The Major's Army

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own The Twilight Saga. Or Jasper's gift. Or Cosmopolitan magazine. Or Ed Sheeran. Sadly. Did I get everything?

Isabella's POV

"Bella! Turn that racket down!"

"Yes sir!"

With a suffering sigh, I reached over to my stereo and turned it down a ways, Ed Sheeran's sexy voice having less of a calming effect then before. The Cosmo I was absently flipping through also gave no distraction form the impending doom I was to face tomorrow. School, in general, sucks big, hairy balls, but starting a new school? Late? In your junior year? Yeah, it's going to be a blast. Figuring it'll be worse if I'm lacking on my beauty sleep, I throw the magazine off my bed and climb under the lavender comforter. Grimacing, I traced the pattern more fit for a young girl, then a teen. Don't get me wrong, Charlie is great, but we have never really had much of a relationship and he still considers me as a little girl. That could be my mother's fault, though. Now, she, she's a bitch. What kind of mother makes her child pay the bill from age ten? Or cook and clean and shop?

I clenched my hands, trying to prevent them from shaking with anger. As far back as I could remember, Renée was never really a mother. More like a wild housemate. She had a new plaything every week, and weekday parties where a frequent thing. Drunken nights and hungover mornings pretty much described my mother's life. She never could keep a job, choosing instead to become a notorious gold digger. I wasn't complaining too much though, because that money kept on the lights, heat and water, so I was grateful. All throughout middle school, I was meek and mousy, until I met Grayson and Grace. The twins cannonballed into my life at the beginning of my freshman year. I sighed, remembering the whirlwind that was the twins.

-Flashback-

I slid into the empty seat at the back of the classroom. Glancing around, I observed the various posters and track photos that scattered the larger room. It seems Johnson was the track and cross-country coach, as well as a Chemistry, BioChem, and Physics teacher. Wow. Busy guy. Bending down, I unbuttoned the flap on my massager bag. Pulling out my crisp, new collage ruled composition book, I had neatly started to print my name on the cover, when a loud cackle interrupted me.

"Oh god, Grace, you could at least try to live up to your name." A teenaged guy waltzed in, followed by a girl. She seemed to be doing an interruptive dance, her limbs like noodles, wiggling and squirming, and her spine seeming to be made of Jell-o, her torso circling and flopping around all over the place. When she registered the boy's words, she immediately straightened and became incredibly poised.

"Brother, where shall we sit?" I was slightly stunned by the girl's, Grace's, sudden change in character, going from very childish to having a mid-nineteenth century type of air about her. Her brother, though, didn't seem to be fazed, just gestured towards the two empty seats in front of me, in my "table group". (Seriously, what are we? Kindergarteners?) The two began making their way over to me, Grace mumbling "How do you do?" to a few people, who just nodded to her, seeming to be used to this strangeness as well. I shifted my eyes to my book just as they got to me, bickering about who got the seat closest to the front of the room. The boy won, sort of, as he used his foot to push his sister out of the chair and on to the floor, and then delicately sat in the now empty chair. Grace sprung up off the ground and into the other chair, chipper as can be.

"Hi!" She shouted. I winced; she is really loud.

"Hello." I mumbled, going back to writing my name, grade, and class on the front.

"I'm Grace! And this is Grayson! We are both juniors! Who are you?" She asked, as loud and as rambling as ever.

"I'm Isabella. Freshman." I said glancing up at her smiling face. Grayson sighed.