I'm taking some liberties with Ketchikan High School, which is a real school. According to the Wikipedia article, it has around 600 students. I'm cutting that number down to 450 – enough to make sure that the entire school can eat lunch at the same time, a la Forks.
There will be basic algebra in this chapter, so consider it your math lesson for today. doesn't support the SuperScript feature like MS Word does, so... just imagine it's there, okay?
Also, I'm posting this up now since I wrote quickly today. If you'd like a character, go ahead and let me know; I will fit you into a later chapter. Just don't be offended if I use your supplied name in a way you might not like. Give it to me at your own risk!
I walked with Alice and Edward to our first class, algebra. Since we'd come in halfway through the year, we gathered even more stares.
We walked into the classroom and informed the teacher, a Mr. Henry, of the arrangements. He nodded pleasantly and directed us to three desks in the corner. The only other person in the classroom was a blonde girl with her nose in a thick book sitting across the classroom. She'd given us a timid smile upon our walking into the classroom.
Soon enough, the class started, the humans taking only minimal notice of us until the teacher announced, "Class, we have three new students today, Edward, Alice, and Courtney Cullen. They're over there in the back and just moved here from Canada." And that was that.
I'd never been good at math, but I'd spent the past two years going over it with people who'd been through Calculus several times. I was as quick as any of them now.
The teacher droned on, illustrating how to find the difference of two perfect squares on the overhead. Eighty percent of the class looked extremely confused, I noted: only the blonde girl who'd been here early, my siblings, and I weren't completely stupefied.
"So, let's try a few problems!" How could anyone be so enthusiastic about math? "If we have… Here's a good one," he said, finding a problem in the book. "If we have X to the fourteenth minus a hundred forty-four-" he scribbled down x14-144 on the overhead in blue marker – "Who can tell me how to factor this?"
A few of the students bent their heads over their papers, erasing and scribbling by turns. I'd finished the problem already, as had Alice and Edward. I gazed around the room, seeing that the blonde girl had apparently either finished or not done the problem at all. She had her nose in the book again, but when the power of my gaze drew her eyes she offered me a smile.
I smiled back quickly and spun my head to see Mr. Henry turn on the overhead, ready to have some poor soul come up and do the problem. "Ah, Ella. You're rarely at a loss. Can you tell us how to do this problem?"
The blonde girl, Ella, put down her book. "Start with writing the rule for the difference of two perfect squares, which is quantity a+b times quantity a-b."
The teacher scribbled down the problem so far.
x14-144
(a+b)(a-b)
"Then," continued Ella, "Write the problem as the difference of two squares: quantity x to the seventh squared minus twelve squared.
The overhead now read:
x14-144
(a+b)(a-b)
(x7)2 – (12)2
"And," she finished, "by using the rule for the difference of two perfect squares, solve the problem by putting it in the formula. It leaves us with quantity x to the seventh plus twelve times quantity x to the seventh minus twelve."
x14-144
(a+b)(a-b)
(x7)2 – (12)2
(x7 + 12)( x7 – 12)
"Very good, Ella," said Mr. Henry as he went on to start another problem. One of the girls, a passably pretty human, brunette with blonde highlights, murmured to one of her cronies: "I wonder if she hides all the answers in those precious books of hers."
The other girl, much shorter than the first, giggled maliciously. "It would explain a lot, wouldn't it, Erin?"
So. This girl, Ella, would probably be much like myself as a human: quiet, a bookworm, who often drew the ire of the more popular girls.
Alice was looking at them, too, and leaned over to me. "Don't they have anything better to do than to put others down?"
"Of course not," said Edward softly from his desk in front of mine, scratching down another answer in his flawless script. It must have been something that some of my family had acquired with time, as Bella's handwriting and mine were still messy.
Completely oblivious to the gossiping students, the teacher looked at the clock. "You may have the last twenty minutes of class for work time. Your homework assignment is on the board." He sat down with the strongest cup of coffee I'd ever smelled (I could get a clear whiff of it across the classroom) and that day's newspaper.
Instantly the classroom became a flurry of activity. The girls whom I had identified as "popular" scooted their desks together and began whispering. I caught snatches of their conversation:
"…Absolutely gorgeous. I wonder if he's homesick. I think I'll offer to show him around."
"No, you don't! He's mine…"
"Have you two seen his sisters? They could be models, I swear!"
"Eh, it's probably just plastic surgery. No one can look that good without a decent nose job." I almost laughed at that one, and I could see that Alice held in a giggle. The girl speaking had a nose far too small for her heart-shaped face, one that anyone could see she hadn't been born with.
"…Heard there was another girl in our grade, and three more of them in the tenth." Oh, poor Bella. Was she faring this poorly in her mandatory Alaska Studies class, all alone?
I leapt up as soon as the bell rang, going to find Bella for our second-period Spanish class. Beginning Spanish. Joy. I knew Bella was completely fluent, and I was getting there. Edward walked with me, since we had this class together, and Alice danced off to PE.
Spanish class was a breeze, as expected, and Alice and I met up to head to English while Edward went to the science labs downstairs and Bella went to PE, muttering about death, doom, and destruction. Edward caught up with her quickly and reminded her quietly that she hadn't tripped over anything in a long time and that she shouldn't jinx herself.
By lunch, I nearly fell onto the seat. My siblings and I had been getting extremely odd looks, ranging from the few mildly curious ones to the jade-green jealous ones of a few girls who apparently felt we were challenging their status just by being in the school.
Rosalie and Emmett joined us soon, with Rosalie complaining almost instantly to the more technically adept of us about the incompetence of her Small Engines course professor. Jasper showed up in the middle of her monologue with the report that "us in the ninth grade had a lot to look forward to" in the tenth grade, coupled with an eye roll.
When the bell rang, signifying that we had ten minutes to get to our fifth-period class, we all stood and tossed the food we'd bought away. Edward and I headed to PE (rather unwillingly on my part) as the rest of the family walked to their respective classes. I knew this was harder for everyone else besides Bella, as they'd been through this repeatedly, but it was nice for them to pretend. After all, I'd never finished high school.
The PE class went fairly well, and I thanked whoever had created vampires repeatedly for making us graceful. The PE teacher, a Mrs. Kern, was short, especially next to Edward and I.
A girl named Nikki had been kind enough to enquire after our names (I had to give her some credit for being able to keep her eyes on my face and not on Edward's. I remembered seeing everyone when I was first changed.) She had obviously not been all that comfortable, but had fought it down for the sake of making the two of us feel welcome.
Alaska studies and Photography with Alice, science with Bella, and blessed fresh air after being released out of the school all passed in a blur.
The most memorable part of the day would have to be, hands down, directly after school. A girl with brown hair obviously curled by a curling iron (as a naturally curly-haired girl, I knew they didn't often fall in those perfect loose spirals without help) had run out, stopping us. She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen and had put her hand on Emmett's shoulder.
"Hey. What's your name?" She glanced back at a few other girls, who were eyeing the rest of us and gave them the thumbs-up.
"I'm Emmett."
"That's a nice name. Would you maybe like to go to a movie or something with me later this week? I know you're new, and I can show you where all the… places are."
Rosalie had stepped in with a furious "Emmett! Don't you dare."
I'm amazed the girl stayed as long as she did under Rosalie's glare, a whole three seconds. She turned tail and fled.
I sat in the back of the black convertible with Edward (who was more than considerably irked about not being able to drive) as Rosalie drove, still fuming over the audacity of people. Bella rode shotgun.
I sighed as I stepped out of the car, which had – as expected- drawn some seriously envious looks. "Do I have to do this all over for the next four years?"
"Don't complain until you've been through it four or five times," Emmett said as he climbed out of the driver's side of the new Lexus.
We all walked in the house, to be greeted by Esme writing something. "Hello, everyone. How was the first day at school?"
"Same as always," Alice told her. "A few let-down girls, a couple jealous guys, some amazed teachers… We'll live. We've been through worse." She kissed Esme's cheek. "I'm going to finish up what homework we got."
The rest of us broke up to do the same. I had yet to get a good desk for my bedroom, so I sat at the table in the kitchen with Esme. She asked me if I'd felt okay in the school, and I replied that it was tough but I could do it.
It probably took me all of twenty or thirty minutes to finish my homework, so after I was finished I walked upstairs and fished out an old friend: Pride and Prejudice. I settled in for a long night of reading.