Original by Carlos Enrique Taboada. I'm just adapting. All recognizable characters property of SMeyer. She owns us all.

-X-

"Can I have your colored pencils?"

Bella raises her head to meet black eyes. Her hands instinctively cover her drawing, grasping the red pencil with her fingers. "Why?" Her brow furrows in confusion. Bella doesn't know this girl. Few girls in her class ever approached her.

"Because I like them… and I don't have any. You're Bella, right?"

"Yes… but I don't know you." Bella starts to shove the colored pencils in their little plastic case, tucking the paper with her picture inside her desk. "Why don't you ask your mom to get you some?"

"I don't have a mom. Or a dad. They died in a car accident when I was four. I live with my grandma, and she's real mean… she won't buy stuff for me."

Bella is surprised to feel her heart softening. Who is this strange girl that comes and asks as though it were here right? And yet…

"What's your name?"

"I'm Alice." She smiles and extends her hand to Bella, and she takes it slowly in hers.

Bella is disconcerted to feel Alice's small hand. She smiles tentatively, incapable of keeping a straight face before the girl's playful gaze. She feels kind of sorry for her. She thinks of her own parents, and how they have never denied her anything, much less a box of colored pencils. With her other hand, Bella pulls the pencil case from the desk and gives it to Alice.

"Really? Thanks, thanks a lot… we're going to be great friends, right?"

Bella feels her smile deflate a bit, and looks to her left. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Angela, her best friend, busy with her own drawing. She shakes herself slightly and smiles at Alice again. "I think so."

"Good," says Alice, clutching the case and turning her back to Bella. "I wouldn't have liked to put a curse on you."

-X-

Chapters will be very short, and so will the story. Review, please!