The only thing that I noticed different about the new day ahead was the way my sister Alice was acting. Her thoughts were always a buzz in the back of my mind but out of respect for her privacy I had learned how to block them as much as I could. Today with poetry from long past, and random quotes from endless people echoing from her I was perturbed.

I looked to my brother and Alice's partner, Jazz, for help but he was too busy gloating to my other brother Emmett for some competitive game they'd taken part in that Emmett had obviously lost. What can I say? We were a dysfunctional family. Not one of us related by blood, all of us connected by the heart. If Jasper or Emmett had my ability to read minds and heard thoughts like that I would never live it down.

"I can take you down! You, me, rematch. Tonight."Emmett declared, his voice booming through the hallway as we waited for Rosalie, my final sister and Emmett's mate, to make her appearance before we could leave.

"We need to hunt tonight." Jasper grinned at him knowing it would only irritate him further knowing the rematch would have to be postponed even longer.

"Ah, damn!"

"Shall we go before you destroy something?" Rose, as smooth and graceful as ever bypassed her mate and family and darted out the front door calling shot gun as she went. Emmett cursed even louder as he was now stuck squeezing his massive frame in the back seat of my Volvo with Jasper and Alice making goo-goo eyes at each other. It was torture for the whole family as Jasper had the ability to tangle with people's emotions. If he was feeling an exorbitant amount of emotion himself he was unable to help himself extend it to those in the close vicinity. Being trapped in a car swamped with love and lust caused problems for all of us. Emmett and Rosalie could disappear for a period of time but I was the odd man out, and didn't have anyone with whom I could share some of the overwhelming emotion with. Not that that particularly bothered me. I had my music and books and was content.

"Have a good day." In typical maternal fashion, Esme our mother for all intents and purposes, came to the door to see us off. It was a habit she had formed decades ago and it had stuck no matter how many times we endured the monotony that is High School. As I said earlier, we were definitely not your typical family. Let's just say it's not every day a 108 year old vampire attends school as a typical seventeen year old.

"Oh there's a new girl!" Emmett announced as we pulled into the school car park. In deference to his loss of the front seat he had squashed himself in between Jasper and Alice in an attempt to make it a relatively peaceful trip to school. There was a jump in Alice's thoughts and she jumped out of the car too quick for me to catch her eye. Throughout the drive I'd had to listen to the national anthem in seven languages. I was pleased I drove quickly otherwise I had no doubt it would have continued and violence would have ensued.

"Finally we'll no longer be the 'new kids'" Jasper joked. "After a year and a half it gets a bit tedious."

"I wonder if she's pretty." Rose, our beautiful, vain Rosalie wondered aloud. She raised an eyebrow in my direction and I shrugged not yet having seen her face in others thoughts. My sensitive ears caught a roaring about a mile down the road that seemed to be coming in our direction.

"Sounds like she's on her way." As a lover of cars myself I knew this was an engine I had not heard before. It also sounded like it wasn't going to last much longer as the gears ground loudly as the driver changed them.

None of my family socialised with the rest of the students, they were able to sense there was something not quite human about us. Unable to identify what that was they kept their distance and we kept ours. The only reason we put ourselves through this was because the younger we started out in one place the longer we got to stay. It made it easier to keep a permanent residency as we go through the motions of normalcy. I was seventeen when I became what I am today so that's where I started. For as long a period as we can manage before others begin to question why we haven't aged, my brothers and sisters attend school and graduate and Carlisle, our father and Esme's mate, works at the local hospital. Eventually suspicion descends and we up and leave and begin all again in a new place.

I was pulled from my reverie as the majority of the school population tiny as it is, gathered to the front of the school to get their first glimpse of Isabella Swan, the 'new girl'. My family and I turned our backs and headed into the school, after all what did one more student mean to us?