The Boyfriend Swap
Chapter Two
I blinked. This was unreal. A minute ago, the boy I was staring at in Biology had marble skin, jet-black hair, and blue eyes. But then he was replaced with another boy. An unremarkable one, with light-brown hair, blotchy skin, and green eyes.
Something odd was going on. Normal boys didn't change their appearance at will. Could this still be Edward Cullen, or was it someone entirely different? And what on Earth caused this?
A few moments later, the teacher called the new boy "Mark." So, unless disguises came with an instant name change, this definitely wasn't Edward. I figured I should find a new boy to crush on, and definitely not this Mark character. Ugh. He didn't seem to even know what a shower was, let alone taken one in the past decade.
Jessi and I laughed about Mark at lunchtime. But she didn't know anything about Edward's disappearance either. In fact, when I explained it to her, she appeared to think I was making up a story. ("You should write fiction, Bella! You'd become as famous as J.K. Rowling!") No, something was afoot, and I had to get to the bottom of it.
The next day, a brown Toyota followed me home. I wanted to lose it, but I didn't see how.
I parked my truck outside the house, and the Toyota stopped. One of the girls who sat at Edward's table poked her head out. "Bella, we want to know where Edward is," the girl said, snootily.
"I don't know," I said.
"Come with us," the girl demanded.
I wanted to decline, but her hair changed to snakes and they hissed at me. Okay, I lied about the last bit. Maybe I should write fiction. Hmmm…
Anyhow, I couldn't just stand there under the girl's icy glare. So I walked over to the car and got in the backseat with a muscular fellow. Two girls were in the front. The one in the driver's seat was petite, and the one in the passenger's seat was very beautiful.
We rode down a sinuous pathway toward a mansion. It was the hugest house I had ever seen, even larger than the one Renee took me to which belonged to a man with fourteen children, six of them kindergarteners. It took half an hour to get from Charlie's house to the mansion.
The girl in front parked the car. I didn't get out when the others did, but immediately after they slammed their doors, the muscular fellow was outside mine. He pulled it open and dragged me out.
"Stop! Stop!" I yelled. "I'll come willingly."
"Let her go," the petite girl said.
The muscular fellow dropped me, though he seemed disappointed that he couldn't play with his new toy anymore. I put myself between the two girls so I wouldn't have to walk beside Mr. Brawn.
We entered the mansion's front entrance, and I stepped into the vestibule, admiring all the expensive stuff they had in there. A robber could become a millionaire just by taking the stuff in this tiny room. If so much wealth was contained in here, I shuddered to think what I would see in the other rooms.
Of course, the Cullens had not invited me to show off their riches. No siree. This was about Edward.
In the living room, I stopped a painting by Rembrandt and wanted to go over to examine it, but the girls forced me to sit down on a couch between them. Mr. Brawn sat down in a chair, and the parents sat in a loveseat, Mrs. Cullen on the armrest.
"We are here," Mr. Cullen said, "to discuss our missing boy. I take it you are called Miss Swan?" he asked, addressing me.
"Bella Swan."
"Single daughter of the policeman, Charlie Swan?"
"That is correct."
"Edward was very taken with you. I should rather say is, but since his whereabouts are unknown, we shall use the past tense."
"Taken? With me? But he was always scowling when he glanced in my direction…"
Mr. Cullen shrugged. Mrs. Cullen quickly said, "Some men scowl when they're near girls they like."
I nodded, as if that made sense, but it didn't.
"Anyhow, we want to know where he went off to. It doesn't seem like him to disappear like this…"
"How do you expect me to know? I never even spoke a word to him."
"Oh, really? Not a word? Well, then this whole thing is pointless." This came from the beautiful girl.
"Maybe, maybe not," Mr. Cullen said, looking at me intently.
"Does she even know our names? Maybe she'd be more inclined to answer our questions if she did," suggested the petite girl.
"Yes, I suppose so," said Mr. Cullen. "I'm Carlisle, and this is my wife, Esme. The boy over there is Emmett, and—"
"I'm Alice,"' said the petite girl.
"And I'm Rosalie Hale," said the beautiful one, unhappily.
"Pleased to meet you all," I said, though I wasn't particularly.
"If the reason we called you here is not plain," Carlisle said, "allow me to make it so. Yesterday, Edward went to school like usual. He did not come home in the afternoon. His Volvo is still parked outside the school. The logical conclusion, as we see it, is that he was either kidnapped or vanished into thin air. If he was kidnapped, we will have to alert the police, which means your father, Miss Swan. So in that case, you can clearly see why you were brought here. And if he vanished into thin air, you may've been the last person to see him."
I considered how I should respond to this. None of the other Cullens were in the Biology class with me and Edward, though they all attended Forks High. But the truth seemed so strange, I just didn't know what to do.
Looking at all the Cullens, I noticed that Alice's face was scrunched up. Then it straightened out and she said, "I saw Edward."
"Where?" asked Esme. I would've presumed the correct questions would've been "What? How?"
"He was in a backyard somewhere. Feeding."
"Shhh!" Emmett said to Alice, while glancing over at me.
This whole thing was weird, and I ready to ask if I could leave already.
"Miss Swan, we want you to tell us anything you may know about this business. Anything at all," said Carlisle.
I wanted to lie, but I couldn't. At least, not in front of Mrs. Cullen. She needed to know where her son was. "He just went poof!" I cried. "I was just sitting there in Biology, watching him, when all of a sudden, there was no Edward. Instead, a new boy was in his seat. He looked nothing like Edward. Mr. Borrel seemed to notice nothing at all. He called the boy 'Mark.'"
The Cullens stared at me in disbelief. All except Rosalie. She looked horrorstruck.
"So he vanished and a new boy appeared," Carlisle said. "Hmmm…"
Alice, probably noticing that my eyes were red and puffy, offered to take me home. Carlisle seemed to think that best. I required Alice's assistance in getting to her car. There was no reason I should be crying—I had never even spoken to Edward—but here I was, blubbering away.
I wept the whole way home. It felt as if I had missed out on the greatest adventure in my life, and some evil witch had taken it from me.