ghost

[shesepankh]

Kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan (36) was killed in a car crash one mile from her residence in Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2005. She is survived by her daughter Isabella (16). Her service will be held at -

Bella has the entire obituary pasted into a page of one of her compilation notebooks but tends not to re-read past the first lines. It's repellent. The concept of obituaries is repellent. The funeral is over. Renée's vibrant brief life has been summed up over the course of a paragraph, and is also over.

Bella pretends to sleep on the plane. Her neighbor is talkative and she doesn't want to say shut up, my mom just died, because - what if it doesn't work? What if this news doesn't have the power to bludgeon everyone else into stunned silence the way it does Bella?

Charlie collects her. Charlie hugs her. Charlie doesn't make her talk. Good wonderful understanding quiet Charlie does not say a word. He takes her home. Her room's where she left it last August.

It's raining.

Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn. First class is English. Okay, whatever.

The teacher wants her to introduce herself. Bella wants to yank on the skinny end of his tie until he regrets making her.

She stands at the front of the room and says that her name is Bella Swan and she's moved here to live with her dad. The teacher makes an impatient go on gesture and she stands there for a moment before robotically saying the same thing she produced at the beginning of the year in her old school in Phoenix when they were doing go-around-the-room-and-share-facts. "I'm one of those people who actually likes Shakespeare."

He lets her sit down.

She sits.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"He was perfectly friendly to me. Did he glue himself to a wall at a dance once and you've refused to let him forget it?"

[morethanimaginary]

"He's actually really shy. Let me guess. Was his version of friendly 'Here have some notes now we shall work in silence for the rest of the class'?"

[shesepankh]

"Well, yes, but I kind of welcomed that. And he got chattier at roughly the rate I wanted him to."

[castmyown]

Darren grins. "Ha," he says.

[morethanimaginary]

"... Huh. Okay, I stand corrected, Darren, your wallflower status is rescinded. You made one school friend without help. I'm proud."

[castmyown]

"Today is the happiest day of my life," drawls Darren.

[shesepankh]

"Usually Savannah brings home the friendly prey to your den?"

[morethanimaginary]

"Yes, where he circles for ages, then finally awkwardly shuffles towards them in lieu of actual pouncing."

[castmyown]

"It's called being polite. You should try it sometimes, it's nice."

[morethanimaginary]

"Aw, but then what would you have to do?"

[castmyown]

"Take over the world, obviously," he says dryly.

[shesepankh]

"It is actually possible for multiple people to be polite."

[castmyown]

"Oh, no, half of my brotherly duties are 'translate for Savannah because she has no filter.' So I'd have a lot more free time if she were polite."

[shesepankh]

"Ah, I see."

[morethanimaginary]

"Yeah, so obviously I have to keep not having a filter or Darren would move on to saving kittens full-time and I would never see him."

[castmyown]

"Nonsense. We have art together."

[shesepankh]

Bella giggles. "Also maybe if he got very good at kitten-saving he'd run out of endangered kittens."

[morethanimaginary]

"He would then move on to puppies, I have no doubt. Maybe endangered gerbils, after that."

[castmyown]

"No, no, after puppies are lizards. I don't discriminate based on fluffiness."

[shesepankh]

"How very forward-thinking of you."

[castmyown]

"I try," he snickers.

[morethanimaginary]

"Also I would punch him if he wasn't."

[castmyown]

"It's true, she would."

[shesepankh]

"Really? I wouldn't have pegged you as a - reptilian rights activist."

[morethanimaginary]

"I like to mix things up and keep people guessing," grins Savannah.

Also she is gay. So if he brother wasn't forward-thinking, they would have a problem. But he is, so they don't.