Disclaimer: I don't own anything you notice, everything belongs to the wonderful Gemma Malley and Stephenie Meyer.
Edward proved to be a fast learner. He quickly learnt the layout of Grange Hall and when Bella tested him on the daily schedule she was impressed to find that he'd managed to learn it off by heart within a day.
She couldn't be sure whether he was concentrating in the boys-only training sessions, but in the sessions she shared with him, he was well behaved and polite. If it wasn't for his insistence on calling her Bella Swan, he'd be like any other surplus. He'd even sat through a science and nature class without saying anything, although afterwards, when he and Bella had been alone he had erupted.
"It's all lies. Lies!" he muttered, his eyes darting around to check that no one was listening.
"Anna, you have to believe me. This was not what Mother Nature wanted . . ."
Bella had shaken her head.
"You only think that because your parents wanted to have their cake and eat it" she said firmly "You shouldn't be angry with Mr. Banner –be angry with your parents. They're the ones who broke the Declaration. They're the ones who put you here."
He disagreed of course. He always did. In the corridors, in the central feeding, whenever they could speak without being overheard, he railed against Grange Hall, against the instructors, against everything as far as Bella could tell.
Mostly, she told him to be quiet and to show more respect for Mother Nature and the authorities, but sometimes her curiosity got the better of her and she found herself furtively asking questions about his life before Grange Hall, pretending as she did so that she wasn't really that interested.
The truth was that Edward was a window through which Bella could glimpse the world outside, and the temptation to look was quite overwhelming.
Edward lived in London, he told her, in a house in Bloomsbury, a place where famous writers used to live many years ago. That had interested Bella, who was still hiding in the female bathroom 2 as often as she could to scribble in her journal, relishing those moments in which she tried to make sense of her world and vented her frustrations.
The house where Edward had grown up had an underground apartment, which was where he spent most of his time when he was little. He'd been taught to read, write, and how to use a computer and to 'question things'. He had read books and newspapers and had been encouraged to 'form opinions'.
The very idea of being allowed to read stories that weren't at all to do with making you more useful seemed exciting to Bella, who had only ever been allowed to read approved text books on longevity drugs and housekeeping, along with long, ponderous works like Surplus Shame and The Surplus Burden on Nature: A Treatise, books which extolled the achievements of longevity and explained in long, detailed paragraphs the surplus problem and the enlightened humane approach, which enabled surpluses to work in order to cover their sin of existence.
Bella had read these books again and again, relishing the beautiful words and the cogent, well-structured arguments, which had convinced her, above and beyond anything Mrs. Denali had told her, that life was an imposition, that all she could do was to work hard in the hope that she might eventually be so valuable that her Sin of Existence might be forgiven.
Edward on the other hand, knew nothing of these books, but he made up for it with knowledge of the outside, of things that Bella had never dreamt of seeing or touching. Once a year, he told her he'd been smuggled out of the house for a trip to the country, where there was a piece of land so big he could run around without anyone seeing him or hearing him shout.
He would scream and yell as loudly as he could on those brief sojourns, knowing that for the rest of the year of his life was to be conducted in whispers and furtive movements.
Edward didn't talk much about his parents –not at all actually, but he said that the adults he knew were all part of an underground movement that had been set up to fight the authorities, to challenge the Declaration. When Bella's parents had got out of prison, they joined the Declaration too, and Edward had gone to live with them. He said that they were trying to find out more about the use of surpluses.
Bella didn't really believe him, and has very little interest in his hatred of the system or tales of her supposed parents. But she treasured the guilty pleasure of listening to him talk about his life on the outside, enjoyed the idea of running around a field, shouting and laughing. She thought that she would like that very much.
It was one such tale of the outside that Edward was whispering to Bella one evening, just over a month after his first arrival at Grange Hall. The two of them had finished clearing up central feeding after supper and were sitting at one of the tables drying cutlery.
As they picked up the old, stainless steel forks and knives, drying them methodically with old rags, he described sitting by an open fire in the country made up of illicitly collected driftwood, toasting marshmallows and playing something called a card game. And then he told her about Virginia Woolf, a writer who lived in Bloomsbury many, many years ago and had her first book published in 1915. She wrote all the time, Edward told her, but even writing couldn't make her happy and in the end she killed herself.
Bella listened in silence as she did her best to scrape the congealed fat from the knife she was holding –washing the cutlery in tepid water rarely achieved more than dislodging large pieces of food, and cleaning fluids weren't considered necessary or affordable by Mrs. Denali. If Virginia Woolf had been a Legal, what could have made her want to die, she wondered.
Virginia Woolf could probably have made as much noise as she wanted and wouldn't have had any guilt at all to carry with her. She frowned, and noticed that Edward was staring at her. She still found it disconcerting the way he looked right at people, unashamedly.
"What" she asked "You know that you shouldn't look at people like that. It's rude."
Edward grinned as if he didn't really care if it was rude or not, then his face turned serious.
"You really hate your parents?" he asked her softly.
Bella answered without thinking "Of course I hate them, it's all their fault."
"What is?"
Bella sighed. Sometimes Edward could be really dim.
"Me being here. Being responsible. Paying back Mother Nature for their sins. Whatever you say, the Declaration was introduced for a reason and my parents abused Mother Nature benevolence. They make me sick."
"And you seriously believe that they're wrong and the authorities are right?"
Bella nodded. "Of course I believe it," she said flatly "It's the truth. Even if you do know them, I don't care. They deserve to go back to prison and stay there for the rest of their lives. Now just shut up about it."
Edward looked at her and took her wrists firmly in his hands.
"Your parents love you," he said in a very low voice. "You're not a surplus to anything, you're Bella Swan, and you should never have been locked away here. Your Mrs. Denali is the person you should hate. She's the one who brainwashed you, the one who beat you and starved you, just like she tried to with me. Just like she'll do again when she realizes she hasn't won. We need to get out of here. We need to get back to London."
Bella stared at him, her mouth set crossly.
"Brainwash!" she said contemptuously. "That isn't even a word."
Edward smiled sarcastically. "Not a word they'd teach in Grange Hall, I suppose, but it is a word Bella. It means to indoctrinate. To make you think things that aren't true, to make you believe things that you don't deserve to live on the outside, that you're lucky to live in this prison."
Bella pulled away, her eyes stinging with tears. Usually she loved to learn new words, treating them as exciting possessions that she could employ as she chose –in her journal, in her conversation –relishing the newness and the beauty of each one. But there was nothing beautiful about the word 'brainwash'.
To clean the brain. To strip it bare.
"If anyone's brain needs washing, it's yours," she said angrily. "You don't know anything. You're full of lies, Edward."
"No," Edward said urgently, pressing her hand. "I'm not the one who's lying Bella. You and I can get out of here. Together. There's a whole world out there, Bella, a whole world for us to explore. And a home waiting for us in London."
He was looking at Bella intently, and she felt herself weaken, felt herself wanting to believe him even if just for a moment, but then she forced his hand away. She couldn't listen to him. Every paragraph in Surplus Shame refuted his arguments, explained in long detailed prose, exactly why he was wrong.
"I don't want to go to London. And anyway, you're talking rubbish," she said passionately. "My parents don't love me. If they loved me, they'd never have had me. And Mrs. Denali's the one who asked me to look after you so I don't know why you hate her so much. She only beats you for your own good, to make you realize the truth . . ."
She felt her voice quiver with emotion and tried to steel herself, wiping her eyes irritably.
'I wish Mrs. Denali had asked someone else to look after you," she said eventually, her voice soft and low. "I wish you would leave me alone."
Edward stared at her, his eyes flashing. "I don't think you mean that, Bella Swan, but if you really want me to, I'll leave you alone," he said bitterly. "You're wrong about your parents, though, and you're wrong about Grange Hall and Mrs. Denali. I'm going to get out of here somehow and you have to come with me. It's not safe here."
Bella looked at him with contempt.
"Of course it's safe here, safer than trying to escape to the outside when they'd only send the catchers after you and put you in a hard labour camp. Your problem is that you think you're better than other surpluses, think the rules don't apply to you. Well they do, and I'm sick of you talking about my parents and stuff. I don't want to hear anymore. And don't expect me to keep watching you either."
Edward shrugged, but his dark eyes belied his casual stance, staring deep into Bella's and making her shift uncomfortably.
"Fine, suit yourself," he said evenly, "Stay here and turn yourself into a good little house servant. Let Mrs. Denali and the rest of them tell you what to do, what to think –or rather, what not to think. See if I care.
I mean, I got caught just so that I could find you, so that I could bring you back to your parents, but don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll be very happy, Bella Swan."
"Don't call me that!" Bella cried, putting her hands to her ears. "And I didn't ask you to come . . ."
"No you didn't, you're right" Edward said slowly.
He looked away and folded his arms defensively. "You know, tracking you down to Grange Hall wasn't easy. And I knew that being here was going to be hard. But I never thought that you'd be difficult. I thought you'd be pleased I came,"
"I am please you came" Bella said quickly, surprising herself with her words. "But you're wrong about everything. You're better off here, really you are. Can't you be my friend and stay?"
Edward shook his head and Bella rolled her eyes in irritation.
"Look, I could get in trouble just talking to you about this, "she said. "The fact is that Mrs. Denali seems to quite like you now. You could be okay here, instead of having to spend your life in hiding."
"I can assure you that Mrs. Denali doesn't like me," Edward said sarcastically. "She doesn't like any of us. Anyone who can beat someone the way she beat me isn't capable of that emotion."
Bella looked down at the floor. She's suspected as much.
"You don't get beaten if you don't break the rules," she said quietly.
"You really have fallen for all her crap, haven't you?" Edward said with a sigh.
"You believe every single word that woman feeds you. Well I don't. Bella, we've got as much right to be on this planet as the Mrs. Denali's of this world do. More right. They're the ones who have outstayed their welcome by living forever and blaming us for it."
Edward's eyes were flashing and Bella looked at him with terror. What he'd just said was blasphemous. He'd be flogged if anyone heard him. She would too, just for listening.
"Look," he said with a sigh, "I'm getting out of here, and if you're not coming with me then that's your business. But I can't wait forever. You have to decide Bella Swan. You have to decide whether you're going to live a life of slavery or not."
Bella stared at Edward, then stood up, only to discover that her legs were shaking. How dare Edward tell her she was a slave?
Putting a hand on the table to steady herself, she took a deep breath and forced herself to look him directly in the eye.
"I've already decided," she hissed. "You're the one that believes crap, Edward. I'm a prefect. A Prefect! In six months I'm going to be a valuable asset. You can ruin your own life, but you're not ruining mine. Try and escape if you want, but I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want anything to do with you either."
And with that she turned and left, leaving Edward alone in the vast hall that was central feeding. She walked without thinking out of the door, across the covered courtyard that separated the feeding hall from the main building, then walked more quickly towards the stairs.
It was only when she got to floor 2 that she realized where she was going, and was soon running towards female bathroom 2.
Once there, having made sure it was empty and safely shut the door behind her, she finally allowed her tears to flow freely as she collapsed on the floor in a heap of sobs.
"I am not Bella Swan" she said to herself as she wept. "I am not Bella Swan. I am surplus Bella. I am. I know I am. Please let things get back to normal. Please let everything be okay again. . ."
Ta-da!
I did some of my snooping around to see what i could find out about the Breaking Dawn film...and found out that Summit entertainment are considering presenting the films in 3-D! I for one don't like the look of this...what do you guys think?
So what do you guys think? Leave a review after the beep . . . . . . .BEEP!