初中英语听力：《暮光之城》系列有声读物在线听（一），附听力内容：

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　　PREFACE

　　I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason

　　enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have

　　imagined it like this.

　　I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of

　　the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.

　　Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I

　　loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

　　I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now.

　　But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision.

　　When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's

　　not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

　　The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

　　===========================================================================

　　1. FIRST SIGHT

　　

　　My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was

　　seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was

　　wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing

　　it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.

　　In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town

　　named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on

　　this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States

　　of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that

　　my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in

　　this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I

　　was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past

　　three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two

　　weeks instead.

　　It was to Forks that I now exiled myself— an action that I took with

　　great horror. I detested Forks.

　　I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the

　　vigorous, sprawling city.

　　"Bella," my mom said to me — the last of a thousand times — before I got

　　on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

　　My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a

　　spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave

　　my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she

　　had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food

　　in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got

　　lost, but still…

　　"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying

　　this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.

　　"Tell Charlie I said hi."

　　"I will."

　　"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want —

　　I'll come right back as soon as you need me."

　　But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.

　　"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."

　　She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she

　　was gone.

　　It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small

　　plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks.

　　Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was

　　a little worried about.

　　Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed

　　genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time

　　with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high

　　school and was going to help me get a car.

　　But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone

　　would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. I

　　knew he was more than a little confused by my decision — like my mother

　　before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for Forks.

　　When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen

　　— just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.

　　Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too.

　　Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary

　　motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was

　　that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights

　　on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.

　　

　　Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the

　　plane.

　　"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically

　　caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"

　　"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call

　　him Charlie to his face.

　　I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for

　　Washington. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter

　　wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of

　　the cruiser.

　　"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were

　　strapped in.

　　"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for

　　you" as opposed to just "good car."

　　"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."

　　"Where did you find it?"

　　"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian

　　reservation on the coast.

　　"No."

　　"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.

　　That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking

　　painful, unnecessary things from my memory.

　　"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so

　　he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."

　　"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this

　　was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.

　　"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine — it's only a few years

　　old, really."

　　I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up

　　that easily. "When did he buy it?"

　　"He bought it in 1984, I think."

　　"Did he buy it new?"

　　"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties — or late fifties at

　　the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.

　　"Ch — Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to

　　fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic…"

　　"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that

　　anymore."

　　The thing, I thought to myself… it had possibilities — as a nickname, at

　　the very least.

　　"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise

　　on.

　　"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift."

　　Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.

　　Wow. Free.

　　"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car."

　　

　　"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the

　　road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his

　　emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight

　　ahead as I responded.

　　"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add

　　that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to

　　suffer along with me. And I never looked a free truck in the mouth — or

　　engine.

　　"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.

　　We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that

　　was pretty much it for Conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.

　　It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green:

　　the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a

　　canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down

　　greenly through the leaves.

　　It was too green — an alien planet.

　　Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small,

　　two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of

　　their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had — the

　　early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never

　　changed, was my new — well, new to me — truck. It was a faded red color,

　　with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I

　　loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it.

　　Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged —

　　the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched,

　　surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

　　"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just

　　that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either

　　walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the

　　Chief's cruiser.

　　"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.

　　It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west

　　bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had

　　been belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue

　　walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window —

　　these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever

　　made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The

　　desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem

　　stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation

　　from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair

　　from my baby days was still in the corner.

　　There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would

　　have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that

　　fact.

　　One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me

　　alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether

　　impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile

　　and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the

　　sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go

　　on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to

　　think about the coming morning.

　　Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and

　　fifty-seven — now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven

　　hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here

　　had grown up together — their grandparents had been toddlers together.

　　I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.

　　Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to