V. Volleyball and Lunch
"Few people when meet first time they feel that meeting each other was the purpose of their life." - Amit Kalantri
The PE lesson was as awful as lessons of its kind had always been. We were playing volleyball, which obviously wasn't the worst sport on the planet. I, however, always saw the ball as a threat rather than the object of the game. For that, my playing style naturally wasn't an admirable one (neither it was something I would be proud of), as I had the habit of throwing my arms up into the air senselessly, hitting the ball every now and then. It hadn't always flown in the direction I wanted it to fly in, but during all those years, I learnt to live with that.
Fortunately, I wasn't the worst player of my PE group. There was another girl, called Angela, whom I kept sticking to the whole lesson. This would probably sound mean, but I had never seen someone playing as badly as Angela did. She was trying - she really was. Every time she put her hands up to recieve a pass though, the ball lent directly on the top of her head. In entire 45 minutes of the lesson, Angela hit the ball once. Her art of clumsiness was truly admirable.
Miraculously, God sent us help just in time for our team to rise from the ash. No, that wasn't an irony...
There was another group of girls, who chose to play basketball in the beginning of the lesson. Their coach - seeing how absolutely incompetent we were, playing volleyball - decided to send us help. And the help was nobody else, than Alice Cullen.
"Hiya there, girls!" Alice sang cheerfully. "Need help?"
The rest of the team breathed out their agreements, before I managed to get back to reality from drowning in the pool of absolute delight of Alice's extremely melodic voice.
"That depends," I mocked and she lifted her eyebrows. "Do you know the text of Zerlina's part from Mozart's Don Giovanni?"
"Of course I do. It is the most beautiful aria of the opera." The petite, dark-haired girl answered immediately. For some unknown reason, she made the easy reply sound as if there was some genuinely hidden sense behind it.
"See? I think so," I admitted truthfully. "Will you sing it to me every night, for the rest of my life?"
She laughed, standing onto a free spot next to me, in front of the net. "I would love to, although I'm not sure what connection does Don Giovanni have to volleyball. Neither do I trust my singing skills enough."
"Wait, you're kidding, Alice, right?" It was the first time I called her by her name. The bad part about it was, that I frowned at her while doing so. "Have you ever heard yourself? Your voice is amazing! Come on, Angela, support me!"
"In fact, I don't know why she chose only just your voice to drool over. You and your siblings all look absolutely amazing! I cannot believe that you're staying in Forks. How is that they haven't offered you a job in some modeling agency yet? I mean, you should definitely start..." Angela started babbling, so there, I rolled my eyes and interrupted her speech.
"That's not what I meant, but... I guess you got the point." I turned my head to Alice, finding out that she started chuckling a while ago. "What are you laughing at? Should I take it as yes?"
Alice hadn't gotten a chance to answer. Right then, out of nothing, there came the ball. It was directed at Alice, therefore, the whole team almost stopped breathing, when its surface connected with Alice's fingertips. We all watched her, as she sent the ball flying over the net, to the opponent's pitch. When it lended on the floor then, it was the most amazing feeling in the world. We all started cheering, laughing and pronouncing Alice's name again and again. It was just one point for our team, but it was still the only point we had, against the fifteen points of the other team. And not only that Alice managed to deal with the ball, she was the only reason why we made this particular one point.
"Callaghan, Weber, Cullen! Stop shouting and get back to game!" The coach - Ms. Smith - wasn't the ideal image of a kind woman. But then again, was there even a PE teacher who was kind on the planet? We all murmured our quiet apologies and did as she said.
After the PE lesson had finished, it was lunch time. I was going to join Angela on her way to the school canteen, however, she got lost from the lockers as quickly as the morning mist, while I wasn't sure how to get there. For a moment, it occured to me as a good idea, to follow some of the girls from the volleyball team. Fortunately, I hadn't gotten enough time to start acting creepy, because Alice caught me right in front of the lockers just in time.
"Gwyn! We're having a lunch together, remember? Come, I can't wait to introduce you to my siblings," the brunette exclaimed, entangling her arm with mine. I - being the careful me - hesitated though.
"Alice, hold on for a sec," I sighed. " We should... perhaps, this is not a good idea. I-I mean no offence, it's just that... I'm not good at these social things, you know? Like family meetings, having lunch together with other people and... so on."
"That's a nonsense! They are all nice people, you will like them, I'm sure!"
"Yeah... and what if they won't like me?" My question sounded more nervous than I expected it to sound.
Alice stopped walking suddenly, turning to me. She then squeezed my shoulders, looking straight into my eyes (or soul, I wasn't sure about that one) and smiled at me reassuringly. "Honey, they will love you. Now, would you stop worrying, if I told you that I'll sing for you?"
My eyes widened, as the girl's expression turned into a grin. "Really? Every day?!"
"No, three times a week, no weekends. I have to do my school work some time," the brunette started to negotiate, which made me pouch my lips.
"Alright. But I want you to read detective books to me once a week. I like Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths, The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco and all the books by Jonas Jonasson or Markus Zusak."
"Deal," Alice shrugged her shoulders, giving me a small smile. "So... are you willing to meet my family now?"
I smirked at her, imitating her previous attempt to entangle our arms. "Where's their table?"
We reached the particular part of the canteen after bare two minutes of walking, during which we were talking about our favorite books, subjects and movies. Alice let me pick up my lunch (she didn't want to eat anything - that made me wonder how someone could resist the smell of beef on herbs with mashed potatoes), salad and drink (again, Alice hadn't taken anything), before she directed me to the furthest table at the window. While walking with the tray in my hands, my entire attention was imprisoned by the tray, in order not to embarrass myself again, with, for example, dropping the tray to the floor.
The moment Alice told me we were there, I started to regret my decision not to look around; because if I had done so, I wouldn't have been so surprised by the presence of four other, completely divine people. I mean, meeting one top model at time - why not. But meeting five of them, in the same small town, in the same small state, somewhere in the North of the USA? No, there must have been some tax allowances in Washington (or particularly in Forks) for world's most beautiful models, since I couldn't imagine any other way how all these stunning people with golden eyes could have chosen this Northern hollow to live in.
"Guys, this is Gwyneth Callaghan, the new student from Ireland. We met this morning, on the-"
"On the way to school! Alice... uhm... got me out of some trouble with mud." I jumped into her speech, not wanting her to tell them what were the exact circumstances of our meeting. They all glanced at me with a hint of amusement; one of them - a bronze-haired boy - hadn't even tried to cover his smirk though.
"Apparently, Alice wasn't the only inhabitant of Forks she met this morning," the same, ridiculously handsome guy with slightly ginger hair, and a petite brunette sitting next to him, stated, as if he knew what really happened in the morning. I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Edward!" the brunette by his side admonished, poking him with her elbow. She then looked at me, lifting the corners of her lips up slightly. "Sorry about him... I'm Bella Swan, by the way; it's nice to meet you Gwyneth."
I smiled back at her the best I could, before my eyes landed on the sassy blonde girl whom I had already had the pleasure with, in the Chemistry. When my eyes met hers, her face expression turned into ice. She drummed her long nails against the desk of the table, before she snorted scornfully and looked away. That bitch.
"Welcome to Forks, Gwyn! I'm Emmett Cullen and this is Rose." A huge, muscular, young man with short hair gifted me with a wide, sincere smile, waving at me with one of his big palms.
"Rosalie!" The blonde hissed virulently. "My name is Rosalie, especially for those whom I don't know."
"We've already met," I ignored her tone, creating the biggest, false smile I was capable of. "Chemistry, remember? You picked Organics and weren't too happy about it. Well, just to let you know, I have Inorganics."
The notice of Rosalie's furious glare satisfied me; if she was going to act like a bitch to me, I wasn't going to leave it without a response. I might not be as skilled in acting like a bitch as she was, still I'd try to do my best.
My eyes shifted to the last person at the table. And here he was - the sex idol of all sane women, the man of my dirtiest dreams. I should probably mention that it was the same, honey blonde-haired guy who observed me in the corridor, when I had been talking to Eric. It took me a few minutes to collect myself, in order not to stare at him like a dumb teenage girl... again.
"Uhm... hello there," I blurted out, shifting in discomfort, as his eyes bored into mine. I would certainly have melted, if only he hadn't moved his attention away from me, towards Alice, to whom he had stretched his hand. Alice smiled quizzically, while he pulled her onto his lap. The two of them kissed slightly, meanwhile I felt a nagging urge to grimace.
The guy, whom Bella had introduced as Edward, peered at me strangely, as if he knew what was going on in my head. And since there wasn't anyone else for me to frown at (besides Rosalie, who started ignoring me a while ago), I frowned at Edward. He then cleared his throat, interrupting Alice and... oh gosh, I didn't even know what his name was!
"Hey, leave it for home you two! We have a guest," Emmett exclaimed, gesturing for me to sit next to him. "Come on, Bubble, take a seat!"
"Erm... excuse us," Alice blinked twice, the moment she managed to pull herself away from her boyfriend or... whatever. "Gwyn, I want you to meet Jasper Hale, my... boyfriend. He is Rosalie's twin brother."
My eyebrow fired up. "Oh," I forced out, taking the seat next to Emmett. "Well, you two don't look like twins. And it's nice to meet ya, Jasper."
"We've been told so," he said, adding quickly, "the pleasure is on my side, ma'am."
There was an apparent accent in his English, which, unfortunately, I wasn't able to place. I thought it may be Australian, or something like that, but I wasn't sure. Nevertheless, one thing was certain - Rosalie didn't have the same accent, which was rather weird, considering the two of them were twins.