Chapter Nine: Vampires like to steal clothing from teenage girls.

As usual, Bella leads a really hard life. She has to pretend she's been having a sleepover with Alice and that Edward is just getting back into town, all for the benefit of her dreadfully human father. God, why can't she just be a sparkly vampire already? Jacob called and apologized, but Bella couldn't be less interested. I mean, he wants her to stay human, so what kind of friend is he?

Bella heads up to her room, and notices she's missing a few things she meant to throw into the laundry. At first she thinks that Alice must have moved things around on her, but it turns up this isn't part of her vff's dress up games; someone has actually stolen her pillow and a few items of clothing.

Edward shows up and seems disturbed. Well, even more so than usual. He darts up to Bella's room and notices that there's a distinctive smell -- a vampire smell. But not one he recognizes, so that rules out Victoria. Maybe one of the Volturi looking in on Bella, he thinks, especially since they didn't take a few seconds to have a Charlie snack while they were lounging around the house.

Edward wants to know if Alice has seen anything in her visions, but she's coming up empty. She's watching Bella, which means that Bella probably wasn't ever in danger, and she's watching the Volturi, which means they probably didn't do it...but other than that, she's clueless.

The Cullens have all sorts of theories, but no solid leads. But it does seem pretty clear that neither Bella nor Charlie was meant to be hurt, so there might not me too much to worry about. On the other hand, there was a mysterious vampire hanging out in Bella's room stealing her clothing, and really, that's both not cool AND a little creepy.

Alice comes up with an interesting theory. Whoever did this might have done it at random...or they may have done as much as possible without tripping off her psychic alarms, as though they knew of the extent of her powers. Of course, since this is both the most critical of the possibilities and the one that best fits the evidence, everyone more or less ignores it.

In the meantime, Jacob keeps calling Bella, and by the next morning she feels ready to forgive him. During the conversation, Bella starts to explain the new sparklepire situation, but Edward decides he'd like to talk to Jacob instead. They chat for a couple minutes and decide that they need to make some adjustments to the treaty for Bella's protection. Well, that sure was easy! Funny how just a few days ago, any minor breach of the same treaty was sure to lead to an all out werewolves vs. sparklepires war. Now that Bella's threatened, Jacob and Edward are more than happy to work together, and Edward even invites Jacob up to the house to get the scent of whoever was sniffing Bella's clothing. Boundaries are rearranged, truces are made, prejudices are destroyed. Maybe Bella should let evil creatures rummage through her stuff more often!

For now, Charlie is going to spend as much time as possible in La Push, and Bella won't be far behind. Meanwhile, Jacob will try to track down Bella's stalker. This makes Bella uncomfortable, because she seems to have forgotten again that her best friend is a freaking werewolf who already helped kill one evil vampire who was about to eat her. Oh, and he'll have the help of a large pack of other werewolves, and a family of friendly vampires. Somehow, I think he'll survive.

What a short chapter! If only they were all so easy...