Gwendolyn

When the plane landed I was disoriented. When we were driving I decided to inquire about my living arrangements. From what I could tell we were driving through a quiet relatively cozy town. A few boys on the sidewalk turned to look at the limo as we passed.

"How much longer?"I asked George the producer.

"Not long." After a few more minutes we were nearing the town limits much to my surprise.

"We're leaving the town?"I asked shocked.

"The family you're switching with lives just outside of town, ,"George replied.

"Who in their right mind would want to live away from civilization and society like a bunch of shut-ins?"I murmured as we came to a stop.

"We're here," Ryan the cameraman announced opening my door. I stepped out to find myself in front of a large three story house painted a warm chocolate brown. There was a wraparound porch with flowers growing in front of it. I ground my teeth determined not to get sidetracked by appearances. Keeping a nice house didn't make you a good person after all. I hurried toward the steps and then the door unlocking it quickly. I fiddled with my cross as I entered the foyer. The inside was very nice as well. The end table held a mail basket,lamp,and a bouquet of black-eyed Susans. The walls were painted a deep inviting brown and on one hung a Cézanne. I quickly made my way up the first staircase I came to. The first door I opened was to a bedroom. It held a king-sized bed, a desk area with a number of electronics, a mounted television, a closet and a bookcase. I moved to inspect the bookcase. To my surprise it held both music and literature of many genres. Some music was quite old such as Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. Others like Parachute and Greenday were more modern. There was a hardcover copy of Anna Karenina on the shelf too. I made my way to the room across the hall after a moment.

This was a girl's room, clearly. It was much like the previous room though the color scheme was different. This was purples and blues while the room prior had been golds and yellows. I decided to look at the closet, praying the young lady dressed modestly. I was taken aback. The bottom portion of the closet was dominated by shoes of all kinds. Nike, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Vera Wang, the list was infinite I realized as I looked down the rows. The hanging space was filled with pants, skirts, shirts, dresses, blouses, and coats of various designs. One shirt I saw had Animals for Angels written in black on the front. Bella was written on the back in blue. I left the closet before all the fabric could give me an ulcer. I had no interest in seeing the other bedrooms, so I went downstairs again.

I found the living room easily. It was spacious and held two large couches, a coffee table, and yet another mounted television. That made three so far. That I'd seen anyway. There were probably more. There was definitely more art, I noted remembering the painting of the meadow I'd seen in the girl's room. There was also a painting of tropical birds sitting around what looked to be a tide pool. She must be an art lover. I made my way to a door that Ryan pointed out finding myself amongst a lot of instruments including a cello, piano, and violin. Or at least I thought they were a cello and violin judging by their cases. There was sheet music piled high on a corner table. There were chairs scattered around the room. And to my great pleasure no television to be found. I was content for the first time since I'd landed in Iowa. Eventually the producer lured me out of the content room and led me to the kitchen. It looked like something straight out of a House Beautiful magazine, like the rest of the house. It was also spotless, unsurprisingly.

"How on earth does the wife manage to keep her kitchen so clean?"I murmured. "She probably has a maid service of some sort," I speculated.

"The manual's on the table," Ryan said.

I turned and sat down at the large butcher-block table. I read the surname before anything else. "Cullen Family Manual," I read aloud.

The inside read,

Hello new Mother. My name is Esme Cullen, welcome to Orange City! I'm an architect. My husband Carlisle is an ER surgeon and together we've adopted six kids. Edward, Emmett, and Jasper are our three boys. Bella, Rosalie, and Alice are our girls. Bella, Alice, and Emmett are biological siblings. Emmett is the oldest at 18, Bella is 17, and Alice turned 17 last month. Rosalie and Jasper are 17 and twins. Edward is an only child and 17, also. All of them have a passion for music. Bella and Jasper are bibliophiles and Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward all love cars. Alice and Rose are both shopaholics as well.

The children do not play inter-scholastic sports and are all honor students with after school jobs. Alice and Rose work at Forever 21 four days a week after school and on weekends. Bella works at Barnes & Noble four days a week as well. Jasper is a museum docent, Edward works at the local music shop, and Emmett works at Sal's Sports Emporium. All are four weekdays and weekends unless otherwise noted. They are all home by seven thirty each night. We do not eat dinner together though we are all vegetarians. I'm normally home by seven forty-five each night. Carlisle has rotating shifts and informs everyone of his rotation as soon as he knows it.

I rise at 6:30 each morning to spend time with Carlisle before he needs to leave for work. I check that the kids have eaten and are awake at 7:25 each weekday morning. They may sleep in on weekends if they don't have work. I leave for work by 7:45 each morning. On Saturday mornings if necessary I clean the entire house. I like to garden, read, or spend time with my family when I have free time.

Oh and two housekeeping things. The children date each other and we are not religious. Bella dates Edward, Rosalie's with Emmett, and Alice and Japer are together also.

I felt everything go black for a long moment. George brought me a glass of ice water. I sipped carefully trying to keep my composure.

"These people are going to rot in hell."I said loudly regaining my voice as the front door opened a ways away. I heard laughter and then one gorgeous voice. "Mind your manners, please. You weren't raised by wolves after all." The godlike silken voice was soft. I rose instinctively. It was time to meet the family.

There were seven people coming into the living room from the foyer as I entered from the kitchen. I paused shocked. They were all gorgeous. The tallest brunette looked like she could be Snow White. The shortest resembled Thumbelina. There were was no way to voice the blonde girl's beauty. She was so like Sleeping Beauty she could have walked straight out of the book. The men were all Greek gods in the flesh. Two were blond, one had dark brown hair, and the other had a shade of coppery brown hair that could only be called bronze.

"I'm Carlisle Cullen. Welcome to our home." So his was the silken voice I'd heard. I blushed as he shook my hand with a smile.

"Thank you. I'm Gwendolyn Daniels. It's a pleasure to meet you." I stammered smiling shyly. The brunette girl coughed interrupting my moment with a god. "It's nice to meet you Mrs. Daniels. I'm Bella." I glared at her for a split second. Her name was irrelevant compared with coming into close contact with a god.

She just laughed and whispered something to the girls next to her. They giggled with her as the bronze-haired boy spoke. "I'm Edward. Nice to meet you." He grumbled the last part. The brown haired behemoth spoke, smiling. "I'm Emmett. I hope you like it here." "I'm Jasper," the other blond smirked. "Alice," the Thumbelina girl giggled. "I'm Rosalie," Sleeping Beauty hissed, smiling innocently. They sat down and motioned for me to do the same. I plopped down right next to Carlisle and the girls shared an incomprehensible look.

"So tell us about yourself," Bella said politely.

"I'm married to a podiatrist, and we have two wonderful children named Hannah and Kyle. Kyle's in sixth grade and Hannah's in third. I'm a part-time underwriter with Capitol Inc. and I adore baking. I'm also quite fond of rare steak. It's the only way I'll eat it. I'm also a very devout Christian. I attend Bible Study and Prayer group twice a week and weekly worship services every Sunday." They nodded and Alice spoke next. "Well Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward are all car addicts, Bella and Jazz love to read, and Rosalie and I love to shop. Also we are not religious nor do we eat meat." Alice smiled pleased with her explanation. The others smiled brightly at her. Well, the whole no-meat and no-Church thing will definitely stop come rule change, I noted in my head. "Esme mentioned you adopted all of your children. Why so many Carlisle?" I was incredibly curious.

"Esme and I couldn't have children of our own so we decided to adopt until we found the amount she liked. We wanted a big family and we couldn't bear the idea of splitting up siblings either so it all worked out perfectly."Carlisle smiled. Six was too many, I thought. That many mouths to feed meant no time for leisure and privacy went out the window and then landed on Pluto. I just nodded. I noticed the girls whispering again. Hopefully it wasn't about me.

"Something you'd like to share ladies?"I asked sweetly.