"Have you got your bag ready?" mom asked as she dropped me off outside school. The windows were tinted, partly so no one recognised and partly because she was apparently having a bad hair day.

"Of course I have, mom," I sighed.

She pulled the ends of my curls lightly. "You have beautiful hair, Nessie," she offered. I blushed. "And I'm so glad Alice dressed you. I'm not much help myself." She screwed her face jokingly.

I fidgeted in my seat.

"Oh okay," mom laughed. "Bye darling."

I slipped out the door and walked through the empty car lot. There was early frost on the trees, not that it mattered much. The cold didn't affect me; I was warm whatever the weather.

"Vanessa Masen, pleasure to meet you," came a voice from seemingly nowhere. I turned around to see my dad standing a few feet away.

"I thought you were hunting," I said, scrutinising his black eyes.

"I had to see my daughter's first day at school," he said, beaming. I hugged him.

We both saw a truck coming into the lot and he grimaced.

"Have fun," he said, smiling. I waved as he walked off casually in the opposite direction.

I made my way to the reception, where a plump middle-aged woman sat typing at her old computer which she was hitting every now and then to get it going.

"Excuse me," I said sweetly, my voice trickling with honey. I'd practised this voice a lot as a child. "I'm new here, my name's Vanessa Masen?"

The woman looked at me twice. "Well aren't you a cute little doll," she marvelled. "Yes I've got your map here and your timetable's on the back."

"Thank you, miss," I said politely, taking the sheets. "Is there anyone who could show me where to go?"

She smiled widely, showing crooked teeth - yellow with age. "I 'spect a smart gal like you ought to be able to work out where you're headed. That's building one there," she pointed me in the right direction. She stabbed at the map with a stubby finger. "This is the front of the school, get it?" I nodded.

"Now you know where you're headed," she said, pleased with her apparent helpfulness. I smiled back but rolled my eyes as I turned away. Some human adults annoy me. They treat you like a child.

Reading through my map entertained me for a while and after my third read-through I had it memorised. I walked through the now crowded car lot to my first lesson, Trig. I groaned aloud, this was the only subject I didn't enjoy.

I made my way around the crowds of staring students slowly. I felt everyone's eyes on the back of my head and I tried to convince myself that they were staring because I was the new kid. Not because of my skin colour, which was pale no matter how much I blushed. I distinctly heard the word, "Albino."

I have brown eyes! I wanted to yell at them.

I slipped in behind a couple as we lined up for Trig. They were both a little taller than me and I could hide easily. I closed my eyes until the line started moving.

"Who's the new girl?" someone asked.

"Don't know, but…"

I strained my ears, and then realised they had spotted me. The line filed in.

I stood hovering at the front of the class, not knowing where to sit.

"Excuse me miss, could you please take your-"

The teacher took a double-take when he saw me. "Oh, I don't think I've met you before."

"I'm Vanessa Masen," I said in my honey voice. "But it's Nessa." Let's give that nickname a try. "I'm new here."

I looked across the room at my classmates and waved shyly.

None of them waved back. I bit my lip, regretting it instantly as I felt my teeth break the skin ever so slightly.

"I'm Mr McLeroy," he said in the silence. "Please take a seat."

I wove my way through the desks to a lone desk at the back. There was chewing gum on the seat and lots of scratched messages in the desk. I winced.

"No, not there," Mr McLeroy chuckled, his lips twitching in a nervous way. Push-over, I imagined. "That's The Seat." He drew quotation marks with his fingers, rolling his eyes. "How about sitting with the rest of us…" He searched for an empty seat and I managed to take a good look at my classmates for the first time. I saw an arrogant looking brunette, a frizzy-haired girl with braces, and a basketball jock who sat next to a too-tall, muscular guy, who I assumed was the heart-throb because the prettiest girls surrounded him. He wasn't all that great.

"Ah, Leo," he gestured to a dark-haired boy by the window who had his feet up on the seat next to him. He looked like another heart-throb. "Shove up."

Leo sighed and looked at his audience, grinning. Then he lifted his heavy Doc Martens off, leaving mud on the seat. I scowled as he smiled innocently at me.

As I walked across the class, a girl wearing a baseball cap passed me a tissue. I used it to wipe the mud off, but I used vampire-quick movements so it wasn't too obvious. Then I dropped the tissue into his lap and stuck my tongue out, retracting it instantly. What was I doing?

He dropped it on my desk. I gave it back. Then, when Mr McLeroy was looking, he lobbed it across the room, yelled, "Watch out!" and shoved his head under the desk.

The class laughed with him. I didn't; he was starting to irritate me.

"Leo, please," Mr McLeroy said in a tired voice that suggested he had seen this so many times before.

The girls behind us mimicked him. "Leo, please."

Leo turned around, grinning. "Please, what?"

The red-head thought for a second. "Dump Ellen," she giggled. Leo kissed his fingers.

"Hell, we broke up over summer," he said smoothly.

"Really?" they said together. They giggled, then turned around to pass the message on.

Leo turned to me. "Didn't catch your name," he said apologetically. He cocked one eyebrow. "But are you like an actress or something?"

"No," I said quickly. "My name's Nessa."

He held out his hand. "Leo Neway. Currently single," he added, winking. I shook his hand, using delicate strength. His hands were quite big and colder than most humans. I was surprised he didn't pull away from the intense heat of my own hand.

"Do you learn anything from him?" I asked as Mr McLeroy escaped the room.

"Nah," Leo grinned. "But the tests are dead easy."

I noticed he had a hint of a British accent. He had similar features to everyone else in this small town, perhaps a British parent.

"Where did you used to go to school?" he asked me, breaking my thoughts. His thoughts too seemed elsewhere.

"I was home-schooled, I convinced my parents over the summer that I should come here," I said, truthfully. I learned a lot over sleepless nights.

"Danny was home-schooled for about a week," Leo said, grinning. "Then his mom got so fed up of him not wanting to learn that she shipped him off to some boarding school. He came to Forks in middle school." He was still grinning. "The boarding school chucked him out."

I laughed. "Who's Danny?"

Leo looked across the room. "Danny!"

The other "heart-throb" looked up. He grinned widely. "New girl - nice."

I smiled awkwardly, not quite sure what he was getting at. Basketball jock cuffed Danny round the head and they started hitting each other. I stared in alarm.

"What the-?"

"They do that all the time," Leo shrugged. I heard the bell going.

Leo leapt out of his seat. He grinned at me.

"What you got next?" he asked.

I pretended to think. "English."

"See you at lunch, then," he said, and then he loped over to Danny and the basketball jock and started murmuring in a low voice, watching me carefully.

I couldn't catch it because I was swept away by the tide of leaving students. But Danny looked at me in a very curious way as I left.