Chapter 23 - Learning Lessons
Over the next few days, our family members took turns spending one-on-one time teaching Bella different things according to their areas of expertise.
Emmett took it upon himself to teach her how to run, jump, roll, wrestle, and swim. She took to each of these things with a natural grace that was slightly surprising to those of us used to seeing her trip over her own shadow. In anticipation of future baseball games, he also taught her how to throw accurately and to catch or stop any object headed in her direction. He even had her hitting rocks with tree limbs, preparing her for his favorite sport.
Poor Emmett got rather frustrated as she quickly demonstrated natural abilities surpassing his own. The look of shock and disbelief on his face the first time she pinned him was priceless. She was stronger and faster than any of us, thanks to the human blood flooding her newborn body, and she learned at a rate even faster than a normal newborn.
Carlisle and I spent many enjoyable hours speculating, observing, researching, and discussing the hows and whys of the matter. My favorite theory was that residual human instincts and memories of physical limitations and expectations caused a great deal of conflict in the typical newborn. His or her rational mind had difficulty accepting the ability to move so quickly and wield such strength. The memories stored in the cells of the muscles, tendons, bones, and skin denied as impossible the things the vampire was experiencing, causing his or her mind to be at war with itself. This caused the new vampire to have to forget the old human limitations and relearn those same actions with the new supernatural capabilities.
After all, newborns needed to redefine the laws of physics as understood by the human world. There was no logical explanation, based upon current human research and understanding, for vampires to be able to move with such speed or produce such strength based upon their mass. Not to mention there wasn't enough energy in blood to support that kind of function. By human standards, blood was extremely low in nutritional value, with no known capability of providing the energy needed to even keep a creature of human size alive and well fed, much less providing enhanced abilities. Vampires shouldn't be able to jump so high, or have skin unable to be penetrated by diamonds, or sparkle in the sunlight. None of it was rational to the world humans studied, observed, theorized about, and believed they had defined.
This inability to reconcile their own behavior with their knowledge of the physical world was most likely the source of the majority of aggression, violence, mood swings, and confusion characterizing normal newborn vampires. Since Bella had none of these memories, no baseline understanding of physical limitations or expectations of what she should or should not be capable of doing, she accepted her vampire skills and talents, as easily as a human newborn would human capabilities. It simply came naturally. She saw nothing wrong with being able to jump over the river or jump over the house. She didn't know such things weren't normal, because in her eyes, being a vampire was normal.
We were all thankful she didn't seem susceptible to the same mood swings or violent tendencies of normal newborn vamps, as it made our lives much easier. It was hard enough to keep up with her naturally inquisitive and destructive nature, in keeping with her psychological age. She constantly surprised us with her perspective on our world and the things she had forgotten. We tended to forget that things we took for granted were things she had never experienced and had no clue about. She definitely kept us on our toes, growing and changing us all in the process of learning about our world.
Rose commandeered Bella's time and attention in several ways. She was the one in charge of brushing and styling Bella's hair, something she did at least every morning, and sometimes more than once a day. After the first day, Bella had begun to call her Mum, which was acceptable to Rose. In fact, she was even happier to have her own distinctive 'mother' name, rather than sharing the name 'Mama' with the other two women. We guys were happy, because it made it a lot easier to figure out to whom Bella was referring whenever she mention one of her moms. Esme was now Mommy, with Char being Momma, which was pleasing to them both.
In her own quest to help Bella build her knowledge, speech, and vocabulary, Rose decided to bring her into the garage and teach her about auto parts. It was quite shaky at first, with bets being laid about how long it would take for Rose to totally lose it, knowing how possessive and protective she was of her garage and tools. Luckily for Bella, Rose's feelings for her were of similar scope and magnitude, so everyone was fairly sure our baby girl would survive the encounter.
I must admit we all waited in den, hovering near the entrance to the garage for the first fifteen minutes, as Rose began giving Bella her tour.
Amidst cries of, "No, don't touch that! Put that down. Careful! Don't squeeze it! Oh, no! Gentle touches, Bella! Don't sniff that. Don't taste that. Get that out of your mouth! Our venom corrodes that kind of metal, Bella! You destroyed it! Give me that! No, yucky! Put that back. That doesn't go there!" amongst others, Bella seemed happy to putter around wreaking gentle havoc on Rose's sanctuary and peace of mind.
I could feel Rose starting to lose it, and set my mind to work developing a strategy to make them both happy, before she did or said anything she'd later regret. I walked out to join them in the garage and remembered something significant.
"Hey, Rose, didn't Edward leave his Volvo here when he left?" I asked.
I felt the initial confusion well up inside her, followed quickly by waves of understanding, relief, and happiness. "Thanks, Jasper, you're a lifesaver," she murmured, sending me a quick jolt of gratitude. I smirked in reply, giving Bella a hug and a soft kiss on the top of her head on my way back into the house.
"C'mon, Bella," Rose announced eagerly. "I've got the perfect car for you to practice taking apart and putting back together again."
By the time Bella was finished with it, there definitely weren't enough intact pieces to reassemble the engine, but Rose didn't seem all that worried about it. She and Bella had enjoyed themselves immensely, neither one getting worked up or bent out of shape with one another even once. Thus, the dual goal was achieved, both the strengthening of the bond between them and the building of Bella's knowledge, skill, and vocabulary.
Esme spent her private time with Bella teaching her the names and function of all the objects in the house and the parts of the house itself. They then moved to the yard, where Esme had her help in the garden, learning to identify different flowers, good bugs vs. harmful ones for the plants, how to tell the difference between a weed and a desirable plant, the different types of bushes and grass, how much to water the plants, and how deep to bury a seed. It was a good thing Bella was such a quick learner, as she also taught Bella how to fix all the things she accidentally broke, before she had learned how carefully she needed to move her body and how fragile most things were in comparison to her. It was so easy for Bella to hold something too tightly or unintentionally bump into something too hard while playing.
For Carlisle's part, he began teaching Bella the names and functions of her body parts. After identifying the obvious parts, like head, neck, arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, teeth, tongue, etc., he pulled out one of his simpler anatomy textbooks, designed to teach the subject to high school students. He began describing things in more detail, including the medical terminology where appropriate. She dutifully repeated the terms after him, her speech and vocabulary improving rapidly each day.
As the book he was using began discussing the function of the teeth, stomach, and intestines, he was forced to explain the difference between humans and vampires. "The front teeth are designed to perforate and tear, while the back teeth are designed for chewing," he read, pointing to the diagrams on the page.
"What is chewing?" Bella asked, confused.
"Ummm, to masticate," Carlisle defined. Seeing her continued confusion, he kept going. "To physically grind chunks into smaller pieces using one's teeth."
"Um, we don't chew our blood, Daddy," she informed him matter-of-factly. "It's not chunky. I do like to grind rocks into smaller pieces between my fingers though."
Carlisle chuckled. "You're right, sweetie, but this book is talking about humans. We're vampires, so we don't need to chew our food."
"Humans? What are humans?" she wondered.
We all suddenly realized we'd never mentioned the word human to her before, though we had often referred to ourselves as vampires. We knew this discussion could open up a whole new can of worms, depending on Bella's reaction. Thus, the attention of the entire household was focused on Carlisle's reply to that question, each one secretly thankful they weren't the ones unlucky enough to get this question.
I could feel Carlisle's nervousness as he quickly formulated an answer.
"Humans are people like us, who think, talk, have feelings, create things, and have families, like we do. However, they are slower and weaker than we are, are warm, have heartbeats, and are filled with blood, like the animals are. Even though the blood inside of humans smells and tastes good, we resist the temptation to drink from them, which would kill them, because they are people, and killing them would be committing murder. Humans, like vampires, have higher brain function than animals, can carry on conversations, build and live in houses, drive cars, use technology, play games, have jobs, and can be our friends, though we must never let them know we are vampires. Humans believe vampires are not real, and any vampire who tells humans the secret will be put to death by the Volturi."
I had told Bella about the Volturi her second day of life, just to be on the safe side, so I knew she understood Carlisle's warning.
Bella was quiet for a few minutes as she thought about everything he'd just told her, before finally replying, "Okay, Daddy. So what do vampire's back teeth do?"
He clearly wasn't expecting this response, so, caught off guard, he stumbled over her words, giving her a confused confession of, "I don't know, honey. Just decoration, I guess."
"Well, why even have them if they don't do anything?" Bella demanded. I heard muffled chuckles throughout the house as the audience attempted to hide their amusement. Bella had the tendency to come up with the most bizarre questions, yet her childlike logic made us question things our adult minds had simply come to accept with thoughtless complacency.
One of the funniest things about these types of questions was that they tended to trigger what the women lovingly referred to as 'Male Answer Syndrome' in all of us guys. For some reason, we all hated being stumped, and if we didn't know the answer, we would make one up and tell it to her so convincingly, she'd believe it was the absolute truth. I could sense Carlisle's discomfort and inner turmoil as his mind raced to come up with an answer for her.
"They are place holders. If they weren't there, the front teeth would move around in the gums and then wouldn't be very strong. This way, the front teeth have to stay where they belong and they can lean on the teeth next to them for extra strength if they need it," he told her, projecting confidence in her direction, though his underlying emotions told a different tale. He was feeling smug, amused, and mischievous, recognizing exactly what he was doing, but unwilling to stop or admit it. MAS strikes again.
"Oh, okay, Daddy," Bella replied, accepting his answer at face value. She was so trusting and gullible, but I knew that wouldn't last. Especially in a house with Peter and Emmett.
They continued on with the anatomy lesson, until they came to the section about the reproductive system. Carlisle tried to hastily skip past it, but Bella stopped him.
"What's this, Daddy?"
Carlisle cleared his throat, gulped, and stuttered. "I-it's . . . um . . . not something you need to worry about right now, sweetie. It's not the same for humans and vampires anyway. Why don't we just skip this part, and we can come back to it another time, when you're older?"
"But what's this thing, Daddy? I don't have anything like that. Is that just a human thing?"
Peter and Emmett were now in the backyard laughing hysterically, but unwilling to go out of hearing range, and the women were all giggling together in the kitchen, having caught on to Carlisle's issue. I had no idea why they women were in the kitchen, since none of us had any real use for it, but I'd noticed over the past several decades that even vampire women seemed to congregate in the kitchen when they got together. Maybe it was a habit left over from their human days.
Poor Carlisle was nearly beside himself with reluctance and anxiety, very unhappy with his current conversation. I had no doubt that if he were human, his face would be bright red, and he'd be sweating. "Actually, honey, that's a boy thing, and you don't have anything like it because you are a girl. Girls have other things that boys don't have. That's what makes somebody a boy or a girl, the differing parts of the body."
I heard him trying to turn the page, hoping to move on to another subject.
"So what does it do, Daddy? How come only boys have it? What do girls have? Why are they different?" Bella asked, her level of curiosity indicating she had no intention of letting this go without getting answers.
I felt Carlisle's sheepish resignation as he snapped the book closed and placed it on his desk. "Well, sweetie, those aren't questions that Daddy can answer for you. You really need to take that up with Mommy."
"Way to pass the buck, Carlisle," Peter shouted, laughing.
Charlotte shot of up the stairs to the study, giggling the whole way.
"Actually, Carlisle, I believe I'll take it from here," she offered, escorting Bella out of his office.
"Thank God!" Carlisle breathed out in a giant sigh of relief. This, of course, sent a fresh wave of laughter throughout the house and the yard, but not nearly as much as Bella's whispered question to Char.
"I thought Daddy was a doctor. Shouldn't he already know about these things?"