EPOV

Alice and I sat side by side on Bella's bed, watching her pace the length of the room and pretty much destroy her fingernails forever.

"This is bad. This is very very bad." she whispered.

"Look," Alice said, attempting to speak for the first time after the "SHUT THE HELL UP, ALICE OR I'LL BURN YOUR WARDROBE ONE GARMENT AT A TIME AND MAKE YOU WATCH, DAMMIT!" incident an hour ago. "I really don't see what the big deal is. Renee recognised him. So what?"

"So?" screeched Bella hysterically, flinging her arms in the air. "So...so..." she stammered. "I don't know what it means, but its to do with James, so it can't be good, can it?"

Then she went back to ranting and biting her nails.

Alice slowly leaned across the length of the bed so she could whisper in my ear. "You take the right arm, I'll take the left."

I nodded once. "One..."

"Two..."

"Three." we muttered together, jumping up and tackling Bella, then pushing her back onto the bed where we'd been a moment ago.

Tackling my girlfriend could've been kinda sexy...if it weren't for the fact my sister was helping and said girlfriend was out of her mind.

Alice placed her hand over Bella's mouth. "You listen, I talk."

Bella stared at us for a moment, narrowing her eyes dangerously into slits.

In Alice Language, this apparently translates as a "Go Ahead! Speak your mind!".

"Bella, as I have been trying to tell you for the past hour since I arrived and you went mad, you need to relax."

"Flow van fi velax ven vy ife is vavout voo dend?!"

"Good point, Bells, I'll take it on board." Alice smirked. "As I was saying, you haveto calm down or you'll have a heart attack. Now, remember when I came in and was all, "Bella! Come down here! I need to talk to you and your Dad about somethi- UGH! DID YOU JUST LICK ME?!" she whipped her hand away.

Bella smiled smugly. "Why yes. I do believe I did." then the smile disappeared. "YOU WERE PLANNING ON TELLING CHARLIE?!"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Of course not. I'm not stupid. Telling Charlie wouldn't solve anything. I-"

"I disagree."

Bella and Alice turned to stare at me incredulously. "What?"
"I disagree," I repeated. "I think we should tell Charlie. I mean, think about it. He's a police chief! It's what we should've done from the very beginning."

Alice stepped away from Bella and began to stalk towards her next prey: Me.

"And what, do tell us, Edward, exactly will Charlie do about all of this?"

I shrugged. "I'm not the professional in law enforcement. He is. He'll know what to do."

"Even if we did tell Charlie, he wouldn't be able to do anything." blurted out Bella, starting to look worried again. "I mean, what evidence do we have?"

"It's your word against his." I pointed out calmly.

Alice cleared her throat before I could do anymore convincing. "All in favour of not telling Charlie, please raise your hand."

This was so infantile.

Alice's arm shot into the air. Bella hesitated, staring at me for a moment. Then slowly, she raised it.

I rolled my eyes. I loved Bella to bits, don't get me wrong, but that girl would do anything to keep the peace and make others happy. She was so selfless, she'd rather leave people to their own, happy little lives, than ask for help.

"Majority rules!" declared Alice. "Ok, so like I was saying before, I told Charlie that Billy Black's wheelchair had broken and he needed him to go down to La Push and fix it."

Bella took in what Alice was saying, then groaned. "You really need to think plans through better, Alice."

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? Charlie's gonna drive down, see that the chair is perfectly fine and know that something is up!"

Alice pulled a face, dug her hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small piece of metal. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Alice!" gasped Bella. "You actually brokeBilly's wheelchair?"

"I wouldn't put it past her." I mumbled, still pissed that neither of them were listening to me.

"I'm not proud of my actions." Alice shot back at me. "And I didn't have many options did I? My brother was to 'busy' in his room to help me. 'Ow! My it hurts! Ow ow ow! I hate coathangers!'" she mimicked.

Bella bit her lip to hide a smile. "Poor Edward."

"Tell us your sure-to-fail plan already will you?" I snapped. "Then James can leave, you can be put in an asylum and Bella and I can elope."

"To France?" Bella asked hopefully.

"I was thinking more along the lines of Jupiter. Perhaps even further." I replied in all seriousness.

"My plan is so not going to fail." insisted Alice, ignoring the asylum jab. She turned her attention onto Bella again. "You said James was stupid right?"

She nodded slowly.

"Like, really really stupid?"

"Yes."

"How stupid?" she persisted.

"Alice, last week, when we were bored, I told him the 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' 'To get the the other side' joke."

"And?"

"He spent the rest of the day asking me why the hell the chicken was out of it's cage in the first place, and complaining about the irresponsible farming of birds these days."

Alice beamed. "Then my plan's going to work! Get on that phone, call James and tell him to come over."

Bella made no move to do so. "I'm not wasting valuable No-James time on some stupid plan that's doomed anyway."

"Argh! What is it with you two and your pessimism?"

"The history books don't lie." I muttered.

"Am I going to have to remind you who got you two together in the first place?"

"Am I going to have to remind you who got us into this James mess in the first place?"

"If it weren't for-"

"Your plans are the reason for the death of Freckles." Bella reminded her sadly.

"May he rest in peace." we all chanted. Ten years of doing that every time Freckles was bought up, and it was hard to break the habit.

"You need to get over that." sighed Alice.

"YOU KILLED MY CHILDHOOD FRIEND!"

"HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO PUT GUINEA PIGS ON DIETS?!"

Bella folded her arms and glared at Alice.

Here we go again, I internally groaned. When we were seven, Alice had commented that Bella's guinea pig, Freckles, was looking a tinsy bit overweight. So she convinced Bella that he had to be put on a diet and they started starving him 'for his own good'.

Then he kind of.....died.

To this day, Alice still claims it was bulimia, not the diet, that killed dear Freckles.

It was a very tragic period of our lives.

"And as I've told you many times, Bella, it was clearly an eating disorder. If he'd just eaten healthy and exercised regularly as I'd instructed him too, all of it could've been avoided. But he just had to go all bulimic. You could see the vomit on the floor of his cage, Bells. The evidence was right there."

"Alice, that was hay on the floor of his cage."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Lets have this argument later. Bella, go call James."

Bella stood up, muttering, and stomped down the stairs to get the phone, when she returned the grumpy expression was still there. "What do you want me to say to him?"

"Just tell him to come over. Say it's about Renee."

Her finger paused as she started to dial. "I'm not telling him mom recognised him, ok? It'll only infuriate him."

"Don't worry. You won't have to." Alice said, grinning slyly. "He won't be interested in any of that for very much longer..."
Bella cleared her throat and held the phone to her ear. "Hi, J-"

….

"No, I don't have any clay. Why would I own clay?"

….

"You want to make a sculpture of my mother doing WHAT?!"

….

She visibly shuddered. "Um, well can you postpone it? I need you to come over. It's about Renee."

….

"No, she isn't dead. It's..um..good news, not bad news." Alice gave her thumbs up. "Yeah, it's really really good news."

….

"No, Phil isn't dead either. Can you just come over?"

….

"Cool, b-" she pulled the receiver away from her ear and stared at it. "He hung up on me."

"Doesn't matter." Alice patted her shoulder. "You did a good job." Then she spun around to face me. "Edward, I need you to go home and get two things out of my room for me."

I held my hands up. "It better not be clay."

"No." an evil look came over her face. "Edward, I'm going to need Kelly Clarkson's latest CD and The Little Mermaid on DVD."

DON'T LOOK AT ME ALL SKEPTICALLY LIKE THAT! Are you QUESTIONING Alice's plan? You'd better not be...or she'll kill your guinea pig!

Or your rabbit. Or your horse. Or your cat. Or your dog. Or your pet armadillo....