high school is kind of boring really

[self_composed]

School plods along. Bella is native-quality fluent in Spanish, professor-level at math, well and thoroughly versed in the workings of the United States government, capable of doing actual independent research projects in biology, and she's been speaking English since she was one. Alas, these skills only make classes easier for a short time. After the novelty wears off they're just tedious. Bella winds up squaring her homework done more often than not so she can work out the kinks in her design for telekinesis, or play music, or attend soccer practice, or write little computer games, or read, or just fly around. This works out fine. Magic is pretty good at homework.

She winds up not attending most of the dances, but she does want to go to the end of year one, as she will be leaving Forks High School forever and it has some good points. Alice promised her a dress...

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[edgeofyourseat]

"That sounds fun!" says Alice.

[self_composed]

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is still out. With Johnny Depp," muses Renée. "Phil didn't want to see it so I haven't yet..."

"Sounds good to me," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Me too," says Alice.

[self_composed]

And so: they go watch Johnny Depp be a chocolate-manufacturing manchild and various odious children meet cartoonishly grisly fates.

[edgeofyourseat]

Johnny Depp is a pretty, pretty man. Alice appreciates that about him.

He also thinks the horrible things happening to the kiddies are hilarious.

[Who the hell thought this shit up? It's amazing.]

[self_composed]

[Roald Dahl,] Bella supplies. [He wrote kids' books. Ostensibly. They're worth reading and my copies should be here, since I didn't bring them to Forks; wanna borrow some?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Love to!]

[self_composed]

So after the credits (which Renée insists on sitting through - she has plenty of short-term patience), they go back to the house, and Bella digs through boxes of books and eventually finds a few Roald Dahl ones: she has Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches and James & The Giant Peach and The BFG and Danny, the Champion of the World.

"It should have occurred to me before that this would be the sort of thing that would appeal to you," she says, handing over the stack.

[edgeofyourseat]

"If they're all like that movie, I am gonna fucking love 'em," he asserts.

[self_composed]

"Of these, Danny is least similar," Bella shrugs. "But I liked it. I wasn't born reading Austen and Shakespeare and stuff."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Weren't you?" he teases.

[self_composed]

"Nope," Bella says. "Turns out they don't give newborn babies books no matter how pleadingly they ask."

[edgeofyourseat]

...The mental image of tiny baby Bella waving her arms and imperiously babbling for books is just the cutest thing.

[self_composed]

Bella laughs. "My mom's probably going to insinuate that you must be wanted wherever you're staying in a few minutes. Have fun with the books."

[edgeofyourseat]

"I will," he says, hugging them.

[self_composed]

Renée does shoo him, and Bella goes to bed.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice sits on the roof, invisible, with his pile of books.

He reads The BFG, and thinks it is adorable.

He reads Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and thinks it is just as great as the movie was.

He reads James and the Giant Peach, and thinks it is fucking awesome.

He reads The Witches, and thinks it is amazingly twisted.



He reads Matilda.



He sits for a long time with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around the book. Then he puts it carefully with the rest in his independently invisible backpack, climbs down to Bella's bedroom window, and knocks.

[self_composed]

Bella's eyes flutter open and she looks at the source of the sound.

[What?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I just read Matilda and now I really really want a hug,] he says, hovering with his hand on the wall.

[self_composed]

Bella opens the window, and steps back and holds out her arms, and reads for more detail.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice swoops in and hugs her, going to his knees on the floor so he can lean his head against her stomach.

His thoughts and feelings are all over the place. He thinks Matilda is amazing. He thinks her parents are shitheads. There are ways in which her dad is familiar and ways in which he really isn't. He thinks that if he'd read that book when he was thirteen, his father would be dead by now. He doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or cry, but the second one definitely seems to be winning.

[self_composed]

Bella hugs his head, since that's what's near enough, and pets his hair. [Matilda's father doesn't die in the book. Why would yours have if you'd read it earlier?]

[edgeofyourseat]

Because Matilda got her own back. Matilda made the crucial realization that as much as your parents have power over you, you can have power over them, with the right resources. Alice came to that one a little late.

If he'd come to it earlier, before he'd had so much time to learn to be afraid... well, putting his dad in jail was never his first idea.

[self_composed]

Bella goes on petting him. [You'd most likely have gotten caught. At thirteen, with no magic to cover anything up - you'd still be in juvie, maybe transferred to a regular prison by now.]

[edgeofyourseat]

Maybe. Maybe not. It's not like he would've stuck around to take the heat. In fact, he'd have been likelier to end up dead on the streets than in jail.

Anyway, if all that had happened, he'd never have met Bella. And that would just be immeasurably tragic.