I don't own "Twilight", but I do own Johnna Pierre, and Johnna's French friends. A picture of Johnna' bed and map of French regions is on my profile.
Thanks to my big sis, Caitlin, (Gotta Dance 88) for being my beta.
I don't know how addresses are done in France, so don't bug me if it's wrong.
Chapter 3: Bonding With Alice
Alice bounced up and down in her seat on one of the loveseats. "Can I please show Johnna her room now?" Carlisle's eyes moved from Alice's bouncing form to Johnna, who was still in front of the plasma TV. "What do you think ma petite chérie?"
A huge smile grew on Johnna's face and her bright blue eyes twinkled merrily as her smile reached them. "I zeenk zat eet would be a good idea. Zat way you can all get back to whatever eet es you do after a 'unt." Alice squealed with delight and grabbed one of Johnna's delicate looking wrists before dashing up the stairs to the third floor. Carlisle and Esme followed at a slower speed.
In no time at all, they arrived at the end of the third floor hallway and at the door to what was now Johnna's room. The left wall jutted out a ways, and Alice told Johnna that that was the bathroom that connected her bedroom to Edward's bedroom. Alice then opened the door and walked in. When she turned around, Johnna was still as a statue in the door way, with Esme and Carlisle behind her. Johnna stared in awe at the room ahead of her. Three of the walls were a soft lilac color with silver script flourishes all across them. The fourth wall was covered in floor to ceiling mirror panes. The floor was like one would expect to find in a ballet studio. Across the middle of the mirrored wall was a smooth ballet bar stretching from wall to wall. Below the bar on the middle mirror pane was an antique door knob and a fancy hook to hang things on next to it. The wall directly opposite the entrance was a huge window with a built-in seat lined with soft pillows. There was a beautiful view of the front lawn from the window. A black stereo with fancy white shelves above it was in the corner where the window wall met the mirrored wall. Next to the window was a small empty light blue bookshelf on the opposite side. It had three shelves and had no top.
Against the wall opposite the mirrors was a daybed with a shear white canopy surrounding it and the back of the bed was lined with pillows. It all had a floral theme. An antique bedside table graced the left side of the bed. There was another door on the entrance wall a little ways away from the entrance door. Alice pointed to this door. "That is the door to the bathroom and the antique knob opens out to your closet," She turned around to face Johnna. "So, what do you think?" Johnna's mouth opened a closed a couple times, but no words came out. Then Johnna's face broke out into the biggest eye-twinkling smile yet. She threw her tiny arms around Alice's neck. It was a good thing that Alice was a couple inches shorter than Johnna.
"Merci beaucoup!" she said this at least three times, but it was hard to tell as she was speaking so fast and in French. She repeated the gesture to Esme. "C'est si beau, Esme! Il ressemble à une pièce dans un de mes châteaux ou petites maisons en France." She repeated what she had said in her French accented English. "Eets so beautiful, Esme! Eets reminds of a room I would 'ave en my chateaux's or cottage en France!"
Esme smiled broadly at Johnna. "I'm so glad you like it, my dear."
"Like eet?" Johnna questioned, "I absolutely love eet! C'est magnifique!" She exclaimed and slipped back into her native language. Carlisle reappeared behind Esme holding Johnna's trunk with her purse on top of it. He chuckled at Johnna's slip into her native language. "May I please have my wife back, Johnna?" Johnna let go of Esme neck and landed lightly on the floor. Johnna curtsied to Carlisle. "Certainly mon cher ami."
Carlisle simply chuckled at Johnna's show. "Still a 1734 French woman." Johnna laughed and everyone stopped to listen to it. Her laugh had the usual musical tone that all vampires had, but it also had a mythical otherworldly sound as described in old books. It was so enchanting that people around couldn't help but stop and listen to it.
"Naturellement, mon cher Carlisle. At least, I've kept more of my 'uman self zan just my accent and nationality. Eets a pity, zat your British accent doesn't come out more. I love listening to eet." Once again Carlisle simply chuckled at her.
"You're not at all offended, Carlisle?" Alice asked incredulously as she took Johnna's trunk and purse from him. Johnna and Carlisle looked at each and started laughing.
"No, Alice. I'm not the least bit offended. Johnna and I used to bicker playfully all the time. Trading comments about whose native land was better, smarter and everything in between." Having said that, Carlisle wrapped his arm around Esme's waist and the two of them left.
Alice turned on Johnna. "Why? Why did the two of you bicker all the time, whether it is playfully or otherwise?" Johnna took her time answering. She flittered to pick up her purse, and proceeded to place herself on her new bed. She looked through her purse.
"Eet should be quite obvious, Alice. 'E's a British man from around 1640 and I'm a widowed French woman from 1734. Great Britain and France 'ated each ozer en ze 18th century." Johnna smirked. "Most of ze topics we bicker about were often stupid and silly."
Alice laughed. "Em and Jazz are like that with wrestling and betting." At the mention of wrestling Johnna's eyes widened and took on a mischievous glint that Alice was automatically afraid of. "Ze boys like to wrestle?" She squealed happily. Alice just nodded slowly. "Now you know how we feel when you do that to us." Edward said from his room.
"C'est magnifique! Zat es wonderful. We are going to 'ave so much fun, once I get used to being around zem." Johnna exclaimed happily, whilst bouncing up and down and clapping her hands. "Oh yeah!" Emmett boomed from the living room. Both Alice and Johnna giggled at Emmett's enthusiasm. Alice then took notice of the set of keys in Johnna's hand. There were a lot of keys on the ring, but one in particular caught Alice's attention. It was a usual looking key, but it was painted to look like the French flag. Alice just remembered that the lock on Johnna's trunk was also painted to look like the French flag. Johnna tapped Alice on the shoulder and handed her a long white canister.
"What's in here?" Alice asked. She noticed that the trunk was now opened. "Zat my dear Alice, es a map of ze regions of France." Alice took the map out and placed it on the wall, next to the one Johnna had just put up with sticky putty. "Out of curiosity, why sticky putty?"
"Because eet doesn't ruin ze paint job on ze walls." Johnna replied, kneeling in front of her trunk. Alice turned to look at the picture Johnna had put up. It was a bird's eye view of a town center. It had a clear blue sky and a golden sun shining down on the lively town. The map she herself had put up was indeed a map of the French regions, and each region's name was printed on it. Johnna having taken notice of Alice's interest walked over and pointed at the town center. "Zat es a bird's eye view of my 'ometown, my birth city, Château-Thierry. I 'ad a professional photographer take eet for me." A dreamy look entered Johnna's eye and Alice knew that Johnna deeply loved her hometown.
"Where's your hometown on the map?"
Johnna smiled and pointed at a small dusty rose region near the top. "My 'ometown es en ze region of Picardie." She pointed to another region, bright yellow this time, IIe-De-France, "Zees es where Paris es and down 'ere es ze region of Aquitaine." The last region Johnna pointed to was the same color as the region of Picardie.
"I love going to Paris!" Alice told her. Johnna laughed. "Zen you'll love ze contents of my trunk." Johnna said as she walked back to her trunk. She pulled out two fancy picture frames and lovingly placed them on the bedside table. Alice moved over to look at them as Johnna went back to her trunk. The first frame had Johnna on a sunny day in front of a wooden sign that read "Extraordinary Steeds", below that the address and below that a phone number. It was all printed in fancy white lettering. Johnna was wearing a simple, yet elegant cream colored sundress. Her skin was a healthy human color of light tan; her cheeks were rosy and she was wearing an eye-twinkling smile. Her light blonde hair was French braided and took on a light golden tint in the sunlight. As for accessories, Johnna was wearing white pearl stud earrings, a long freshwater pearl necklace and an ivory flower headband. She was also barefooted.
The next frame held three beautiful vampires in front of the same wooden sign as Johnna was. Alice noticed that this had been taken on a different day, as the sky in the background was very cloudy. There were two females with a male between them. All three were sporting huge grins and golden eyes. The first female on the left side of the male, looked like she was the oldest, in human years at least. She had long chocolate brown hair that flipped out at the bottom. She wore a striped blouse with a frill at the top and a wavy black skirt. She had a black velvet headband in her hair and black high heeled peep toe shoes on her feet. For her jewelry, she had black onyx stud earrings and a simple black onyx bracelet. The male was tall, leonine and yet muscular, like Jasper. He also had the same wavy blonde hair that went down to his ears, but his was more light blonde and less golden. His cheerful, yet mischievous smile and glint in his eyes reminded Alice very much like Emmett. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis with simple brown sandals on his feet. The other female looked to be the youngest both in human and vampire years. She had long shiny blonde hair, like Johnna, that went down her back. She had a very amiable friendly face. She wore a purple crochet lattice neck tank and a pair of jean shorts with a crocheted belt. On her feet she wore a pair of flip flops. She wore a dark purple Alexis butterfly charm bracelet on her wrist, and amethyst teardrop earrings. Alice figured that they were probably Johnna's French friends, Damia, Pierre, and Clémence Marie. Alice turned around just in time to see Johnna hang a tiny pair of pointe shoes on the hook below the ballet bar.
"Do you mind eef I put on music?" Johnna asked as she turned back to her trunk. Alice shook her head. Johnna pulled out a small iPod speaker out of her trunk, placed it on the lowest self above the stereo and took a golden iPod Nano out of her purse and plugged it in. She scrolled through her playlists until she found one she liked. Alice was amazed at Johnna's eclectic taste in music: classical, gospel & religious, Broadway musicals, movie soundtracks, old rock n' roll as well as popular modern music.
For a while Alice helped Johnna put away her clothes while listen to music. There were designer brands, vintage clothing, and custom done clothes by a Madame Jolie. They talked about their favorite designers, designers that they'd met personally and what they liked most about Paris. Alice loved the fashion, while Johnna preferred the sight-seeing aspect. Alice was really starting to like Johnna. They had just finished putting Johnna's shoes, most of which were ballet flats, into her closet and had started putting books on the bookshelf, when Alice causally commented "You read, like to shop, listen to all sorts of music, apparently like to wrestle and you have a dark blue Bugatti Veyron. You'll fit in perfectly with our family!" Johnna just smiled her eye-twinkling smile.
"Fireflies" by Owl City began to play and everyone, including Carlisle, was surprised when Johnna began to sing-a-long. If they had thought her regular speaking voice was beautiful, then her singing voice was even more so. It had a very slight French lilt and had an enchanting otherworldly sound to it.
"It appears that the old diaries and books about the captivating sounds of a fairy singing actually were correct in their description." Carlisle mused to no one in particular from his study.
Meanwhile in Johnna's room, Johnna had begun to dance while singing to the song that had just started. She mostly did mostly ballet moves, but there were a few modern moves mixed. Alice knelt by the trunk watching in awe as Johnna danced. She was afraid that Johnna would stop if she moved the tiniest muscle. Too soon though, Johnna stopped and came to kneel beside Alice.
"Wow," Alice said slowly, "That was beautiful! You really are a prima ballerina extraordinaire."
"Merci beaucoup, Alice. Merci. Being a vampire does 'elp." Johnna said ducking her head a bit.
The last thing Johnna took out of her trunk, before Alice closed it, was an antique jewelry box. She placed it under her bedside table and joined Alice in reclining on her new bed.
Translations:
"Merci beaucoup!" = "Thank you so very much."
"C'est magnifique!" = "It's beautiful."
"Naturellement, mon cher Carlisle." = "Of course my dear Carlisle" is the actual translation, but in this case it just means "Naturally" instead of "of course."
There you go chapter 3!
I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. I really love writing this story, so please tell me what you think of it. What are your likes and dislikes?
Next chapter – First Day, should be done by the end of the week.