CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED IMPRINTING
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, Stephanie Meyer does!
CHAPTER TWO
Ruby stomped into her Biology classroom angrily, murmuring a quick apology to her teacher, Ms Harrows, for being late. She proceeded towards a single desk at the back of the classroom, throwing down her books and sitting down.
"What's with you?" Tasha Bates whispered from the seat next to her.
"I kind of got into a fight," Ruby whispered back to her best friend. "I'll tell you about it later."
Ms Harrows was glaring at both of them. Ruby faced the front of the classroom, sitting up straighter and trying to pay attention as the teacher began the lesson. She found Biology completely and utterly boring and pointless. Why in the world would she need to know the stages of flower growth? She sighed, leaning back in her chair as she silently seethed with anger.
It seemed like hours, but finally the bell rang and Ruby immediately stood up, gathered her books and trounced out of the classroom sighing gratefully.
"Now, will you please tell me what happened?" Tasha demanded impatiently as the two girls walked down the hallway. "Who did you get into a fight with?"
"Paul Stanmore," Ruby grimaced at his name, proceeding to recount the entire story to Tasha. When she was finished, Tasha looked positively furious.
"What an asshole," she growled.
"I know," Ruby agreed. "I mean, he walks around like he's bloody Gods gift to women, with those stupid muscles and his stupid haircut."
"Mmm," Tasha responded. "He is good-looking though, you have to admit."
"Sure he is, and I'll bet he knows it too!" Ruby answered as they reached her locker.
"Well, don't let him get to you," Tasha cautioned. "Anyway I'd better get to class. What do you have now?"
"English," Ruby replied, her thin lips pulling down into a frown as she dialed her locker combination. "With Paul, conveniently." She made a face as her locker door swung open.
"Good luck," Tasha grinned. "See you at lunch!" She turned around to walk down the hallway towards her next class.
Ruby stacked her numerous books onto the top shelf of her locker, then rummaged around in her large black shoulder bag for her English textbook. She finally found it, pulling it out as well as a copy of Romeo and Juliet, the novel they were currently studying.
Ruby detested the stupid love story with a passion. While Tasha absolutely loved the romantic yet tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers and longed to find true love of her own one day, Ruby herself wasn't altogether interested. A child of divorce, her parents had spent all their time together fighting for as long as Ruby could remember, before finally deciding to do 'the right thing' and break up for good when she was 7 years old. Ruby's mother had opted to stay in Seattle with Ruby (she hadn't wanted to move and leave all of her friends behind) and her father had moved to La Push where Ruby had visited him every summer up until about six months ago, when she had gotten herself expelled from her high school in Seattle for fighting. Ruby had been going through a particularly rebellious stage where she would skip school, sneak out to parties each night and get herself into quite a bit of trouble, until a tragic event happened and changed her whole outlook on life in general. Her mother had then decided that banishing Ruby to a small town for a while would calm down her rebellious nature and help her to heal. She had arrived in La Push battered and bruised, but filled with positivity and a strong determination to turn her life around and make something of herself. Now she was actually going to school and studying and making friends, and once she had finished school, she was planning on going to college to become a doctor.
The reason for Ruby's dislike of Romeo and Juliet was purely because she wasn't sure whether she believed in true love and all that jazz. And well, could you blame her? If her parents relationship, the ideal figure of true love and happiness in every child's life, couldn't survive marriage and children and all the adversity that comes with it, what hope did she have of finding ever-lasting happiness? She'd had her fair share of relationships over the past few years, but each had ended after only a few months as Ruby tended to stop them before they went too far. Most people would call it a fear of commitment, due to her parents divorce, but Ruby simply saw it as stopping herself from getting hurt.
Suddenly, Ruby found herself approaching her English classroom and she gave her head a quick shake to rid herself of her daydreams. Odd, how sometimes one can get so absorbed within their own mind that they lose the ability to pay attention to their surroundings.
Ruby followed the line of students into the classroom, walking down the line of desks and taking a seat at the back once again. She slouched down in her seat, gazing towards the front as the teacher began roll call.
"Ruby Daniels?" Ms Cambridge called out.
"Here," Ruby answered back.
"Paul Stanton?" Ms Cambridge called again. "Where is Paul today?"
Ruby sat up a little straighter in her seat, quickly scanning the small classroom. Nope, he wasn't here. A grin started to slowly spread across her face, and she quickly wiped it away.
"Paul wasn't feeling too well so he went home," a male voice spoke up. Ruby recognized him as one of Paul's friends, either Jared or Embry, she couldn't remember which one.
"Thank you, Mr Call," the teacher answered, scribbling something down on the roll call sheet.
Ruby relaxed in her seat once again, letting out a small sigh of relief. At least she didn't have to face him anytime soon. On the other hand, she now had a whole hour to listen to the teacher drone on and on about stupid Romeo and Juliet. English was the one class she didn't share with any of her friends, although there was that Kim girl who usually sat in front of her. She was nice enough, just a bit shy so they didn't often talk save for the rare occasion of when the work required partners.
Ruby glanced quickly at the clock. It was only half past ten. Forty-five minutes to go. She let her eyelids droop, not even attempting to listen to what the teacher was saying.
Finally, lunch time arrived. Ruby quickly stuffed her books into her locker and walked eagerly towards the cafeteria, deciding to stop by Tasha's locker on the way to wait for her. Luckily, she didn't have to wait long as Tasha was already there, putting her books away.
"Hey," she greeted her friend, flashing her a friendly smile as she leaned up against the lockers. "Hurry up, I'm starving."
"Me too," Tasha replied. "I thought this morning was never going to end!" She closed her locker door, locking it firmly and the two of them began walking towards the cafeteria with the rest of the students.
"Okay, so what happened in English with Paul?" Tasha asked eagerly. "Did you let him have it?"
Ruby laughed lightly with amusement. Tasha loved drama.
"Actually, he wasn't there," she answered. "Apparently he went home sick. Thank god. The less I see of him, the better. I mean, did you hear about how he got detention last week for punching that Brendan guy?"
"And he totally made Chloe Davies cry a few weeks ago when he went off at her for bumping into him," Tasha added.
"He needs to take anger-management classes," Ruby stated. "Or at least try yoga or boxing or something."
They finally reached the cafeteria and grabbed a tray each, filling them with food. The cafeteria was already pretty crowded, and thankfully their other friends had already secured them a table off to the side. They placed down their trays as soon as they reached the table, greeting everyone as the sat down and began to eat.
"We should so go down to First Beach this weekend," Simone Mathers announced, pushing her curly black hair behind her ears. "I heard the weathers going to be great. Blue skies, sun actually appearing for once and not a cloud in the sky!"
"Sounds great," Tristan Elcar added, his grey eyes lighting up with excitement.
"You guys in?" Simone asked the rest of them, and a chorus of "sures" sounded back at her.
Good, something to look forward to, Ruby thought. Now all she needed was to get through the rest of the day.
Finally, the bell rang and the day was over. Ruby pushed her way outside, where a cold wind was blowing through the air. She shivered, pulling the sleeves of her jacket down as her eyes searched for her friends. Finally, she spotted them sitting on the wall just outside the school gates and she made her way towards them.
"I'm so glad today is finally over," Ruby announced when she was within hearing distance.
"Me too," Corinne Taylor, one of Ruby's other friends, agreed as she hopped off the wall and picked up her school bag.
"I'm going to bed as soon as I get home," Tasha added as the three girls started walking, making their way home.
"I wish I could, but I need to babysit Madison," Ruby said, referring to her five-year-old stepsister. "Parent-teacher interviews tonight."
"Damn, I was going to ask if you'd both come over for a bit later on," Corinne said. "It's my date with Todd tonight and I need your help deciding what to wear!" Corinne and Todd had liked each other for ages, him finally asking her out a few days ago after Simone had casually told him that Corinne liked him.
"Well I'll come over," Tasha replied.
"You should wear a skirt," Ruby told her. "Or at least an off-the-shoulder top. Show a bit of skin."
"Yeah, that sounds good," Corinne smiled. "I am so excited!"
For the rest of the walk home (which was only a brief fifteen minutes or so), they discussed Corinne's date that night. What she was going to wear, where he would take her, if he would kiss her and how cute Todd was. They reached Ruby's house first and she gave both girls a quick hug goodbye, wishing Corinne good luck.
She walked up the driveway towards my house. It was a fairly small two-story red-bricked house with a long driveway and a white picket fence. There were beautiful gardens filled with flowers and plants everywhere, as gardening was a hobby of her stepmothers. She walked around the back and entered the house through the back door, coming into her kitchen where Anna, her step-mother was bustling around the kitchen. Madison was seated at the round wooden table, using her new crayons in her colouring-in book. They both looked up when she walked in.
"Ruby!" Madison squealed in excitement, momentarily abandoning her colouring and running towards her. She threw her small arms around her bis sisters waist and she bent down to hug her back.
"Hey Maddy," Ruby greeted her back. "Whatcha doing kiddo?"
"Mummy brought me a new colouring book!" Madison told me. "It's a princess colouring book and I'm doing Ariel first cos' she's my favourite." Ruby let her lead her by the hand towards the table. The book was open to a page that had a picture of Ariel from The Little Mermaid on it and it was half-coloured in, not very well, but she still smiled and complimented her on it.
Madison was Ruby's five-year-old stepsister. She was a beautiful child, with dark chocolate brown hair that hung in ringlets, skin the colour of coffee that had a bit too much milk added to it and she had the same hazel eyes that Ruby had inherited from her father.
"Hey Ruby," Anna, her stepmother greeted her with a warm smile. "How was your day?"
"Boring as hell," Ruby answered, seating herself down at the table and pulling Madison onto her lap. "As usual."
"Would you like something to eat?" Anna asked her. "I just cut up some fruit for Madison."
"I'm not that hungry yet," Ruby replied. "I'll wait for dinner."
Ruby's father had married Anna six years ago. At first Ruby was deadset against the marriage, as Anna was only 26 at the time and Ruby's father was 38. Anna didn't even look like somebody's mother, she was tall and slender with lightly tanned skin and dark brown hair that was cut into a smooth bob, although nowadays that she had Madison to look after, it was usually pulled back into a messy ponytail, though she still looked stunning. She had never really given Anna a chance until she moved to La Push to live with her father, where Anna had grown up. Then Ruby had found that Anna wasn't the wicked stepmother that Ruby had always thought she was, Anna was lovely, she was a good mother (being a stay at home mum) and tried her best to establish a good relationship with Ruby. Ruby no longer had any reason to resent her, like she did when she was younger.
"There's some chicken in the fridge and I made a fresh salad as well for your dinner," Anna said. "Your father and I are going out for dinner before the interviews, then we'll be back around 9."
Richard, Ruby's father, was due home any minute. He was a veterinarian and worked at the animal hospital over in Forks, the neighboring town. Ruby and her father had always been close, she had missed him when she was living with her mother in Seattle. Ruby felt bad that she had caused both her parents some trouble with her rebellious nature, and she was trying to make it up to them by studying hard and doing well at school and not getting into any more fights or sneaking out to go to parties.
It wasn't long before Ruby's father got home and after a quick greeting to his two daughters, he went upstairs to get ready. Bidding them both a quick goodbye, they left to go to the parent-teacher interviews.
"So what do you want to do now?" Ruby asked her little sister, after they had ate dinner and Ruby had washed up their plates.
"Let's watch movies please?" Madison asked, her eyes shining.
"Sure, sounds great," Ruby agreed, smiling down at her. Madison took her big sister's hand and pulled her impatiently into the lounge room.
"Can we watch 'The Little Mermaid'?" Madison begged eagerly.
"Whatever you want kiddo," Ruby chuckled as she found the DVD and put it on.
"I wish I was Ariel," Madison murmured, as she snuggled up against Ruby, who put her arm around her. They were surrounded by fluffy pillows and Madison's favourite Barbie doona was spread over them.
After The Little Mermaid, they watched High School Musical (to Ruby's dislike, but she would put up with it for her little sister). About halfway through the movie, both girls fell asleep and didn't wake up until their parents arrived home.
After Ruby had taken a quick shower, she walked back into her bedroom with a towel around her. As she walked past her window, which faced her backyard and the forest that was behind her fence, she thought she saw a flash of something large and grey. Shaking her head, she continued to get dressed into her pajamas, thinking that it was just a trick of her mind due to her being so tired.
Although later on that night as she was finally starting to fall asleep, she could have sworn that she heard the howl of a wolf somewhere close by...
A.N: Hmmm...so I wonder what the flash of grey was? Doesn't take a genius to work that one out! :) I know there was no Paul in this chapter and it may of being kind of slow and boring, but I just wanted to introduce Ruby's character and her life before all the good stuff happens! I'm sorry if there was an overload of information, I did try and space it all out a bit with her friends and family, etc. I promise Paul will be in the next chapter and things will definitely get more interesting!
Thankyou so much to