choices." She fluttered her eyelashes at him like an idiot. I was fuming. "Oh, what's your name?" Charlene asked, sashaying up to him like a model on the catwalk.
"Jacob Black. My friends call me Jake." Jake obviously didn't like it that Charlene was flirting with him because he looked away from her penetrating gaze and cuddled me.
"Do you think we could have a little chat?" Charlene asked, smiling at him. I was getting really angry now. So what if Charlene was prettier than me…I didn't think that Jake would give up on me, and he definitely wouldn't want a real slob like Charlene. Ugh.
Before Jake could answer, I cut in. "Oh, and Charlene? I need to remind you, please refrain from flirting with my boyfriend. It's something only a slob would do."
Charlene deliberately looked at Jake dreamily while answering me. "Well, only a slob would try to answer a question posed for somebody else."
"Which is what you did, don't you see?" I continued, not willing to let Charlene have her way. "Jake and I were having a really nice conversation before you started interrupting us."
"Excuse me, but I talked to you first!" Charlene argued. Then she covered her face with one hand and pretended to sob. "And now I can't believe I've talked to a total slob! It'll ruin my reputation like hell…"
"Actually, if that's what you call "acting", or "pretending to cry", you're not doing a very good job. I'd say that the actress path is out for you. By the way, it's not like you've built up any kind of reputation over the years, is it? Any reputation you've got is probably just being known to be the untidiest, ugliest, most pathetic girl in the whole school." Oops, now I've done it. But she tried to take your Jacob away from you, a voice at the back of my mind reminded me.
Charlene tried to hold Jake's arm but he yanked it out of the way. "See!" I trumpeted. "Even my boyfriend can't stand to be seen with you!"
Charlene's two "cool" friends, Regina and Kayla, both put a hand on Charlene's shoulder. "Don't waste your time with this slob and her boyfriend," Regina advised.
"Yeah," Kayla agreed. "I'm sure this Jacob Black guy just has loads of makeup on to look so hunky. We've got lots of other guys to choose from, and they're a million times better than him. He's probably not boyfriend material, anyway."
"Well," Jake told Kayla loudly. "I'm pretty sure you've got plenty of makeup on yourself. I'm really hoping to see everyone's face when you take all that makeup off. Which, by the way, is going to take until the next morning and by then everyone'll be long gone. I'm not sure if it's because you've got so much makeup on or because you take so damn long to take the makeup off. Probably, it's both, judging by your looks. You and your friends, also judging by those rude comments you made about Nes-Renesmee, you girls have REALLY bad taste. Renesmee is just about the most perfect girl in the world, ever. Don't say I didn't warn you. You've got to reflect on yourself, both on what you've done and what you see in the mirror. What's in the mirror when you look at yourself would be a salamander, and your friends would be toads or lizards, similarly. You WILL regret that you've done so much evil tonight."
With that, Jake took my arm and we stomped (no, we marched) proudly away into the night. Behind me, I heard faintly the voice of Bernard Wreckley shouting, "CATFIGHT!"