Heya... I'm not the most patient person, so here's Chapter two...
Chapter Two: Letters
I was sitting in biology on Wednesday afternoon, hitting a piece of paper across the table to Mike when a soft knock on the door caused me to look up and lose the point.
Mike was still whispering his cheers of victory when the secretary spoke to our teacher, Mr Banner, who then turned to stare straight at me while he whispered back. The secretary turned to leave, and Mr Banner motioned with a swipe of his hand for me to follow her out the door.
"Where're you going?" Mike asked when my chair scraped across the floor.
I shook my head. "Dunno."
When I got to the door, Mrs Cope was standing on the other side of the frame. I didn't have to ask what was going on, thankfully – I was never good at coming up with understandable sentences around people I wasn't familiar with.
"The letters from Port Angeles High have come through, and we're getting the students who signed up to collect theirs now."
"Oh. Okay." I followed her down the hall, and then she stopped outside one of the other science labs. A moment later, Alice joined me out in the hall. Following close behind her was Angela, then Jessica Stanley. The three of us walked together in silence, afraid of saying something socially incriminating with Jessica in earshot.
We picked up a few more people through the halls, and it wasn't long before twenty minutes had passed. Most of the pen pal applicants were girls, but there were a few boys too. I wasn't really good friends with any of them except Alice and Angela, so I wasn't obliged to speak to anyone else.
Finally, Mrs Cope showed us into a room behind the secretary's office which students weren't usually allowed into. All of us were interested to see what was behind the previously forbidden door until we'd actually passed through the frame and seen that it was just like the rest of the school.
The walls were a dull white wash, the carpet an industrial grey flecked with orange and the curtains were a boring white. There was a wooden table with countless scratch marks and scribbles from students dented into the surface. A couple of linoleum-covered cupboards lined the left wall. The most interesting part of the décor was the scorch mark on the curtain. I nudged Alice and pointed this out to her.
"Miss Faulkner stood too close when she was sneaking a cigarette last year," she said with a shrug.
"Oh." I looked at her quizzically. "How do you know that?"
She just shrugged again. I was about to question her further when Mrs Cope started talking, and I knew we'd be caught because we were so close to the front. Angela had slinked to the back of the small group to avoid blocking other people's view with her height. I turned and gave her a friendly smile, which she returned, then grimaced and rolled her eyes toward the front. I turned back and noticed Jessica Stanley standing a few people to my right.
Mrs Cope was now scuffling around in one of the cupboards. She pulled out a small stack of about twenty envelopes, which had been bound together by red string.
She plopped them on the table and smiled nicely at all of us, folding her hands behind her back.
"These are the letters from Port Angeles High," she began.
"Duh," came a bored voice from my right. I didn't have to look to know it was Jessica.
"And we were lucky enough to have enough students from Port Angeles interested in the program so you all get letters this year." Everyone looked bored, which Mrs Cope took as confused, so she continued, "last year not everyone received letters." She beamed around at us all like this was a real treat. "Each of the students from Port Angeles wrote a letter to a specific student whom they chose out of a hat. Each week on Wednesdays or Thursdays you should drop your letter into this box –" she revealed the small blue shoebox with a hole in the lid that she'd been holding behind her back, "- and then on Mondays you'll be able to collect your replies from Port Angeles from me at the front office."
Alice piped up from beside me. "Where will the box be?"
"On my desk in the front office," Mrs Cope said kindly. She stared at Alice for a second too long, so Alice gave her a mock enthusiastic thumbs-up gesture. "Oh, and this week I expect your replies to be in by tomorrow afternoon."
I had been giggling at Alice's hillbilly-style thumbs up, but managed to turn it into a cough when Mrs Cope looked for the source of the noise.
"So," Mrs Cope thundered on, seeming to enjoy the sound of her own voice. "If there are no more questions, you can all come up and collect your letters."
Alice jumped forward before anyone else and pulled the string from the bundle of letters. She stuck her hand into the stack three times in three random places, then skipped through the congealing crowd to where Angela and I were now standing together.
"What's she doing?" Angela asked as Alice doubled back.
"I have absolutely no idea," I replied honestly, scanning the heads for Alice's spiky black hair.
"There she is," Angela said suddenly, pointing way over to the right wall. Alice was hopping over people's feet and managing not to smack her head on the cupboards above her, holding three letters in one hand and a bundle of red string in the other.
"Are they ours?" I asked, pointing to the letters.
She held them out to us, name-up. "Yeah."
I took mine from Alice's hand and Angela hers. I looked at the elegant writing, sure that I'd be writing to a girl.
"How'd you know where they were, Alice?" Angela said, flipping her own letter around in her hands.
"Hmm?" Alice was preoccupied with the string, which I could now see was actually red ribbon.
I sighed. "Never mind Ange, she does too many weird things like that for me to really notice anymore."
"Fair enough." Angela started pulling at the corner of her envelope. "I'm gonna go somewhere to read this, okay? Tell Mrs Cope I went to the toilet or something if she asks." She smiled and waved at hip height as she swept out the door.
I turned back to Alice, who had managed to open her letter and was halfway through the – was that three or four pages? – of writing in her hands.
"Do you want to sit down Alice?"
She nodded without looking up from her pages. I walked to the wall and slid down, pulling my knees up so I could lean the pages on them. Alice say beside me with her legs crossed.
I looked again at the stylish writing on my envelope.
Bella Swan
I flipped it over a few times in my hands, unsure as to why I was nervous about opening it. Beside me, Alice huffed and lowered her letter. I was too preoccupied to ask, and she was too lost in thought to explain.
Suddenly, my envelope disappeared. Alice had it.
"Hey!" I exclaimed, reaching for it.
"Bella, you're too predictable. You'll end up in hospital from a paper cut or something." She slipped her finger under the paper and ripped it open with her long nail before she handed it back.
"Oh," I said, realising she was right. "Thanks."
Alice answered by smiling and blowing a bubble with her gum, then she unfolded her letter and started reading it again.
I slipped out the folded paper in my envelope, and flattened it out, trying to get rid of the creases before I allowed my eyes to wander to the text. I still couldn't work out why I was so nervous.
Dear Bella,
The elegant writing was as consistent as if it had been typed.
Hello. My name is Edward Masen. I'm a student at Port Angeles High, as I'm sure you've worked out. I don't really know why I signed up for this, perhaps Paul's fifty bucks on a reply has something to do with it.
I probably shouldn't have told you that. Oh well. If the only reason you reply is to make a bored guy fifty dollars richer, I'll be happy with that.
Anyway, the criteria sheet we got says we should talk about our families and pets. I don't think that's a very wise idea, to be honest. The internet can do a lot these days, the fact that you know what high school I go to, what my last name is and that I have a friend called Paul should be enough information for any self-respecting stalker to do his thing. Hey, if you're a stalker, don't be, okay? It's weird man, weird.
So, the next criterion is 'What your favourite things to do are'. Umm, well I don't really have a lot to do with my time, dealing drugs and blowing up school network systems is pretty time consuming.
Joking!
But seriously, I do have stuff I like doing with my time. Like… well, I play the piano (my whining to quit lessons never worked, and somehow I like doing it now), I like to read – thought if you disclose that information to anyone I will cheerfully beat you to death (once again, joke!). Oh, and
I like moonlit walks on the beach with my one and only beloved, Leah Clearwater
Paul, I will seriously stab you with this pen. Leah is my cousin. That is inbred.
Sorry about that. That was Paul, my
kinky little sex bomb
DO YOU GUYS HAVE A DEATH WISH?!
Ahem. Sorry about that, they're all now squealing like girls because I locked them together in the janitor's closet.
But I can't be bothered writing another letter, so either that last part will make you think I have multiple personality disorder or I have extremely weird friends.
If I were you, I'd be scared. Unless you're a stalker, which means that it would have peaked your interest. Okay, whatever, getting weird. New topic:
Criteria on the sheet: 'Talk about your friends'.
Oh wow. That's weird. But okay Mr Sheet, whatever you say.
My friends, who are really losers who I happen to hang around with because they make me feel normal, are all nuts-o.
There's Paul – writing #1 – who has way too much energy and likes to tell lame jokes then laugh at them. He also desperately needs a girlfriend.
Shut up, so do you loser-face!
Get back in the cupboard or I will put you there.
Okay, back to business.
Writing #2 is Sam. Sam is flippin' massive – no one can understand how he looks 25 while he's only actually eighteen. (That's me too by the way, eighteen.)
Though those two are insane, and I love them for it in a totally non-sexual way, my best friend is definitely Jared. He is the only one of us losers who has a girlfriend. Her name's Kim
And she is the hottest thing to walk this earth since Edward Anthony Masen and his sexy sexy buns
Okay. This is getting ridiculous. Jared, there's lots of food in the cupboard. Go get it.
I'm Edward and I like boobies and wearing nailpolish
This is getting impossibly ridiculous.
I hope you write back, because I clearly need something constructive to do with my time.
Sincerely hoping you're not a stalker,
Edward Masen
I realised I was smiling. I also realised the room was empty other than Alice and I, and that Alice was reading her letter for what must have been the fifth time. She was a much faster reader than me.
I stood up and pulled Alice with me.
"C'mon," I said, towing her along behind me. "Alice!" I said sharply, because she wasn't paying any attention at all. She'd barely moved, despite being less than a third of my size.
She snapped out of her little trance and looked around. "Oh," she said, folding the letter again. "Where'd everyone go?"
"It's time to go home, so I guess that's where they are." I started walking out the door again and she followed me this time.
"How's your letter?" I asked her as we headed for the parking lot.
"It was pretty interesting. I got a girl named Leah. She's got a little brother called Seth."
"Why were you reading it so much?"
Alice sighed and dug her hand into the pocket with her letter in it, but didn't pull it out. She seemed to be holding onto it to make sure it was still there.
"I don't know; I just felt like I was missing something."
"Okay then." I stopped, because we were at my car. Alice took an extra two steps before she realised I wasn't there anymore. She stepped back with a sheepish expression on her face.
"How about you?" She hunched her shoulders against the drizzle of rain that was starting to fall around us.
"Oh, mine's a guy." Alice raised an eyebrow suggestively at me. I rolled my eyes and ignored her. "His friends kept scribbling on his letter."
"Name?"
"Edward." Saying his name felt strange, like it was tugging at the edges of a memory long forgotten.
"Masen?"
I looked at her like she was insane. "How do you know that?!"
She defended herself quickly, but not harshly. "Well, my Leah chick has a cousin called Edward Masen."
"Oh. Sorry." I smiled at her, remembering my letter and how Edward had mentioned a girl called Leah.
Alice jumped forward and hugged me before whispering in my ear, "Its okay. I know I can be weird sometimes."
I laughed as she skipped away. "That's why we're best friends!"
I know it's not that interesting yet... trust me, it gets better. Pleeeease review?
Love you all!
-Shaps