Chapter 5

BPOV

I sat in the office, waiting for my 'escort' around school to arrive. I glanced over my schedule one more time, so absolutely absorbed in the little slip of paper that I missed the tiny brunette standing next to me.

"Hi! I'm Alice Cullen!" Her voice startled me, causing me to jump and drop the sheet of paper in my hands. "I'm supposed to show you the ropes around here, you know? Give you the tour?" she said, stifling a laugh at my jumpy nature.

"Yeah. Tour." Oh my God, I'm channeling Rainman. "Uh, I'm..."

"Bella Swan. Yeah. I know." Alice chimed in her tinkling bell voice.

"Uh, yeah. How did you know my name?" I stammered out. Apparently, I had left my brains in the back pocket of my other pair of pants at home. Either that or it's frozen in the cool air of Washington, and is refusing to work until I take it somewhere warmer and drier. "Uh, I meant, how did you know to call me Bella?"

"Oh, I know things. You'll get used to it, trust me. We're going to be the best of friends, you and I." she said with an odd look in her eyes, like she was staring at something off in the distance. "As a matter of fact, sooner or later we'll be so close we'll be like family." I didn't know what it was about her, but something in me believed her utterly preposterous statement without question. Somehow I knew that betting against Alice would be a very bad idea.

For the next half hour, she escorted me all arount campus. First, she took me to the library to get my school books checked out to me, then took me to my locker to put said books away. When we reached where my locker was, she let out a loud squeal that made me jump.

"Your locker is RIGHT next to mine! We can be locker buddies!" I had to laugh at her enthusiasm. "Your locker is also right underneath my cousin's locker. His name is Edward. You'll meet him sooner or later." She made a funny face when she said that, almost like she was enjoying her own private joke, and I wasn't sure if it was at my expense or not. I chose to ignore it.

"Ok, so let me see your schedule." she said, taking the little white slip of paper from my hands. "Hm ... looks like you have Honors English, then Econ, Trig, Fourth period lunch, Study hall, Biology, French III, then PE. Wow. That's a heavy load. Well ... we're just going to have to go swap out lunch and study hall. Debate only meets during fourth period on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it's a must."

"Who said anything about joining Debate, Alice?"

"No one, but you will want to. Not only will it provide you the opportunity to purge emotions, but it also looks really good on your college transcripts. Our school has one of the highest ranked Debate teams in the Pacific Northwest, and this year we stand a good chance at decimating at Nationals."

Well, when she put it that way it sounded more appealing. We headed back to the front office to change my schedule around. It didn't take long to have my schedule exactly how Alice saw it in her tiny, spikey head. Somehow I got the impression that Alice always got what she wanted.

"Ok, now that's settled, I should take you to your first class, which will be over in about 15 minutes or so. You need to get each of your teachers to sign off on your slip to mark that you're added to the teacher's charts. By the way, I'll be with you in your Econ, French, and PE classes."