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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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]

"Please. Room six."

She sounds hoarse, but she manages not to let her voice actually shake, she doesn't want to unload on a stranger.

[castmyown]

"Close enough to mine, I'm in room seven," he shrugs.

Off they go! She doesn't seem like she wants to make friends, so he will save the pointless pleasantries. Notes man is perfectly content to leave it at silence unless Bella would like to speak.

[shesepankh]

"Thank you," she adds as she follows him through the rain. "For the notes."

[castmyown]

"You're welcome," says helpful notes man. "I moved here mid-term last year, it sucks to play catch-up."

[shesepankh]

"At least I know the town," she says ruefully. "It's just I've only been here summers before -" She stops. She starts looking at room numbers as they pass doors.

[castmyown]

Wince. Okay, yeah, something happened there. Obviously something painful.

"My name's Darren, by the way. I didn't know the town at all and I was hopelessly, hopelessly lost."

He will let her avoid whatever unpleasant subject it is as long as she likes.

[shesepankh]

"It's nice to meet you."

It is, if she takes the event sufficiently out of context.

[castmyown]

"Nice to meet you, too."

Yeah, he's getting that impression. He doesn't take offense.

There they are, at room six. "Here it is," says Darren. "Would you like basic directions to your classes after this?"

[shesepankh]

"If you don't mind. The buildings look all alike."

[castmyown]

"Annoyingly so," he agrees. Then, he gives directions to each class from the previous class on her list. It's all very orderly and helpful.

He notes that they have a few more classes together, but doesn't say anything particularly insinuating of, 'Aha, we have had one short conversation and I have walked you to class therefore we are friends.'

[shesepankh]

"Okay. I'll see you in, uh, Earth Science, I guess. Thanks again."

In she goes to Spanish.

Later on she does in fact see him in Earth Science.

[castmyown]

"You're welcome. Happy to help."

Off he goes to algebra. Fascinating, math. (No it isn't.)

Later, there he is in Earth Science. He smiles a little at her, produces another set of notes, and Bella-ward they go. This is becoming something of a theme.

[shesepankh]

"Hi again. Thanks."

[castmyown]

"Hello again. You're welcome," he says. "Let me know if you have questions, apparently I am the Earth Science guru and people keep bugging me about it."

(He is good at science. Also math, math is required to be good at science, but science does cool things. Math is just a means to an end.)

[shesepankh]

"I keep up in science most of the time. But I'll make a note of it."

She does, and then she starts copying his notes.

[castmyown]

He nods.

The notes are helpful, neat, and nicely organized. He does appear to be good at science. Probably not helpful for Bella in particular, but it's nice to know, anyway.

[shesepankh]

Again he gets them back before the end of class.

[castmyown]

Good, he needs those for his sister! Also studying, but mostly for his sister.

"Thank you," says Darren when they're returned.

[shesepankh]

"Thank you. For the notes, for not interrogating me like everybody else and their cousin," she murmurs.

[castmyown]

"You're welcome. I do know what it's like to be on the other side of 'new student, bring into the gossip collective' syndrome and it's quite annoying. Would you like me to try to help? My sister and I tag-teamed to distract them when one of us didn't want to talk. I could do something similar?"

[shesepankh]

"Maybe. If it wouldn't be any trouble or make me look more antisocial than I do anyway."

[castmyown]

"I don't mind, I can be graceful about it. You don't seem antisocial, just - not talkative. Understandable, considering you just got here."

He doesn't say, 'You look like you're hurting' because that would not help, but he thinks it.

[shesepankh]

"If you're going to - run interference - it's not that it's a secret, I just don't want to say it fifty times -" She's briefly interrupted by the teacher saying something moderately important, she writes it down. "I'm here," she says when it's back to droning filler, "because my mom died."

[castmyown]

Darren winces. "I am so sorry. I'll answer questions about it, I get why you'd want to - not... Say it fifty times. I'll try and make sure you don't have to."

It's not like he likes bringing up his mother. Not quite the same situation, but it's still not much fun to explain that she's in an insane asylum. Followed by the awkward looks and the urge to say, 'No I am completely mentally fine, thank you' when it's so obvious that's what they're thinking.

So he understands it quite well.

[shesepankh]

Bella nods.

"Thanks."