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63. School Again

BPOV

It seemed strange to head off to school, and 'normal' life, come Monday. After almost being eaten by sadistic vampires and playing baseball with werewolves, school seemed too tame. Where was the excitement, the adrenaline rush? I was starting to realize how bored my family must be, spending hours on end amongst clueless humans, listening to teachers drone on and on about things they already knew, and trying not to bite the petty teenagers around them who were concerned more about acne and alcohol and who was doing what with whom than anything important or meaningful. Frankly, I was amazed they had lasted this long without snapping. I was personally considering biting a few of them myself, but didn't want to get my mouth dirty.

Alice gave me a strange look. "Care to tell me why I see you suddenly going on a rampage and biting certain students who get on everybody's nerves?" she whispered.

Edward had seen her vision and was grinning in amusement. I laughed. "I can't believe you guys have been here for over two years and some of these kids are still alive and in one piece. You have better restraint than I do."

"That doesn't bode particularly well for your newborn year, Bella," Edward teased. He knew as well as I did that I wouldn't have a problem with bloodlust.

"Thanks," I grumbled, rolling my eyes and whacking him with my pencil. I didn't want to hurt my hand. He whimpered and cradled his hand, pouting at me. I froze for a second, believing I may have actually hurt him, but then detected the twinkle in his eyes. So he wanted to tease, did he? Well two can play that game.

"Aww, poor baby. Would you like me to kiss it better?" I purred seductively, reaching out for his hand. His eyes darkened with passion as he laid his hand gently in mine and nodded. I held his hand up to my mouth, placing kisses on his flesh and teasing him with my tongue. He swallowed hard and started shifting in his seat. I grinned. "All better now."

He glared playfully at me as I gave him his hand back. "Yes, but now I'm aching elsewhere."

My lips twitched, and I replied as seriously as I could manage. "Maybe you should use an icepack to help reduce the swelling."

Alice giggled, clapping her hand over her mouth so she wouldn't draw attention to herself, but it was too late. The teacher heard and frowned at her.

"Is there a problem, Miss Cullen?"

Alice put on her 'innocent' face. "Yes, Mrs. Butler, my brother has a, uh, little problem and needs to get an icepack from the nurse."

"Do you need to go to the nurse now, Edward?" Mrs. Butler inquired, her expression softening as her eyes lit on Edward's face. If looks could kill, Alice would be a pile of ash from the look he gave her. He said something I couldn't hear, but I knew him well enough by now to know he was threatening her.

"No thank you, Mrs. Butler. I'm feeling much better now, thank you," Edward politely declined. The teacher nodded and went back to her boring lecture and glassy eyed students.

At the lunch table, Alice announced, "School picture day is this Thursday!" She waggled her eyebrows meaningfully at Rose and me. I felt my conscience perk up and take notice. My guts twisted and guilt crept up within me. I sighed heavily.

"Look, guys, I don't think we should actually play those pranks."

"What?" Rose shrieked indignantly. "Where's your backbone, girl?"

"Huh. I didn't see that coming," Alice mused in confusion.

"Remember what Carlisle said last night at the victory party?" I reminded them. The all rolled their eyes and nodded.

Jacob, Quil, and Embry were getting a little out of hand with their celebration following the feast. They were becoming more and more derogatory in their comments about James and Victoria, laughing and mocking them. Finally, Carlisle stood up and sternly put a stop to it.

"Enough! It is not right to rejoice over the death and suffering of others, even your enemies. Do you remember how the Palestinians danced and celebrated in the streets following the tragedy at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01? Thousands of lives lost, people we would deem innocent, but the Palestinians considered them all enemies. How did it feel to see the video of them publicly rejoicing at the tragic loss of life? It is fine to rejoice that our family is safe, secure, happy, and uninjured. It is acceptable to be proud of our prowess in battle, at successfully protecting our loved ones. It is okay to be relieved that the threat is gone, that they will never bother us again. It is not right to laugh at their pain and suffering, no matter how much you believe they deserved it. Instead, we mourn the fact that they chose an evil way of life and can now never know the peace of choosing to live their lives in good and helpful ways. They will never walk the path of righteousness. They will never have the love and loyalty of family and friends. It would have been far better if they had surrendered like Laurent and chosen a different way of life. So we mourn for the loss of the people they could have been had they made better choices."

We all solemnly bowed our heads for a moment of silence in acknowledgement of the passing of two sentient beings who could have and should have chosen to be productive instead of destructive. Many in our Forks family participated more out of respect for Carlisle himself than in agreement with his beliefs, but either way, it made Carlisle happy and content, which made everybody else happy and content as well. After the moment of silence, the festivities began again with laughter and fun, talking and playing, peace and love all around.

"Well, instead of getting upset with those girls, we should really pity them," I explained. "After all, we got the best guys ever, who truly love and adore us. They don't have a snowball's chance in hell of stealing our guys away, so we can afford to be the better women in this situation. It must be distressing for them that they can't get a guy of their own to love them the way our guys love us. That's why they deserve our pity. They don't even have guys of their own who like them, much less love them. How pathetic is it that they couldn't even find single guys to ask out? They must have been pretty darn desperate to ask guys who wouldn't even give them the time of day, ones who would clearly be rejecting them."

"So we just let them get off scot-free for trying to steal our men?" Rose demanded hotly.

I smirked. "I never said that. I do think we should let them know publicly how much pity we feel for them and their inability to attract men of their own."

Rose and Alice both wore evil smirks, beginning to catch my drift.

"I also think we deserve a bit of entertainment as a stress reliever after all we've been through recently," I added. They nodded, eyebrows raised, trying to guess my intentions by reading my expressions. "I think we should make the decision one at a time to pull each prank, so Alice can have a vision of it, and then she can use her incredible art skills to draw us some pictures of the pertinent facial expressions of our intended victims, just for laughs."

Alice and Rose exchanged glances and shrugged. "Fair enough," Alice agreed. "We can do it at our house after school. I'll use my good colored pencils so I can get the skin tones and hair colors just right." We snickered, remembering our pranks.

"After seeing the pictures, we won't be able to help laughing every time we see their faces. It'll drive them absolutely crazy!" Rose stated confidently.

"Now that the pranks are settled, Bella, we have also decided to go to L.A. to shop for prom dresses."

"Why can't we just go to Seattle?" I wondered.

Alice grimaced. "Silly girl! We always go to Seattle. Prom dresses are special! We need to shopping on Rodeo Drive. Beverly Hills, here we come!"

I winced at the thought of how much money this little trip was going to cost us. I had no desire to spend two days being dragged around stores where a single item cost more than my entire life savings. Yet, Alice was absolutely determined, which meant it couldn't be avoided. It would be cool to see the sights, do the whole touristy thing, if I could get Alice out of the shops long enough. Hmmm. Perhaps a compromise is in order.

"Okay, Alice, I'll make a deal with you," I decided.

"Tell me more," She commanded suspiciously.

"I'll come and let you buy me a whole ensemble for prom, but in exchange, for every hour we spend shopping, we spend an hour sight-seeing," I suggested.

"But that's only 12 hours of shopping a day!" she whined.

I snorted. "I still have to sleep, Alice."

Her eyes widened. "Only eight hours a day to shop!" she groaned loudly, as if she were in physical pain."

"And I still have to eat," I reminded her.

She glared at me. "You can eat while shopping," she commanded, daring me to deny it.

I laughed. "Fine, Alice. I'll eat while shopping and sight-seeing too."

She sighed deeply. "You drive a hard bargain, missy."

"Alice, there's more to life than spending money!" I complained.

She gave me her patented 'innocent' look. "There is? Are you sure?"

Rose giggled. "Yeah, there's naked time alone with your husband too."

Alice's eyebrows rose, and she tapped her chin. "True, true. So there are two things in life. If only I could figure out how to spend money while having naked time alone with my husband, my world would be complete!"

Rose leaned over and whispered something in her ear. I watched Alice's eyes light up, and she grinned excitedly. "Rose, you're a genius!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, going into a vision. After the vision she was even more excited, which I hadn't been sure was even possible until I saw it in action.

"Guys, I'm feeling a little under the weather and I think it may be contagious," she murmured. She met Jasper's eyes down the table, where he and the others were working on their own hit list. I saw Jasper's eyes turn black as his eyes locked with hers, and he quickly stood, faking a cough.

"I'm feeling a mite sick," he declared, pretending to cough again. "I think I'd better be going home early."

"I think I've got the same bug, Jazzy," Alice purred, standing as well. They headed out of the cafeteria arm in arm.

"Somebody got bit by the love bug!" Emmett laughed, watching them walk away. He turned to Rose. "I'm feeling a bit love sick myself, babe. How about you?"

Rose giggled and pretended to cough discreetly into her hand. Emmett's eyes lit up. "I've heard this bug is quite contagious," he leered playfully. "We'd better quarantine ourselves before it runs rampant."

"Looks like you two are on your own for the rest of the day," Rose snickered, as she and Emmett turned to leave together. "See you later."

Edward and I chuckled.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Emmett warned, waving goodbye.

"Is there anything you wouldn't do?" I asked in good-natured disbelief.

Emmett paused midstride to look back at us thoughtfully. Then he shook his head. "Nope! In that case, don't do anything that would make Esme or Carlisle mad."

"Rats!" I quipped. "There goes my plans for the afternoon."

Emmett's laughter boomed around the room, before he turned it into giant hacking coughs.

"Don't quit your day job," I whispered, commenting on his acting skills. He actually started to choke a bit as his hacking laughs broke through. Rose pounded him on the back enthusiastically, but not hard enough to sound like thunder, as she dragged him out the door.

Edward and I enjoyed a chuckle together at their antics. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his head on top of mine. We enjoyed a few minutes of peace and quiet, well as quiet as we could get in a school cafeteria, before our next class began.

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Hey yall! IM BACK! Sorry for shortness... I'll be uploading again soon..

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