Bagga Eggs

“He’s got a bag of eggs again.” Eskra points with her cafeteria fork, a small fleck of lettuce still stuck to the tines. The room is an echochamber of chatter, laughter and the screeching of metal chair legs on the polished floor.

Muriel looks up, squinting under the fluorescent lighting. She follows the fork and finds Emmett Cullen upon the receiving end of Eskra’s comment. The broad shouldered boy sits in a white hoodie, laughing over a plastic bag of white hard boiled eggs. They looked like little ping-pong balls.
On one side was Rosalie, stolid and composed, and on the other, Alice, who was dwarfed in comparison to his frame. Each girl had an apple and one serving of mashed potato between them. One spoon stabbed into the centre of the unmoving cement pile.

Muriel nods sagely, “He’s definitely getting his protein. No wonder he’s built like a brick shithouse.” Eskra hums and winces as Emmett’s laughter reaches a new height. The chair creaks at his every move.

“It’s iron that he needs to worry about. They all do,” Eskra stabs a squishy cherry tomato with her fork, “I thought Doctor Cullen would be all over that.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. They don’t fuck with transfusions or altering your blood. Maybe that’s their deal.” Muriel looks at the clock. Eight minutes until Biology. Eight minutes until listening to Jessica give a rundown of every smidgen of gossip in the school. The trying of her social battery.

“I’m not saying they need blood transfusions. I’m saying they need steak and an iron fish in their boiling water,” Eskra runs her tongue over her lips. Muriel hummed and started tracing the outline of a fish on the table with a rogue droplet of water.

“I could only imagine having that many eggs in one go,” Eskra looks off into the distance with a vacant gaze, “the farts I’d have would clear a fucking building.”

Muriel watches Emmett slip the bag into the bin, her finger still following the fish pattern as the water became less and less. “They already do,” she said as Eskra sighed.

“Shhhhh, I’m self-consciousssss,” Eskra whined, her freckled nose creasing with an overexaggerated expression of despair. She slid her fork onto her plate, and cushioned her chin with her hands. A comic pout.
Behind her head Alice pirouetted with an apple on her ankle boot, lacy floral tights blurring with motion.

The cafeteria grew louder as those outside began to drift into the school building, the last few minutes of lunch drawing to a close. Muriel caught sight of Jessica out of the corner of her eye, her body angled toward her table and ready to apprehend her on the route to Biology.

Starting slightly, she turned back to the Cullen table. Rosalie’s blonde and silent twin had joined in his own characteristic way, sitting ramrod straight and blinking like a doll as Rosalie spoke. His head moved like it was on a swivel, snapping back and forth towards whoever was speaking, his full focus imposed on their face. Jasper. Muriel’s mouth lifted a little, she always liked men that knew when to shut the fuck up.

Before Eskra could make another dietician’s comment, the bell rang out, cutting off the lunchtime conversation. The students began heaving to their feet. She watched Alice sidle over the back of her chair with no effort at all, her skinny legs windmilling. Muriel exhaled heavily, “what do you have now?”

“Philosophy, Carter fucking hates me. You?”

“Biology.”

Eskra smiles sardonically as Muriel shoulders her tan backpack.

“Mrs S still doesn’t wear a bra?”

Muriel shakes her head with the rhythm of a death knell. Emmett and Rosalie walk off into the crowd, arm in arm. Alice and Jasper remain sitting at the table, her head bobbing happily as his stare penetrates the window. His shoulders do not move.

“Respect.” Eskra thumps her handbag onto the table, “well I’m off to solve the secrets of life with eggman. We’ll let you know if we uncover anything groundbreaking.”

“That’s very kind of you, thank you.”

Eskra shrugs with a saccharine smile before heading off in the same direction as Emmett and Rosalie. The very second her friend departs, Jessica appears, all pencil thin eyebrows and grinning smiles.

“Hey girl! You ready? You have no idea what I just heard about Grace and Abigail.” Jessica’s speech continued as Muriel’s thoughts drifted, she couldn’t help but tune the girl out. Her mind followed her body, the latter operating entirely on its own, as Jessica’s shoulders nudged hers in a demand for closeness. Gossip. Comradery. Allegiance. Anything.

They walked past the two remaining adopted Cullens at the table, Alice singing lightly to herself, Jasper’s silence palpable and heady. Muriel glanced back to see his face and found his gaze returned in her own. His eyes were smoked coals, unwaveringly still under scowling brows. His forehead was a rock face, the tension embedded deep in tissue. She scowled. Fuck off. Don’t look at me like that.

Muriel turned swiftly, trying to tune back into Jessica’s chatter. She didn’t care to know him but strangely, to be perceived by him was unnerving. She didn’t like that his eyes could witness her body. They were too strong. Harsh on delicate flesh.

By the doorway of the cafeteria, Muriel looked down towards her right. Finding the black void of the bin, she saw the bag of eggs nestled within. All in a little pile, like snake eggs in a nest, fine hairline cracks in the shells like something waiting, gently, patiently, to awaken.

Biology always went one of two ways: Edward Cullen was absent and Muriel worked resolutely by herself or Edward Cullen was present but ignored her and Muriel worked resolutely regardless. Today was the former, with the new addition of the shiny, fresh-out-the-box student Bella Swan. Her big doe eyes fluttered in the corner of Muriel’s vision, looking and pretending not to, looking and again, pretending she was not.
White knuckles shuffling and tightening underneath her cardigan sleeves.

“Edward’s not here,” Muriel stated, labelling the adrenal gland on a diagram.

Bella coughed awkwardly and bobbed her head. “Yeah,” her lips quirked, “Yeah, I guessed so.”

Muriel gave her the glance of a judging receptionist, glasses low on the bridge of her nose. “You like him?”

Bella’s brown eyes latched onto hers, wide and prey-like, “Uhm, I mean, I don’t know him that well. I wouldn’t say that I-”

“He isn’t a very good partner in Biology. Quite uncooperative.”

“Oh. Right.”

Mr Molina dumps a whiteboard pen in the garbage, the blue ink running dry on the shiny plastic. A girl, Amy, in the front row hands him a new one. He says thank you Amy. Amy was renowned for being a biter in preschool.

Muriel turns the page and begins listing the hormones involved in the luteal phase. There are tooth marks along the shaft of the pencil. Bella leans in slightly. “Do you know why he isn’t in school today?”

The sky is white with bloodless clouds. She has to squint against the brightness of the outdoors.

“No, but it’s pretty common for him to be gone.”

Bella looked at Muriel for a beat before redirecting her gaze to Molina’s whiteboard. He drew a loose blobby shape of the pituitary gland. Beside it, a curving uterus with little attached ovaries.

“I think he hates me,” Bella said.

“Why would he hate you? You just got here.”

“He covers his mouth and nose every time I’m near him. I heard him try to drop this class.” Bella tucks a stray hair beneath her headband.

Muriel raised an eyebrow, “Then he’s more of a dick than I thought.” Bella’s smile flickered weakly.

Mr Molina underlines the word ‘adrenaline’.

The two girls work in relative silence for the rest of the class.

Five minutes to finish, Muriel looks to the door and sees Eskra standing at the small window, eating a banana. Jessica sees her and gives a glance back from the row in front with a small smile, as if she was in on the joke.

Eskra sucks on the banana, sliding the top of the fruit deep into her mouth and back out. Her grin tears at the pale yellow flesh.

Bella catches Muriel’s focus and begins to blush. She’d be a good fit for the Mormon family, Muriel grins at the girl’s shy nature.

“That’s Eskra. She’s fun.”

Bella giggles lightly, shaking her head at her own embarrassment. Her whole body relaxes for a flash, her taut knuckles unfurling to push a lock of hair behind her ear.

A second later, the bell rings. Twenty students scrape to their feet. Eskra bites down harsh on the banana, snapping it off into a gummy mush.

Muriel shuffles her papers into a pile, and slides them into her backpack. “Feel free to sit with us if Jessica and her brigade get too much for you.”

The new girl smiles weakly, her laughter fading gently, “Thank you.”

“No problem. See you next time.”

Muriel walks towards Eskra like a beacon, the girl chewing with an obnoxious open mouth. Once through the door, she pushes her friend lightly. Eskra stumbles backwards and falls into the feeling of matchsticks made of steel. The world stills for a moment.

Alice smiles and giggles like a tinkling bell. She pushes Eskra gently to her feet, “Careful! You might choke.”
She is a picture against the sea of blue lockers. Heart-shaped face and knowing eyes. Little licks of dark hair over her small forehead.

Eskra grins in an offhanded manner, caught off guard by the pixie whose tiny frame had held her with such surety.
“Thanks,” she flipped her hair, “Muriel can be vicious at the best of times.”

Muriel wasn’t looking at Alice, but instead, found her gaze upon Jasper. His movements were still robotic, one eyelid fluttering like an abandoned doll and flickering between Eskra and herself. He had lovely hair, gold undulating around his chin. Shoulders tight, like a soldier, under a neat navy jacket.

He looked back with a note of disdain. Self-righteous prick.

“I am an absolute bitch,” Muriel confirmed, detaching herself from Jasper’s stare. The blonde boy glanced at his sister before disassociating entirely. The Cullen crest on his sleeve revealed when he grasped his hand around the strap of his messenger bag. Muriel felt the gentle shoves of passing students against her backpack.

Alice laughed delightedly, shaking her head with a coy smile. “I refuse to believe that for a second. You just get misunderstood often!”

Muriel cocked her head to the side, her smile growing less sure. The hell did that mean?

The skinny little fae said nothing more, turning to her constipated looking brother. His eyes met hers, unblinking ochre stones in his face. His look gave the unspoken question mom, when can we go? Alice giggled again, energy thrumming, as if she found his bad attitude sweet and not completely off putting. All quiet and kill-y, shooter reddit manic energy.

“Well, we’ll see you guys around,” Eskra rounded up the interaction, nudging Muriel in the rib. The air felt uncannily warm for Forks, a sick heat in a cold climate. Jasper unlocked his jaw with an audible click. It was times like these that Muriel definitively felt that she did not receive the rulebook for the game which everyone else was playing.

She doesn’t notice the siblings leave, so focused she is upon her vertigo and the hot flush running through her body.

“Are you good?” the ever-insightful query comes. Muriel glances at Eskra, who is staring at the side of her face with a squint.

“Yeah,” Muriel says, “all good. Just feeling menopausal for some fucking reason.”

“Mm, I can’t relate but I will sympathise, sweet one. I’m really fertile right now.”

“Are you?”

“Yah, I have an app.”

“Cool.”

The hallway still spins as the two walk but it is a gentle eddying motion as opposed to the sickening churn it was before. The cold light breaks through the smudged high school windows, painting squares on the pattern of lockers and classroom doors. She feels the heat of her best friend’s body beside her. She can see the individual specks of dust floating in the beams, stagnant in the flash of warmth.

Sleepy, lazy, slowing, falling.

That night Muriel has dreams. And they are flavours of something untasted, untouched and yet to be satisfied.

The sublime awoke within the mundane, and all the rest began to fall into place.