twilove

preface

I pondered long and hard about the means of my death, squandering to excruciating detail
the second-by-second replay (like after someone scores a point in Wii tennis), as if I longed
for it bad enough, I could will it so. However, unfortunately, logic and physics have made it
nearly impossible for attaining a death by the hands of a giant zombie cat.

Although, dying this way is cool too. I was breathing like a deranged scuba diver, my
breath catching on every irregular beat. I tried to glare hateful daggers, but they only came
out as irritated, dull razor blades, across the room into the eyes of the hunter. I would say
he looked back pleasantly, but that would be an oxymoron and shall take no place in this
wondrous creation of literary genius.

Because dying by the hands (or should I say paws?) of a large, undead cat has no
sentimental value and would not be seen as selfless, this is much nobler, thus more suitable
for my selfless, gallant character.

Perhaps if I was psychic, I would have known that coming to Forks would be one of the only
mistakes I have ever made in my life (that, and not going blonde when I had the chance).
However, not being psychic is only one of the six character traits generously given to me by
my author, as you will soon learn.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, back to the hunter I so vaguely describe. He came towards
me, but I shall depict it differently, using pointless, long words that I don't know the
meaning of. In my much more exciting version, he frolicked slowly, meandering towards
me like that confused sea pony I wanted for my seventh birthday.
chapter 1: primary spectacle part 1

My mother drove me to the airport on our rocket-powered, sparkly blue, two-person bicycle
with the windows rolled down. It was a hundred seventy-five degrees in my wonderful
hometown, Tucson, Arizona, and the sky a perfect, cloudless purple. I was wearing a low-
cut, sleeveless, white eyelet lace tank. I was donning it with tearful goodbye; it's overall
class nodded to my classier peers, I being their overlord of class. So classy, in fact, that
they didn't dare speak to me, but left me alone in my lunch corner. Yes, it was rather
revealing, but that's the kind of person I am, baring my exquisite soul to the world. I had a
parka as my carry-on item, the cheap, bubble gum pink, oversized, aluminum foil type. The
gaping hole over my pancreas area made it a steal for ninety-nine cents at my favorite,
local counterfeit goods dealer. I would miss that place.

In the top left? right? --I don't need directions-- of the United States, in Wyoming, a tiny,
almost nonexistent, hillbilly town named Spork exists. Someone called out to me on the
road.

"Where are you going?" they asked.

"I'm going to Spork!" I answered in a southern accent. I thought it was appropriate. Isn't
Wyoming southern?

According to Google, it rains more in Spork than any other town in the US. I visited there
once a year until I was fourteen; that was when I had a temper tantrum and refused to get
on the plane. Instead, I forced my father to vacation with me in Las Vegas for the past
three years.

Ironically, it is now to Spork that I was banishing myself, something I do with great dread.
I hate Spork. I love Tucson; where forever shall it be blistering in the heat and sweat. Even
if it gets so hot sometimes that my “blemishes” [they’re really pimples, but what an ugly
word!] pop in the heat.

"Bell," my mother screamed to me as we parked our bicycle, took out the Master lock,
whipped out the hot glue gun, and glued the lock to the bicycle rack at the airport (they
have those now) to avoid theft. It was such a valuable mode of transportation.

"Ding-dong!" I responded cheerfully to her cry, which prompted her to break out into a loud
chorus of Jingle Bells. While she was distracted, I slapped her boyfriend on the back,

"Take good care of her, Billiard," I spoke solemnly; my final words. In a rush to get on the
plane before the tears, I knocked an old lady over with my parka. It wouldn’t have been so
heavy, but I weighed it down with lemons (stuffed in the pockets and the lining that I ripped
open) in my attempt to remember Tucson on my depressing way to Spork.

"Get out of the way!" I snarled at her. She proceeded to beat me with her cane. It was
only then I noticed her impeccable fashion sense. She wore light pink sweat pants that
were drawn out up to her waist, shirt tucked in. The best was her dangling, hippo earrings.
But I couldn't get distracted! No, I needed to get on my plane before my mother found me
and begged me not to go, before my nobleness, my everlasting nobleness, could crack and
I would stay with her in Tucson.

chapter 1: primary spectacle part 2

It was a fifty-two hour, thirty-nine minute, and four second flight from Tucson to Spork. It
wouldn't have been that long, but due to my (attractive) clumsiness, I tripped and caused
both engines spontaneously combust. Also, our pilot was blind, and we had to make a pit
stop in Hong Kong.

The six minutes on Charlton's snazzy three-person bicycle worried me though. Would that
"She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" song last long enough to get us through it without talking?

Charlton had been surprisingly friendly about me coming to live with him. Especially since
on my last summer trip, he'd taken me shuffle boarding and I had run away calling him an
"old louse". Perhaps it was my charm that prompted him to accept me. He'd already
gotten me registered in high school, the finest in the land. Just kidding! It was a puny,
tiny, minuscule, hillbilly school to match this hillbilly town, which produces more hillbillies
than any other city in the country, except for Iowa. Those people are freaks. (When my
mother and I visited there, we attended a corn mating ritual. Dancing around the fire,
singing about corn, it was so joyous, yet so country at the same time.)

Charlton also agreed to help me get a vehicle of my very own. Maybe living here wouldn't
be so bad. Nonetheless, I've always felt awkwardness between me and Charlie. We were
both extraordinary unsocial.

“Hello there, Brianna.” He twisted his hand back in forth in an imitation of the Queen’s
wave. Charlton was as despicable a father as could possibly be. After all, he was the town’s
only fire-hydrant polisher. His slogan was Charlton’s Fire Hydrant Cleaners: Make Them
Shine Like Dog Pee! Secretly, I hoped to have such a fantastic profession as he when my
time came. But for now, I was only 17 years old, ready to take on the world!

“Oh, I mean, sorry, Bell.” I stared at him cooly.

“For your information Charl-Dad, I now go by !zz@ii(;” Charton looked at me for a moment,
disappointment and disbelief in his eyes. Instinct told me he thought I was a spoiled,
obnoxious teenager. But reality proved that this was the first visit that I hadn’t brought my
Ziploc bag of sea slugs to. He sighed.

“No,” he stated regally. “Bell, just no.” And thus, my short lived carreer as !zz@ii(; ended.

chapter 1: primary spectacle part 3

I only had 64 bags. Unfortunately, to say my mother and I were slightly poor was
like saying it was a little difficult to understand the Scottish. In consequence, most of the
clothing ragged and filthy. I didn’t see how my luggage would fit on the bicycle, but I need
not have worried. Charlton had rented a plastic box the size of a whale from the airport,
allowing me to store my bags inside. My dad started to pedal up the hill to our house. He
was sweating and puffing, but I don’t know why. The slope was only at a 110 degree angle,
for Cat’s sake! To be fair though, I suppose it didn’t help that I spent the ride perched on
his back, whacking him with my horse whip.

“Ride, Charlton, ride!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. When we got to the house,
I could not hide my disgust.

The house was made completely of sparkling glass, 8 stories, spreading over what
looked like 10 acres of land.

“Gosh, Charlton, you cheapo! What is this, eight floors?! I will NOT sleep in anything
under 12!” Charlton slapped me. It was our subtle communication for when one of us was
being too exuberant.

“Wait until you see the vehicle I got you!” he exclaimed.

“Let me guess. A four peson bicycle,” I sneered, sensing a pattern.

“You’ll see,” he declared. We walked up the long drive, and there it sat.

My very own segway. It was caked in five clear inches of mud. Tangle of seaweed were
draped across the handlebars. There was a piece of orange gum stuck to the left tire, and a
dead raccoon plastered to the right. Fruit flies buzzed around it.

“It’s…it’s…”

“ BEAUTIFUL” I shrieked. As I mounted the segway.

“And all I did was pull the thing out of the La Push River trash compost,” Charlton
muttered. The thing. That wouldn’t do. I tapped my foot against a wheel mindlessly. The
raccoon roared and bit me.

“Ohh, rabies!” I enthused enthusiastically. Charlton, shaking his head, walked into
the house. I now began my pondering of what glorious name I’d give my new baby segway.
I already cared for it like a child. It was clearly a girl, I’d recognized that immediately.

Hmmm…names cycled through my head. Ida, Gertrude, Edith, Ethel, Myrtle, Agnes,
Blanche, Matilda, Winifred, Henrietta, Mildred, Shakira, Beatrice, Tillie, Eula, Adelaide,
Lucinda, Minerva, Olga, Bernice, Ophelia, Wilhelmina, Miriam, Priscilla, Flossie, Gladys,
Zelma, Gwendolyn, Iona, Ernestine, Prudence, Agatha, Patsy, Chiquita, Dolores, Imogene,
Beryl, Dorcas, Lugenia, Philomena, Drucilla, Eudora, Phyllis, Bulah, Elzada…

And then it hit me like those overly ripe tomatoes at my seventh grade talent show. Truly
becoming of this beautiful segway of mine.

“Yes,” I sighed softly to myself. I pulled out my floret from fencing lessons, and tapped each
handlebar.
“Rise, noble Segway,” I commanded.

“I christen you Hortense.”

chapter 1: primary spectacle part 4

Once I stapled Hortense to the drive way, I headed inside of the shack the Charlton
called a home. Typically of the way he neglected me, he’d gone straight down to the
basement to watch football on our home movie theatre. A nagging, kind thought in the back
of my brain told me that Charlton really just wanted me to get acclaimed to the place, but
like all my other thoughts that included the goodness in others, I squashed it. How was I
supposed to be noble if I wasn’t constantly, day in and day out, suffering?

I was starting to get the idea that Charlton didn’t know how we lived in Tucson. He
must’ve done his best to make me feel at home, though. Judging by the scrawl in the lower
left hand corner of the wall by my window, almost out of sight, Thomas Pheasant had re
done my room. Bah, whatever.

AN: For those who don’t know, Thomas Pheasant is one of the most know
interior designers in the country. He’s does houses like you see in Architectural
Digest.

The walls were painted in a light, cheery green. Extravagant cream lace curtains
graced the bay window, shimmering with some kind of dust. There was almost some of this
dust settling on the desk, which still had the price tag attatched in case I didn’t like it. Of
course I didn’t like it. I hated it. And what better way to be noble and self-suffering if you
didn’t like your surroundings? It was perfect. Let’s see… a three…a five…two nines…a dot…
and two zeros. So $3599.00 in all. Charlton’s taste was improving slowly. I dragged my
finger through the thick dust settling on the desk and inhaled it. Blech, diamond. My room
though, I wouldn’t be able to suffer through. I ran downstairs and got several cans of paint,
as well as the moth-eaten, torn, black lace curtains that my great-great-great-great-great
half-uncle’s cousin’s mom’s dog’s sister’s owner had be quested to Charlton in her will. I
sloshed dark, almost black but not quite, blood red paint all over the walls. I hung the
creepy curtains. Yes, that was much better.

And now, I stared out the window, a dejected, yet mysteriously inviting expression
on my face. I was determined to only let out a few years, ten perfect tears. I’d pencil in sob
hysterical sobbing before bed time, wake up at 1:00 in the morning for some quite sniffling,
and gush tears with the force of a fire extinguisher, though silently, in the morning before
school.

The tears began. One…two…three…four…five….

DRAT! I lost count. Starting over now…one…two…three… lost it again!

The next time, I got all the way to seven before that cursed eighth number avoided
me. My high school now had, including me [and let’s face it, I really should count for about
300 students, the way I influence people, but we’ll limit me down to one for population’s
sake.] 358 students. My junior class had more than 137382078 people in it alone. All of the
kids here had been toddlers together, their parents toddlers, their grandparents toddlers,
their iguana’s hatching from their shells together. Theoretically, I should be rejected and
ignored like every other new kid. Naturally, that wasn’t the case.

Maybe if I had a different skin tone, different eyes, different hair, and could play a
sport, I’d be accepted. Instead, I was deathly albino. My mom always encouraged me to put
some color in my cheeks, but I insisted that people needed to stare, I needed the alone
feeling of self-sacrifice. Otherwise, I would’ve been more orange then a bell pepper. Bee tee
dubs, I do not have blue eyes or red hair. If only I did, then I’d be like the American flag, all
red white and blue. I put my clothes in my re-dyed black dresser. It looked too pristine, so I
took out my cobweb collection from my shoe and draped that across the top. Perfect.

I already looked unhealthy from Spork- YES! Maybe I’ll catch something. My skin
was almost translucent- a term also known as opaque. Some people would see this as a
safety hazard, as well as slightly disgusting, seeing as no one really wants to see your
various bodily tissues. But I thought it made me look unearthly- a vampire, perhaps?

I didn’t relate to people my age. I didn’t relate to anyone, actually. You’d need to be,
like, one-hundred-nine years old to relate to me, perhaps. Even my mom was never “in
harmony” with me. She was always one note too high on the harmonica. I often figured
there was a glitch in my brain. Which is totally radical.

The cause didn’t matter, however. The effect was what mattered. Tomorrow, the first
day of school, would be the beginning of the end.