I knew it would soon become monotonous but for time being I was content being excited for the first day of high school, no one other than Nessie was even remotely enthused and stroking Edwards glittering body in the morning light I was beginning to see their perspective.
Edward chuckled quietly to himself, I twisted around and lifted my head to rest in one hand to look at him 'What's so funny?' I said quietly
'..Hmmm just Emmett' he replied. That was explanation enough for us, I could only imagine what Emmett would be up to, I smiled at the thought.
'Are you ready for school?' Edward asked
'School -yes, getting out of bed-no'
Edward smiled his crooked smile, that he knew I could never resist,
'Well we could miss the first day if you prefer'
'hmmm tempting' I kissed him 'very tempting, but I'm sure the others would not take our defection to kindly'
I got out of bed and crossed the room to gaze out of the window, the setting of our new home could not be more perfect, I reminded me of the very much of the rainy little town of Forks which we'd left almost twenty years ago. Though I missed Forks (something I never expected when I first arrived) and my dad Charlie even more, I was happy in this life that I had chosen and happy to be looking out across the Alaskan mountains.
Our big family of ten, Carlisle, Esme, Em , Rose, Jazz , Alice, Renesmee, Jacob Edward and myself- Bella, had quickly become the subject of a lot of staring by the neighbours, luckily the ever popular Denails lived very close by and they certainly helped smooth the transition so very quickly, the village folk returned to studiously pretending we didn't exist.
I gazed at the wide pond outside; it gave an almost identical reflection of the house. This house was beautiful, just as big if not bigger than the Forks house, and it fit perfectly into the Alaskan backdrop, the pearly grey exterior contrasting beautifully with the snowy fir emerald trees. Even though I'd always considered myself a city girl, having grown up mostly in Phoenix I now found the wilderness comforting, instead of unsettling
I smiled at hearing Alice humming tunefully to herself, in her wardrobe trawling through the masses of clothes she had acquired, no doubt looking for the perfect first day of school outfit.
With a sigh I turned to face my own closet , immortality hadn't exactly given me any particular enthusiasm for clothes, but I found the whole dressing up thing slightly more bearable. Luckily for me with Alice in the house I rarely had to shop for anything, a whole seasons wardrobe would literally appear. Luckily for Alice, she had found her perfect shopping budding in Nessie; like Alice, Ness was intrigued with all things human. Since her adolescence had sped by so quickly, she had only been a real teenager for such a short time, Renesmee loved clothes and shopping and was definitely a girly girl.
Eyeing my bursting wardrobe warily, I chose a cute deep blue ruffled mini dress, thick black tights and tan brown boots and grabbed a short white winter coat that I had never seen before, an okay ensemble for me, Alice would definitely approve.
Warm white arms suddenly wrapped themselves around my waist, soft lips pressed against my cheek.
'You look beautiful' Edward said
I laughed, this meant very little, as I could literally be wearing the ugliest outfit and I sure he would think that.
'Thank you' I said leaning back into his arms. Enjoying the moment.
'Edward?' Carlisle called from the living room. Hand in hand we left our bedroom to join the rest of our family
'Morning mom, morning dad' Ness greeted us sitting on the sofa with Jacobs arm around her shoulder 'No wait good morning twin brother'
Edward grinned back at her 'Good morning twin sister, did you sleep okay?"
Edward and Renesmee were pretending to be twins for school, because of the close resemblance facially as well as the same shade of bronze hair. Jasper and Rose were of course the blond twins except we were all using the name Cullen, I 'm not sure exactly why but Rose no longer felt the need to be known as Hale. Emmett was pretending to be my older brother as our hair colours were similar and so could therefore pass as siblings. Alice was so petite and had such dark hair that she was going solo and Jacob obviously looked nothing like the rest of us, so he too was going to be an only child.
'Yep fine' Nessie replied to Edward 'Cute dress mom, you look great!'
'Um thanks honey, you look gorgeous as always'. She did, she was wearing an emerald green dress which contrasted fantastic with her hair and colouring, over grey tights and black slouch boots, she was stunning.
Alice laughed 'We all look great, now lets go before we're late!'.
Now that their were 8 of us leaving for school we had to take two cars now, Roses black BMW and Edwards silver Mercedes caught the eye of many students as we drove into the parking lot 'wooah check it!' I heard some guy cry out.
I took a deep breath, Edward smiled at me 'Ready?'
'Ready.'
It was hardly planned, but somehow the 8 doors opened simultaneously and we gathered in front of our cars –a united family. The other students stopped and stared, this was usually, this was expected. Edwards hand found mine I looked over at the rest of my family, Jakes arm was round Nessie waist, Emmett and Rosalie were locked in a clinch and Alice's hand too was in Jaspers- It was better it was established now and get the gossip over and done with 'the Cullens were in couples'.
'Shall we?' murmured Edward. My family and I walked gracefully through the dumb struck crowd of students who parted before us leading to the door. We followed the signs for the school administrators to get registered or whatever. 'Hello' Edward said to the blond receptionist who to be honest looked as though she lived under a sun bed and wore more makeup than anyone I had seen before Her eyes widened as she took in the scene before her, she blinked a few times, we had obviously flustered her.
'Erm can I help you' According to her desk she was Ms Triggs.
'yes, I am Edward Cullen, this is my family, Today is our first day and we were hoping to pick up our schedules for the term, are we in the right place.
'Um yes, sure, of course, um I have them right here, Emmett? Rosalie? Jasper? Jacob? Edward? Alice? and Bella?' Ms Triggs gave us each of our schedules in turn and it may have been my imagination but she gave me a rather sour look, it my have something to do with the fact that Edward was still holding my hand, and the smirk playing around Edwards lips supported that theory.
I decided to ignore her and compare timetables, Edward and I chose the same subjects and were in the exact same classes except for Spanish, but luckily I had Alice and Ness in that to keep me company, Jake, Jazz, Rose and Em were all pretending to be in the year above so they had different timetables for us but luckily not from each other. It was going to be a lot time before lunch before we would all be together.
'You sure your okay Ness?' I asked her, she looked rather subdued, I knew it was because she would be separated from Jake, but he really could pass for his mid twenties, there was know way he would pass for sixteen. He would have to be in the yeah above
'Yeah I'm fine, besides I'm with Alice for practically everything'
'Yep, were gonna have fun' Alice laughed
'So we'll see you guys at lunch then?'
'Yep we'll meet in the cafeteria'
We waved goodbye and Edward and I headed off the English Literature.
When we walked through the door all eyes turned to us and the room went silent. Pretending we were oblivious to this we headed towards to back of the room, still holding hands. The eyes followed us to the back of the classroom; I was a good thing I couldn't blush otherwise with all the staring I would have been bright red with embarrassment. Luckily the teacher walked through the door the next moment and settled himself at his desk. There was a slight arrogance about the way he held himself, the angle of his jaw and the expression in his eyes; this didn't help me warm to him. I raised an eyebrow at Edward, I pushed my shield completely away from me so he could hear me thoughts, this had become much easier with practice just like Zafrina had said. How does he sound to you, he doesn't look too good?, Edward chuckled under his breath.
'He's nothing we can't handle love'
Just then the teacher addressed the class, 'Welcome back to another school year, I'm Mr Collins as you know, I'm sure you're all thrilled to see have me again for English, I mean who wouldn't?'
There wasn't even a hint of irony in anything he said.
'So we have some new students today do we, erm...' he looked at the roster in front of him 'Edward Cullen and Bella Cullen?' Mr Collins looked up expectantly.
'I'm Edward and this is Bella' Edward called to Mr Collins, who eyes widened at the sight of us,
'Bella? and Edward?' We both nodded respectively, He seemed flustered and upset. 'Right…I guess that's right well would you like to come to the front and tell us about yourselves?'
'Do we have to?" Edward asked. It would just make things more complicated and making ourselves the centre of attention was never a good thing giving plus humans the opportunity to look at us directly and compare the similarities of our nature i.e. the skin, the eyes etc was not smart .
'No no no! You don't have to... lets get own with the lesson shall we' And he did but he kept giving Edward and I little glances in which he looked extremely put out.
What's with him? I asked Edward, lifting my shield.
'He's a little upset, he is under the misguided notion that he is a heartthrob around the school, he is afraid that we a going to steal his crown, he wants us to have as little attention as possible, under normal circumstances he would have made students introduce themselves to the front of the class but as it was he was only two happy for us to refuse. He ended with a smirk, all of this was said so quickly and quietly that a human could have been sitting next to us and they would not have made out the words.
I had finally made it to Dartmouth and got a 1st in English and so this lesson was incredibly uninteresting to me. So whilst I half listened, well less than half listened to Mr Collins I worried about the rest of my family
'How's Ness holding up, she looked upset earlier' I murmured to Edward'
'She's okay, Alice is keeping her entertained, they are planning their next shopping trip' Then Edward frown and grimaced
'what?' I asked alarmed
'They're planning on getting underwear…'
I laughed, having the idea of their grown up daughter in underwear, is uncomfortable for any father, but having to see the image is awful never mind imaging what they are going to use it for. It was something Edward was used to but it was never easy for him.
'Miss Cullen, Do you know?
Okay what had he been talking about…I was sure he was trying to catch us out as he had seen that we were talking, trying to embarrass us.
'I believe that Shakespeare is attempting to make readers question what our society means by punishment and retribution, Angelo is a construct of what power does to the weak minded and petty while…'
'Yes, well thank you Miss Cullen' he said cutting me off
That was it he ignored us for the rest of the lesson, much to our amusement. Luckily for us the lessons flew by and it was lunch time where we could join our family. Apart from Emmett and Rose, everyone was already there sitting of course in the table furthest away from everyone else, as we walked across the room to join them, I heard the whispers;
'OMG, he's so hot!...'
'I wonder if he's taken, you think I should make a move…'
'She's is so fit, I'm so on it mate…'
'Matt, look at her'
'Edward! Bella!' we both turned to Emmett's voice and slowed to meet both him and Rose.
'Had a good day?'
'It's been mildly entertaining, but then first days always are'
'True, true'
Rose grinned at me, and said 'This one human saw us and actually tripped and fell over, Emmett said he reminded him of how you used to be'
I rolled my eyes at the chuckling Emmett and we joined the rest of our family were just about to greet each other when we were interrupted.
'Um Hi I'm Amber' we all turned to see who was brave enough to speak to us. 'so… I'm the um student body president… and I just wanted to um ... welcome you to the um.. school' She looked incredibly uncomfortable , the way we were staring at her probably didn't help, I felt sorry for the girl.
'Thank you Amber' I said in my most comforting voice. 'that's very kind of you' she looked relieved but not comfortable.
'So have you come from far away?' she asked
Edward answered smoothly 'yes, Arizona, we moved her because our father got a new job'
'Oh …so you're all related' her eyes narrowing slightly in interest, I got the distinct feeling that she was less performing presidential duties and more looking to be the person with the latest gossip.
'Not exactly we have all been adopted into the same family, but I'm only related to my twin sister Renesmee' Edward replied, pointing us all out in turn. 'Jasper and Rosalie are also twins, while Bella and Emmett are brother and sister, Alice and Jacob are however only children.'
'Right, wow that's... cool…um' Amber seemed uncomfortable again I sensed she had something else she wanted to ask.
'Well anyway as I was saying' Rosalie said very pointedly, flashing Amber a look, who then disappeared very quickly.
'What was that about' Emmett asked Edward, who looked rather amused.
'She was sent to find out if we were all really dating each other, she disappointed not have the details '
