Disclaimer: I don't own the book; The Declaration and I don't own Twilight, they both belong to the wonderful Gemma Malley and Stephenie Meyer.

The declaration

11 January, 2140

My name is Bella.

My name is Bella and I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't exist.

But I do.

It's not my fault I'm here. I didn't ask to be born. But that doesn't make it any better that I was. They caught me early though, which bodes well. That's what Mrs. Denali says. She's that lady that runs Grange Hall.

We call her House Matron. Grange Hall is where I live.

Where people like me are brought up to be Useful- the 'best of a bad situation' Mrs. Denali says.

I don't have another name. Not like Mrs. Denali. Mrs. Denali's name is Carmen Denali. Some people call her Carmen, most people call her Mrs. Denali and we call her House Matron. Lately I've started to call her Mrs. Denali too, although not to her face -I'm not stupid and I don't have a death wish.

Legal people generally have two names, sometimes more.

Not me though. I'm just Bella. People like me don't need more than one name, Mrs. Denali says. One is quite enough, otherwise it is a waste.

Actually, she doesn't even like the name Bella - she told me she tried to change it when I first came here. But I was an obstinate child, she says, and I wouldn't answer to anything else so in the end she gave up.

I'm pleased – I like the name Bella, even though my parents gave me that name.

I hate my parents. They broke the Declaration and didn't care about anyone else but themselves. They're in prison now. I don't know where, none of us know anything about our parents anymore. Which is fine by me –I'd have nothing to say to them anyway.

None of the girls or boys here has more than one name. That's one of the things that makes us different Mrs. Denali says.

Not the most important thing, of course –having one name is really just a detail. But sometimes it doesn't feel like a detail, sometimes I long for a second name…even a horrible one; I wouldn't care what it was.

One time I even asked Mrs. Denali if I could be Bella Denali, to have her name after mine. But that made her really angry and she hit me hard across the head and took me off hot meals for a week.

Mrs. Cope, our sewing instructor, explained later that it had been an insult to suggest that someone like me could have Mrs. Denali's name.

As if she could be related to me.

Actually I do sort of have another name, but it's a pre-name, not an after-name. And everyone here has got the same one, so it doesn't really feel like a name. On the list that Mrs. Denali carries round with her, I'm down as;

Surplus Bella.

But really, it's more of a description than a name. We're all Surpluses at Grange Hall.

Surplus to requirements.

Surplus to capacity.

I'm very lucky to be here actually. I've got a chance to redeem my parent's sins, if I work hard enough and become employable.

Not everyone gets that kind of chance, Mrs. Denali says. In some countries surpluses are killed, put down like animals.

They'd never do that here, of course.

In England they have surpluses be useful to other people, so it isn't quite so bad we were born. Here they set up Grange Hall because of the staffing requirements of legal people, and that's why we have to work so hard –to show our gratitude.

But you can't have surplus halls all over the world for every surplus that's born. It's like straws on a camel's back, Mrs. Denali says.

Each and every surplus could be the final straw that breaks the camel's back. Probably being put down is the best thing for everyone –who would want to be the straw that broke the back of Mother Nature?

That's why I hate my parents. It's their fault I'm here. They didn't think about anyone except themselves.

I sometimes wonder about the children who are put down. I wonder how the authorities do it and whether it hurts. And I wonder what they do for maids and housekeepers in those countries. Or handymen.

My friend Jessica says that they do sometimes put children down here too. But I don't believe her. Mrs. Denali says that Jessica's imagination is far too active and that is going to be her downfall.

I don't know if her imagination is too active, but I do think she makes things up, like when she arrived and she swore to me that her parents hadn't signed the Declaration, that it was all a big mistake because her parents had Opted out Of Longevity. She insisted over and over again that they'd be coming to collect her once they'd sorted it all out.

They never did, of course.

There're five hundred of us at Grange Hall. I'm one of the eldest and I've been here the longest too.

I've lived here since I was two and a half – that's how old I was when they found me. I was being kept in an attic –can you believe that?

The neighbors heard me crying, apparently. They knew there weren't meant to be any children in the house and called the authorities. I owe those neighbors a great deal, Mrs. Denali says. Children have a way of knowing the truth, she says, and I was probably crying because I wanted to be found.

What else was I going to do –spend my life in an attic?

I can't remember anything about the attic or my parents. I used to, I think –but I'm not really sure. It could have been dreams I was remembering. Why would anyone break the Declaration and have a baby just to keep it in the attic? It's just plain stupid.

I can't remember much about arriving at Grange Hall either, but that's hardly surprising –I mean who remembers being two and a half? I remember feeling cold, remember screaming out for my parents until my throat was sore because back then I didn't realize how selfish and stupid they were. I also remember getting into trouble no matter what they did.

But that's all really.

I don't get into trouble anymore. I've learnt about responsibility, Mrs. Denali says, and I am set to be a valuable asset.

Valuable asset Bella. I like that more than surplus.

The reason I'm set to be a valuable asset is that I'm a fast learner. I can cook fifty dishes to top standard, and another forty to satisfactory. I'm not as good with fish as I am with meat.

But I'm a good seamstress and I'm going to make someone a very solid housekeeper according to my last appraisal. If my attention to detail improves, I'll get an even better report next time.

Which means in six months when I get to leave Grange Hall, I might go to one of the better houses. In six months it's my seventeenth birthday.

It'll be time to fend for myself then, Mrs. Denali says.

I'm lucky to have had such good training because 'I know my place', and people in the nicest houses like that.

I don't know how I feel about leaving Grange Hall. Excited, I think, but scared too. The furthest I've ever been is to a house in the village, where I did an internship for three weeks when the owner's housekeeper was ill.

Mrs. Tanner the cooking instructor walked me down there one Friday night and brought me back when it was over. Both times it was dark so I didn't see much of the village at all.

The house that I was working in was beautiful though. It was nothing like Grange Hall –the rooms were painted in bright warm colors, with thick carpet on the floor that you could kneel on without it killing your knees. It also had huge, big sofas that made you want to curl up on them and sleep forever.

It had a big garden that you could see out of all the windows, and it was filled with beautiful flowers. At the back of the garden was something called an allotment where Mrs. Weber grew vegetables sometimes, although they weren't growing when I worked there.

She said that flowers were an indulgence and frowned upon by the authorities. Now that food couldn't be flown around the world, everyone had to grow their own. She said that she thought that flowers were important too, but that the authorities didn't agree.

I think she's right –I think that flowers can be just as important as food, sometimes. I think it depends on what you're hungry for.

In the house, Mrs. Weber had her radiators on sometimes, so it was never cold. And she was the nicest, kindest woman –once when I was cleaning her bedroom she offered to let me try on some lipstick. I said no, because I thought she might tell Mrs. Denali, but I regretted it later. Mrs. Weber talked to me like I wasn't a surplus. She said it was nice to have a young face around the place again.

I loved working there –mainly because of Mrs. Weber being so nice, but also because I loved looking at the photos she had all over her walls of incredible looking places. In each photo, there was Mrs. Weber, smiling, holding a drink or standing in front of a beautiful building or monument. She said that the photos were mementos of each of her holidays.

She went on an international holiday three times a year at least, she told me. She said that she used to go by airplane but now energy tariff's meant that she had to go by boat or train instead, but she still went because you have to see the world, otherwise what's the point?

I wanted to ask 'the point of what?' but I didn't because you're not meant to ask questions, it's not polite. She said that she had been to a hundred and fifty different countries, some more than twice, and I tried to stop my mouth from dropping open because I didn't want her to know that I hadn't know there were that many countries in the world.

We don't learn about countries at Grange Hall.

Mrs. Weber has probably been to four hundred and fifty three countries now, because it was a whole year ago that I was at her house I wish I was still her housekeeper.

She didn't hit me even once.

It must have been amazing to travel to foreign countries. Mrs. Weber showed me a map of the world and showed me where England is. She told me about the deserts in the Middle East, about the mountains in India and about the sea. I think my favorite place would probably be the desert because apparently there are no people there at all.

It would be hard to b a surplus in the desert –even if you knew you were one really, there wouldn't be anyone else to remind you.

I'd probably never see the desert though. Mrs. Denali says it's all disappearing fast because they can build on it now. Desert is a luxury this world can't afford and, she says. And I should be worrying about the state of my ironing, not thinking of the places I'll never be able to go. I'm not sure she's exactly right about that, although I'd never say that to her.

Mrs. Weber said she had a housekeeper once who used to go with her travelling around the world, doing her packing and organizing the tickets and things like that. She had her for forty years, she told me, and she was very sad to see her go because her new housekeeper can't take the hot temperatures, so she has to leave her behind when she goes away.

If I could get a job with a lady that travels a lot, I don't think I'd mind the hot temperatures. The desert's the hottest place of all and I'm sure I'd love it there…

"Bella! Bella will you come here this minute!"

Bella looked up from the small journal Mrs. Weber had given her as a parting gift and quickly returned it, and her pen, to its hiding place.

"Yes, House Matron" she replied flustered, and rushed out of the female bathroom 2 and down the corridor, her face flushed. How long had Mrs. Denali been calling her? How had she not heard her call?

The truth was that she never realized how absorbing it could be to write. She'd had Mrs. Weber's journal for a year now. It was a small, fat book covered in a pale green suede and filled with thick, creamy pages that looked so beautiful she couldn't ever imagine ruining them by making a single mark on that lovely, crisp paper.

Every so often she'd taken it out to look at it. She would turn it over in her hands, guiltily enjoying the soft texture of the suede against her skin before secreting it away again.

But she'd never written in it –not until today that is. Today, for some sort of reason, she had taken it out, picked up a pen and without even thinking about it started to write. And once she started she found that she didn't want to stop. Thoughts and feelings that usually stayed hidden beneath the worries and exhaustion suddenly came up to the surface, gasping for air.

Which was all very well, but if it was discovered she would be beaten.

Number one, she wasn't allowed to accept gifts from anyone.

And number two, journals and writing were forbidden in Grange Hall. Surpluses were not there to read and write; they were not there to learn and work, Mrs. Denali told them regularly. She said that things would be much easier if they didn't have to teach us how to read and write in the first place, because reading and writing were a dangerous business; they were what made you think, and surpluses who thought too much were useless and difficult.

But people wanted maids and housekeepers who were literate, so Mrs. Denali didn't have a choice.

If she were truly valuable asset material, she would get rid of the journal completely. Bella knew that. Temptation was a test, Mrs. Denali often said.

She had already tried to get rid of it once now, a few weeks after accepting the gift Bella had tried to flush it down the toilet, but the smooth texture of the journal and the possessiveness she felt for it stopped her.

Bella had already failed twice then; first by accepting the gift and now b y writing in it. A true valuable asset wouldn't succumb to temptation like that…would they?

A valuable asset wouldn't break the rules.

But Bella, who never broke any rules, who believed that regulations existed to be followed to the letter, had finally found a temptation that she could not resist. Now that the journal bore her writing, she knew that the stakes had been raised, and yet she could not bear to lose it…whatever the cost.

She would simply have to ensure that it was never found, she resolved as she raced towards Mrs. Denali's office. If no one knew her guilt secret, then perhaps she could bury her feelings along with the journal and convince herself that she wasn't evil after all, that the little fragment of peace she had carved out for herself at Grange Hall was not really in jeopardy.

Before she turned the corner, Bella took a quick look at herself and smoothed down her overalls. Surpluses had to look neat and orderly at all times, and the last thing that Bella wanted was to irk Mrs. Denali unnecessarily.

She was a prefect now, which means that she got second helpings at supper when there was food left over, and an extra blanket that meant the difference between a good night's sleep and one spent shivering from the cold in the dark. No, the last thing she wanted was trouble.

Taking a deep breath and focusing so that she would appear to Mrs. Denali the usual calm and collected Bella, she turned the corner and knocked on the House Matron's open door.

Mrs. Denali's office was a cold room with a wooden floor, yellowing walls covered in dirty peeling paint and a harsh over head light that seemed to highlight all the cracks in the walls and the dust covering all the surfaces.

Even though she was nearly seventeen now Bella had been in that room enough times for a beating or some other punishment to feel an instinctive fear every time she crossed the threshold.

"Bella, there you are" Mrs. Denali said, her voice irritable. "Please don't keep me waiting like that in the future. I want you to prepare a bed for the new boy"

Bella nodded "Yes, House Matron" she replied deferentially "small?"

The incumbents at Grange Hall were classified as small, medium and pending.

Small was the usual entrant size –anything from babies to toddlers up to five years old.

You always knew when a new small had arrived because of the constant crying and screaming which could sometimes go on for days as they acclimated to their new surroundings –which was why the small dormitories were tucked away on the top floor where they wouldn't disturb anyone else.

That was the idea anyway; in reality, you could never from the crying completely. It pervaded everything both the new wailing of the new smalls and the memories the sounds invoked in everybody else; years of crying which hung in the air like a ghost with unfinished business.

Few ever truly forgot their first weeks and months in the new, harsh surroundings of Grange Hall; few enjoyed the memory of being wrenched from the desperate parents and transported in the dead of the night to their new, stark and regimented home.

Every time a new small arrived, the others did their best to close their eyes and block their ears to ignore the memories that inevitably found their way into consciousness.

No one felt sorry for them –if anything they felt resentment and anger. One more surplus makes things harder for the rest of us.

Middles were six year olds up to about eleven or twelve. Some of the new middles arrived from time to time, and they tended to be quiet and withdrawn rather than cry. Middles learnt faster how institutional life worked, they figured out that tears and tantrums were not tolerated and were not worth the beating.

But whilst they were easier to manage than the smalls, they brought their own set of problems. Because they arrived late, because they had to spend so long with their parents, they often had some bad ideas about things.

Some would make challenges, in Science and Nature classes; others, like Jessica, secretly held onto the belief that their parents would come for them. Middles could be really idiotic sometimes, refusing to accept that they were lucky to be at Grange Hall.

Bella herself was a pending. Pending employment. Pending was when the training really started and you were expected to learn everything you'd need for future employers.

Pending was also when they started testing you, starting up discussions on topics like Longevity drugs and parents and surpluses, just to see whether you knew your place or not, whether you were fit for the outside world.

Bella was far too clever for that trick. She wasn't going to be one of the stupid ones that jumped at the first chance to speak their mind and started to criticize the Declaration.

They got their two minutes of glory and then got shipped out to a detention centre. Hard labour was what Mrs. Denali called it.

Bella shuddered at the thought.

Anyway, she did know her place and didn't want to argue against science and nature and the authorities. She felt bad enough for existing without becoming a trouble maker to boot.

Mrs. Denali frowned

"No, not small. Make the bed up in the pending dormitory"

Bella's eyes opened wide and burned with curiosity which she could barely keep inside. No one had ever joined Grange Hall as a pending. It had to be a mistake. Unless he had been trained somewhere else, of course.

"Has…has he come from another surplus hall?" Bella asked before she could stop herself. Mrs. Denali didn't approve of asking questions unless they involved clarification of a specific task.

Mrs. Denali's eyes narrowed slightly.

"That is all surplus Bella" she said with a cursory nod "You'll have it ready in an hour" she stated.

Bella nodded silently and turned to leave; trying not to betray the intense curiosity she was feeling. A pending surplus would be at least thirteen.

Who was he?

Where had he been all this time?

And why was he coming here now?

Sooooo….

What do you guys think?

I think this chapter went pretty well, so I would love to know from your reviews how you feel about this story and whether it's worth me continuing.

Please let me know what you think, it helps inspire me more and write longer chapters :)

R & R

xoxo

-GreenEyes555