DISCLAIMER: Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight not me. I just love playing around with the characters we all know and love. :-)
Authors Notes: PLEASE READ (I know there's a lot for chapter 1)
***I FINALLY COMPLETED MY FIRST FANFICTION, 'I second that EMOTION'. YAY!
***I was trying to figure out the perfect way to celebrate my first complete fanfiction story in a way that gives me a chance to celebrate with all my different readers as well and I figured out the perfect solution... I will post three new chapters of 3 different stories at the same time. I will be posting the FINAL installment... Chapter #21 of 'I second that EMOTION', Chapter #10 of 'The Royal Imprint', and finally Chapter #1 of my new story 'Elementary Law of Order'.
- PLEASE READ or at least TRY each story if you haven't already. I want to see how many comments I can get. Let me know your favorite or anything else you have to say about any/all of the stories.
***My 3rd Fanfiction. Woo-hoo
***This will be my first All Human fiction, nothing supernatural, so I'm excited to try something new.
***Another thing about this story is it was inspired by real life for me. I got the idea enrolling my oldest in Kindergarten. :-) Lots of little things in the story will be based on true events.
***This will also be my first fiction where I will be switching off Points of view. So far the plan is that all odd number chapters will be Bella's, while all even will be Edward's. I'm excited to try this as I have only done single POV stories and have seen few stories with multiple one's and most of the one's I have seen, have only done an occasional outtake from another character.
***As a result of these POV changes, time will work fluidly with each chapter taking place as the last chapter ends, or close to it, but from the new person's view. I don't really want to do any bouncing around, time wise, as that gets a bit confusing, especially since I'm already changing characters. If anyone has insights of a chapter they want retold from the other, before progressing the story, let me know and I'll see if I can work it in or do outtakes later. :-)
***My plan is for all real time skips to be a character skip as well so everything will flow well. I think this will keep the story easy to follow. As a result, some chapters will be fairly short, as they will be just 1 or so scenes, but I will try to post chapters as fast as possible to combat this.
***This will be an Olderward story with a noticeable age difference between Edward and Bella. I'm excited to try this since an older slightly darker Edward sounds amazing to write. LOL
***Edward and Bella are very different people in this story so expect overly positive behavior only innocence and inexperience would give from Bella. At the same time, expect darker cynicism only life can create from Edward.
***Rated T for language (Mostly in EPOV chapters. lol) and the usual stuff. ;-) Rating is always subject to change.
***REVIEW, FOLLOW, FAVORITE
*******This story has been nominated for "Best Undiscovered Gem" fanfiction. :-) :-) :-) If anyone wants to cast a vote for me the poll is on . .. twificfandomawards
Thank you all so much
Elementary Law of Order
SUMMARY
What would you do if your life was just starting? Your world is full of sunny potential, all your hopes and dreams ready to come true. What would you do if you had to start your life all over again? Your professional life, the epitome of success, while your personal life is far from it. Bella Swan is a young, kind, devoted...but very naive Kindergarten teacher. Being Positive is just the way she is. Edward Cullen is a senior partner at the top law firm in the state. Control, schedules, hard work, and planning is what he does best and it has served him well, professionally at least. These two very different worlds and two very different people are about to collide.
CHAPTER #1: Kindergarten Eyes
BPOV (Bella's Point of View)
"Excited?"
"For what?" I smirked at my best friend as she finished curling my hair.
"The first day of school, smart-ass." Angela pulled a chunk of my hair and I winced at the unexpected attack.
"It's not the first day of school. It's meet the teacher night." I was beyond excited but I loved toying with Angela. She'd been looking forward to this day almost as long as I had. We'd been best friends our whole lives and as a result we shared everything, even each-others aspirations. She was my sister in every real sense of the world, except genetically. We'd spent so much time at each-others houses growing up that we each practically had a second set of parents.
Of the many things we had in common, one was our early knowledge of what we wanted to do with our lives. For as long as I could remember I'd wanted to be a teacher. I loved reading, learning, and above all, children. Over the years I had gone back and forth about which age I wanted to teach but I always went back to kindergarten. The way children saw the world was always beautiful to me, and I loved being around it.
Angela was similar to me in the love of children but she was more interested in their health then their education. As a result she was a nurse. She had recently finished her bachelors degree towards being a nurse practitioner and had gotten a job at a very prestigious hospital that paid well while she worked towards her masters in pediatric nursing, her real passion.
"You get to meet your students for the first time. That sounds like the first day of school to me." I smiled into the mirror at her encouraging expression. I really couldn't wait to meet them. Last year was my student teaching year and I had loved it so much. Seeing the world through their eyes, helping them learn the basic foundation that would take them literally everywhere in their life had been more rewarding then I could have ever imagined. I had cried at the end of the year when I not only had to say good-bye to my students but the school as well as it wasn't where I had been accepted for a job. I had applied at every elementary school I could and had actually been accepted at a few of them.
I was incredibly surprised to have gotten acceptance from Evenfall elementary as it was one of the most highly respected schools in the state, not even just among elementary schools, but all schools in general. It was a private school that specialized in just about every subject and housed very high up people's children. I had been hesitant about working for a private school as I had always hated the idea of uniforms and such rigid education to the point of stifling a child's individuality and creativity. In addition to being a general teacher I also had a degree in art and taught it last year, as a student teacher, for the first time in an extra-curricular program. I loved developing a child's creative energy as much as their education.
My background in literary coaching and art were the two things that had gotten me the job as until recently the school hadn't had much of an art program and they wanted to change that. They had many teachers with the same or even better literary background as me but given that the school was an elementary school, the more teachers with the knowledge could only benefit as no parent wanted to watch their child struggle.
It was still surprising I got the job as every other teacher had years of knowledge and experience on me and I was incredibly young and inexperienced, by anyone's standards. I had recommendations and numerous commendations but nothing trumps experience, which admittedly I had none of. The principal hadn't minced words during my interview when he called me out on my lack of background but at the same time he was excited to see fresh ideas in the school.
"H-e-l-l-o" Angela waved her hand in front of me as I starred off into the mirror. I blushed while smiling innocently and mumbling an apology. She rolled her eyes but continued with my hair.
"Are you nervous?" I sighed and nodded. She gave me a frown and a perked eyebrow, silently telling me to explain.
"You know that many of my students have custody agreements?"
"What does that mean?" She looked more confused then I did when I read them.
"Custody agreements, like with divorced parents. Certain days I'm only 'allowed'..." I used quotes with my fingers to illustrate my point. "...to release my students to certain parents to take home."
"Eww. Isn't that up to the parents? Both have legal rights to their kid right? Shouldn't both be allowed to pick them up?"
"Technically yes. I think it has more to do with the schools private rules then the actual law."
"I guess it makes sense. If one parent is trying to pull some shit with the courts and say that the other is blowing off their child by 'not picking them up from school'..." She mimicked my use of air quotes while rolling her eyes at me. "...or something like that. I suppose the school just doesn't want the hassle."
"I guess." It was still sad to me, though to be fair I didn't come from a 'broken home'. My parents lived a long and successful marriage. I was one of the few, so what did I know of divorce?
"All done." I smiled as I looked at my slightly curly hair. She didn't do anything extreme as I just wanted some light waves. I wanted to look natural not plastic.
"What would I do without you?" She waved me off playfully with a smile.
"You'll never have to find out."
…...
I gazed around my new classroom and couldn't keep the smile off my face. 'My Classroom'. I looked at the plaque on the door reading 'Room 3, Ms. Swan, Kindergarten'. I felt like a loon as I couldn't stop smiling as I meticulously reorganized name tags, workbooks, school supplies, and anything else not nailed down for about the fiftieth time. I wanted everything perfect. At my school last year the 'meet and greet' was more first come first serve with the early arrival parents getting the quiet time with the teacher and the later the night got the more noise and interruptions the parents had to put up with. I had to hand it to this school though they were more organized than that. Each child and parent had an assigned time slot with me. It was nice that I could have the individual time with the parents but it also meant a much longer night. In public schools these were about two hours total but here with a 15 minute section with each parent of my 25 students I had over 6 hours to get through plus the preparations before hand, and the clean up afterwards.
Luckily the meetings started early in the day, 11am, so I didn't have to long of a night ahead. I had no idea what to expect from each parent but I had a feeling I would be caught off guard. Eventually I stopped fidgeting enough to set out the custody arrangements, lunch files, personal information, and everything else I had on each student. I laid out each file in order of appointment, then got all my fliers together for the parents. After I was done I started breezing through the first couple custody arrangements. They seemed fairly simple. One week was mom's and the next was dad's, and both were listed as emergency contacts, that sort of thing. I was actually a little uplifted that at least a few had such well-meaning agreements. There were a few that were considerably harsher though. They very specifically named who could pick up their child and who couldn't... on certain days.
Setting aside all of those forms I instead went to the papers involving what the parents wanted for their children to accomplish this year. Most were blank as the parents would be filling them out tonight, while others had an almost disturbingly specific list of allowances and expectations. I frowned at all the mentions of math, reading, writing, and other academic goals, as not a single one spoke about their child socially, creatively, or emotionally. I felt uneasy at all the rigid goals they wanted from 5 year old's. Again I couldn't help but compare this to my class last year. Sure most of the parents wanted their child to develop alphabet mastery, word recognition, improved handwriting, and things like that but many of the parents mentioned how they wanted their child to make friends, take drawing, music, or any number of other goals that weren't so... cold.
I shook my head of of all these bad thoughts with a frown at my own negativity. I was spending way to much time with Angela.
KNOCK, KNOCK
I got up and opened my door. Outside was a happy looking couple, a baby and a little boy who was obviously my new student. We sat down at my desk after I got their son, Henry, settled at the spot that would be his desk with some drawing materials. They were an amazing couple and they immediately comforted me from my earlier concerns. They told me how they'd had Henry in at home daycare with family instead of preschool so they wanted as many updates as possible if he was struggling with anything. They were so easy going though that I couldn't help but really like them. His dad was a doctor, ironically at the same hospital Angela worked at, and his mom was a stay at home mom. I smiled at that as my mom had done that for me until I was old enough for her to return to work, and it made me miss my parents. They explained that Henry was great with other kids as he came from a big family with lots of cousins that had been raised together almost like siblings. Admittedly that made me a bit jealous. I was an only child of only children so I hadn't had such a social upbringing. I did always have Angela though. After we talked about all the extra-curricular's, and they even enrolled him in my Tuesday art class that would start in a couple weeks, we all sat down with Henry for awhile.
He was quite the charmer and more then once told me how pretty I was, to which his mother looked embarrassed and his father looked quite proud. I had to fight laughing at their opposite reactions while thanking Henry each time for the compliments. He had raven black hair, slate blue eyes, and an easy smile. He was definitely going to be a ladies man as he grew up.
I was a little sad when their time was up but I knew the next group would be here soon. I went to shake Henry's hand, to which he gave me a hug instead. Yes my heart melted a bit at this little sweetheart. I gave him a small hug back as his family laughed and then they were on their way.
The next group was polar opposite to the first. The parents came together but they were actually divorced, recently, and it showed. They sat as far from each-other as possible and seemed to have to put a great deal of effort into not interrupting each-other as they expressed their desires for their daughter, Emelia. I had noticed immediately that she started drawing food on her papers and asked if they would be interested in putting her in the cooking class. Like my art class it didn't start for a few weeks but it was supposedly a pretty popular program, even the kindergarten level one. The mother loved the idea but the father seemed less then thrilled. I wasn't deterred though as I understood his safety concerns. I gave him the info about the class and how highly recommended it was. In the end they both agreed and she was signed up. I think what sold the father was how excited Emelia was when she overheard us talking about her learning to cook. Bitter divorce or not it was obvious that deep down they just wanted Emelia to be happy.
The whole day went like this but as I had suspected there were little surprises throughout the evening. Many parents brought nanny's, PA's, and other employees with them as these were the people that would be picking the children up after school. It seemed strange but then again all of these parents had very white collar jobs that were clearly demanding of their time so I wasn't going to judge. At least they were putting reliable people in place to do the job and making sure I knew who these people were. One of the things about Kindergarten was how informed the school needed to be involving how the children would get home so it was nice that the parents were already prepared. Very few parents would be picking up their kids themselves, at least regularly, so it was nice that I got the information now.
Parental issues or not aside I adored all my students already. They were bright, eager to learn, and I knew I would fall in love with all of them quickly. I was positively buzzing with excitement over the surreal feeling I had. I couldn't believe I was finally here. Getting ready for my first year of teaching. That thought alone left me fidgeting with everything on my desk that I could reach. This was my FIRST year teaching... everything I had ever worked for. I was right where I wanted to be and I couldn't be happier.
"Hello." The smooth velvety voice pulled me from my thoughts as I was situating the file for my last appointment of the day. They were earlier then I expected as the last group left early due to a personal emergency. I stood up before I turned around, then I faced the door only to see the most beautiful man I'd ever seen in my life, starring right back at me.
END NOTES:
-CAST your votes for this FANFICTION please...
-Bella's view is done. Edward is next. I'm planning on picking up right where I left off but with Edward directing the way so their first interaction will be from his eyes. What did everyone think? Do you like the idea of switching point of views every chapter? Let me know. :-)
-Not a lot happened in this chapter but I promise the next will be a lot more fun.
-I have quite a few chapters of this story written already but I'm only posting one at a time to get a feel for what everyone thinks. I should be posting the next chapter very fast though. I LOVE the Edward POV chapters the best so they are my favorite to write.
-REVIEW please
-Before anyone with a background in primary education launches themselves at me for any inaccuracies I wrote, please realize I'm not a teacher and did the best I could based on what I do know of the education field. (If anyone has some knowledge of anything that would help the story by all means message me and maybe I can use it though. :-)) I do know that teachers have to know about student custody for legal reasons which I found out when I enrolled my daughter in school. It makes sense of course but is also kind of depressing. It was actually one of the things that inspired the story though. When I was filling out my daughters enrollment forms and there was so much info about custody (My daughters father and I are fortunately still happily married... for now. Lol jk) I couldn't help but think about what crap teachers have to deal with involving bitter ex's who care more about punishing one another then doing what's best for their child. A couple more random thoughts with that thought and BAM we have this fanfic. Lol
ENJOY :-)