(Author's Note: Another plot bunny snuck out from under my bed in the middle of the night... and so I bring you hopefully the first installment of a much larger story - if it finds favor with my fans and reviewers. Regretfully, I do not own the characters of "The Nanny", I only play with them in my mind. Nor do I own "Alice in Wonderland". Darn it all.)
Chapter 1: Down the Mouse Hole
Grace Sheffield sat in her room staring at a piece of paper in her hand with a glum look on her face. Once again, another Mother's Day was upon her, and yet again a special Mother's Day project had been assigned to her class. "Write a one page paper about something you and your mother have in common." She looked over at the picture of her mother sitting on the corner of her desk and sighed. *I can't stretch "We both have blonde hair" to fill a whole page.* She thought about asking her brother or sister, or her father or Niles if anything about her reminds them of Mother. But it makes them sad to talk about her, especially her father, and Grace hates to see her family sad. Last year, she had spent a whole afternoon up in the attic looking for any of her mother's things, but found very little that was helpful. As she thought about it more, the items in the attic started with the wedding album and went through the birth of the three Sheffield children. Surely there must be some of Mother's things here from before she became Sarah Sheffield. *Where else might they be?*
As if a light bulb went off in her head, it came to her, "The basement!". She got up, pulled the flashlight out of the nightstand by her bed, checked that it had a steady bean, and with determination and purpose headed towards the stairs to the basement. No one hardly ever went down into the basement, but it was the only storage space in the house besides the attic and the closets. Surely things of her mother's, if they were still here, would be stored away where they wouldn't be seen. The house was fairly quiet. They had a day off from school for some scheduled maintenance work. Nanny Fine had taken Maggie and Brighton to the dentist, and Grace had escaped going because she had just had to have a baby tooth removed. Her father and Miss Babcock were working at the office today, and Niles had mentioned going grocery shopping at breakfast this morning. With all their busy schedules, no one gave a thought to leaving Grace home completely alone. Sometimes that's the way it was when you are the youngest, you get forgotten.
Reaching the basement door, Grace mentally crossed her fingers it wasn't locked and gave a sigh of relief to find it wasn't. She flipped the switch, and a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling lit up the room rather poorly. After propping open the door so it couldn't close behind her by accident, she made her way down the stairs and looked around. There were pieces of furniture, trunks, and boxes scattered about the room. Several of them seemed to be leftover boxes of programs or materials from her father's plays and musicals. She moved farther back, away from the stairs, and her eyes lit up when she saw a small brown trunk that had gold letters "SSP" on it. She knew her mother's maiden name was Porterfield, so that must be her mother's! She settled her skirt and sat on the floor in front of it, and again crossed her fingers it wasn't locked. Unfortunately, it was. She frowned, desperately wanting to know what was in the trunk.
Just then a small metallic "clink" came from her left. Turning the flashlight, she saw a small silver key laying on the ground. Tentatively, she reached for it, and looking back and forth between it and the trunk, shrugged and tried the key. It worked! She slowly pushed open the lid, and smiled at the pile of yearbooks, letters, and who knows what other things of her mother's might be inside. She picked up the first item. It was a small leather journal, and opening it, she saw it was a journal her mother had written in college. There were notes about homework assignments, phone numbers, random bits of poetry. Just seeing her mother's handwriting brought tears to her eyes, but always in control of her emotions, she fought them back. She set the journal down and reached for one of the yearbooks. It was for a high school here in New York, a well to do one. There were several comments from her classmates about wishing her well in college, and what a great writer she'll be. Looking down at her mother's picture, not much older than Maggie now, the resemblance was striking. She reached out and ran a finger across the picture. "I miss you, Mom." She closed her eyes and focus on her breathing to calm her nerves as her therapist had taught her.
Suddenly, a much louder crash came from behind her. Turning around with her flashlight, she was shocked to see a small white mouse. Her first instinct was to scream until she realized the mouse was standing on his hind legs and pulling a pocketwatch... out of his wainscoat pocket... and making a "tsk tsk tsk" noise that she could hear clearly even though he was small and so far away. Dropping back down on all fours, he took off at a run and disappeared between two boxes along the far wall.
Grace was frozen with indecision, but her curiosity got the better of her. It was only a little mouse, she was much bigger than it. It took a lot of strength to push the two boxes aside, and she stared in shock at what she saw. She had expected to find a mouse hole - which she did, but it was easily 2 feet tall and wide enough she could crawl through it easily. *What on earth is a tunnel doing in our basement? Where does it go?* She took a deep breath, and dropped to her hands & knees and slowly began to crawl into the hole, holding the flashlight firmly in her right hand so she could see the floor in front of her. *Maybe its a secret passage that leads to another house, or a secret room, or...*
Grace's thoughts were interrupted as her hand fell right through the floor - or at least where the floor should have been - and her other hand, then her torso, and then her legs tumbled after it in slow motion. She began to scream as she began to fall into the darkness, and then she knew no more.