CHAPTER ELEVEN

SAVANNA

After English we had History, and then Math before lunch. The Math classroom had about twenty single desks lined up in four rows. Edward and I sat next to each other again; Alice was in a different math class, so it was just us. As we took our seats the girl sitting in front of us turned around to face Edward and I; “Hi, I’m Savanna,” she said. Her voice was bright, and sounded genuinely happy and optimistic. She was about the same height as me, with flat, shoulder length brown hair, and glasses. “I’m Sa-va-nna,” she said again, sounding a little reserved compared to the first time.

          

“Sorry!” I exclaimed, embarrassed as I realised I had temporarily gone into a moment of deep thought as she was the first student to actually talk to us. “I don’t know where my head is these days,” I added light-heartedly, “I’m Bella.”

            

She grinned at me, “well nice to meet you;” she seemed genuinely nice, “and whose this?” she asked, eyeing Edward over.

            

“Oh, this is Edward, he’s my…ah-“ I suddenly realised that we hadn’t covered this part!

            

“Boyfriend,” Edward quickly finished for me in a flat and somewhat cold tone – people were naturally drawn to us, so we couldn’t be too friendly to anyone. I was glad that Edward was going to be with me most of the time at school, to help me focus on maintaining my daytime persona.

            

“Yes, my boyfriend,” I said, relieved that he had jumped in at the right time.

            

“So where are you from?” she asked.

            

“Forks, America,” I replied. She was about to respond but the teacher walked into the room. She winked at me and turned back around. 

            

“Textbooks out now,” the teacher screeched, as she sat down at her desk at the front of the class. She was a middle-aged woman, and I could tell that she was the type of teacher that didn’t tolerate any nonsense. “Begin with section four on page thirty,” she added.

            

Everyone did as she requested, except Edward and I, as we didn’t have ours yet.

            

“Excuse me Miss,” Edward said, breaking the silence of the room with his soft velvety voice, “I’m Edward Cullen and this is Bella Swan, it’s our first day here and we don’t have any text books.”

            

She frowned slightly and glared at us for a moment before getting out of her chair and grabbing two green textbooks from a bookshelf. “Welcome to Seward, page thirty,” she said coldly, as she handed us a book each. I glanced at Edward, and he grinned at me with a knowing look.

            

I felt even more like a vampire. I remembered feeling fear in the presence of teachers like this, but now it was different – I guess the fact that I could rip her to shreds in a spilt second helped with that change of mentality. I wondered what it was like for Edward too, being more than double her age – he must have been viewing her as if she were just an immature child!

            

“Thanks Ms……” Edward paused, waiting for a reaction.

            

“MacKinley!” she said sharply.

            

He smiled his charming smile at her, and then opened his textbook. I could see that it wouldn’t be long before he became her favoured student.

            

Math was always my weak subject, and I found a lot of the questions challenging. I hadn’t looked at a single equation since I was at Forks High school.

            

When the bell finally rang for lunch I put my pen aside with enthusiasm; my body may have been invincible, but my brain hadn’t became any smarter through my transformation.

            

“I’ll see you around,” Savanna said as she quickly got up from her desk to leave the classroom.

            

“Ah…sure,” I said, smiling at her hesitantly. She had surprised me again by being the only student to talk to me so far.

As Edward and I walked down the corridor to the cafeteria, I couldn’t help but notice how hostile everyone was towards us – we seemed to constantly have a couple of metres gap around us, despite being in a typically cramped walkway. Whilst no one had spoken to us, except Savanna and some of the teachers, we were the centre of most peoples attention. I hated the thought of what Edward was having to listen to; it was bad enough with the sensitivity of my own ears - I was constantly hearing people whispering things about us: “there all so beautiful,” “do you think they’re related, they look similar, but also like they could be actual couples,” was all starting to get rather repetitive. Savanna really was oddly different in comparison. 

            

“Over here guys,” Alice’s voice called out as we entered the cafeteria, snapping me out of my thoughts about the students at Seward High School. Alice, Jasper, Emmet and Rosalie were sitting at a round table at the back of the room.

            

“Have you seen Nessie and Jacob,” I asked as we reached their table.

            

“Their in the lunch line,” Rosalie replied. I noticed that they had obviously done this already; as they all had untouched trays of food in front them.

            

“We won’t be needing to feed Jake tonight then,” I said. They all laughed at this.

“I don’t think Jacob could ever be full,” Nessie answered as she came up behind us with Jacob beside her. Her voice sent instant sparks of joy throughout my body, and I realised that I had missed her.

“Enjoying school so far?” I asked.

“Its been rather entertaining,” she said, sitting down between Jacob and Rosalie, 

“Jake needs some serious tutoring!”

“I’m sorry I’m not a nerd like you Nessie,” Jacob said, as he took a huge mouthful of macaroni-cheese. We all laughed.

“Lets go get ours,” Edward said, “any special requests,” he added, looking a Jacob.

“Not really,” he replied, with his mouth half full, “just fill your plates right up with this macaroni, its pretty good!”

Edward and I joined the back of the line to get our food. I looked around the room and noticed a lot of people seemed to still be discussing us.

“Is it always like this,” I whispered under my breath, knowing that only Edward would be able to hear me.

“Yes,” he said.

We watched in silence for a little while longer, as the long line moved slowly. My eyes moved from table to table, studying each group of students, and they all seemed very similar to those at Forks High School, sitting in their groups of friends talking to each other. When I came across the girl from our math class, Savanna, I noticed that she seemed to be isolating herself from the other students. She was sitting in the opposite corner from us, with a guy sitting across from her at the empty tabel. It was an odd sight as she seemed like she was more of a people-person, and I’d expected to find her being the centre of attention at one of the fuller tables in the cafeteria. They weren’t talking to each other either, and they both were listening to music on mp3 players. Their body language didn’t show any signs of them being uncomfortable in each other’s presence – as if they were a new couple having a lunch date or something.

“What do you think about that girl from our maths class,” I asked Edward, whispering again.

“I not sure, but something’s not right,” he said. As I turned to look at him I noticed that he must have been watching them for a while as well. “She was unusually focused on the math equations in class, and now her thoughts are purely filled with the music she’s listening to on her mp3.”

“I wonder what she is,” I said.

“She’s defiantly not a vampire,” he replied, “I can hear her heart, but she could more than human, same with the guy as he’s thinking the same way as she is. We’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

I felt as thou my heart skipped a beat, despite the fact that my heart was eternally frozen in time. What else could there be in this supernatural world that I was now a part of? Was pretty much everything from the fiction books true? We grabbed our lunch and walked back to the others at our table. Jacob was already digging into his third helping of macaroni – he was great for our human persona.

“Don’t all look at once,” Edward said quietly to everyone at the table, “but the couple at the far end of the room could be dodgy.

“What do mean?” Alice asked, “I would have had a vision if anything was going to happen.”

“They seem to be protecting their thoughts, and the girl is the only student to have spoken to us,” he said.

“The boy did the same thing in our English class,” Renesmee said.

“Something doesn’t seem right with them,” Edward said, “and if they are aware that I can hear their thoughts, then maybe they can prevent Alice from having visions.”

“Like with Jacob!?” Alice said.

“Exactly,” Edward replied, “so just be wary of them.”

           

For the last 20 minutes of the lunch break, we sat in silence, taking turns at watching Savanna and the boy she was sitting with. They listened to their music the entire time, obviously focused on keeping their guards up for some reason. I had to force myself to turn my concentration over to myself during our gym class, as I could have easily hit the ball a little too hard and knocked someone out - we were playing volley-ball.

           

As we were walking to the Volvo after our last class, we found Nessie and Jacob waiting by it talking to the boy that Savanna was sitting with at lunchtime. As we approached them, he turned around to face us, “you two must be Edward and Bella?” he said, in a confident tone, “I’m Eric, I think you’ve met my sister Savanna, she’s in your math class?”

   

“That’s right,” Edward said blankly.

           

“You all seem to be the topic of every conversation around here, so I thought I’d come and say hello myself and ask if you’d all like to come to our Halloween party we’re hosting tomorrow night?” he said, “its something we’ve done for a couple of years now”.

           

Edward was quite for a moment, “sure,” he said, starring intently at Eric, who must have been blocking his thoughts still, “where is it?”

            

“52 Pincoe Crescent, Bear Creek,” he said.

            

“Alright,” Edward said, “thanks for the invitation.”

           

“And extend the invite to your other siblings too, their most welcome.” I was studying Eric as he spoke to Edward. His skin was pale, and he looked tired as he had dark circles under his eyes – his jet-black hair enhanced all this.

            

“Well, see you tomorrow then,” Edward said, as he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car.

           

“Look forward to is,” Eric said, as he left.

           

We climbed into the car, and didn’t speak until we got out of the school parking lot.

            

“Something is defiantly not right about them,” Jacob said.

            

“Yes,” Edward agreed, “we all need to be extremely wary tomorrow night, he was defiantly blocking his thoughts from me - he’s skilled in doing it too.”

            

Edward drove home fast, slowing down only when he could hear that a cop was near by. When we got back house everyone was gathered in the living room, except for Carlise who was still at work. Rosalie was the first to speak, “looks like that mysterious couple have mysterious parents too,” she announced.

           

© Copyright to Jonathan Cameron