Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight. And I would like to apologise to her for just how much I have mangled her book in this parody...


The Dusk saga, part 1: Dusk

Chapter 1: Thirst Sight, part 1


Prologue:

Apart from googling my death rate, using every death calculator on the Internet, consulting several doctors, and funeral planning in my spare moments, I'd never given much thought to how I'd die. Naturally, when I was hanging out with a vampire who told me multiple times that he could kill me, Death was the last thing to cross my mind.

Still, dying in a big yoga studio would be a good enough death. Surely, this was a good way to die; prematurely, at seventeen, in place of someone who wasn't even at risk anyway. Yep, definitely the most noble and heroic death out there! I knew that if I'd never gone to Spoons, I would have had a reasonably happy life, living in a sunny place with my mother and successful stepfather and getting everything I wanted... That would have been horrible! I definitely didn't regret moving to Spoons!

The hunter smiled at me like a pedo...

As he swankily moonwalked forward (or was it backward? He was moonwalking, so technically he was going backwards, but at the same time he was coming towards me so... Agh, damn it, now I'm confused!) to kill me.


Reneigh, my mother drove me to the airport. It was seven hundred and fifty degrees in Firebird, Amazonia, thanks to beautiful global warming; just a lovely, warm, disgustingly sweaty day. I was wearing my fave shirt, one that said "I'm a necrophilic" on the front in very tasteful pink rhinestones, but it was probably the last time I'd get to wear it, since A. My Dad would probably freak out (he was so stone age, he didn't even think teenage girls would be allowed to have sex with corpses- just shows how modern and progressive he is...) and B. it would be really cold where I was going. I had a big, heavy fur coat with me to protect me from the cold.

There is a town somewhere or other in the USA (I can't be bothered with Geography, but I know it's in that state that has... You know... Those tree things...) called Spoons. It's really lame; it snows all the time there, which is really boring, since there's nothing tthere outside; I still haven't found a way to substitute my favorite pastime of lying down in the dirt and making an angel in Spoons- how do you make angels in snow? Until I was fourteen, I'd suffered the very traumatic ordeal of being forced to spend summers with my Dad, Gnarly, which was terrible because all he did was spoil me and lavish attention on me. Naturally, the selfless angel I was, I'd forced him to stop and instead come and stay in Firebird. He said it made him feel very pained and awkward being with his ex-wife and her new boyfriend, but I knew that was just a cover-up to hide how much time he liked being with me.

"Melon," Reneigh whinnied as we stopped at the airport. "You don't have to do this! I mean, yes, it would completely solve all my problems, but do you really think you're old enough to make selfless decisions?"

Reneigh looked exactly like me, except for the fact that she was older, had different hair, skin and eye tones, a different height, different shaped features and wore completely different clothing (people sometimes said we could be twins... If one of us was adopted.) I suddenly felt maternal panic; how on earth could I, a seventeen year old, leave my middle aged mother to fend for herself? I mean, she was so much less mature and responsible than I was... Who would order pizza for her or buy pop tarts? Jack, her new husband, would probably give her money and stuff, but what if she irresponsibly bought herself vegetables to eat...

"I want to go!" I said, very convincingly, though Reneigh didn't look convinced. Maybe because I was holding up a large sign saying "I RESENT MY MOTHER FOR MAKING ME MOVE AWAY."

"Tell Gnarly I said hi, and that my life has been so much better ever since I left him."

"I will." I smiled at my mother's friendly greeting for my father- it was so nice how civil they were to each other after their very bitter divorce. Why, just last time I forced them to have dinner together, they even threw steak knives at each other in a lovely, friendly way! How sweet!

"And come home as soon as you want," she reminded me. "Remember, your irritating, selfish and third-wheel presence won't be any trouble at all if you change your mind..."

She was so clingy! I blew her off like the loving daughter I was with a "'slater!" and stalked towards the plane. I wasn't worried about the flight, even though there was a gale force hurricane, the plane was dented and it was rumored there was a terrorist on board. No, I was worried about the two minute car trip that would be coming up with my father.

When I got to the tiny airport in Port Gangrene (no airport in spoons, since it's so tiny that putting an airport in would result in bulldozing half the town, something I wasn't opposed to), I faceplanted on the ground the second I got out the airport. I picked myself up off the ground and pulled leaves and a dead bug out my hair, and saw Gnarly waiting for me next to his large paddy-wagon. His large walrus-like moustache was bristling and I think that meant that underneath it he was smiling, though it might have been lice, it was hard to tell.

"Canteloupe! How nice to see you again, my lovey-wovey diddums girl!" he cooed, and I glared at him.

"Don't call me that!" I screamed so loudly that several flight attendants who were passing stared at me and a few small children started crying. (Needless to say, I've always been the quiet type.)

"What, lovey-wovey diddums girl?" Gnarly blinked in confusion, and I rolled my eyes.

"Of course not, I'm not a child. No, I don't like you calling me..." I shuddered. "Canteloupe."

Canteloupe was my full name, but ever since I was young people had called me Melon. Don't ask me why, since Melon wasn't actually an abbreviation for Canteloupe. I just thought it sounded more... Punk rock like that.

"So, how's Reneigh?" he asked me, as he carried my tiny amount of luggage- only twenty seven suitcases!- to his paddy wagon. He was the town's police chief, but since Spoons was too pathetic to actually have any crimes committed there (the worst things that ever happened was a woman ate a grape in the grocery store without paying and one guy littered once) that meant most of the time he and his cop friends took stupid photos behind the bars in the jail.

"She burned all your photos last night," I replied cheerfully, before slipping on my heavy fur coat- Not only was it freezing, but I had to hide my I'm a Necrophilic shirt before Gnarly saw it. "So how have you been, Gnarly?" I paused. "I mean, Dad. I mean, Daddy. I mean, Dadda. Daddily-doogly?" I struggled to come up with a suitable name for him. "Daddo the rapper? Da- You know what? I'll just call you Whale."

Whale was the perfect nickname for him, since he made annoying high-pitched snoring noises when he slept like a whale, and also when he was mad his face would go red and swell up like a whale about to shoot water from its blowhole.

Whale muttered something about insolent kids under his breath, so I figured that he liked his new nickname.

"I found a good car for you!" he informed me cheerfully after a while. Being the grateful daughter I was, I instantly began to throw a tantrum and kicked the glove compartment until it broke; knowing Whale, it was probably a hot wheel or something childish like that.

"How much do you expect me to pay for a cheap toy car?" I yelled at him. He shook his head.

"Actually, honey-bun-"

"Cinammon-bun," I corrected; I didn't like honey buns.

"Right. Cinammon bun, it's a truck, and I kind of already bought it for you."

Oh. That changed things.

"WOW!" I screamed loudly. "FREE! I DON'T HAVE TO PAY ANYTHING!" I cleared my throat, before shooting Whale an innocent look. "Uh- I mean, you didn't have to do that..."

Whale smiled. "Really? Because if you don't want it, I really need a car to drive that isn't just a police cruiser-"

I rolled my eyes. "Uh, Hell-o, it's just something people say."

Whale shrugged at this. "Fair enough, Melon. I just hope that having a truck makes you happy in this lonely, desolate town."

"Yeah, yeah." Fat chance. The only way I would possibly be happy here was if my life was seriously endangered.

"I bought it from my friend, Goat White." Whale told me, and I frowned.

"Isn't that a paint colour?" I asked him, and he shook his head.

"No... He's that guy with the missing arms down from La Shove, that Indian reservation. Remember?"

"Of course!" I laughed loudly. "How could I forget good old Goat..."

Actually, I was pretty sure that Goat didn't exist. Whale probably made him up as an imaginary friend- which, I realised with a sigh, meant that the truck was probably also made up. I made a mental note to call my therapist friend (for some reason, Reneigh kept making me see this psychiatrist in Firebird- I guess she thought we would get on as friends, and she was rght- I was so close to the shrink that he treated me just like one of his patients!) and get him to check Whale out.

"So... How do you like the weather?" Whale gestured to the blizzard that was currently uprooting trees outside the car windows. "Pretty good, huh? It's cleared up a lot today."

"The weather is terrible." I said bluntly, and whale looked a little disheartened. Good. That would teach him to be optimistic.

As we drove, I scowled out at the scenery, occasionally sticking my finger up at stuff. It was HIDEOUS outside; all the trees were covered with a thin layer of snow or glistening icicles. How ugly is that? Where were all the dumpsters, burnt trees and trash heaps I knew and loved from firebird?

Eventually, after the car getting stuck in snow and Whale having to drag it along like a husky while I whipped him to hurry him up, we eventually made it to his house. It was really small, just three floors and twenty bedrooms- disgusting. He'd bought it with my mom, and it had been bigger then, except he'd burnt down half of it in a rage when she left.

In front of it, I saw a cr*ppy, run down poor excuse for a rust-bucket truck with one missing wheel- to my surprise, the truck that Whale had bought not only did actually exist, but it was the most beautiful vehicle I had ever seen. I began to cry onto its frame, which trembled under the weight of my hand.

"I love it, Whale!" I sobbed. I imagined all the flashy cars in the parking lot a school- the other kids would be SO jealous of this. Maybe, if I was feeling nice, I would dent all the other kids' cars to match mine. They'd love that.

"I'm glad you like it," Whale said gruffly, frowning. "But... I really would prefer it if you called me Dad, or even Gnarly. Why whale?"

"Because you have a beer gut- duh." I rolled my eyes; he was ridiculously slow on the uptake sometimes. I strutted into the house, leaving Whale to do the courteous thing and carry my bags- it would only take roughly thirteen trips, since I didn't have much luggage. Besides, I figured he needed the exercise.

The room was familiar- in fact, it was exactly the same as it had been when I was a baby; a baby monitor lying on top of a plastic safety-cabinet containing board books and lullaby CDs. The only differences were that the crib had been replaced with a bed (thank goodness- in a scenario where, oh, say, a sexy vampire boyfriend climbed into my room, the crib would certainly not fit both of us) and there was an ancient computer sitting on a desk next to the bed. As Whale stumbled,wheezing, up the stairs with the last of my luggage, I tutted at him.

"Whale, that took far too long!" I snapped, and he sighed.

"I'm sorry, honey, but I have a bad heart and-"

"Yeah, yeah," I flipped a hand, before opening a door and shrieking. This was the most horrifying thing ever- far more horrifying than being stalked by a vampire or surrounded by werewolves. No, despite having heaps of bedrooms and three floors, this house only had... One bathroom!

Dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnnnnnn...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I screamed, throwing myself down on the floor and kicking with rage like the mature teenager I am. "There's only one bathrooooom!"

What kind of century was this? EVERY teenage girl has their own bathroom, right? Some probably even have two, one for morning and one for evening! I couldn't believe my own father would subject me to this.

One of the best things (well, probably the only redeeming feature- he's very annoying) about Whale is that he doesn't hover. So after standing over me for a short twenty minutes and asking me if I needed Xanax while I screamed into a pillow at the unfairness of only having one bathroom, he went away. I quickly ran into the bathroom and threw all of his stuff out the window; if we were going to be sharing, then I needed some space for my things. I had to pull myself together; I needed to save the crying and the tantrums for tonight, to ensure that Whale got as little sleep as I did. I mean, tomorrow I would be going to a new school! What a terrible cliché! Spoons high school, also known as SPONS HIG SCOL because someone vandalised the sign and tore off a few letters, has a frighteningly minuscule total of only... Well, I wasn't actually sure how many (what, like I would be a loser and actually waste time looking up statistics of some dumb school?) but I knew it a very, very small amount. I would be the new kid, which meant that I would be entitled to a hundred percent of attention from everyone there, and probably have all the boys fall in love with me. What a drag.

I went and looked in the mirror. I looked very, very unhealthy, possibly due to the black eye shadow I was wearing (I liked to wear it, it made me feel very gothic.) I was a strange person- I often wished that I was blonde or tanned (which was ridiculous, since I was the most beautiful person to ever exist). Instead, I was cursed with being naturally thin with clear, pale skin and thick hair- it really sucked! It also meant that I did not look like a girl from Firebird should- I realised with a sigh that I would have to pretend to be albino to fit in.

For some reason, I didn't relate well to kids my age- probably because I knew I was far more intelligent and mature than them, and often told anyone who tried to be my friend so. Maybe there was a glitch in the brain of every single person on earth except for me or something.

I didn't sleep well that night, partially because I was up half the night screaming abuse into the mirror and pretending my reflection was Reneigh. But finally, very late into the night (ten thirty! So shocking!) I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up, it was the morning of my first day at Spoons high school.


Next chapter: Thirst Sight, part two.