Chapter Sixteen: Smelly, smelly Bella.

Poor Bella. She has to deal with so many problems...the worst of which is that she has nothing to wear to graduation! How will she ever survive this crisis? Luckily, her vff Alice saves her life. Not from the danger of being eaten by newborn vampires, but from the much more pressing wardrobe emergency. It's a blue sweater and skirt, Alice's way of making up for missing both the newborns in Seattle and the thief who came into Bella's room.

And then Bella makes a connection that the reader took about 10 seconds to come up with several chapters ago, but which super-intelligent and godlike sparklepires hadn't even considered: the same vampire is behind the army of newborn vampires and stealing Bella's clothing! And there were probably two motives, too; the thief both wanted to prove they could sneak in without Alice seeing as long as they didn't try to directly harm Bella, and grab some clothes so that they could have Bella's scent for the newborns to track.

Alice is momentarily shocked that Bella got something right, but quickly comes around to agreeing with her clumsy friend. Somehow, the knowledge of knowing for sure that someone only wants to kill her, and not the Cullens, makes Bella feel much better about the situation. Of course, nobody else feels this way; everyone love Bella, except for herself.

Alice runs away before Edward comes to pick up Bella for graduation, so that he won't immediately know what's going on. See, if we've learned nothing from the first two and a half books (and every other work of fiction ever written), it's that NOT sharing information is definitely the way to get the results you want. Charlie drives them over in the police cruiser, sticking Edward in the back seat. Oh, Chief Swan, you're hilarious!

Blah, blah, blah, graduation, everyone is sad, they're all leaving, won't they all stay friends, 20 more cliches about graduating, nobody cares.

After graduation, Bella shares the comforting news with Edward. It's only that someone is trying to kill her, not his family, yay! Edward fails to see this as good news. What a jerk, not wanting his girlfriend to die! Still, this might not have been the best moment to break the news to Edward. If you weren't going to do it right away, maybe waiting until after the party would have been better? Not that we should be surprised by Bella picking the worst possible time for doing anything, but it's just common courtesy to save bad news until after the cake has been served.

Charlie wants to celebrate before the big party, and takes Bella out to dinner alone. Bella can't eat, which makes her better than me, because when I'm nervous, I eat way too much. She gets Charlie to leave dinner early so that she can help Alice set up for the party, though her real reason is to get back and discuss things with Edward some more. He's actually in the parking lot outside the restaurant (not creepy!), and apologizes for losing it earlier, but insists he had a right to know she was the target of a couple dozen newborn vampires.

Bella has a little moment with her dad, but Charlie doesn't know it might be one of their last moments together before she starts sparkling. Everyone, together now: awwwwwwww. Charlie also regrets not teaching Bella how to punch properly; even though he likes Jacob, he still thinks Bella should be able to beat the crap out of someone who kisses her without her permission.

At the end of the chapter, Bella has one last ray of hope for the party being canceled, because it's really hard to find the Cullen house if you don't know exactly where you're going. Alas, it's no use; Alice has gone out of her way to string lights along the road to their home, making sure that nobody will miss the house party of the century. What kind of cake do vampires serve? Find out, next time on Eclipse!