Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does.

Again: Thanks so much to the people who reviewed the last chapter. It really made my day to come back from a day of standing on a freezing cold beach with a bunch of fourteen year olds and read all of them. I'm glad you all liked the flashback. I hope you won't be disappointed about the fact that we're back in 'present time' again for this chapter.

Showdown.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen" I greeted my class.

"Today we'll be discussing one of the most tragic and misunderstood characters in nineteenth century English literature," I started, building up the tension. "Mrs. Bennet."

I glanced around the room. Some pupils had started laughing, others just looked puzzled.

"Most of you, upon reading the book, would probably have seen her as some sort of comic relief, but when you look at the story bearing in mind the social climate of the Regency period she really is rather pitiful"

I had the undivided attention of most of my class now.

"She's trapped in a marriage with a man that dispises her, her children don't seem to take her serious and her prospects are very grim to say the least. Her husband is probably considerably older than she is – as was the common custom for marriages in her age – and will therefore probably die first. When he does, she will be turned out of her house by some distant relative of her husbands and reduced to poverty, unless one of her daughters will find a very rich husband. She has no fortune, the law prevents her from inheriting her husbands property and there where very few respectable means for women of her social standing to earn a living." I explained.

"On top of that, at the beginning of the book all of her five daughters are unmarried and have no real prospects of finding a suitable marriage candidate any time soon. As a mother, it was Mrs. Bennets task to safe her daughters from the dreary specter of spinsterhood but especially her oldest two seemed determined to frustrate every exertion on her side. If I where her, I'd be a nervous wreck too!"

I gave my pupils some time to consider my words before I continued. "Now I'm not saying that Mrs. Bennet's the brightest fish in the pond, she surely isn't and yes, she has a tendency to overreact to things, but I think that when you look at the events in Pride and Prejudice from her point of view you'll agree that she's more tragic than ridiculous."

I saw that some of the kids could see my point, others where more hesitant. This was what I loved about teaching; being able to make children look at things from another perspective, to make them think outside the box and learn something in the process.

"That bring me to the essence of todays lesson: your assignment."

Some of the kids groaned, others looked curious to hear what I had planned for them.

"The assignment you'll be working on for next weeks class will be to rewrite a chapter of Pride & Prejudice from Mrs. Bennet's point of view. Some of you will be asked to read their chapter aloud. I'll be very curious to see what you make of it."

Immediately after I had handed out the papers with a detailed description of the assignment on them one of my pupils raised her hands.

"What is it Jane?" I asked, a small sigh escaping my mouth.

I had been expecting this. There hadn't been a single lesson this year in which Jane or Alec Volturi hadn't found fault with something I did. They where the children – twins – of Aro Volturi, the headmaster of this school and thought that therefore they deserved a spacial treatment.

"You can't expect us to write a complete chapter in one week!" she huffed indignantly. "We have other assignments too you know!"

Her brother nodded feverishly beside her, the rest of the class just held still. They had witnessed several showdowns between the Volturi-twins and me this year and they knew what was to come.

I squared my shoulders and took on a determined stance.

I wasn't a very strict kind of person by nature, but I'd found out soon enough that in order to hold my own as one of the youngest members of staff in an prestigious Manhattan Prep school I had to be strict and unyielding sometimes.

"There will be no exceptions, Miss Volturi. So I suggest you'll find a way to deliver your work on time." I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on Jane, who was shaking her head angrily in reply.

"If you do not wish to apply yourself then I suggest you take your belongings and leave, miss Volturi. You know I set high standards for all my pupils and your parents would expect nothing less of me." I stated calmly.

"My father will hear of this!" Jane shrieked, before sweeping her books into her bag and dramatically storming out of the classroom, her brother hot on her heels. It was their standard reaction to my bringing up their father.

I looked at my watch, I had only three more minutes before the bell would sound.

"Are there any questions about the assignment or the book?" I asked.

One of the boys asked something about how he was supposed to put himself in the position of a middle aged mother of five, much to the hilarity of his classmates.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out somehow, Demetri," I replied before dismissing the class and packing up my things.

--

I managed to drag myself to one of the sofa's in the staff room and plopped down, not bothering about looking graceful.

"You look like you could do with some caffeine!" Jasper laughed, handing me a mug filled with the mouthwatering black liquid. I fought back a moan as I took my first big gulp.

"Don't get me started!" I sighed, rolling my eyes.

"Alec?"

"Jane."

"What did she do this time?"

"She almost accused me of child abuse because I gave her an assignment. When I told her to either do what she was told or get the hell out of my classroom she stormed out."

Jaspers mouth fell open. "You actually told Jane to shove off?"

"Yup. So I guess I'll be expecting a visit from daddy sometime soon."

"I have to hand it to you, Swan. You've got guts!" Jasper laughed.

Jasper taught history at Columbia Prep and was one of the younger members of staff as well. He'd been assigned to show me the ropes when I first arrived at the school and we had soon become close friends. He'd had the honor of instructing the infamous Volturi-twins in history last year and warned me about them.

There was however no amount of warning that could have prepared me for the real thing. I only had to look at my colleagues in the hallway in between classes to find out their daily schedule. Any teacher that looked slightly frightened or defeated had either just had a class with them or was on his way to one.

There was no way to punish them. Nothing to make them see sense. Jane would just glare at you whenever you said something she didn't like, which was just about everything you said. Her paybacks were the worst. She would go for physical pain, trying to trip you or accidentally drop her bag on your toes. Alec was more subtle. He would just argue with you until you were completely numb and willing to go with anything he said, just to get the hell away from him.

The only person in the entire school who didn't see them for what they truly where – a plague – was their father. He still saw them as his little angels and wouldn't hear a word said against them.

I had just munched down my lunch when Renata, Aro's assistant, asked me if I had time to see Mr. Volturi in his office.

Jasper shot me a knowing look before I made my way to the headmasters office. I was slightly nervous. I might be Aro's little pet project but there was no doubt that Jane had her father wrapped around her little finger. What did she say to him? How would he react?

When I had first joined the staff of this school I had been a little afraid of him. His appearance was rather daunting with his tall, thin frame, jet black hair and cold blue eyes. He looked like some kind of scary killer from an old mafia movie. The worst thing was that he talked like one too. His parents had immigrated from Italy when he was little and he still had a very thick accent. Whenever I was in his presence I felt the subconscious urge to run.

I knocked on the door.

"It's open." Aro voice sounded from within.

"You asked me to come see you?"

"Yes." Aro answered, closing the file he had been studying. "My daughter Jane came to see me after class. She was a little upset, claiming you'd given her an unreasonable amount of homework." He looked at me questioningly.

I decided to approach him like I would approach any other concerned parent.

"I'm a little worried about dear Jane," I started, imitating his way of referring to the apple of his eye. "She seems to be having a little difficulty with the amount of homework she's been given."

Word like 'worry' and 'concern' work like magic for any teacher. If you wanted to tell a parent – or pupil for that matter – that a kid didn't have the brains or the attitude to fulfill the high hopes their parents had set for them you couldn't just tell it to them like it was. You'd only trigger anger and denial. However no good parent could ever be angry because someone worried about their child or deny concern about their little angels capability. They were words that showed you cared about the kid and wanted to make things better.

"And you don't think it has something to do with the amount of work?" Aro sounded concerned but also a little peeved.

"I haven't had complaints from any of the other students so far." I stated.

"What do you suggest to do about it?"

I realized I was walking a fine line. Aro wasn't only a parent who could be coaxed with words of concern, he was also a teacher so he knew the tricks of the trade. I would have to formulate my answers very carefully.

"I'd love to help her. She's a bright kid. But I'm afraid she won't accept my help, she's been a little …..prickly lately."

In reality I would rather stick needles in my eyes than tutor the spoiled little brat but there was no need for her father to know that.

"Hmmm. I'll think about it." Aro mused. I was certain he would be keeping a close watch on me during the next few weeks.

"How are things, apart from all this I mean?" He asked, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his neck.

I had expected this question as soon as I had set foot in the office. After all, I was Aro's little showpiece. Having a single mom from a humble background amongst his staff was his perfect remonstrance to accusations that he was running an backward elitist institution.

"Everything's fine." I replied. I had learned that to avoid further questioning it was imperative to keep my answers as short as possible. Aro seemed to think that it was okay to ask of his staff to let them peek into their brains. Like he had a right to know what we were thinking.

I was saved from further questioning by an incoming phone call. With a flick of the wrist I was dismissed, breathing a sigh of relieve when I found myself in the corridor again. That seemed to have gone okay.

If someone would have told me six years ago that I would end up a teacher of English literature at an expensive Manhattan Prep School. If you would have laughed in their faces. Down to earth, frugal little me teaching the Laurens of this world? Never!

Even teaching would have been a far stretch. I had always been shy and introvert, not exactly the greatest basic material for a teacher. Somehow that had changed when I became a mom. I knew I had to put my foot down or my child would end up a spoiled little brat and if I wanted to achieve something I knew I had to go out and just do it instead of sitting at home wondering about what might have been.

But then, when I was in college one of my professors suggested a career in teaching and when I was just wrapping up my Masters degree in education my counselor had arranged an interview for me at Columbia Prep, a school that was affiliated with Columbia University, the school I had transfered to after I moved to New York.

At first I had been daunted by the aspect of having to teach class after class filled with spoiled little rich kids, but I'd soon found out that they weren't that bad. Luckily obnoxious little brats like Alec and Jane where the exception to the rule. Most of the kids were just like any other kids except for the fact that some of them had platinum credit cards and most of them where weighed down by the unrealistically high expectations their parents had of them.

I sped down the hall to my classroom where my pupils where already waiting for me.

"Bella?" Jasper called out to me. "How did things go with Aro?"

"They went okay. Think Jane's in trouble though."

"Hey, would you mind trading classrooms with me? I wanted to show my seniors a video but the DVD player in my classroom's broken."

"Sure. No problem. Just let me get my things and my pupils."

I ushered my students into the classroom and started my class. I really loved teaching. No two lessons where the same, even though you had to repeat the same curriculum over and over again.

My problem was that sometimes I would get so wrapped up in telling stories that I would forget about everything else around me. I could easily chatter away through the entire period. Not that my pupils minded, but I had a schedule to go by.

I found myself once again wrapped up in conveying the drama and the passion of Wuthering Heights on my audience. At first most of my pupils had thought Heathcliff and Cathy were just a bunch of freaks who were making their life and the lives of those around them miserable. Gradually they had come to see the underlying passion and desperation in the novel and now some of them even admitted to liking the story.

I moved to sit on the edge of my desk, as was my custom. I remembered too late that the desk in Jasper's classroom didn't have the usual four legs, like the one in my classroom had, but only two.

Just as I realized that sitting on the edge of the desk was probably a bad idea the damn thing flipped over, sending me legs up into the sky and falling on my ass. Luckily I had decided on wearing tights underneath my skirt today, or it would have been really embarrassing. I scrambled back to my feet, checking to see if there was any damage. Luckily I seemed to have escaped unscathed.

It took my class of sixteen year olds about ten minutes to calm themselves down, about as long as it took for the red to fade from my cheeks. I decided to consider the rest of the period as lost. There was no way I could get my pupils to concentrate on the antics of Heathcliff and Cathy after what had just happened. Fortunately there where only ten minutes left.

The rest of the day passed in blissful normalcy and when the bell sounded I breathed a sigh of relief. Weekend. Time to breathe and take stock of things.

"Hey Bella! I heard you had a little brush in with my desk!" Jasper said, walking into my now empty classroom.

"Let's just say that me and your desk need to sit down and have a serious talk about the right amount of ground support sometimes." I replied.

"Are you still good for tonight?" he asked.

I had forgotten that I had plans to go out with Jasper, Emmet and a couple of other friend (and Mike) tonight.

I groaned. As pleasant as my dreams of last night had been, they hadn't brought me much rest.

"Yeah, I'm still coming. Can't promise to stay long though. I had a rough night last night." I sighed.

Jasper knew enough about my past history to know what that meant.

It was so easy to talk to Jasper. He always knew just what to say and he had the uncanny ability to make you feel calmer, more relaxed. I had even thought about telling him more about Edward but in the end I decided against it. He was a friend of Emmet's as well and there was always a danger that Emmet would wheedle it out of him on a drunk night at a bar.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I will be." I shrugged, grabbing my bag and moving towards the door. "See you at O'Grady's."

This chapter is kind of dedicated to my first days back at school (as a teacher). I'm absolutely exhausted right now so if there's more mistakes in spelling and grammar in this chapter you know the cause.

Oh and by the way: the bit were Bella fell off the desk actually happened to me once, it was pretty embarrassing (but not the most embarrassing thing that happened to me whilst teaching). What can I say. I can rival Bella in the clumsiness department...