Bad Ideas of the Highest Order

Jazz:

Real estate.

The words, in all truth, made little sense to me. Real – estate. Those belongings which are, thank you Encarta Dictionary: Physically existing; all of a persons property or overall situation.

Somehow, when you put the two together, they encompassed everything from the White House to a back-lot trailer, and from a Gothic castle with Baroque undertones to a fleet of caravels somewhere off the Caribbean cost.

Alice assured me it was "an investment for the future", and in layman's terms, I could see what she meant, but how has being in the possession of five large ships ever been a good thing, except during the Explorations?

I didn't know, but the coot attempting to teach me history was doing a damn fine job of trying to explain.

It was snowing, outside. Emmett, to my right was staring out of the window, blatantly paying no attention whatsoever to the class, despite Mrs. Regent's continual none-too-subtle reminders that our S.A.T's were coming, only a few months from now, and we had just better pay attention while we still could. His eyes scan the world outside, and I understand the look on his face to be wistful. There is a world outside these window, a world I long to be a part of, with renewed anxiety … I have seen so little of this world, in the dark night of my mind, and yet still I wait, biding my time, sitting in a class full of children, their scents mixed with a winter tang in the air, almost irresistible …

But I am new. Reborn. Free! … thirsty.

I slip Emmett a note to distract myself, but he ignores it. I suddenly notice how tensed he is, coiled, as if ready to spring, his eyes fixed on the frail woman keeping her class of eighteen students and two vampires under control. I desperately try to read his intentions from his aura, and send calming waves over him, but Emmett merely swears.

'Bite me, Jasper,' he murmurs, far below the level a human can hear at. I don't have time to question him further.

The teacher turns her back to write something on the black-board in her white chalk, and Emmett pounces.

In an instant, the bottle cap is twisted off, the bottle is to his lips, and he manages three neat gulps off the vodka before she turns, and the bottle is demurely at his feet again.

He turns halfway to grin at me, over her rambling talk of the French Revolution.

I am shocked. Horrified.

Jealous.

I scribble another note.

Emmett,

Impatience much? Can't wait for the Cullen Residence to get boozed up? I can't drink here … I might flip out and whack someone. That chick sitting in front of you smells divine.

He reads it with a lazy flick of his eyes, before penning his own, the pen clenched in his fist, like an unruly tool he isn't sure how to work.

Jaz-zay,

Mwa ha ha. This is the only class where Rose isn't here to repri – re – (rent) smack me for drinking. Live a little.

Oh, wait a minute –

I forgot. ;)

Emmett. It's always a party with you around.

oOo

By lunchtime, I've relinquished all vows, and am … only a little drunk. Not so much that Bailey Whitmore, seven seats away, red-head, smells better than she should remotely smell. But drunk enough to feel that life is worth living. I love my people.

Edward is sitting beside me, smiling with a terrible forcedness.

Chin up, Ed. I want that man …

Singing Debbie Harry just makes his face pinch tighter, and he scoots away, slightly. He is on edge. Emmett is grinning, looking like a trailer for My Bloody Valentine before he pulls a chainsaw from his backpack and reduces the population of Forks High to a bloody pulp.

It's sick how thirsty that makes me feel …

We were play-acting, "fooling around" as they'd say. Hopefully, no one else would notice that the only possible way the Jasper Hale they knew would be acting like this was if he was drunk. Good thing none of the humans knew me that well.

Alice defuses the situation, makes us all look human with our little games of shaking hair over them. They don't know it's an epic battle between me and Emmett to see who can shimmy better, to aid the shimmy-shimmy can-can moshing contest we have planned for later.

We wait with Edward, though Emmett is twitching beside me in his eagerness for more alcohol. Thanks be to whoever invented this stuff.

'… ninety-three percent sure nothing bad will happen if he goes to class,' Alice says, and Edward orders us away imperiously. Yeah, so Edward can take the chance over killing some girl, but I have survived the shame and constant vigilance of my family for years, and still disappointed them, time and time again …

SHIT! I NEVER DID MY HOMEWORK FOR ADVANCED ENGLISH LITERATURE!

Alice grips my arm in the corridor.

'Jasper,' she says, and even with that steely tone, her words are music to me, 'don't even think about it.'

Sometimes it gets annoying to be married to a gal who can tell immediately when you're planning to massacre your advanced English literature class, in a moment of more-than-slight intoxication.

But it doesn't irritate me long. I smile at her, and she smiles back. I don't need to say anything, she knows exactly how I feel.

And that in itself makes me feel … happy.

xXx

Signing in as : Wraithlike

HA HA!! ME AGAIN!! Well, don't worry, 'cuz GUESS WHAT?? Iiiiiiit's the Cour ... "Carl"-miester up next, so YAY!!

Hope you likey, PLEASE REVIEW, because we need four more. And yes, thanks you, Carley, this is your resident dead-girl of the mighty Wig-Wood talking to you (don't worry, Carley's Mammy ... I didn't write in Irish this time! ;) )

So. Hope you likey. ONWARDS TO CHAPTER 12!! (holy crap, this is getting so long! Go us!)