A/N: Just wanted to let you know that this story has been nominated for a "Shimmer Award" in the category of Best Comedy. (Thank you, Camilla10, for the nomination! Check out her three stories that were nominated, too!)

Six of the nine stories in the comedy category have over a thousand reviews, so it's not like I expect to win or anything, but it made me ridiculously happy just to see my name on the list. If you'd like to take a look, the nominations are at shimmerawards (dot) blogspot (dot) com (slash) p (slash) nominees (dot) html. YAY!

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Chap 18

Alice handed me her phone. "You should call Charlie."

"I have my own phone, you know."

"Are you sure? Check again," she smiled.

Puzzled, I reached into the front pocket of my jeans. "Ha! It's right here! The almighty Alice is WRONG! In your face, Miss I-Can-See-Everything-All-The-Time," I taunted.

"Why don't you dial it?" Alice said in a sing-song voice.

I flipped open the phone only to find the battery was completely dead.

I rolled my eyes at her as she stuck her tongue out at me. "You should keep your phone charged," she said. I begrudgingly took her phone and called Charlie.

"Alice?" he answered.

"No, Charlie, it's me. I'm just using Alice's phone."

"Where's your phone?" he asked, always the cop with the interrogation.

"I forgot to charge it, so Alice let me use hers."

"You know, Bells, a dead phone doesn't even make a good paperweight. What if there was an emergency?"

"Uhh!" I exclaimed with irritation. "There are three other phones in the car with me! Sheesh! Sometimes I think you and Alice are in league with each other to lecture me to death!"

Charlie chuckled. "I always knew I liked that girl… So, are you on your way home from Bellingham today?"

A spike of fear shot up my spine at the way he emphasized the town's name. "Y-yeah, we'll be home soon."

"Is there anything you want to tell me about your trip north?" he led.

"Just a second," I answered as I covered the phone with my hand. "Alice!" I hissed, motioning for her to come over to me. She was there before I could even register it. "What does Charlie know?"

"Oh, so now you're expecting information from Miss I-Can-See-Everything-All-The-Time, eh?" She casually glanced at her fingernails, pretending to examine them, giving me more time to panic.

"Alice, this is no time for games!" I huffed.

She held up one finger, nodding in agreement, and closed her eyes to better concentrate. Her eyelids began to flutter and she started to sway like she was going to pass out.

"What is it, Alice? What do you see?" I whispered anxiously.

"I see…" she paused dramatically, "I see… you apologizing profusely to get some information from me, but it's not going to work because you're a big meanie. So there!"

"Alice!" I whined. "I'm sorry! I was just kidding. Come on! Please?" We could hear my dad calling my name through the phone.

"Even though your little apology was lame, I guess I can share my infinite knowledge with you… this time. So, Charlie just might know that our IDs were run by the park ranger."

"How?"

"Officer Mitchell called him after he saw FRED," she spotted him across the room, narrowing her eyes at him, "in the backseat of the car. He called your dad to make sure you got home safely. And now you owe me!"

Thank you, I mouthed to her as I brought the phone back to my ear.

"Yeah, Charlie… I'm here. Actually, I do have something to tell you. Yesterday, we had a little picnic and went to this park Jasper recommended and Edward lost our park pass, so we got in just a little bit of trouble with the park ranger, but nothing bad happened." It all came out in one breath, and it was almost the truth, for which I congratulated myself.

"So, it was just you, Edward, Jasper and Alice?" he asked, still in officer-questioning-a-suspect mode.

"Yep, just us," I lied a little too easily. "Why?"

He parlayed his phone conversation with Officer Mitchell and I tried my best to laugh it off.

"Oh, dad, that's ridiculous. First, who would be in the car with us? We don't know anybody up there. And second, how would we get another person into the car right under his nose? That person had to come from somewhere, right?"

I could almost see him rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I suppose so. He just sounded awfully sure of himself. He said the lady in the booth didn't remember a group matching your description coming into the park, either…."

I swallowed hard. "I'm sure they see a lot of people…"

"Yeah, but they weren't busy, and you have to admit, those Cullens sort of stand out in a crowd. You'd think she would remember them, at least."

I could tell Charlie was choosing his words carefully. He knew any sort of implication that the Cullens would be viewed as freaks by most people would set me off, and frankly, he was right.

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Charlie," which was absolutely true. I had no idea what to tell him, but it didn't stop me from continuing to lie through my teeth. "As far as I know, there's only one way in and one way out of that park if you're in a car."

"Yeah, I guess that's true enough. I did ask if you might have come in some other way, but the officer told me there is only the one public entrance."

"Too bad they don't have security cameras, because then this whole subject could be put to rest," I told him.

"How do you know they don't have security cameras?" he asked, suddenly sounding alarmed.

"Dad! I'm a cop's daughter. You think I can't figure this out on my own? Obviously if they had cameras, they would just watch the footage, right? If they had it on film, they wouldn't be calling you to ask all this stuff!"

"Oh…" he chuckled nervously. "Yeah, you're right. Although I was pretty surprised to find out they don't have cameras, what with the potential for terrorist activity and all. And before you say it, no, I don't think you're harboring terrorists."

"Well that's a relief, at least. Yeah, dad, we're smuggling invisible terrorists out of Canada… Ooooohhh," I teased, although that's pretty much exactly what we had done. If he wanted to, Fred could be a lot more terrifying than anything the Middle East could throw at us.

"Are you making fun of your ol' dad?" he snickered.

"Maybe just a little…" I answered with a giggle.

"I'll tell ya, I was on board with the officer's story until he mentioned something about his truck having all these crazy electrical problems, even though their shop couldn't find one thing wrong with it," Charlie mused. "I started to wonder if he really was just seeing things that weren't there."

"We thought he seemed a little stressed at the time. Maybe he needs a vacation…" I offered.

"Yeah, you're probably right about that, although I'm not sure what a park ranger would need a vacation from..." Charlie scoffed. I could tell he didn't think patrolling a park counted as real law enforcement. "It's just, after that bizarre sickness thing in BC, I didn't like the idea of you being so close to it."

"Nothing happened where we were. The park was more peaceful than its name."

I was hoping to deflect the conversation away from the Riley Park incident in Vancouver, but had no such luck.

"Strange thing, that sudden sickness thing up there," Charlie continued. "They keep trying to enhance that one video, but the more they try to zoom in, the fuzzier it gets. Too bad that guy only had his cellphone and not a real camera…"

"Yeah, too bad…" I muttered, suddenly very glad we weren't having this conversation in person. I'm sure all the color had just drained out of my face. Charlie would have taken one look at me and known something was up.

"Well, Bells, I'll see you soon. You know, I don't ask much of you, especially since you're 18 now, but you know if you change plans, you're supposed to call me. When I found out that you had your ID checked at the Canadian border, well… it makes me think you're up to something."

"Dad," I said, trying to soften him up, "all we were 'up to' was a picnic in a nice park. We always planned to have a picnic. I just didn't know we were going so far north, that's all. I would have called if I'd thought it would be a problem. Believe it or not, I'm not making any kind of extra effort to see you age prematurely."

"Oh really?" he asked incredulously. "Phoenix? Italy? If that's not supposed to age me, I don't know what is."

"OK, fair enough," I admitted. "I'll amend that to say I'm not trying to do anything ELSE to age you, OK?"

He laughed. "Well, I suppose… Anyway, when do you think you'll be back?"

"Well, we're just leaving Port Angeles, so about half an hour?"

He sputtered. "Is Edward driving? You tell that boy he'd better slow down. Even on a sunny day, that drive takes at least 45 minutes. I know he has a fast car, but if he can make it here in half an hour, he's driving way too fast! He's got precious cargo on board… MY precious cargo."

"OK, Charlie, calm down. Remember? No premature aging?" I laughed

"Alright, alright, I'll try, but you tell that speed demon boyfriend of yours to slow it down or else."

I actually snorted. "OK, I will. Oh, hey, I have some leftover pizza we can have for dinner, OK?" I didn't mention it was enough to last us a week, not that I was planning to bring home all the leftovers. There would be no way to explain that.

"Sounds good. See you in…," he paused, "…44 minutes and not a minute before."

"Make it an hour. Edward is dropping off Alice and Jasper before taking me home."

"Make it an hour and five minutes, then," Charlie countered.

"OK, sounds good. Bye," I laughed as I hung up. I turned to frown at Alice. "That was a close call. Thanks a lot for all your help!"

"I didn't have to tell you anything, remember. Besides, you should be thanking me. You're a much better liar when it's off the cuff."

She winked and I rolled my eyes at her, signaling the end of our argument about nothing.

"Speed demon, huh?" Edward asked. "Well, he got the demon part right…"

"Oh, stop it," I chastised, "but he did get the 'speed' part right. If he saw you driving, he would develop wrinkles and gray hair on the spot!"

"You know I'm always in control of my car…"

"Yes, but Charlie doesn't know that, and honestly, even I'm not 100 percent convinced all the time. I still can't quite get used to breaking the sound barrier."

"That's because your truck can barely break the snail's pace barrier," he laughed.

"Are you trying to be funny?" I asked, feigning insult. "Emphasis on the word trying?"

"I thought I was, but suddenly I'm not so sure." He looked down, apparently attempting to appear timid, but his bright smile gave him away.

"You definitely are trying. As in trying my patience, trying my tolerance, trying my last nerve…" I teased as he pulled me close for a sweet kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him tight to me. "So, what are we going to do for the next hour?" I asked suggestively.

"I'm guessing you'd decline an offer of tiddlywinks or Yahtzee. We used to have Hungry Hungry Hippos until Emmett destroyed it."

"That hippo wasn't nearly hungry enough," Emmett protested from the living room. "I wanted a ravenous hippo. He wasn't meeting my marble-eating expectations and therefore had to be smashed."

Rosalie smacked the back of his head… again.

He rubbed the spot, whining, "Rosie! I told you to quit hitting me!"

"I told you to quit being a moron, but it hasn't stopped you. I had no choice but to resort to violence," she retorted, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.

"Women," he grumbled. "Can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em."

"Don't you mean 'without' them?" Fred asked.

"Yeah, well, I notice you don't have one, so that's easy for you to say," Emmett answered dismissively.

"That's true, but I wish I did," Fred sighed, mooning over Rose once again.

While Fred was absorbed with all things Rosalie, Emmett gave me the high-sign. It was our signal for the prank I had planned, but I shook my head to indicate this was not the right time. Emmett seemed to think it was, because he launched right into it. Once Emmett went off the deep end, there was no bringing him back, so Edward and I settled into the far sofa to watch the action.

"Are you saying you're a virgin? Do we have two, count 'em, TWO virgin vamps in our midst?" he teased Fred, managing to also get a jab in at Edward simultaneously.

"When I was human, I had plenty of women," Fred bragged. I suppose it could have even been true, but I wasn't about to ask any follow-up questions. "I haven't been a vamp very long, you know, and then there's the whole thing about them being doubled over in pain the closer they get to me. That seems to put a damper on the relationship…"

"What about Rosalie?" Emmett asked.

Fred looked taken aback. "What about her?"

"She doesn't get sick when she's around you."

"Sooooo….?"

"Well, I was just thinking if you wanted to see what it's like to be with a vampire woman…" Emmett trailed off, leaving the proposition hanging out there.

Fred gaped, glancing back and forth between him and Rose like he was watching an imaginary tennis match. Of course, he was waiting for her to knock Emmett flat on his ass at the mere suggestion, but much to his surprise, she just smiled bashfully at him.

"Well, Em," Rose purred, "If you don't mind… Fred is awfully sweet."

I wasn't sure who yelled "WHAT?" the loudest, Fred, Carlisle or Esme, but the latter two only had themselves to blame. They'd wanted to be excluded from the prank.

"Of course I don't mind, baby. I'll join you as soon as my game is over," Emmett cooed back.

"What?" Fred again exclaimed loudly. "Are you talking about a threesome?"

"No, of course not!" Emmett chortled heartily, like he'd never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. "Well, not exactly, anyway… I mean, the first time, Rosie just likes to watch, so it'll just be you and me, kid."

I was trying to look alarmed, but inside I was dying.

"Are you kidding?" Fred asked, shock clear in both his voice and face.

"Would I kid about something like this? This is what vampires do! Didn't Riley explain that to you?"

"No, he never said anything about it, but now that you mention it, some of the others did that stuff on the other side of the basement," Fred recalled. "I didn't know that was normal…"

"Oh, yeah, it's totally normal. Sometimes we have other women join us, sometimes men… or both… it just depends on what my Rosie wants. Sometimes she joins in, but she usually just likes to watch."

"Well, I guess that makes sense," Fred answered, still looking bewildered. "But there are so many of you in the house. Don't you have enough without involving me?"

"Yeah, but she's tired of everyone around here. She wants fresh blood, if ya' know what I mean." Emmett waggled his eyebrows at Fred. "Video games are great and all, but I think it's time you and I really got better acquainted."

Fred's eyes were the size of dinner plates. He looked stunned. "Emmett… I don't know what to say. This is like a dream come true! All this time, it's been you all along. I was only flirting with Rosalie to get closer to you! If I'd only known that you wanted this as much as I did…"

"What?" Emmett shouted, looking to the rest of the family for support.

"What are you waiting for? Let's go upstairs. We can play video games later. I have some other games for us to play right now."

"Wait… What's going on?" Emmett asked frantically as Fred approached him, arms wide to give him a huge hug.

"Bella!" Emmett hollered and whined at the same time, as Fred wrapped himself around Emmett, leaning in for a kiss. "Stop it, Fred! Get off me! Bella, what's going on? You said this would be funny!"

I couldn't hold it anymore. "It is!" I started laughing so hard, I almost fell over as Edward and I made our way to Fred. He let go of Emmett and held up his hand so I could lightly high-five him. He and Edward smacked hands much more forcefully.

"Well played, my good man," Edward managed to voice through his howling laughter.

Emmett looked bewildered as the rest of the family joined in the merriment. Carlisle and Esme were both grinning, suddenly understanding what had just happened.

"Isabella Marie Swan. Did you do the joke turnaround on me?" Emmett accused.

"You should have seen the look on your face," Rose was barely able to say.

"Rosie? You're in on it, too?" he accused.

"What's wrong, Emmett? It's just a…" she motioned to all of us on the count of three, "harmless little prank," we all yelled in unison.

Emmett sat down on the couch, still looking bewildered at being the butt of the joke. Edward squatted down in front of him, looking very sincere, and was very sincerely trying not to laugh. "I'm going to tell you what you always tell me, big little brother. 'Lighten up! If people didn't love you, they wouldn't play jokes on you!'"

"That's bullshit, Edward. I just tell you that to make you feel better!" he groused.

"Does it make YOU feel better?" Edward laughed.

Emmett looked just shy of murderous.

"Think about it, Em. If that joke was played on Edward or Jasper, you'd be rolling around the floor laughing your butt off and you know it!' I teased. "They'd never hear the end of it!"

"Yeah, well, here's the big difference. It's FUNNY when it happens to THEM!" he fussed before finally cracking a smile.

I regaled the family with the story of how I managed to pull a fast one over on Emmett and even he had to laugh.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sorry I wasn't in on this one," Esme giggled.

Carlisle nodded. "We should have known our little Bella wouldn't pull an Emmett-style prank."

"Yeah, well, just wait until you're a vampire, Miss Swan," Emmett jokingly threatened. "Then you'll be fair game."

"Don't forget – I'll be stronger than you for at least a year. And if I can out-maneuver you as a human, imagine what I'll be able to do with unlimited mind power!"

"You're gonna make one scary vampire," Jasper added. "All I know is that I intend to stay on your good side."

Everyone agreed that was probably a good idea, which made me laugh a lot. The thought of eight vampires being even mildly intimidated by a weak little human girl like me was beyond absurd, but I didn't mind it. In a way, it made me feel somewhat equal to them.

The hour had passed by quickly, but soon it was time for me to go home. We were all having so much fun that I didn't want to go, but Charlie would be watching the clock and I didn't need to give him any more reasons to be suspicious of me.

I said my goodbyes to everyone, hugging them all, except Fred. I assumed either he didn't want to be that close to my neck, or more likely, Edward didn't want him to be. He and I shook hands, however.

"Thanks again, Bella. If it hadn't been for your support… and I really don't deserve it…" Fred stumbled over his words. "I never was going to hurt you. I need you to know that, despite what I said."

I nodded. "I didn't think you were, but I have to admit, I wasn't sure. You actually scared the crap outta me toward the end of our little confrontation there."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I know you don't want to hear this again, but you really were brave, facing me down like that. If you'd started to cower or run or something, I'm not sure…" he trailed off. "We have hunter instincts, and when the prey is weak, well…"

"I understand. I guess it's a good thing you weren't my first vampire showdown…" I said. "You know, a year ago, I would've never had reason for those words to cross my lips," I added with a smile.

"I'm sure you're the only human alive who could cite multiple stand-offs with vampires," Fred snickered.

"Well, I've had some help," I peeked up at Edward as I wove my arms around his waist. He kissed my forehead softly.

"OK, OK… I can only take so much of this mushy stuff," Fred muttered.

As hard as it was, I broke away from Edward's beautiful smile and adoring eyes, saying one more goodbye to everyone before Edward drove me home.