BELLA & EDWARD though not how you think it actually is…
THE JESTER
I drifted through the corridors feeling like I was in a nightmare, the textbooks weighing me down as I clutched them against my chest, my heart beat prominently thumping. I didn't know why I should feel so frightened. I was aware that a new town, house and school were all factors consisting with my erratic emotions, but they shouldn't have been causing my hands and legs to tremble with cold-blooded terror. I'd faced challenging fears in my fifteen-year life span and I wasn't shot down or stabbed in the back. Of course, it was inevitable that some girls wounded girls my age in the back figuratively, but never had I once been killed. I have luck within my stride.
The clanging of locker doors and the ripping pages as books dropped to the floor filled my ears, making me jumpy. A paper airplane flew centimetres above my head from behind, hitting a girl in the eye, creating fresh moisture in her dry pupils. I ducked my head and kept walking, because I was not feeling in the slightest prepared to feel sympathy to a complete stranger. I felt eyes on me the entire time I walked through that corridor, their burning glares and curiosity filled within their eyes.
I always had the ability to read people very easily, but other people found it difficult to see me. I wasn't like any old library book that could be bought of the shelf and read on a couch in the sun with lemonade. I was more like a heavy, dusty, small-printed thousand-paged book that never leaves the shelves in case of emergency boredom. Even my own auntie didn't fully understand me, which is probably why she shipped me off with her here, to get to know me better in a smaller town, such as this town, with a population of approximately 400 people, not even.
"Gosh, watch where you're walking!" a girl shouted in my ear, bumping me into a locker next to me. I winced at the pain I felt in my arm when it connected with the metal. I inspected the injury, making a firm decision that it was definitely going to bruise the next day. Luckily that I didn't cry out, or I think that would have deserved another snide remark. I tried to sink into the crowd, lucking again that I wasn't a six feet beach volleyball player or in the most unlikely a case, a hobbit.
I was too preoccupied at attempting to become invisible that after convincing myself that I was, I was completely unnoticeable to an opening door. The knock against my forehead forced me backwards, feeling the hit of the marble floor on the back of my head. This time, I think I earned the right to let out a tiny yelp of pain, feeling the beating of my heart in my ears rather than my chest.
"It's called a door in case you didn't notice," a guy drawled, kicking my leg in the process. I was nearly in tears, the realization that at any moment another door could easily open on me, this time making me bleed. I made slow progress in heaving myself up off the floor, by head spinning and blood rushing to my head. I could hear the laughter that surrounded me in the corridor, both masculine and feminine. My cheeks burned a flushed crimson and I brought my hair closer to me, curtaining me from the other students.
"I should have come at the start of the year, not half way through it," I mumbled incoherently to myself, trudging away from the scene where I was flattened against the ground, feeling a pair of bright honey eyes on me through my chocolate brown hair to my left. I slowed down, turning my head slightly in the direction of the honey eyes, looking squarely into them. The lips were turned up into a sly and amused smirk, the eyebrows raised. His hair was a rich golden-brown colour, which flopped neatly almost across his forehead. His eyes were intense though, causing me to feel queasy and embarrassed.
I almost stupidly opened my mouth to say something, but stopped myself and kept walking, feeling the eyes on me. I felt confused by that little incident, the way that boy's eyes stared at me, as if I were some science project he was studying. I was nearly almost allured by his striking emerald eyes. The way his mouth curled up into a smile caused me to turn an even brighter scarlet at even thinking about it. I turned around again to see the boy still staring at him, noticing how attractive he really was. I shook my head of these absurd thoughts, continuing my walk.
The bell alerted me to my second class and it frightened me, considering I had missed the first from meeting with the principle, who seemed friendly enough, though a bit odd: I felt the ear piercing ringing and dinging still going on in my ears. I virtually sprinted to my classroom, my thick hair coming out of my hair tie. I knocked open the door and bumped fully into the teacher. The students in the class laughed, causing my cheeks to turn red once again. I was still blushing when I handed the teacher my slip. He looked at me sternly, and then cast his eyes to the classroom.
He didn't introduce me or say anything to the class, saving me from any more mortification by informing everyone of my freshness, if it were even possible. But that didn't stop some of the students from sniggering and pointing at me like I was a clown, while others just stared like scared rabbits. I ducked my head and was directed by the teacher, whose name I hadn't even learned yet, to a desk right in the middle of four others, closer to the window. I nearly tripped over a book that lay in the centre of my path, awarding myself another humiliation.
"Pick up my book!" I detected the same voice I had heard earlier. I soon realized it was the voice of the girl that had bumped me into the lockers. She flipped her hair with her hand and indicated with the other her book that lay open flat down on the floor. I bent over to pick it up and then chucked it to her desk, not in the mood for another fight.
"Here you go," I mumbled with a slight inflection of sarcasm in my voice, though I knew this girl was too oblivious to notice things like that. She merely flipped her again with her wrist and began to surprisingly pay attention to the teacher, who turned out to be Mr. Richardson. Nothing too special: it was simple, just how I enjoyed things. I kept on walking down the classroom, scanning the multiple faces of students, my eyes falling on a familiar one. Bright honey eyes: and that heart-stopping smile I had witnessed just seconds ago.
I blushed once again for the fifth time that day, realizing suddenly that it was the eye-catching boy who stared at me in the corridors. He looked at me again this time, but it wasn't in the slightest unnerving. It was refreshing, seeing his crooked smile gazing up at me from his desk. I gave a small, shy smile and chose to sit down, rather than draw attention to myself by standing up. I chose the seat second closest to the window, enjoying the sight of rain dribbling down the window slowly.
"Get out your books and open to Act III, Scene I and read, so forth so forth, you know the rest." The class laughed at the joke, but I wasn't in on it, so I didn't laugh. The boy next to me on the right was nearly in hysterics, though I assumed he was bellowing about another funny joke floating around the classroom. I was startled that the joke was pointed at me. I saw two or three girls giggling to one another and turning obviously around to look at me. I tried unsuccessfully to ignore it, but couldn't control the helpless feeling of wanting to jump out the window, even if that nice looking boy did smile at me.
"You know, it does get better." I twisted to my right to see big blue puppy dog eyes and a wide toothy grin on a white background looking in my direction. "Mm, I'm sure it does," I muttered, alarming myself at how blunt and unemotional I sounded. "Hey, I'm Mike Newton." He reached his hand towards mine and I took it tentatively. His skin was relatively pale, but he pulled it off with his surfie blonde hair look. "And you must be Bella Swan?" My eyebrows raised a fraction at how this boy knew my name.
"Yes. But how do you know that?" "In a small general area like this, word gets around pretty quickly." His face was forthcoming and his smile was bright, so instantly I decided this boy could be very viable as a simple friend. "Ha, I'd imagine it would. So about this whole situation getting better… want to enlighten me on that?"
"Well, if you have friends and do the schools work, you should fit in just fine." It seemed feasible enough, though it sounded too simple, which was a strange and unknown horizon to me. I was just so used to the weird of every thing, even the things that wouldn't seem unusual. "Thanks. That sounds good enough to me." I smiled at him weakly, receiving a huge boyish grin from him, which made me believe I might have won him over.
"If I can help or anything, you can hang around me and my mates. They are pretty welcoming." I assumed they would just be like him, so I jumped the gun to get more friends on my list. "Sounds good to me," I said again, reminding myself that I really needed to find other lines to say. "Meet you at the cafeteria or whatever it is you call it after this class? I just have to hand in a form to the reception."
"Sweet!" he yelled, attracting attention from the other students and Mr. Richardson. The honey-eyed boy glanced at me, then to the boy sitting next to me, his soft smile turning into a grin. I turned a ruby red, trying to muffle my laughter behind my fist. "Mr Newton, would you care to tell me what it is you find so amusing about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?" Mike looked over at me; his eyes wide and I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing how he could answer that question.
"Um, see the thing is…" He jumped up onto the table and I was struck by shock at how swift he was. "I find myself relating to the character of Mercutio. I mean, seriously, he is a hilarious bloke." "Yes, you are correct. But when stating a point of view of a certain character or scene or anything for that matter in my English class, I would expect evidence."
"Okay, hear me out sir." Mike picked up his loose-leaf sheet of paper, poking in two holes for eyes to peek out of. "Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face!" The class erupted into an outcry of laughter and I was shaking with hilarity, Mike grinning triumphantly at me, bowing in a curtsey to me. Mr. Richardson was smiling at Mike, which was a good sign. When the class had eventually calmed down, Mike took his spot on his seat again. The honey-eyed boy shook his head, an amused expression on his face, but then faced the front again, so all I could do was gaze at the back of his golden-brown hair.
"Well Mr Newton, I'm impressed. And hear I was thinking you just skiied your entire June holidays." Giggles and hoots went around the class, but Mike wasn't fazed by it.
"I'm very well prepared for the next essay sir. 'But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?'" He motioned to the window, his hands up in an action as if he were calling to the birds. It seemed to me that I probably was not going to receive the marks I wanted in English, because of distractions in class. Mr. Richardson shook his head, already gathering up his books.
"You can all pack up early and head off to lunch. Though I will be expecting papers due tomorrow on my desk in the morning on the themes within Act II and I want examples and quotes from the text. That is the same for Act I if you have not handed it in yet. And if for some reason you are unable to bring that to me, speak to me now or write down a full page of various reasons. Class dismissed." People moved a fraction of a second later, not sure if whether they heard him right.
It felt somewhat American to have the teacher say the words 'class dismissed', but I just let it blow over my head, pretend it was normal as was everything else. The bell rang seconds after Mr. Richardson allowed us to leave a fraction earlier. I gathered all my things together, putting them in my backpack, though I wasn't aware of the fact that the other students came prepared to each and every class in one bag, as appose to sluggishly going back and forth to their locker: I now felt as though I was in a deep puddle where I swan as a duckling, but everyone else had matured.
"Why are you carrying that around when you have a locker? Gosh, I thought I was dumb!" I glanced up from my table to see the girl who bumped me into the lockers with her hands on her hips. You are dumb though is what I thought to myself, but I wasn't going to point that out to her in case she shoved me into the wall. I still braced myself though, arranging my feet into a mode of self-defence. No one had left the class yet, and I could see through the girl's followers the honey-eyed boy leaning against his chair with his arms crossed.
"Cut it out Victoria, no one wants to hear you whining." Thanks Mike. I sheepishly looked up at him, not realizing how tall he actually was. He winked at me cheekily, making me turn red again, but this time I was able to look the girl he just called Victoria in the eyes. Her eyes were simply how I expected them to be. Without her heavy eyeliner and shadow, her bright blue eyes could actually make her look attractive. I assumed she was too full of herself to notice.
"Oh Mike!" she exclaimed, basically throwing herself at him, causing him to look at me with a weird expression. I attempted at keeping myself from grinning at him. "You know this is the warm welcome we give all our students here!" "I've dealt with girls like you before," I blurted out of nowhere, my eyes growing wide at what I said. But it was too late to take back what I said. The honey-eyed boy was already grinning at me, giving me a wink.
"What did you say to me?" Though my eyes had turned wide, hers did the opposite and narrowed. I opened my mouth but no sound came out for a matter of seconds. I decided upon building up my courage and saying what I meant. "You know what? I am sick of girls like you treating girls like me like I don't matter. I may be new here, but I am a hell of a lot smarter than you are. Your vanity overruns you, so all you can care about is how your hair looks today." A round of applause ran through the crowd of spectators and Mike clapped me on the back gently and encouragingly. Even the honey-eyed boy was impressed.
But Victoria had a comeback for that, stepping closer towards me with a glare in her eyes. "You better guard your tongue Isabella," she sneered, not sounding like the princess she had before, instead venomous and her features became snake like. The rest of the class slowly began to quieten and all that could be heard was Victoria's voice. "You never know what can happen when you mess with people such as me. Watch it," she added, giving me a last little shove into Mike, who caught me from falling on the ground.
I looked back to the class, some of them nodding in approval towards my strength, while others stared at me with scared expressions as though they feared for my safety. The honey-eyed boy walked up to Mike and I, gave a pat on Mike's shoulder telling him he would see him later and gave me a very inquiring, but solemn look.
I bent my head; feeling at an utter loss, that even though I'd shown courage, Victoria had ripped me to shreds and I'd imagine it won't be the last time. I felt Mike's arm come around my shoulders, slung in a comforting way. I believe he knew how I felt and attempted at making me feel prouder of myself. "Here, how 'bout another beautiful quote from 'Romeo and Juliet'?" I nodded, so he reached his hand forward to put it against my cheek, while we made our way slowly out the door.
"See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" My cheeks burned and my body felt instantly overheated. I had never received so much attention at the one time. Mike was such a sweet guy, but I did not enjoy all the consideration, because it made me feel almost unworthy, for some odd reason. I shrugged it off though, trying to respond articulately, failing miserably.
"Um, I, well," I stuttered, tripping over my own feet. "I have to go to the reception, so I will see you in the cafeteria?" Mike smiled warmly at me, giving me a hug. Gosh he is very friendly isn't he? I grinned at myself, feeling quite better about my entire new student situation, ignoring the fact that I didn't necessarily deserve it. "See you in a minute Bella!" he crowed, high fiving people along the hallway in the opposite direction to me. I shook my head at him this time, grinning almost the entire way to the reception.