Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ Two Sides of The Coin ❯ Oh the Horror!! Hag Bag Aunt Victoria Has Arrived!! ( Chapter 10 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Moonlight Angel 
Non Anime: Twilight Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 02.07.2009 | Pages: 5 | Words: 10.6K | Visits: 142 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Twilight Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 02.07.2009 | Pages: 5 | Words: 10.6K | Visits: 142 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: I do own or create any of the characters, expect for Cassie and Brooke and their father. The rest is done and created by Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. She owns them, not I. I am only burrowing them for my own twisted tales.
Summary: Cassandra and Brooke Sparrow are two sisters with psychic abilities, forced out of their warm California home to live in the dreary town of Fork, Washington, so their father can look for inspiration in the serene mountainside scenery. There they discover appearances can be deceiving when it comes to this boring rainy town. Especially when their closest neighbors just happen to be vampires and they actually go to their school, not to mention the nearby reservation is occupied with werewolves. Their lives are about to spiral into weirdsville and the sisters are going to love every minute of it.
Chapter Ten
Oh The Horror!!
Hag Bag Aunt Victoria Has Arrived!
(Brooke’s POV)
The gym was divided into four individual courts by giant web like volleyball nets. The bright fluorescent lights above glared across the polished wooden floors below. Everyone took their positions out on the court, having already been split into four separate teams. I was on team One and unfortunately so was fang-faced zombie boy, more commonly called Jasper Hale. His pixie girlfriend on was Team Three in the court diagonal from ours. He and Alice were giving me the cold shoulder today in gym. They’ve been on strict no talking policy with me or my sister since last Tuesday when their dipshit of a brother, that pompous blow heart, Edward, decided to sneak around our supposedly slumber household late at night. Luckily, Dad sensed him and sent the poor excuse of vampire flying to hell and back. If you asked me, the dumb ass deserved it. Running around in the black of night sticking his nose where it didn’t below, it was his own damn fault for getting himself caught and repelled by forces beyond his undead understanding.
The whistle blew. The servers on each court poised themselves, ready. The seconds seemed to past by slowly until the first boom crackled in the air as the volleyball number one was served, vaulting through the air. Another super sonic boom ripped through the air, signaling that a gymnasium war officially begun. Volleyballs hurdled down from all sides. Screams and shouts of excitement bounced off the towering walls as students plunged for the in-coming balls, spiking the ones they that were within arms reach. It was like a full out war erupted in the tiny gymnasium. Balls flying everywhere. Colliding bodies. Fierce cries of victory pulsing the air every time one of the teams scored on another. I remained in the back line where all the slackers in gym stood, hoping for gym class to be over soon. I let my fellow idiots up in the front have all the fun and receive most of the collateral damage. I wasn’t into reeking havoc today. Staying up until four o’clock in the morning really takes a lot out of a person. Bluish purplish bruises the size of the grand cannon hung underneath my exhausted brown eyes.
“Huh.” A volleyball dribbled its way to my feet, bumped my black and purple sneaker lightly, catching my attention. I titled my head to stare at the stupid thing, begging to be kicked straight into the back of a skull of some douche bag near by. I frowned, annoyed, and bent down, picking it up. Well, I haven’t caused any chaos so far today, so one little mishap wouldn’t hurt.
A wicked smirk flashed across my tired face as I heaved the ball into the air. Slamming my fists into it, the ball became airborne. The sonic boom following the sound of my fists impacting with the hard fabric of the volleyball, echoed through the gym as it was returned to the opposite side of the quart, nailing an snobby blonde haired cheerleader right in the kisser. Oo, that had to hurt! The startled prep fall backwards from sheer shock, landing hard on her scrawny ass. A bewildered cry busted from her painted pink lips upon impact. Deaths rays of pure loathing radiated out from her teammates, all glaring in my direction.
I tossed back my head, cackling. I gave the opposing team the bird. “Go eat shit, mother fuckers!” I called out, simpering away like there was no tomorrow.
My fellow teammates groaned simultaneously, everyone shooting me disapproving glares. I didn’t care. I turned my head to see what the gym teachers were going to do about my juvenile delinquent behavior. I hoped that because I purposely hit one of the preps they would excuse me out of class early and down to the principal office for causing trouble in class. Not that Forks high school principal wanted to see my sorry ass face again anyway. I’ve already paid a visit to Mr. Greene’s office quite a few times already within my first three weeks of starting school here in Forks. He and I didn’t exactly get along per say. He told me, he would give me I.S.S. next time he sees me march into his office again.
Nothing happened. Mrs. Hummel and Mr. Sheer were too far busy talking to each other to notice or hear their dim witted students complaining and whining. So much for my plan of an early dismissal from gym. I stretched my arms high above my heads, cracking my knuckles and shoulders blades, loosening my muscles. Guess I’ll have to try harder.
I was too busy immersed in my own devious planning to notice the dirty glares I was getting from everyone in class. It was something I was used to by now, so I didn‘t pay them much heed unless I really wanted to raise some hell. Being the most avoided student on campus didn’t come with perks, not that I minded. I like being left alone. Brooding, I also missed the part where four students from the other three opposing teams congregated themselves at the end of their respective courts, quietly whispering to each other. The meeting quickly broke off, the students nodding in agreement and took their places, unknown to me. At precisely the same second they launched their deadly weapons (the volleyballs) into the air, deep rumbling echoes filling the productive atmosphere as the five balls set a course for their intended target. Meanly me!
And of course, I had been totally oblivious to my moron peers’ plotting and scheming the entire time lost in my own thoughts until I felt the first volleyball whizzed past my head, missing it just by an inch. My eyes grew wide in horror, watching the other malicious balls coming my way. I managed to dodge two more balls, smacking the third away, sending the sucker flying off into another direction. The laughter of sweet revenge radiated from my so-called teammates. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the fourth one behind it as it plowed into my face like a huge black circle momentarily eclipsing the brightly lit lights along the ceiling. My head whirled from shock and pain as my body slammed into the patiently waiting floor below with an inaudible thud.
My vision blacked out for several minutes as my hands instinctively rose to my nose. It hurt like hell. My entire nose, inside and out burned. I’ve never been blasted that hard in the head before. Never mind. Forget I said that.
The distance sound of fast approaching shoes echoed in my hollow ears as the high pitch whistle of Mrs. Hummel could be heard, calling the game to a halt. I didn’t really pay attention though. I was mostly focus on the pain emitting from my abused nose. I heard Mr. Sheer shouting at some one, but I couldn’t tell who. He sounded far away.
“Sparrow?! Sparrow! Are you still with us?” Mrs. Hummel demanded, lightly shaking my shoulder, trying to get my preoccupied attention.
I groaned. “What the hell was that?” I grumbled incoherently, lying on my back, my head spinning. My vision blurred before it became clear. I blinked a few times to stop the world from spinning. Apathetic faces hovered over me, staring, whirling around in my vision. Fuck, I really was hit hard! “Ouch.”
“Oh god, you’re bleeding!” Mrs. Hummel exclaimed, her eyes widening in shock.
I didn’t understand what she was blubbering about. Bleeding? “Huh? What?” I sounded like I was drugged.
The gym teacher stood and began shouting at the other students, herding them away. “Alright, enough with the crowding. Show’s over. Everyone back, give the girl some room to breathe!” she snapped, aversion hanging heavily in her voice. “Shame on you morons for singling out one of your own peers. You should be grateful I have my hands tied right now or else I would hold you all in detention! Now ten laps around the gym for all of you!”
A chorus of moans followed as students frowned in distaste at the fact now they would have to run around the tiny gym ten times for their stupid petty actions. Indignation reflected in their eyes as Mr. Sheer told them to get their sorry asses in gear and do as they were told. Some started whining at how unfair and unusually cruel the punishment was. I ignored the appalled and disdainful looks I got, sitting up, holding onto my sore head with one hand and touching the tip of my burning, throbbing nose with another. Flinching, I pulled my fingertips away to find crimson smeared all over them. I blinked twice. I really was bleeding. Those mother fucking jack asses intentionally gave me a bloody nose! And with a damn volleyball no less!
“Are you alright, Sparrow?” Mrs. Hummel asked kneeling down beside me, concerning and irritation shining brightly in her black brown eyes.
I nodded, aware how dizzy the action made me feel. Damn. “Yeah, I’ll live.”
Mrs. Hummel shook her head in disgrace. “Stupid kids and their petty grudges,” she grumbled, spitting the lost few words bitterly. It looked like she too had been a victim of being the social outcast during her days in high school. “If you seen one petty squabble you’ve them all. Kids these days are so vicious.”
Her demeanor softened as she took my free arm and helped me slowly rise to my feet. “Can you stand?”
I wobbled for a moment, but easily caught my balance. It would take a lot more than some stupid volleyball to the head to keep the infamous emo sister, Brooke Sparrow, down!
“Yeah. Thanks,” I muttered, feeling fresh blood dribbling down the front of my face and over my chin. No doubt my gym uniform would have an unsightly deep red-brown stain after this.
“Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse,” Mrs. Hummel offered, gently guiding me toward the girls’ locker room.
“Nyah, it’s okay,” I stated, following. I didn’t need help. Beside my head hurting and a bloody nose, I was perfectly capable of finding my own way to the nurses’ offices. “I can find where the nurses’ office is myself. Thanks for the offer, but seriously, I’ll be okay. I’ve had worst.”
Mrs. Hummel shook her head, bemused. “Still, it’s probably be better that I walk you there myself, so I don’t get a call later saying they found a student of mine passed out from blood lost, or cutting class for the rest of the day.”
I grimaced. Great. Mrs. Hummel felt obliged to show me to the nurses’ office. Just what I need; a teacher escort. I was about to protest, but thought against it, well knowing Mrs. Hummel was a hard ass if I ever met one. What she said in gym class goes. If anyone ever dared as raise a finger against her instruction, she would have them running the track outside in the pouring rain for ten laps straight. No break. No walking. No nothing!
“Fine,” I sighed, grudgingly allowing her to pull me through the girls’ locker-room and out onto the opened-aired campus. The rain had stopped last night around midnight, so according to the not so faithful weather man, we were supposed to be in for overcastted skies for the next two days. Not that I minded. Hell, it was better than it always constantly raining.
Mrs. Hummel silently walked behind me as she showed me the way to the main office building. I kept my eyes to the front of me, my gaze drifting over the lush green campus and mildew stained buildings. It really was amazing how green Washington could really be. The clouded skies above extended out forever, disappearing into the gigantic trees lying just behind the small campus and it’s wandering streets.
“You know, Sparrow. You may think you’re alone and the whole world is against you, but that doesn’t mean you should shut everyone out,” Mrs. Hummel spoke up, catching me off guard.
“Huh?” I turned to stare at the strange gym teacher, confused. Just what the hell was Mrs. Hard Ass getting at?
Mrs. Hummel smiled empathy. Her eyes strayed ahead of us. “I use to be a kid like you,” she continued as if it should now make more sense me to now, musing. “I was just as rebellious and anti-social as you were. I was one of the major troublemakers at my old school. I did a lot of things that weren‘t considered politically correct.”
I snorted in disbelief. “Uh, no offense, Mrs. Hummel, but you shouldn’t go around sympathizing with students you know nothing about,” I pointed out, a little irritated. I felt the blood beginning to ebb and dry underneath the paper towel I currently was holding underneath my bleeding nose. What a mess I was going to have to clean once we arrived in the nurses’ office.
Mrs. Hummel only shook her head, smiling. She absently placed a hand on my head, rustling my hair. “Maybe. Maybe not, Sparrow,” she mused, smirking. Her eyes saddened. “But I know that look in a student’s eye when I see it. You’ve been through a lot and it’s lefts a grave scar on your heart.”
Shock pulsed through my body, stopping me in mid-step. I looked at Mrs. Hummel, just plain awestruck. I was left speechless. What did she mean when she said that? How could she possibly understand what it was like to be betrayed by some one you thought loved you with every ounce of their being? To see your world come apart at the seems within a blind of eye? No, she couldn’t possibly understand the pain I and my family went through when it happened! There was no fucking way.
She continued to muse my hair, quietly brooding. A dead look crossed her black eyes before it was replaced with a sober grin. “Don’t think you’re alone in this world, kid. Plenty of people come from broken homes, even if they don’t want to admit,” she said. “Tragedy. Suffering. Abuse. It’s common in this world. Sad as it is. Nobody thought twice about it.
“The truth is, kid, we all bare marks of tragedy in some shape or form. It could be a fellow student. A boy or girl next door. A stranger walking down the street or sitting in the window of a café. Pain and Sorrow. It’s all around us. Most people are just oblivious to other people’s pain because they want to be,” she murmured, while we walked together toward the main building. Now the woman really had my undivided attention.
“And let me guess. You were one of the children who suffered a great deal, right?” I inquired, skeptical.
Mrs. Hummel only glanced at me for a second. “Yes. I was one of those abused children, who came from a broken poverty stricken home. My father was deathly alcoholic and my mother was a vanity stricken meth addictic. I grew up being neglected and so I lashed out during my youth over and over again. I couldn’t stand the world. I hated the people around me. My fellow classmates. My teachers. My neighbors. My own parents. I did things that I knew deep down were wrong. I tormented and taunted the kids at school. Got into fights constantly.”
She paused in her reminiscing and stared at me, empathetic. “When I look at you, Brooke. It reminds me so much of myself when I was your age. So full of angry and frustration,” she explained. “I thought the world didn’t understand. Nobody understood the pain I was going through. Going home was always my worst fear of the day. I got into detention constantly, to prolong the evident beatings I was going to receive once I stepped through those doors.”
“But you kept on going back.”
“Yeah. I had nowhere else to go. No where to run to. Now that I look back at my actions and everything I did. I realize the only reason I did everything I did; it was only to receive attention. It was to get people to notice me. I felt invisible because nobody seemed to care of how much I suffered all those years of abuse. I had no adult mentor to turn to. No friends to confine in. Now that I look back at it all. I truly was an empty shell of a person.”
I lifted my eyes to skies above, absorbing everything Mrs. Hummel was telling me. I knew she was hoping that her past experience would give me new inspiration to become a better person, so I would somehow take something from her previous life and use it in pursuing my own dreams.
“Hmm… Yeah, I guess you’re right that does sound like a pretty empty life,” I stated, thinking over everything carefully. I smirked. “I think I understand what you’re trying to get at.”
She blinked, puzzled and then smirked back, watching the gleam in my eye. “Oh really and what would that be?”
“You’re hoping to install some form of hope and admiration in me, so I may some day learn how the wonderful and opportunistic the world truly is,” I said, making quotation marks around the words “wonderful and opportunistic.” I could have just broken down in hysterics right there and then. “Because you saw something in one of your students that reminded you of yourself when you were young and spry and rebelling against a hypocritical society, and you wanted to lend some advice to them so they could improve their miserable lives, right?” I smirked, crookedly underneath the paper towel shoved up my nose. “Thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate the advice, teach, I really do, but my case isn’t so simple. There’s a lot of things in my life that ordinary people, poverty stricken or not, never have encounter before.”
Mrs. Hummel‘s eyes widened slightly in response, startled. And then for some reason, she started chuckling, shaking her head in disbelief, and didn’t say anything else. Instead she opened the door to the main office.
Wow, I didn’t think it took us that long to reach the main office, but whatever. Heat blasted against our exposed faces as we stepped through the glass doors. Mrs. Patterson, the frizzy haired secretary, looked up from what she was doing. Her round brown eyes widen at the sight of me with a blood stained t-shirt and a paper towel half way stuffed up my nose.
“Oh my, what’s happened to you?” she inquired, quite surprised to see me in the main office again. She raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Did you get into another fight again, Miss Sparrow?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Some wise ass idiots in my gym class decided to bombard me with volleyballs,” I said bluntly pointing to my battle wound.
Patty sighed, shaking her head. “Why am I not surprised,” she murmured underneath her breath.
“Is Lattice in?” Mrs. Hummel asked, coming up to the counter, while the other woman rounded the cubical.
“Well, she had to run out and grab some papers from the fax machine, but she should be back in a five minutes,” Mrs. Patterson or Pat, whichever you wanted to refer to the old hag as, reported, nonchalantly, not seeing any emergency since it was just me after all. Hey, it wasn’t my fault my unwanted visits were a natural reoccurrence at the main office! Blame the retards that attend school here!
“Why don’t you take Miss Brooke Sparrow into the nurse’s office and I’ll warn-er I mean- let Lattice know she’s here,” Pat suggested, unsteadily, shooting me a solemn “ and don’t you dare make trouble while you’re here,” look before ushering me into the antiseptic smelling rectangular long room at the other end of the small building.
I turned to glare angrily at the old bat as she disappeared around the corner, leaving me and Mrs. Hummel for the old haggard skeleton known as Lattice Harrison, Fork High’s only trained practitioner. The smell of antiseptics lingered in the stale eerie silent atmosphere. I stared around the dimly lit room, at the dirty white cabinets lining the right wall, the semi out of date health postures with those cheesy sayings on them and out of date medical research, and outdated tacky rusted orange cots. The nurses’ office reminded me more of a dungeon or prison than a facility to bandage and aid ill students.
All you need a ragged skeleton hanging by one of the walls and this placed be set for holding war prisoners, I thought grimacing, walking over to seat myself on the bumpy cots. I lightly bounced on the hard surface, curiously. “What do they stuff these things with? Dead bodies of students they couldn‘t save?”
Mrs. Hummel ignored my morbid humor. “I can trust you to stay put while waiting for the nurse right?” she inquired, eyeing me as I looked around the dreary room.
I cocked an eyebrow at my gym teacher. “It’s just a bloody nose. I think I should be fine,” I replied in earnest and glanced around the rooms. “Why? How many students went insane by just being in here?”
The corners of Mrs. Hummel’s lips tugged in an effort to suppress a smirk. “Ha-ha. You certainly are a funny kid,” she stated and then straightened up to leave. She turned to me before exiting out the door. “Just don’t touch anything and stay out of trouble. I can trust you with that much, can’t I?”
“Sure,” I said absently. I had nothing better to do anyway. “Just hand me a straight-jacket and I’ll be fine.”
The gym teacher just laughed and closed the door, leaving me to my own devices, which wasn’t much considering there was no one to pester with my ultimately insane temperamental personality. I wondered how long the old bag of bones was going to take before I could get my nose fixed up. I glanced around the room, idly. I could probably take a nape if I wanted to, but there was a slight chance I would accidentally cover the stingy cot in blood because of my damn bloody nose. Arrogant little bastards. Why did they have to go and pelt me with their freaking balls of stupidity anyway? It’s not like I bruised up that girl. One freaking ball to the head. Big freaking whoop-de-du! It’s not like I decided to blow up the entire school?!
“Stupid douche bags,” I grumbled, to myself holding the paper towel against my sore nose. The bleeding had come to a halt, drying and cracking while it set against my pale stained face. “Chst, they really wailed me one. Ouch. I didn’t think those morons had it in them to do something that gutsy, but then again, everybody has their breaking points. Guess they finally got sick of putting up with my crap and decided to try and turn the tables. Humph. I guess I can let them off this time. There’s always time for payback later. Hmm….”
“And that’s precisely the kind of attitude that has landed you at the top of the students’ Must Avoid At All Costs Charter,” remarked a cool collected voice. It came off to the side of me.
I craned my head in the direction it originated from. An involuntary groaned forced its way into my mouth, but I pressed my lips together, suppressing it. I eyed the pasty white form on the cot next to mine. I shot the arrogant moron a scowl. “Hello Cullen.”
At first Edward didn’t reply. He remained where he sat on the very edge of the cot across from me, his butterscotch colored eyes narrowed in frustration, a look of concentration plastered onto his serious face. He was hunched over, his elbows propped up on his knees, his hands folded in from his lowered face. His eyes probed my annoyed glare, futilely. Just what was his problem anyway? What was he hoping to find in my brown depths? Who knows…
I torn my gaze away from him, shifting sitting positions so I could sit Indian style on the bumpy piece of shit I currently found my rump on. I shot him a sharp look, demanding my own questions to be answered. I felt the ghost of a cocky smirk crawling across my lips.
“And what are you in for?” Might as well mess with his scrawny ass a bit. Hell, I had nothing better to do. “Chopping off your balls in shop?” An evil smirk fully found its way onto my suddenly twisted face, a nefarious gleam shining in the black pupil’s of my eyes. “Oh wait, that’s right, you don’t have any.”
Edward straightened immediately. That same old expression of disgrace filtered into his angelic features, full force. His eyes darkening at the crude remark. An acute sigh escaped past his taunt lips. “Could you any be more incorrigible?”
I played dumb, pretending to broods over the answer like I was some stupid blonde. “Hmmm. Depends,” I held my middle finger in check, “how would you define incorrigible as?”
He scowled even more. If that was possible! He looked like a grumpy old man, about to lecture the living hell out of a rambunctious wise cracking hooligan. The hooligan being me of course. “Incorrigible means obnoxious, unruly, and incapable of being controlled. It’s fairly simple. I would think some one of your mental capacity could at least grasp the basic principle of such a simple adjective, if used in a sentence properly.”
I made a face. Oh, ouch. Did I detect a hint of sarcasm there? Talk about cutting my super sized ego in half, I didn’t even know Eddie boy could use sarcasm. He was always so prim and proper. Somebody must be psming. I wonder how long it took him to analyze and calculate that sour comeback.
I shrugged my shoulders, lightly. “That would be me then.” I bowed dramatically, ignoring the rush of blood flooding into my already dizzy head. “Miss Incorrigible at your service.”
Edward scowled at my wise crack, not appreciating my sense of humor. His facial expression far from amused, bordering on the edge of hard core agitation. A low exasperated sigh escaped past his slightly parted lips again. It was pretty damn funny watching the poor undead prick struggle to comprehend my supposedly twisted mysterious ambitions. Yeah, like I really had any in the first place. Loser.
“You are tough person to read, Brooke Sparrow,” he stated bleakly, obviously not thrilled with the fact himself, his eyebrows furrowed in distress. “I can never guess what you’re going to do or say next.”
I grinned arrogantly. “Maybe that’s because I don’t want you to have any idea of I’m about to do next. Ever think of that, Cullen?”
One of his eyebrows lifted inquiringly. I couldn’t tell if it was instinctive or if he truly was anxious to know what was going on that in havoc reeking warped mind of mine.
I snorted, slightly craning my head to the side to glare at the grim stock pile of medicine cabinets across the room. “Maybe I don’t like things being average or normal. Maybe I like things being out of control and unpredictable. I really don’t see anything in wrong in being unprecedented. It’s not like I’ve completely up rooted some long time established tradition in you morons’ lives.”
His gaze darkened. “I think I can beg to differ on the issue.”
I glanced at him, shifting so I was fully facing the pasty faced freak again. “Oh only? How may I ask I have disturbed your petty life, Eddie Boy? Besides cutting down that high ass ego of yours.”
He didn’t response, his gaze drifting to the only entrance into the dingy little room. The door opened as if on cue and a skeleton of an old haggard looking lady came hobbling in. Forks High official and only nurse on the entire campus, Lattice Harrison or Mrs. Skeletor as Cassie and I like to refer to her as. Her beady watery eyes scanned the room from her sunken wrinkled face, slightly widening as they landed on Edward’s fair frame leaning toward me, not realizing her arrival had interrupted a very intense and weird conversation. And not the kind usual normal high school students would have or participate in, since their undeveloped pea brains didn’t have the intellect needed or wit to understand what the two of us were talking about.
“I was warned Brooke Sparrow was in the infirmary, but Pat didn’t say anything about you being in here as well, Edward Cullen,” the little old hag remarked eyeing both of us suspiciously. “Something wrong?”
I caught the suggestive gleam in her beady dull eyes. Ugh, we didn’t do anything! Get your fucking mind out of the gutter, old lady! I screamed inside my head, glaring daggers in her direction, furious.
Hey, at least I didn’t say it out loud like I wanted to this time-I was getting better-, but if Mrs. Skeletor thought that arrogant high strung haughty bastard and I were doing something dark and dirty in her stinky insanity infested room, she can kiss my ass since there is no way hell I would ever go down on Mr. Pompous Masochistic Egotist! The very thought made me want to vomit all over place, preferable on the Volvo owning jack ass next to me.
He held up a hand before the skeletally thin nurse could presume anything else. “Actually no. I was just stopping by,” He threw me a quick glance, his features torn between the halfway mark of a grimace and a smirk, “and seeing how Brooke was doing. I saw Mrs. Hummel walking her to the Main office and saw that something was amiss, so being concerned as I was, I decided to check see what was wrong.”
Nurse Harrison blinked, puzzled beyond belief. She eyed the undead freak like he grew an extra head. Edward Cullen checking in on a hellion like me?! Oh my god, the world’s ending! “Oh… That was… nice of you.”
“Yeah right,” I coughed underneath my breath, ready to call his bluff. Lair. Lair. Mother Fucking Pants on Fire! “Ass Kisser.”
Luckily, Mrs. Harrison didn’t catch the last part of my silent retort. She made her way over to take a look at my now dried bloody nose. Edward, on the other hand, was a different story. His eyes widen slightly insulted, but he didn’t say anything, turning on his heel, inhumanly graceful in his movements, and waltzed out the door, leaving the nurse to do her job. I fought back a relieved smile. Good riddance.
The rest of the morning went by fairly quickly. I found myself with another detention slip, extending my already preordained punishment at school until the week after Spring break. Friggin great. Not that I really gave a damn if the principal, Mr. Greene, thought I was the worst student to ever attend Forks High in the history of their small dreary school, or that I also fried the entire main frame on his computer when he wasn’t looking. Who knew the stupid son of a bitch could swear like sailor caught with his pants down. I nearly failed at cracking up out loud right there in his office as he urgently rang up his clerk to back up the entire system and call the janitor while she was at. It was freaking priceless! A pure Kodak moment, watching the old man scramble around his office, completely dismissing me in frustration, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with his computer and just why the fax machine started pumping out blank papers as soon as it crashed.
I found myself still on the verge of hysterics during the English class, two hours later, while my group and I practice for our little performance on Wednesday. Lucky us, we got another day to prepare before we completely humiliated ourselves in front of the entire class! And I had to sit threw another two class periods dealing with the Paris Hilton clones and Miss Doom-And-Gloom. Fortunately for me the three fagiteers didn’t remember a thing from Saturday. They simply thought they came over and practice our little skit, which was repeatedly interrupted since Lauren and I kept on getting into a squabble over something, until our brains melted and oozed out of our ears. My father did a good job at erasing and altering their memories so their blissfully ignorant little lives wouldn’t corrode away from meeting an apparition who was hell bent on their own demise.
I straightened in my seat, while Lauren and Jessica were eagerly listening to Bella’s plans for the skit, my eyes zeroing on Bella’s busy form. She was pointing out supposedly key-factures in making the project a huge success. What I didn’t get was why James had declared his revenge on the frail pasty girl. She was completely harmless and helpless. What could she have done to piss him off so much? I didn’t get it. Did Miss Basket Case secretly have something do with his death?
That would make senses after all. Ghosts didn’t haunt people unless they had some close unknown or known connection with the person involved. I chewed on the inside of my mouth, deliberating. Well, Bella seemed fine right now and she wasn’t doing anything suspicious. I focused on her electric waves reading them. They were relaxed and depressed as usual. No change there. I could pick up how a person was coping with certain situations by just feeling the natural electric magnetic field surrounding their body. Seeing no problems, I leaned back in my seat at ease.
Besides, I had bigger fish to tussle with today. Mainly, the arrival of my haughty eccentric Aunt Victoria. We were supposed to be driving up to the airport in Port Angeles to pick her up after my three o’clock detention. I could already tell that the next four days would be nothing but a living nightmare. If there was one thing dear old Auntie V was good at, it was tormenting the living hell out of my sister, my father, and me. My throat felt like I just swallowed a four pronged hook. I involuntarily gagged, not caring if my teammates were staring at me, freak out at my sudden out burst.
“What’s wrong with Sparrow?” I heard Jessica inquired, leaning away from my visible hacking, whispering in Lauren’s ear. Yeah, like I couldn’t hear her. “She looks like she’s about to keel over.”
Lauren snorted, haughtily. “Probably just choking on her own salvia, knowing her.”
Bella frowned stiffly. “Girls, could we, please, focus here. I want our presentations on Wednesday to go smoothly.” She shot me a weary glare. “That’s means you too, Brooke.”
I shot her a dirty look, ignoring the nausea setting in. I gave the dike the bird. “Bite me, bitch.”
Bella sputtered, color flushing her face in horror at my use of vulgarity and the fact I had the nerve to flip her off. Chst, like I gave a hoot if she was the Chief of Police’s daughter. They could both go burn in hell for all I cared. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured out of my wits on how to do cooperate with my fellow idiots peers. Neither was I ready to listen to what was going to happen to my participation grade in the next thirty minutes when Mr. Hard Ass Muller found out I happened to be contributing less than my share of the work.
By the time detention ended, I was ready to burst out of that silent confined white room they called detention hall, guns blazing. I threw on my jacket and pack back, got the retarded slip signed by today’s detention advisor and headed for the door. Stepping outside, I heard the distinct rumble of thunder in the darken skies over head. It hadn’t been raining all day for a change. Instead Mother Nature chose to hold off till the end of the school to let all hells loose onto the tiny verdant town of Forks, Washington. Humph, figures the clouds decided to wait to piss all over the world until I was standing out in the open, hurrying toward the barren parking lot where our rented Honda waited. The first splatters of raindrops on the soggy sidewalks soon turned into an out right down pour, drenching the entire open aired campus.
Dad honked the horn once I was in sight, letting me know he and Cassie were rearing to go. I rolled my eyes, climbing into the backseat of the warm and dry car, soaking wet. I hadn’t been fast enough. My hair hung limp against my forehead, sticking to the sides of my flushed cheeks. There was no doubt in my mind that my mascara was smeared around the edges of my eyes and dripping down my cheeks like tiny waterfalls. My clothes clung to my body heavy with water as icy chills seep down through my flesh into the very bowls of my bones. I shivered, taking off my coat and heaving it aside.
“Hand me a napkin,” I grumbled, signaling for my sister up in the front seat to open the glove apartment and search for something I could wipe my drenched face with.
“So how was detention, Brooke?” Dad inquired peering through the rearview mirror at my shivering form in the backseat. He threw the car into drive once he was sure the coast was clear and drove out of the tiny parking lot.
“Here you go,” Cassie said, passing me a handful of napkins from the front seat, sending me one of her sympathetic looks.
“Shitty,” I replied to Dad’s question, taking the napkins and beginning to dry my mascara stained face. “Thanks Cass.”
My sister nodded before turning around in her seat to stare out the window once more as our father sped off toward the highway out of the dreary town. Hopefully he knew where he was going. Getting lost in the middle of Bum Fucked Egypt was not my idea of fun, especially since our father literally had no sense of direction. He could be lost in a bag paper and spend hours, if not days, looking for a way out!
Dread unfolded itself in the pit of my stomach. I pushed it down, exhausted. I had a long day and I didn’t feel like worrying over something so trivial. I peered over the shoulder of the passenger seat to find Cassie holding a map, sprawled out in front of her. Good, that meant we wouldn’t get lost with no hope of returning.
“Man, this sucks,” I complained glaring past the front seats into the down pour, my eyes following the quick movement of the windshield wipers. “Dad, are you sure we can’t just stuff old hag bag Aunt V into a crate and ship her back to New Orleans with the rest of the hacks.”
“Brooke,” Dad groaned, obviously not pleased with my sense of humor concerning Aunt Victoria’s untimely arrival. He squinted to see past the flood splashing against the window, the front lights on low, so he could see the road ahead. “Honestly. I know Aunt Victoria isn’t exactly what you girls would call your favorite relative, but she is my sister and I would greatly appreciate it if you girls be polite when we meet up with her at the airport. She’s traveled a long way and more than likely she’s probably sleep deprive and cranky. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear she lecture my ear off.”
“We could always buy your ear plugs, Dad,” Cassie offered, casually, reading the map in front of her. “The kind you can’t tell you’re wearing them and neither can the people around you. You could just nod your head the whole time Auntie Victoria is talking and she won’t have a clue.”
Dad chuckled. “That would one of the best dreams come true,” he agreed light heartedly, but then shook his head. “But I’m afraid that won’t do. I’ll just have to put up with her biting me a new ass hole every ten minutes.”
“DAD!!!” Cassie and I gasped in shock. It’s not often we hear our dear old padre swear and when he does it usual means in he’s totally in over his head in shit and would rather jump off a cliff than deal with the current problem at hand. This was one of those instants.
“What?” Dad asked innocently, an amused grin spread across his pale face, marveling at our caught off guard facial expression. He chortled lightly, returning his attention back to the road in front of him.
I dropped back in my seat after being forced out of it to gawk at my father for cussing, totally caught off guard. I stifled a laugh and turned to stare out the window at the storm outside. Thunder crashed in the heavens above, high in the ominously dark clouds as they washed the grim rain soaking world of Washington in a great flood. Lightening flash from time to time, temporarily illuminating the solemn verdant forest existing on both sides of the slippery highway. Such dreary weather. It made me regret moving here, but I guess I would have to put up with it until I graduated.
That is if I ever graduated from Fork High. My tendency to get myself in trouble might have put a few major obstacles in my way. Then again, maybe Forks High is one of those schools that push their students through their education, so the principal and staff could just get their paychecks at the end of every year. I don’t know. It’s just theory after all, but I know one thing, Forks High has to be one of the worst schools on the face of the Earth I’ve ever been to. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
The long drive to Port Angeles was an interesting one. We had to pull over a few times in order for our father and Cassie to figure out which way was which. They kept turning the map in a circular cycle, first underside down and then side ways looking for the proper route, or exit we were supposed to take to transport ourselves to the small seaport town of Port Angeles. Dad even stopped at a gas station to fuel up and ask for the correct directions. I think the old coot behind the register thought my dad was crazy when he showed him the map and said he couldn’t read left from right on the stupid thing. We were supposed to be at Port Angeles Airport in less than thirty minutes by time we left the gas station. Dad, being the safety conscious driver he was, didn’t hurry, driving only five miles over the requested speed limit on the highway.
We arrived in the small town minutes after dusk and took what seemed like forever to find the retarded airport. Man, Aunt Victoria was probably fuming by now, wondering where the hell were we! No doubt Dad was never going to hear the end of this one.
What a lame excuse of an airport, I thought in distain once we finally found the remote airport stationed two miles outside of the actual town of Port Angeles, itself.
The two story glass and steel building looked like a relic straight out of the sixties. It’s yellow fluorescent light radiating in the darkness of night, glowing sickly against the blue and black backdrop of the natural landscape. Neon red and purple lights flashed on landing ramp, glowing beacons, lighting the way for in coming planes. A plane roared over, flying in from who knows where. Cassie and I gasped over the vibrating rumble of its jet as we stepped out of the car into the pouring rain, watching in silent awe as the giant metal bird headed for the flyway.
Stupid weatherman and his shitty predictions, I thought hotly, pulling my still wet hoody over my shoulders to try to block the persistent falling rain. Reluctantly I followed Cassie and Dad toward the remotely miniature building, lingering back a few paces. I didn’t really want to be here. I hesitantly thought about going back and waiting in the car.
Too late, we were already stepping through the threshold of the Port Angeles, the pattering of falling rain disappearing as the automatic doors shut behind us. I shield my eyes against the harsh glare of the lights. Man, I hated airports. Inside, it was busy. Passengers, both coming in and going out, shuffled through the lobby, conversation buzzing in the air. The reassuring echo of a lady announcing when the next flight would take off, filtering in through the constant noise of the crowded airport. Tiled floors glistened under foot, sounds bouncing off its reflective surface amplified them ten fold.
Heads bobbed in the endless sea of people. For an airport so tiny, there sure were a lot of people here. Maybe we’d get lucky and miss Aunt Victoria entirely!
“There you are!” A sharp stern feminine voice cried, drawing our attention to a bluish green bench stationed up against the far side of the lobby. A stalky woman with long flowing raven hair and piercing hazel eyes stood up from where she precisely sat, a permanent scowl glued on her fair skinned face with high dominant cheekbones. A long flowing Persian styled brown, green, and blue dress adorned her lanky frame as she gathered a barking, shaking, carrier. Two devilish red eyes glared out from behind silver cross etched bars.
“Great. She brought the rat dog with her,” I murmured in disgust, catching the little yellowish fangs being barred our way.
“Honestly, Derrick, could you any tardier? Don’t tell me you got lost so easily coming here from Forks? Have no sense of direction you do. I’ve been waiting for fifty minutes for you show up. Fifty minutes! You should at least humor your older sister and actually show up on time for once. Mother always said-” the woman rattled, glowering at our father as he hurried over.
“Forgive me, Victoria. The girls and I left early from the house to come pick you this afternoon, but fate being as fickle as she is decided she had other plans in store for us, so we-” Dad tried to explain.
“Hogwash! Do not try to talk your way out of this one, dear brother. I know you all too well. Spouting such rubbish and in front of you children, why it’s a wonder they haven’t been hall off to jail yet,” she spat acid hanging off every word.
Yep, that’s our Aunt Victoria. She’s a bitch. A really big bitch!
“Now don’t you think that’s a bit harsh, Victoria?” Dad began to protest disagreeing with her stiff lipped accusations. “I will not have you already start your verbal attacks on how I raise my children. Cassie and Brooke are positively-.”
“Oh hush, Derrick. Keep prattling on like that and you’ll loose your voice,” Aunt Victoria cut him short; make a dismissing gesture with her gloved hand. “Not that you already have lost your nerve. Cassandra. Brooke. Help your delusional father with my luggage. I want to be out of this wrenched airport at once.” She clapped her hands together. “ Come. Come. Make haste.”
“Yes ma`am,” Cassie said obediently, bending down and starting to pick up a couple of heavy looking brief cases. What was she? Her lackey?
I grunted underneath my breath, feeling no ambition to help the old crony hall her massive supply of luggage out to the car. She was only staying for fours day for Christ’s sake! She didn’t have to bring her entire house with her. I wouldn’t be surprise if she even packed the kitchen sink.
“Brooke Theodore Sparrow. You stop that glaring this instantly,” Aunt Victoria ordered catching me giving her a dirty look. We had the worst relationship a niece and aunt could have. We were both stubborn, self righteous, and short tempered. It was basically the clash of the Titans when we went at it. “Derrick, I am amaze you haven’t sent that one to military school yet! Brooke Sparrow, stop your slouching and straighten up. I will no tolerate your delinquent behavior, and good heaven’s, what are you wearing, child? A mini skirt in the middle of winter?! Come now, have you no common sense?”
“It’s the end of March, Aunt V,” I stated rolling my eyes in dismay, shrugging off her ranting and scrolled over to help Cassie and Dad. I picked up one of the heavier looking suit cases that way Dad didn’t throw out his back. “I think I’m perfectly capable of determining when it’s cold or hot out.”
I shot her a crocked grin. “And would you mind keeping your squawking down, I swear, even the dead lying ten feet underneath the ground can hear your shrill voice.”
“What? How dare-?!”
“You might wanna turn it down a notch. I hate to see what the airport security does to stupid old hags who don’t know how to keep their pie holes shut.”
Aunt Victoria’s face contorted in pure loathing, her eyes narrowing on my simpering face, silently hissing at my verbal assault. She never did come to appreciate my sense of humor. She and I clashed constantly and today was no different. She hated me with a passion and Dad was aware of that. That’s why he was glowering at me, silently warning me to avoid kindling the flames of Aunt Victoria’s fiery wrath. She held her dignity and pride higher than any one in our entire family. I don’t think even, Great Nana could match it and she was a woman, whose wrath should not be provoked under any circumstance. Aunt Victoria wasn’t some one a normal person wanted to mess with. It goes the same for everyone else on our Dad’s side of the family.
Brooke, I heard Cassie whisper inside my thoughts as Aunt Victoria and I exchanged heated glares. Don’t do this. Not in the airport. I don’t think Dad wants everyone see how bad you and Auntie V get along.
I snorted not impressed or intimidated. So? It’s not my fault the old bat can’t be nice for one freaking moment. All she does is bitch, bitch, bitch! I don’t see why I should avid by her rules when she doesn’t show the same respect we’re supposed to show her.
Cassie winced at the truth of what I said as we carried the luggage toward the exit. I get what you’re saying, but it’s not something we can help. Just deal with it!
Humph. Easy for you to say, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. At least she can tolerate you, I countered back mentally, shaking my head. She absolutely hates my guts, so I’m only returning the favor.
Brooke, you’re only getting yourself in more trouble, Cassie cautioned glancing toward Aunt Victoria as she lectured our Father on how a parent should properly raise a child. He cringed openly, his hands too busy, carrying her luggage, to clasp over his targeted ears. Please, do this for Dad. He needs all the help he can get.
She gave me the pleading eyes. We, you, owe him that much.
I raised an eyebrow, stopping short before we reached the doors. I blinked at my sibling, puzzled by what she meant. “Cass, he’s our dad. We don’t owe him anything,” I said out loud, confused.
Cassie puffed out her cheeks, incredulously. “You know what I mean!”
Instead of causing hell, Miss Know-It-All, why don’t you do the exact opposite for once and give our father as much peace of mind as possible, she chided psychically.
“Chst.”
Brooke…
“Are my eyes deceiving or are you girls using your power out in the public?” Aunt Victoria demanded promptly, interrupting our private conversation. The automatic doors slide shut behind us once we were outside, leaving us to trudge across the parking lot in the pouring rain.
Cassie and I both froze in mid-step. We had forgotten that we weren’t supposed to use our powers when Aunt Victoria was here, especially not out in public. Even communicating telepathically was forbidden during her visits. That’s was the one crucial rule Dad wanted us to follow every time she came. Aunt Victoria’s disposition on the usage of our powers, whether it be in public or home, was conservative to the extreme. Our people had been executed and discriminated against for centuries. Psychics were looked down upon as witches and devil worshippers and unfortunately for us, Aunt Victoria felt it was her duty to remind us that carelessly flaunting our powers, whether it was minute or not, could have supposedly disastrous consequences for our family. Our gifts were a dark burden veiled in secrecy and bared by our people, branded as demonic and not safe. Her conservative viewpoints and so-called fears were rooted as far back as the Dark Ages, where witches hunts and burnings were common. I guess, some where along the way physics started to see themselves through Christianity’s eyes and considered themselves doomed to the path of eternal damnations because of their pagan roots and gifts.
“Derrick Sparrow, haven’t you taught these girls restraint yet? What if they get caught? What of you then?” Aunt Victoria hissed, malice saturating her voice. “The using of one’s powers is and should be strictly forbidden. Pagan ways deserve to be buried in the past and remain there, not displayed out in the open.” She glared at us. “You girls should be ashamed of yourselves!”
“You‘ve got to be shitting me! It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal,” I snapped, fuming. Of the all most bull headed snide accusations she had to make…. Why did she try to make us regret who we were? Ugh! This woman pissed me off to hell!!
“That may be, but do you honestly think the world will view you or our family that way,” she countered coldly. “Tell me niece, do you realize how many of our people have die because of these gifts your girls possess? How many witches and wizards and psyches have perished at the hands of witch hunters and clergy men because of our tainted blood lines? It is better to let those powers of your slumber than use them like a mindless child’s toy.”
I grinded my teeth, furious. This is actually why Cassie and I hated her damnable yearly visits. Always acting like she knew what was best for our family. She was so narrowed minded! I loathed my aunt with a passion that could easily burn the entire state of Washington down to the ground. I let my gaze drift to the ground, clenching my fists until my fingernails dug into the palm of my hands. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?!”
My head snap up take glare at her more efficiently. “I said it doesn’t matter! That was then. This is now. Times has change, you old bat! Witch hunts don’t exist anymore. And people don’t believe in magic any more! So why don’t you stop speaking out of your ass and get with the program!”
“Uh! Why you little conniving-?!”
“Well now, as much as I loved to stand out the rain all night and listen to you two argue, I think would be best it we pack up this show and head home,” Dad interjected before things became ugly. His uneasy smile mirrored the wariness in his dark brown eyes. Cautiously he glanced toward the close automatic doors and surveyed the dark rain drenched soulless parking lot. “I think a nice cup of jasmine tea will sooth everyone’s fried nerves.”
He turned to our seething aunt and gestured to the now open trunk of the rented Honda. “Victoria, I realize you had a long journey to get here and you must be awfully tired, but please, spare my daughter your conservative views until tomorrow, hm? Brooke, Cassie, and I are going through a very stressful time right now, what with moving to a foreign region of the country and having to adapt to new surroundings. So please, I regret to say this so bluntly, but do mind your actions and be kind to your nieces and brother for the remainder of your stay.”
Aunt Victoria was left speechless by Dad’s bold proposal. Her eyes grew as big as saucers and her jawed dropped. I’m surprised it didn’t touch the ground. I think that’s the first time Cassie and I ever saw our father become assertive in front of our overbearing high strung aunt. We were just as floored by the slight change in his laid back demeanor as she was.
The ride home was actually peaceful for once instead of Aunt Victoria gnawing my father’s ear over every little insignificant detail out of place. It felt good, nice even.
A/N: Yola! I’m back!!!! Sorry, it took me so long to update, but unfortunately, college has me running laps around myself. I’m dizzy and sick with homework and the work load doesn’t seem to be getting any better…
Any who… With that said, I would first like to apologize to everyone about never posting an picture of the winner of the popular contest. I tried using Mediaminer, but unfortunately, you actually have to pay to post your work, and since I’m cheap, I decided to try somewhere else. I’ve tried both Deviantart and Fan Art Central and my stupid confounded computer won’t let me post any of my works on either website. As to why, I could only guess it has something to do with security reasons… (-_-)… Ugh! It was so frustrating!!
So I’ve decided to just tell everyone who the winner is…
*Drum roll*
And the winner is by default…. BROOKE SPARROW!! YAY!!
Yeah, I know I said that you could only vote once, but seriously, no one else beside Beck Beck and Smilezpleez decided to participate, so a huge and mega thank to these two wonderful reviewers for taking time out of their busy schedules and actually voting! Thank you guys so much! It really means a lot to me. *coddles!!(^-^)*
Well, that’s it for now!! UNTIL THEN!! PEACE OUT!!!XD
P.S. Also I’ve decided to post Chapter Eleven up as well, since I haven’t posted in such a long. So enjoy!!!
Summary: Cassandra and Brooke Sparrow are two sisters with psychic abilities, forced out of their warm California home to live in the dreary town of Fork, Washington, so their father can look for inspiration in the serene mountainside scenery. There they discover appearances can be deceiving when it comes to this boring rainy town. Especially when their closest neighbors just happen to be vampires and they actually go to their school, not to mention the nearby reservation is occupied with werewolves. Their lives are about to spiral into weirdsville and the sisters are going to love every minute of it.
Chapter Ten
Oh The Horror!!
Hag Bag Aunt Victoria Has Arrived!
(Brooke’s POV)
The gym was divided into four individual courts by giant web like volleyball nets. The bright fluorescent lights above glared across the polished wooden floors below. Everyone took their positions out on the court, having already been split into four separate teams. I was on team One and unfortunately so was fang-faced zombie boy, more commonly called Jasper Hale. His pixie girlfriend on was Team Three in the court diagonal from ours. He and Alice were giving me the cold shoulder today in gym. They’ve been on strict no talking policy with me or my sister since last Tuesday when their dipshit of a brother, that pompous blow heart, Edward, decided to sneak around our supposedly slumber household late at night. Luckily, Dad sensed him and sent the poor excuse of vampire flying to hell and back. If you asked me, the dumb ass deserved it. Running around in the black of night sticking his nose where it didn’t below, it was his own damn fault for getting himself caught and repelled by forces beyond his undead understanding.
The whistle blew. The servers on each court poised themselves, ready. The seconds seemed to past by slowly until the first boom crackled in the air as the volleyball number one was served, vaulting through the air. Another super sonic boom ripped through the air, signaling that a gymnasium war officially begun. Volleyballs hurdled down from all sides. Screams and shouts of excitement bounced off the towering walls as students plunged for the in-coming balls, spiking the ones they that were within arms reach. It was like a full out war erupted in the tiny gymnasium. Balls flying everywhere. Colliding bodies. Fierce cries of victory pulsing the air every time one of the teams scored on another. I remained in the back line where all the slackers in gym stood, hoping for gym class to be over soon. I let my fellow idiots up in the front have all the fun and receive most of the collateral damage. I wasn’t into reeking havoc today. Staying up until four o’clock in the morning really takes a lot out of a person. Bluish purplish bruises the size of the grand cannon hung underneath my exhausted brown eyes.
“Huh.” A volleyball dribbled its way to my feet, bumped my black and purple sneaker lightly, catching my attention. I titled my head to stare at the stupid thing, begging to be kicked straight into the back of a skull of some douche bag near by. I frowned, annoyed, and bent down, picking it up. Well, I haven’t caused any chaos so far today, so one little mishap wouldn’t hurt.
A wicked smirk flashed across my tired face as I heaved the ball into the air. Slamming my fists into it, the ball became airborne. The sonic boom following the sound of my fists impacting with the hard fabric of the volleyball, echoed through the gym as it was returned to the opposite side of the quart, nailing an snobby blonde haired cheerleader right in the kisser. Oo, that had to hurt! The startled prep fall backwards from sheer shock, landing hard on her scrawny ass. A bewildered cry busted from her painted pink lips upon impact. Deaths rays of pure loathing radiated out from her teammates, all glaring in my direction.
I tossed back my head, cackling. I gave the opposing team the bird. “Go eat shit, mother fuckers!” I called out, simpering away like there was no tomorrow.
My fellow teammates groaned simultaneously, everyone shooting me disapproving glares. I didn’t care. I turned my head to see what the gym teachers were going to do about my juvenile delinquent behavior. I hoped that because I purposely hit one of the preps they would excuse me out of class early and down to the principal office for causing trouble in class. Not that Forks high school principal wanted to see my sorry ass face again anyway. I’ve already paid a visit to Mr. Greene’s office quite a few times already within my first three weeks of starting school here in Forks. He and I didn’t exactly get along per say. He told me, he would give me I.S.S. next time he sees me march into his office again.
Nothing happened. Mrs. Hummel and Mr. Sheer were too far busy talking to each other to notice or hear their dim witted students complaining and whining. So much for my plan of an early dismissal from gym. I stretched my arms high above my heads, cracking my knuckles and shoulders blades, loosening my muscles. Guess I’ll have to try harder.
I was too busy immersed in my own devious planning to notice the dirty glares I was getting from everyone in class. It was something I was used to by now, so I didn‘t pay them much heed unless I really wanted to raise some hell. Being the most avoided student on campus didn’t come with perks, not that I minded. I like being left alone. Brooding, I also missed the part where four students from the other three opposing teams congregated themselves at the end of their respective courts, quietly whispering to each other. The meeting quickly broke off, the students nodding in agreement and took their places, unknown to me. At precisely the same second they launched their deadly weapons (the volleyballs) into the air, deep rumbling echoes filling the productive atmosphere as the five balls set a course for their intended target. Meanly me!
And of course, I had been totally oblivious to my moron peers’ plotting and scheming the entire time lost in my own thoughts until I felt the first volleyball whizzed past my head, missing it just by an inch. My eyes grew wide in horror, watching the other malicious balls coming my way. I managed to dodge two more balls, smacking the third away, sending the sucker flying off into another direction. The laughter of sweet revenge radiated from my so-called teammates. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the fourth one behind it as it plowed into my face like a huge black circle momentarily eclipsing the brightly lit lights along the ceiling. My head whirled from shock and pain as my body slammed into the patiently waiting floor below with an inaudible thud.
My vision blacked out for several minutes as my hands instinctively rose to my nose. It hurt like hell. My entire nose, inside and out burned. I’ve never been blasted that hard in the head before. Never mind. Forget I said that.
The distance sound of fast approaching shoes echoed in my hollow ears as the high pitch whistle of Mrs. Hummel could be heard, calling the game to a halt. I didn’t really pay attention though. I was mostly focus on the pain emitting from my abused nose. I heard Mr. Sheer shouting at some one, but I couldn’t tell who. He sounded far away.
“Sparrow?! Sparrow! Are you still with us?” Mrs. Hummel demanded, lightly shaking my shoulder, trying to get my preoccupied attention.
I groaned. “What the hell was that?” I grumbled incoherently, lying on my back, my head spinning. My vision blurred before it became clear. I blinked a few times to stop the world from spinning. Apathetic faces hovered over me, staring, whirling around in my vision. Fuck, I really was hit hard! “Ouch.”
“Oh god, you’re bleeding!” Mrs. Hummel exclaimed, her eyes widening in shock.
I didn’t understand what she was blubbering about. Bleeding? “Huh? What?” I sounded like I was drugged.
The gym teacher stood and began shouting at the other students, herding them away. “Alright, enough with the crowding. Show’s over. Everyone back, give the girl some room to breathe!” she snapped, aversion hanging heavily in her voice. “Shame on you morons for singling out one of your own peers. You should be grateful I have my hands tied right now or else I would hold you all in detention! Now ten laps around the gym for all of you!”
A chorus of moans followed as students frowned in distaste at the fact now they would have to run around the tiny gym ten times for their stupid petty actions. Indignation reflected in their eyes as Mr. Sheer told them to get their sorry asses in gear and do as they were told. Some started whining at how unfair and unusually cruel the punishment was. I ignored the appalled and disdainful looks I got, sitting up, holding onto my sore head with one hand and touching the tip of my burning, throbbing nose with another. Flinching, I pulled my fingertips away to find crimson smeared all over them. I blinked twice. I really was bleeding. Those mother fucking jack asses intentionally gave me a bloody nose! And with a damn volleyball no less!
“Are you alright, Sparrow?” Mrs. Hummel asked kneeling down beside me, concerning and irritation shining brightly in her black brown eyes.
I nodded, aware how dizzy the action made me feel. Damn. “Yeah, I’ll live.”
Mrs. Hummel shook her head in disgrace. “Stupid kids and their petty grudges,” she grumbled, spitting the lost few words bitterly. It looked like she too had been a victim of being the social outcast during her days in high school. “If you seen one petty squabble you’ve them all. Kids these days are so vicious.”
Her demeanor softened as she took my free arm and helped me slowly rise to my feet. “Can you stand?”
I wobbled for a moment, but easily caught my balance. It would take a lot more than some stupid volleyball to the head to keep the infamous emo sister, Brooke Sparrow, down!
“Yeah. Thanks,” I muttered, feeling fresh blood dribbling down the front of my face and over my chin. No doubt my gym uniform would have an unsightly deep red-brown stain after this.
“Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse,” Mrs. Hummel offered, gently guiding me toward the girls’ locker room.
“Nyah, it’s okay,” I stated, following. I didn’t need help. Beside my head hurting and a bloody nose, I was perfectly capable of finding my own way to the nurses’ offices. “I can find where the nurses’ office is myself. Thanks for the offer, but seriously, I’ll be okay. I’ve had worst.”
Mrs. Hummel shook her head, bemused. “Still, it’s probably be better that I walk you there myself, so I don’t get a call later saying they found a student of mine passed out from blood lost, or cutting class for the rest of the day.”
I grimaced. Great. Mrs. Hummel felt obliged to show me to the nurses’ office. Just what I need; a teacher escort. I was about to protest, but thought against it, well knowing Mrs. Hummel was a hard ass if I ever met one. What she said in gym class goes. If anyone ever dared as raise a finger against her instruction, she would have them running the track outside in the pouring rain for ten laps straight. No break. No walking. No nothing!
“Fine,” I sighed, grudgingly allowing her to pull me through the girls’ locker-room and out onto the opened-aired campus. The rain had stopped last night around midnight, so according to the not so faithful weather man, we were supposed to be in for overcastted skies for the next two days. Not that I minded. Hell, it was better than it always constantly raining.
Mrs. Hummel silently walked behind me as she showed me the way to the main office building. I kept my eyes to the front of me, my gaze drifting over the lush green campus and mildew stained buildings. It really was amazing how green Washington could really be. The clouded skies above extended out forever, disappearing into the gigantic trees lying just behind the small campus and it’s wandering streets.
“You know, Sparrow. You may think you’re alone and the whole world is against you, but that doesn’t mean you should shut everyone out,” Mrs. Hummel spoke up, catching me off guard.
“Huh?” I turned to stare at the strange gym teacher, confused. Just what the hell was Mrs. Hard Ass getting at?
Mrs. Hummel smiled empathy. Her eyes strayed ahead of us. “I use to be a kid like you,” she continued as if it should now make more sense me to now, musing. “I was just as rebellious and anti-social as you were. I was one of the major troublemakers at my old school. I did a lot of things that weren‘t considered politically correct.”
I snorted in disbelief. “Uh, no offense, Mrs. Hummel, but you shouldn’t go around sympathizing with students you know nothing about,” I pointed out, a little irritated. I felt the blood beginning to ebb and dry underneath the paper towel I currently was holding underneath my bleeding nose. What a mess I was going to have to clean once we arrived in the nurses’ office.
Mrs. Hummel only shook her head, smiling. She absently placed a hand on my head, rustling my hair. “Maybe. Maybe not, Sparrow,” she mused, smirking. Her eyes saddened. “But I know that look in a student’s eye when I see it. You’ve been through a lot and it’s lefts a grave scar on your heart.”
Shock pulsed through my body, stopping me in mid-step. I looked at Mrs. Hummel, just plain awestruck. I was left speechless. What did she mean when she said that? How could she possibly understand what it was like to be betrayed by some one you thought loved you with every ounce of their being? To see your world come apart at the seems within a blind of eye? No, she couldn’t possibly understand the pain I and my family went through when it happened! There was no fucking way.
She continued to muse my hair, quietly brooding. A dead look crossed her black eyes before it was replaced with a sober grin. “Don’t think you’re alone in this world, kid. Plenty of people come from broken homes, even if they don’t want to admit,” she said. “Tragedy. Suffering. Abuse. It’s common in this world. Sad as it is. Nobody thought twice about it.
“The truth is, kid, we all bare marks of tragedy in some shape or form. It could be a fellow student. A boy or girl next door. A stranger walking down the street or sitting in the window of a café. Pain and Sorrow. It’s all around us. Most people are just oblivious to other people’s pain because they want to be,” she murmured, while we walked together toward the main building. Now the woman really had my undivided attention.
“And let me guess. You were one of the children who suffered a great deal, right?” I inquired, skeptical.
Mrs. Hummel only glanced at me for a second. “Yes. I was one of those abused children, who came from a broken poverty stricken home. My father was deathly alcoholic and my mother was a vanity stricken meth addictic. I grew up being neglected and so I lashed out during my youth over and over again. I couldn’t stand the world. I hated the people around me. My fellow classmates. My teachers. My neighbors. My own parents. I did things that I knew deep down were wrong. I tormented and taunted the kids at school. Got into fights constantly.”
She paused in her reminiscing and stared at me, empathetic. “When I look at you, Brooke. It reminds me so much of myself when I was your age. So full of angry and frustration,” she explained. “I thought the world didn’t understand. Nobody understood the pain I was going through. Going home was always my worst fear of the day. I got into detention constantly, to prolong the evident beatings I was going to receive once I stepped through those doors.”
“But you kept on going back.”
“Yeah. I had nowhere else to go. No where to run to. Now that I look back at my actions and everything I did. I realize the only reason I did everything I did; it was only to receive attention. It was to get people to notice me. I felt invisible because nobody seemed to care of how much I suffered all those years of abuse. I had no adult mentor to turn to. No friends to confine in. Now that I look back at it all. I truly was an empty shell of a person.”
I lifted my eyes to skies above, absorbing everything Mrs. Hummel was telling me. I knew she was hoping that her past experience would give me new inspiration to become a better person, so I would somehow take something from her previous life and use it in pursuing my own dreams.
“Hmm… Yeah, I guess you’re right that does sound like a pretty empty life,” I stated, thinking over everything carefully. I smirked. “I think I understand what you’re trying to get at.”
She blinked, puzzled and then smirked back, watching the gleam in my eye. “Oh really and what would that be?”
“You’re hoping to install some form of hope and admiration in me, so I may some day learn how the wonderful and opportunistic the world truly is,” I said, making quotation marks around the words “wonderful and opportunistic.” I could have just broken down in hysterics right there and then. “Because you saw something in one of your students that reminded you of yourself when you were young and spry and rebelling against a hypocritical society, and you wanted to lend some advice to them so they could improve their miserable lives, right?” I smirked, crookedly underneath the paper towel shoved up my nose. “Thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate the advice, teach, I really do, but my case isn’t so simple. There’s a lot of things in my life that ordinary people, poverty stricken or not, never have encounter before.”
Mrs. Hummel‘s eyes widened slightly in response, startled. And then for some reason, she started chuckling, shaking her head in disbelief, and didn’t say anything else. Instead she opened the door to the main office.
Wow, I didn’t think it took us that long to reach the main office, but whatever. Heat blasted against our exposed faces as we stepped through the glass doors. Mrs. Patterson, the frizzy haired secretary, looked up from what she was doing. Her round brown eyes widen at the sight of me with a blood stained t-shirt and a paper towel half way stuffed up my nose.
“Oh my, what’s happened to you?” she inquired, quite surprised to see me in the main office again. She raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Did you get into another fight again, Miss Sparrow?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Some wise ass idiots in my gym class decided to bombard me with volleyballs,” I said bluntly pointing to my battle wound.
Patty sighed, shaking her head. “Why am I not surprised,” she murmured underneath her breath.
“Is Lattice in?” Mrs. Hummel asked, coming up to the counter, while the other woman rounded the cubical.
“Well, she had to run out and grab some papers from the fax machine, but she should be back in a five minutes,” Mrs. Patterson or Pat, whichever you wanted to refer to the old hag as, reported, nonchalantly, not seeing any emergency since it was just me after all. Hey, it wasn’t my fault my unwanted visits were a natural reoccurrence at the main office! Blame the retards that attend school here!
“Why don’t you take Miss Brooke Sparrow into the nurse’s office and I’ll warn-er I mean- let Lattice know she’s here,” Pat suggested, unsteadily, shooting me a solemn “ and don’t you dare make trouble while you’re here,” look before ushering me into the antiseptic smelling rectangular long room at the other end of the small building.
I turned to glare angrily at the old bat as she disappeared around the corner, leaving me and Mrs. Hummel for the old haggard skeleton known as Lattice Harrison, Fork High’s only trained practitioner. The smell of antiseptics lingered in the stale eerie silent atmosphere. I stared around the dimly lit room, at the dirty white cabinets lining the right wall, the semi out of date health postures with those cheesy sayings on them and out of date medical research, and outdated tacky rusted orange cots. The nurses’ office reminded me more of a dungeon or prison than a facility to bandage and aid ill students.
All you need a ragged skeleton hanging by one of the walls and this placed be set for holding war prisoners, I thought grimacing, walking over to seat myself on the bumpy cots. I lightly bounced on the hard surface, curiously. “What do they stuff these things with? Dead bodies of students they couldn‘t save?”
Mrs. Hummel ignored my morbid humor. “I can trust you to stay put while waiting for the nurse right?” she inquired, eyeing me as I looked around the dreary room.
I cocked an eyebrow at my gym teacher. “It’s just a bloody nose. I think I should be fine,” I replied in earnest and glanced around the rooms. “Why? How many students went insane by just being in here?”
The corners of Mrs. Hummel’s lips tugged in an effort to suppress a smirk. “Ha-ha. You certainly are a funny kid,” she stated and then straightened up to leave. She turned to me before exiting out the door. “Just don’t touch anything and stay out of trouble. I can trust you with that much, can’t I?”
“Sure,” I said absently. I had nothing better to do anyway. “Just hand me a straight-jacket and I’ll be fine.”
The gym teacher just laughed and closed the door, leaving me to my own devices, which wasn’t much considering there was no one to pester with my ultimately insane temperamental personality. I wondered how long the old bag of bones was going to take before I could get my nose fixed up. I glanced around the room, idly. I could probably take a nape if I wanted to, but there was a slight chance I would accidentally cover the stingy cot in blood because of my damn bloody nose. Arrogant little bastards. Why did they have to go and pelt me with their freaking balls of stupidity anyway? It’s not like I bruised up that girl. One freaking ball to the head. Big freaking whoop-de-du! It’s not like I decided to blow up the entire school?!
“Stupid douche bags,” I grumbled, to myself holding the paper towel against my sore nose. The bleeding had come to a halt, drying and cracking while it set against my pale stained face. “Chst, they really wailed me one. Ouch. I didn’t think those morons had it in them to do something that gutsy, but then again, everybody has their breaking points. Guess they finally got sick of putting up with my crap and decided to try and turn the tables. Humph. I guess I can let them off this time. There’s always time for payback later. Hmm….”
“And that’s precisely the kind of attitude that has landed you at the top of the students’ Must Avoid At All Costs Charter,” remarked a cool collected voice. It came off to the side of me.
I craned my head in the direction it originated from. An involuntary groaned forced its way into my mouth, but I pressed my lips together, suppressing it. I eyed the pasty white form on the cot next to mine. I shot the arrogant moron a scowl. “Hello Cullen.”
At first Edward didn’t reply. He remained where he sat on the very edge of the cot across from me, his butterscotch colored eyes narrowed in frustration, a look of concentration plastered onto his serious face. He was hunched over, his elbows propped up on his knees, his hands folded in from his lowered face. His eyes probed my annoyed glare, futilely. Just what was his problem anyway? What was he hoping to find in my brown depths? Who knows…
I torn my gaze away from him, shifting sitting positions so I could sit Indian style on the bumpy piece of shit I currently found my rump on. I shot him a sharp look, demanding my own questions to be answered. I felt the ghost of a cocky smirk crawling across my lips.
“And what are you in for?” Might as well mess with his scrawny ass a bit. Hell, I had nothing better to do. “Chopping off your balls in shop?” An evil smirk fully found its way onto my suddenly twisted face, a nefarious gleam shining in the black pupil’s of my eyes. “Oh wait, that’s right, you don’t have any.”
Edward straightened immediately. That same old expression of disgrace filtered into his angelic features, full force. His eyes darkening at the crude remark. An acute sigh escaped past his taunt lips. “Could you any be more incorrigible?”
I played dumb, pretending to broods over the answer like I was some stupid blonde. “Hmmm. Depends,” I held my middle finger in check, “how would you define incorrigible as?”
He scowled even more. If that was possible! He looked like a grumpy old man, about to lecture the living hell out of a rambunctious wise cracking hooligan. The hooligan being me of course. “Incorrigible means obnoxious, unruly, and incapable of being controlled. It’s fairly simple. I would think some one of your mental capacity could at least grasp the basic principle of such a simple adjective, if used in a sentence properly.”
I made a face. Oh, ouch. Did I detect a hint of sarcasm there? Talk about cutting my super sized ego in half, I didn’t even know Eddie boy could use sarcasm. He was always so prim and proper. Somebody must be psming. I wonder how long it took him to analyze and calculate that sour comeback.
I shrugged my shoulders, lightly. “That would be me then.” I bowed dramatically, ignoring the rush of blood flooding into my already dizzy head. “Miss Incorrigible at your service.”
Edward scowled at my wise crack, not appreciating my sense of humor. His facial expression far from amused, bordering on the edge of hard core agitation. A low exasperated sigh escaped past his slightly parted lips again. It was pretty damn funny watching the poor undead prick struggle to comprehend my supposedly twisted mysterious ambitions. Yeah, like I really had any in the first place. Loser.
“You are tough person to read, Brooke Sparrow,” he stated bleakly, obviously not thrilled with the fact himself, his eyebrows furrowed in distress. “I can never guess what you’re going to do or say next.”
I grinned arrogantly. “Maybe that’s because I don’t want you to have any idea of I’m about to do next. Ever think of that, Cullen?”
One of his eyebrows lifted inquiringly. I couldn’t tell if it was instinctive or if he truly was anxious to know what was going on that in havoc reeking warped mind of mine.
I snorted, slightly craning my head to the side to glare at the grim stock pile of medicine cabinets across the room. “Maybe I don’t like things being average or normal. Maybe I like things being out of control and unpredictable. I really don’t see anything in wrong in being unprecedented. It’s not like I’ve completely up rooted some long time established tradition in you morons’ lives.”
His gaze darkened. “I think I can beg to differ on the issue.”
I glanced at him, shifting so I was fully facing the pasty faced freak again. “Oh only? How may I ask I have disturbed your petty life, Eddie Boy? Besides cutting down that high ass ego of yours.”
He didn’t response, his gaze drifting to the only entrance into the dingy little room. The door opened as if on cue and a skeleton of an old haggard looking lady came hobbling in. Forks High official and only nurse on the entire campus, Lattice Harrison or Mrs. Skeletor as Cassie and I like to refer to her as. Her beady watery eyes scanned the room from her sunken wrinkled face, slightly widening as they landed on Edward’s fair frame leaning toward me, not realizing her arrival had interrupted a very intense and weird conversation. And not the kind usual normal high school students would have or participate in, since their undeveloped pea brains didn’t have the intellect needed or wit to understand what the two of us were talking about.
“I was warned Brooke Sparrow was in the infirmary, but Pat didn’t say anything about you being in here as well, Edward Cullen,” the little old hag remarked eyeing both of us suspiciously. “Something wrong?”
I caught the suggestive gleam in her beady dull eyes. Ugh, we didn’t do anything! Get your fucking mind out of the gutter, old lady! I screamed inside my head, glaring daggers in her direction, furious.
Hey, at least I didn’t say it out loud like I wanted to this time-I was getting better-, but if Mrs. Skeletor thought that arrogant high strung haughty bastard and I were doing something dark and dirty in her stinky insanity infested room, she can kiss my ass since there is no way hell I would ever go down on Mr. Pompous Masochistic Egotist! The very thought made me want to vomit all over place, preferable on the Volvo owning jack ass next to me.
He held up a hand before the skeletally thin nurse could presume anything else. “Actually no. I was just stopping by,” He threw me a quick glance, his features torn between the halfway mark of a grimace and a smirk, “and seeing how Brooke was doing. I saw Mrs. Hummel walking her to the Main office and saw that something was amiss, so being concerned as I was, I decided to check see what was wrong.”
Nurse Harrison blinked, puzzled beyond belief. She eyed the undead freak like he grew an extra head. Edward Cullen checking in on a hellion like me?! Oh my god, the world’s ending! “Oh… That was… nice of you.”
“Yeah right,” I coughed underneath my breath, ready to call his bluff. Lair. Lair. Mother Fucking Pants on Fire! “Ass Kisser.”
Luckily, Mrs. Harrison didn’t catch the last part of my silent retort. She made her way over to take a look at my now dried bloody nose. Edward, on the other hand, was a different story. His eyes widen slightly insulted, but he didn’t say anything, turning on his heel, inhumanly graceful in his movements, and waltzed out the door, leaving the nurse to do her job. I fought back a relieved smile. Good riddance.
The rest of the morning went by fairly quickly. I found myself with another detention slip, extending my already preordained punishment at school until the week after Spring break. Friggin great. Not that I really gave a damn if the principal, Mr. Greene, thought I was the worst student to ever attend Forks High in the history of their small dreary school, or that I also fried the entire main frame on his computer when he wasn’t looking. Who knew the stupid son of a bitch could swear like sailor caught with his pants down. I nearly failed at cracking up out loud right there in his office as he urgently rang up his clerk to back up the entire system and call the janitor while she was at. It was freaking priceless! A pure Kodak moment, watching the old man scramble around his office, completely dismissing me in frustration, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with his computer and just why the fax machine started pumping out blank papers as soon as it crashed.
I found myself still on the verge of hysterics during the English class, two hours later, while my group and I practice for our little performance on Wednesday. Lucky us, we got another day to prepare before we completely humiliated ourselves in front of the entire class! And I had to sit threw another two class periods dealing with the Paris Hilton clones and Miss Doom-And-Gloom. Fortunately for me the three fagiteers didn’t remember a thing from Saturday. They simply thought they came over and practice our little skit, which was repeatedly interrupted since Lauren and I kept on getting into a squabble over something, until our brains melted and oozed out of our ears. My father did a good job at erasing and altering their memories so their blissfully ignorant little lives wouldn’t corrode away from meeting an apparition who was hell bent on their own demise.
I straightened in my seat, while Lauren and Jessica were eagerly listening to Bella’s plans for the skit, my eyes zeroing on Bella’s busy form. She was pointing out supposedly key-factures in making the project a huge success. What I didn’t get was why James had declared his revenge on the frail pasty girl. She was completely harmless and helpless. What could she have done to piss him off so much? I didn’t get it. Did Miss Basket Case secretly have something do with his death?
That would make senses after all. Ghosts didn’t haunt people unless they had some close unknown or known connection with the person involved. I chewed on the inside of my mouth, deliberating. Well, Bella seemed fine right now and she wasn’t doing anything suspicious. I focused on her electric waves reading them. They were relaxed and depressed as usual. No change there. I could pick up how a person was coping with certain situations by just feeling the natural electric magnetic field surrounding their body. Seeing no problems, I leaned back in my seat at ease.
Besides, I had bigger fish to tussle with today. Mainly, the arrival of my haughty eccentric Aunt Victoria. We were supposed to be driving up to the airport in Port Angeles to pick her up after my three o’clock detention. I could already tell that the next four days would be nothing but a living nightmare. If there was one thing dear old Auntie V was good at, it was tormenting the living hell out of my sister, my father, and me. My throat felt like I just swallowed a four pronged hook. I involuntarily gagged, not caring if my teammates were staring at me, freak out at my sudden out burst.
“What’s wrong with Sparrow?” I heard Jessica inquired, leaning away from my visible hacking, whispering in Lauren’s ear. Yeah, like I couldn’t hear her. “She looks like she’s about to keel over.”
Lauren snorted, haughtily. “Probably just choking on her own salvia, knowing her.”
Bella frowned stiffly. “Girls, could we, please, focus here. I want our presentations on Wednesday to go smoothly.” She shot me a weary glare. “That’s means you too, Brooke.”
I shot her a dirty look, ignoring the nausea setting in. I gave the dike the bird. “Bite me, bitch.”
Bella sputtered, color flushing her face in horror at my use of vulgarity and the fact I had the nerve to flip her off. Chst, like I gave a hoot if she was the Chief of Police’s daughter. They could both go burn in hell for all I cared. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured out of my wits on how to do cooperate with my fellow idiots peers. Neither was I ready to listen to what was going to happen to my participation grade in the next thirty minutes when Mr. Hard Ass Muller found out I happened to be contributing less than my share of the work.
By the time detention ended, I was ready to burst out of that silent confined white room they called detention hall, guns blazing. I threw on my jacket and pack back, got the retarded slip signed by today’s detention advisor and headed for the door. Stepping outside, I heard the distinct rumble of thunder in the darken skies over head. It hadn’t been raining all day for a change. Instead Mother Nature chose to hold off till the end of the school to let all hells loose onto the tiny verdant town of Forks, Washington. Humph, figures the clouds decided to wait to piss all over the world until I was standing out in the open, hurrying toward the barren parking lot where our rented Honda waited. The first splatters of raindrops on the soggy sidewalks soon turned into an out right down pour, drenching the entire open aired campus.
Dad honked the horn once I was in sight, letting me know he and Cassie were rearing to go. I rolled my eyes, climbing into the backseat of the warm and dry car, soaking wet. I hadn’t been fast enough. My hair hung limp against my forehead, sticking to the sides of my flushed cheeks. There was no doubt in my mind that my mascara was smeared around the edges of my eyes and dripping down my cheeks like tiny waterfalls. My clothes clung to my body heavy with water as icy chills seep down through my flesh into the very bowls of my bones. I shivered, taking off my coat and heaving it aside.
“Hand me a napkin,” I grumbled, signaling for my sister up in the front seat to open the glove apartment and search for something I could wipe my drenched face with.
“So how was detention, Brooke?” Dad inquired peering through the rearview mirror at my shivering form in the backseat. He threw the car into drive once he was sure the coast was clear and drove out of the tiny parking lot.
“Here you go,” Cassie said, passing me a handful of napkins from the front seat, sending me one of her sympathetic looks.
“Shitty,” I replied to Dad’s question, taking the napkins and beginning to dry my mascara stained face. “Thanks Cass.”
My sister nodded before turning around in her seat to stare out the window once more as our father sped off toward the highway out of the dreary town. Hopefully he knew where he was going. Getting lost in the middle of Bum Fucked Egypt was not my idea of fun, especially since our father literally had no sense of direction. He could be lost in a bag paper and spend hours, if not days, looking for a way out!
Dread unfolded itself in the pit of my stomach. I pushed it down, exhausted. I had a long day and I didn’t feel like worrying over something so trivial. I peered over the shoulder of the passenger seat to find Cassie holding a map, sprawled out in front of her. Good, that meant we wouldn’t get lost with no hope of returning.
“Man, this sucks,” I complained glaring past the front seats into the down pour, my eyes following the quick movement of the windshield wipers. “Dad, are you sure we can’t just stuff old hag bag Aunt V into a crate and ship her back to New Orleans with the rest of the hacks.”
“Brooke,” Dad groaned, obviously not pleased with my sense of humor concerning Aunt Victoria’s untimely arrival. He squinted to see past the flood splashing against the window, the front lights on low, so he could see the road ahead. “Honestly. I know Aunt Victoria isn’t exactly what you girls would call your favorite relative, but she is my sister and I would greatly appreciate it if you girls be polite when we meet up with her at the airport. She’s traveled a long way and more than likely she’s probably sleep deprive and cranky. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear she lecture my ear off.”
“We could always buy your ear plugs, Dad,” Cassie offered, casually, reading the map in front of her. “The kind you can’t tell you’re wearing them and neither can the people around you. You could just nod your head the whole time Auntie Victoria is talking and she won’t have a clue.”
Dad chuckled. “That would one of the best dreams come true,” he agreed light heartedly, but then shook his head. “But I’m afraid that won’t do. I’ll just have to put up with her biting me a new ass hole every ten minutes.”
“DAD!!!” Cassie and I gasped in shock. It’s not often we hear our dear old padre swear and when he does it usual means in he’s totally in over his head in shit and would rather jump off a cliff than deal with the current problem at hand. This was one of those instants.
“What?” Dad asked innocently, an amused grin spread across his pale face, marveling at our caught off guard facial expression. He chortled lightly, returning his attention back to the road in front of him.
I dropped back in my seat after being forced out of it to gawk at my father for cussing, totally caught off guard. I stifled a laugh and turned to stare out the window at the storm outside. Thunder crashed in the heavens above, high in the ominously dark clouds as they washed the grim rain soaking world of Washington in a great flood. Lightening flash from time to time, temporarily illuminating the solemn verdant forest existing on both sides of the slippery highway. Such dreary weather. It made me regret moving here, but I guess I would have to put up with it until I graduated.
That is if I ever graduated from Fork High. My tendency to get myself in trouble might have put a few major obstacles in my way. Then again, maybe Forks High is one of those schools that push their students through their education, so the principal and staff could just get their paychecks at the end of every year. I don’t know. It’s just theory after all, but I know one thing, Forks High has to be one of the worst schools on the face of the Earth I’ve ever been to. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
The long drive to Port Angeles was an interesting one. We had to pull over a few times in order for our father and Cassie to figure out which way was which. They kept turning the map in a circular cycle, first underside down and then side ways looking for the proper route, or exit we were supposed to take to transport ourselves to the small seaport town of Port Angeles. Dad even stopped at a gas station to fuel up and ask for the correct directions. I think the old coot behind the register thought my dad was crazy when he showed him the map and said he couldn’t read left from right on the stupid thing. We were supposed to be at Port Angeles Airport in less than thirty minutes by time we left the gas station. Dad, being the safety conscious driver he was, didn’t hurry, driving only five miles over the requested speed limit on the highway.
We arrived in the small town minutes after dusk and took what seemed like forever to find the retarded airport. Man, Aunt Victoria was probably fuming by now, wondering where the hell were we! No doubt Dad was never going to hear the end of this one.
What a lame excuse of an airport, I thought in distain once we finally found the remote airport stationed two miles outside of the actual town of Port Angeles, itself.
The two story glass and steel building looked like a relic straight out of the sixties. It’s yellow fluorescent light radiating in the darkness of night, glowing sickly against the blue and black backdrop of the natural landscape. Neon red and purple lights flashed on landing ramp, glowing beacons, lighting the way for in coming planes. A plane roared over, flying in from who knows where. Cassie and I gasped over the vibrating rumble of its jet as we stepped out of the car into the pouring rain, watching in silent awe as the giant metal bird headed for the flyway.
Stupid weatherman and his shitty predictions, I thought hotly, pulling my still wet hoody over my shoulders to try to block the persistent falling rain. Reluctantly I followed Cassie and Dad toward the remotely miniature building, lingering back a few paces. I didn’t really want to be here. I hesitantly thought about going back and waiting in the car.
Too late, we were already stepping through the threshold of the Port Angeles, the pattering of falling rain disappearing as the automatic doors shut behind us. I shield my eyes against the harsh glare of the lights. Man, I hated airports. Inside, it was busy. Passengers, both coming in and going out, shuffled through the lobby, conversation buzzing in the air. The reassuring echo of a lady announcing when the next flight would take off, filtering in through the constant noise of the crowded airport. Tiled floors glistened under foot, sounds bouncing off its reflective surface amplified them ten fold.
Heads bobbed in the endless sea of people. For an airport so tiny, there sure were a lot of people here. Maybe we’d get lucky and miss Aunt Victoria entirely!
“There you are!” A sharp stern feminine voice cried, drawing our attention to a bluish green bench stationed up against the far side of the lobby. A stalky woman with long flowing raven hair and piercing hazel eyes stood up from where she precisely sat, a permanent scowl glued on her fair skinned face with high dominant cheekbones. A long flowing Persian styled brown, green, and blue dress adorned her lanky frame as she gathered a barking, shaking, carrier. Two devilish red eyes glared out from behind silver cross etched bars.
“Great. She brought the rat dog with her,” I murmured in disgust, catching the little yellowish fangs being barred our way.
“Honestly, Derrick, could you any tardier? Don’t tell me you got lost so easily coming here from Forks? Have no sense of direction you do. I’ve been waiting for fifty minutes for you show up. Fifty minutes! You should at least humor your older sister and actually show up on time for once. Mother always said-” the woman rattled, glowering at our father as he hurried over.
“Forgive me, Victoria. The girls and I left early from the house to come pick you this afternoon, but fate being as fickle as she is decided she had other plans in store for us, so we-” Dad tried to explain.
“Hogwash! Do not try to talk your way out of this one, dear brother. I know you all too well. Spouting such rubbish and in front of you children, why it’s a wonder they haven’t been hall off to jail yet,” she spat acid hanging off every word.
Yep, that’s our Aunt Victoria. She’s a bitch. A really big bitch!
“Now don’t you think that’s a bit harsh, Victoria?” Dad began to protest disagreeing with her stiff lipped accusations. “I will not have you already start your verbal attacks on how I raise my children. Cassie and Brooke are positively-.”
“Oh hush, Derrick. Keep prattling on like that and you’ll loose your voice,” Aunt Victoria cut him short; make a dismissing gesture with her gloved hand. “Not that you already have lost your nerve. Cassandra. Brooke. Help your delusional father with my luggage. I want to be out of this wrenched airport at once.” She clapped her hands together. “ Come. Come. Make haste.”
“Yes ma`am,” Cassie said obediently, bending down and starting to pick up a couple of heavy looking brief cases. What was she? Her lackey?
I grunted underneath my breath, feeling no ambition to help the old crony hall her massive supply of luggage out to the car. She was only staying for fours day for Christ’s sake! She didn’t have to bring her entire house with her. I wouldn’t be surprise if she even packed the kitchen sink.
“Brooke Theodore Sparrow. You stop that glaring this instantly,” Aunt Victoria ordered catching me giving her a dirty look. We had the worst relationship a niece and aunt could have. We were both stubborn, self righteous, and short tempered. It was basically the clash of the Titans when we went at it. “Derrick, I am amaze you haven’t sent that one to military school yet! Brooke Sparrow, stop your slouching and straighten up. I will no tolerate your delinquent behavior, and good heaven’s, what are you wearing, child? A mini skirt in the middle of winter?! Come now, have you no common sense?”
“It’s the end of March, Aunt V,” I stated rolling my eyes in dismay, shrugging off her ranting and scrolled over to help Cassie and Dad. I picked up one of the heavier looking suit cases that way Dad didn’t throw out his back. “I think I’m perfectly capable of determining when it’s cold or hot out.”
I shot her a crocked grin. “And would you mind keeping your squawking down, I swear, even the dead lying ten feet underneath the ground can hear your shrill voice.”
“What? How dare-?!”
“You might wanna turn it down a notch. I hate to see what the airport security does to stupid old hags who don’t know how to keep their pie holes shut.”
Aunt Victoria’s face contorted in pure loathing, her eyes narrowing on my simpering face, silently hissing at my verbal assault. She never did come to appreciate my sense of humor. She and I clashed constantly and today was no different. She hated me with a passion and Dad was aware of that. That’s why he was glowering at me, silently warning me to avoid kindling the flames of Aunt Victoria’s fiery wrath. She held her dignity and pride higher than any one in our entire family. I don’t think even, Great Nana could match it and she was a woman, whose wrath should not be provoked under any circumstance. Aunt Victoria wasn’t some one a normal person wanted to mess with. It goes the same for everyone else on our Dad’s side of the family.
Brooke, I heard Cassie whisper inside my thoughts as Aunt Victoria and I exchanged heated glares. Don’t do this. Not in the airport. I don’t think Dad wants everyone see how bad you and Auntie V get along.
I snorted not impressed or intimidated. So? It’s not my fault the old bat can’t be nice for one freaking moment. All she does is bitch, bitch, bitch! I don’t see why I should avid by her rules when she doesn’t show the same respect we’re supposed to show her.
Cassie winced at the truth of what I said as we carried the luggage toward the exit. I get what you’re saying, but it’s not something we can help. Just deal with it!
Humph. Easy for you to say, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. At least she can tolerate you, I countered back mentally, shaking my head. She absolutely hates my guts, so I’m only returning the favor.
Brooke, you’re only getting yourself in more trouble, Cassie cautioned glancing toward Aunt Victoria as she lectured our Father on how a parent should properly raise a child. He cringed openly, his hands too busy, carrying her luggage, to clasp over his targeted ears. Please, do this for Dad. He needs all the help he can get.
She gave me the pleading eyes. We, you, owe him that much.
I raised an eyebrow, stopping short before we reached the doors. I blinked at my sibling, puzzled by what she meant. “Cass, he’s our dad. We don’t owe him anything,” I said out loud, confused.
Cassie puffed out her cheeks, incredulously. “You know what I mean!”
Instead of causing hell, Miss Know-It-All, why don’t you do the exact opposite for once and give our father as much peace of mind as possible, she chided psychically.
“Chst.”
Brooke…
“Are my eyes deceiving or are you girls using your power out in the public?” Aunt Victoria demanded promptly, interrupting our private conversation. The automatic doors slide shut behind us once we were outside, leaving us to trudge across the parking lot in the pouring rain.
Cassie and I both froze in mid-step. We had forgotten that we weren’t supposed to use our powers when Aunt Victoria was here, especially not out in public. Even communicating telepathically was forbidden during her visits. That’s was the one crucial rule Dad wanted us to follow every time she came. Aunt Victoria’s disposition on the usage of our powers, whether it be in public or home, was conservative to the extreme. Our people had been executed and discriminated against for centuries. Psychics were looked down upon as witches and devil worshippers and unfortunately for us, Aunt Victoria felt it was her duty to remind us that carelessly flaunting our powers, whether it was minute or not, could have supposedly disastrous consequences for our family. Our gifts were a dark burden veiled in secrecy and bared by our people, branded as demonic and not safe. Her conservative viewpoints and so-called fears were rooted as far back as the Dark Ages, where witches hunts and burnings were common. I guess, some where along the way physics started to see themselves through Christianity’s eyes and considered themselves doomed to the path of eternal damnations because of their pagan roots and gifts.
“Derrick Sparrow, haven’t you taught these girls restraint yet? What if they get caught? What of you then?” Aunt Victoria hissed, malice saturating her voice. “The using of one’s powers is and should be strictly forbidden. Pagan ways deserve to be buried in the past and remain there, not displayed out in the open.” She glared at us. “You girls should be ashamed of yourselves!”
“You‘ve got to be shitting me! It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal,” I snapped, fuming. Of the all most bull headed snide accusations she had to make…. Why did she try to make us regret who we were? Ugh! This woman pissed me off to hell!!
“That may be, but do you honestly think the world will view you or our family that way,” she countered coldly. “Tell me niece, do you realize how many of our people have die because of these gifts your girls possess? How many witches and wizards and psyches have perished at the hands of witch hunters and clergy men because of our tainted blood lines? It is better to let those powers of your slumber than use them like a mindless child’s toy.”
I grinded my teeth, furious. This is actually why Cassie and I hated her damnable yearly visits. Always acting like she knew what was best for our family. She was so narrowed minded! I loathed my aunt with a passion that could easily burn the entire state of Washington down to the ground. I let my gaze drift to the ground, clenching my fists until my fingernails dug into the palm of my hands. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?!”
My head snap up take glare at her more efficiently. “I said it doesn’t matter! That was then. This is now. Times has change, you old bat! Witch hunts don’t exist anymore. And people don’t believe in magic any more! So why don’t you stop speaking out of your ass and get with the program!”
“Uh! Why you little conniving-?!”
“Well now, as much as I loved to stand out the rain all night and listen to you two argue, I think would be best it we pack up this show and head home,” Dad interjected before things became ugly. His uneasy smile mirrored the wariness in his dark brown eyes. Cautiously he glanced toward the close automatic doors and surveyed the dark rain drenched soulless parking lot. “I think a nice cup of jasmine tea will sooth everyone’s fried nerves.”
He turned to our seething aunt and gestured to the now open trunk of the rented Honda. “Victoria, I realize you had a long journey to get here and you must be awfully tired, but please, spare my daughter your conservative views until tomorrow, hm? Brooke, Cassie, and I are going through a very stressful time right now, what with moving to a foreign region of the country and having to adapt to new surroundings. So please, I regret to say this so bluntly, but do mind your actions and be kind to your nieces and brother for the remainder of your stay.”
Aunt Victoria was left speechless by Dad’s bold proposal. Her eyes grew as big as saucers and her jawed dropped. I’m surprised it didn’t touch the ground. I think that’s the first time Cassie and I ever saw our father become assertive in front of our overbearing high strung aunt. We were just as floored by the slight change in his laid back demeanor as she was.
The ride home was actually peaceful for once instead of Aunt Victoria gnawing my father’s ear over every little insignificant detail out of place. It felt good, nice even.
A/N: Yola! I’m back!!!! Sorry, it took me so long to update, but unfortunately, college has me running laps around myself. I’m dizzy and sick with homework and the work load doesn’t seem to be getting any better…
Any who… With that said, I would first like to apologize to everyone about never posting an picture of the winner of the popular contest. I tried using Mediaminer, but unfortunately, you actually have to pay to post your work, and since I’m cheap, I decided to try somewhere else. I’ve tried both Deviantart and Fan Art Central and my stupid confounded computer won’t let me post any of my works on either website. As to why, I could only guess it has something to do with security reasons… (-_-)… Ugh! It was so frustrating!!
So I’ve decided to just tell everyone who the winner is…
*Drum roll*
And the winner is by default…. BROOKE SPARROW!! YAY!!
Yeah, I know I said that you could only vote once, but seriously, no one else beside Beck Beck and Smilezpleez decided to participate, so a huge and mega thank to these two wonderful reviewers for taking time out of their busy schedules and actually voting! Thank you guys so much! It really means a lot to me. *coddles!!(^-^)*
Well, that’s it for now!! UNTIL THEN!! PEACE OUT!!!XD
P.S. Also I’ve decided to post Chapter Eleven up as well, since I haven’t posted in such a long. So enjoy!!!