Please don't hate me! I know it has been a while and I have plenty of excuses (final week/ graduation/ Holidays/ Moving...). But I am still sorry to have kept you waiting. (Because in my imagination, I have readers waiting for my uploads, it's probably not true but let me dream...).
Anyway, here it is!
Chapter 9: discoveries
The days that followed our trip to the Cullens should have been exhausting; with Alice to hide from Charlie, the wait for the Police to show up in Forks, the pretence of ignoring Rosalie and the Cullens… But I somehow handled them. Maybe because I had done nothing worth mentioning in my precedent 17 years of life, I felt as if I had now to catch up and live something exciting for a change.
But actually, it wasn't such an excitement to hide Alice at my place. It was surprisingly easy.
Charlie was really busy with work and came back late at night, too tired to pay much attention to me. So we had found a routine with Alice. I couldn't let her sleep in my room since, even if I had never done anything to deserve Charlie' close supervision, he had the bad habit to check on me during the night. So I had to make her sleep in the attic. She swore she didn't mind and that that was already more that she had expected. We found an old mattress in a corner and after a good dust removing, new sheets and my spare duvet, we managed to install a pretty good bed in the back of the attic. Not that there was any chance of Charlie going in it; but better be careful. In the morning, I usually woke up not too long after Charlie but the time to take my shower, he was usually gone and I could knock on the attic' hatch to tell Alice that the way was clear. We took our breakfast together and when I was in school, she had the house for herself. I had tell her that she was welcome to anything in the fridge and in my room, even my clothes since she didn't have any spares. She was very grateful for that. There was no worry that Charlie would notice things disappearing from the fridge since he was never in charge of the cooking or of the groceries shopping. In the afternoon, when I came back from school, Alice was usually glad to have company after her lonely day. We spent time discussing and my chores were much easier now that we were 2 to do them. By precaution, we tried to stay as much as possible in the 1st floor, close from the attic, in case Charlie would come home at an unexpected time, but it never happened. Still, when I was preparing the diner, Alice would stay ready to disappear in the stair at the first sign of Charlie's return. And of course, when Charlie was at home, she had to be very quiet, especially when he shut the TV and went to bed just behind the attic. But Alice was a master of discretion.
We only had one problem with this organization when, one day, we forgot the time and Charlie returned before Alice had time to eat dinner. After that, we kept the attic loaded with snacks to avoid her another night of starvation
I was surprised myself to be so comfortable with Alice. Usually, I needed more time to make friends and even more to invite them in my house. But the circumstances hadn't let me much choices. After only 2 days, I felt like I had known Alice all my life. That's why I wasn't even reluctant to lend her my clothes.
She was really easy going and I never grew tired of listening to the pranks she had played in the orphanage and among the different gang that were around Aloe. Looked like Emmet, Edward and her made quite the team. She was the discreet and acrobatic girl that could go everywhere without being noticed. Emmett was the intimidating and strong one and Edward was the diplomat and rapid one (not that he didn't know how to use his fists; I recorded from some of her tales).
But if Alice and I had easily found a comfortable arrangement for home, school was another story. The Monday morning of Alice arrival, the Cullens, Rosalie, Jasper, Angela and I had trouble finding a way to return to school without other students realizing we had all been together. It wouldn't have help in our plan to pretend that Angela and I didn't hang out with the Cullens or the Denalis.
The good news was that Jasper and Angela didn't have class for the first period. Jasper usually came to school at the same time as Rosalie did but nobody would notice his absence since he usually stayed alone in the library at that time. Angela came later in school and I learned that she had come unusually early on Rosalie's order, so she wouldn't draw attention either. I had arrived very early in school so I was pretty sure nobody had noticed me climbing in Rosalie's car, but still, we were both missing math and it was bound to be noticed, especially since we were seating together. I was sharing my doubts with the others when Emmett burst into laughter. Turned out, our teacher was not here this day. Rosalie had heard the other professors talk about it when she had arrived at school; otherwise she wouldn't have taken the risk of making us both skip class together, it was too obvious. I was mad that nobody had told me that. Emmett was so eager to see if I would really accept to miss a lecture that he had made everybody promise not to tell me. But it was still better than making the other students suspicious. I would only have to say that I had been reading in an empty classroom to justify the presence of my truck in the parking lot and nobody would ever know I had been out of school. The Cullens were in fact the only one to be really missing school but they decided to pretend a failure of their alarm clock.
Finally, I went back to school with the same people I had left it plus Alice. I exited Rosalie's car in front of the school's back door that was usually unused because there was no parking space near it. I entered quietly, closely followed by Rosalie but we didn't talk and went our separated way. During this time, Jasper drove Angela and Alice to my place and Angela opened the door with the key I had just given her. How I so easily trusted Alice to spend this first day alone in my house, I would never know but I think the way Jasper seemed to implore me to trust her helped. After having introduced Alice in my place; I knew Jasper would drive Angela back at her place. She went at school by foot so there was no trouble for her to arrive right on time for second period. Jasper would then have to find a place in the back of the parking lot, as if he had arrived a little late and it should all work fine.
During the second period, I had trouble concentrating, expecting to see the police bursting in the classroom and arrest me at any moment. The only thing that made me relax a little was the sight of the Cullen arriving in the parking lot in a hurry, their clothes in a mess and running toward the school exactly as if they had had a difficult morning. I must say I was impressed. And they managed to do enough commotion that other students spotted them too.
But I was only truly reassured at lunch time when nobody made me any remarks on my absence of the morning. Nor did they question Angela or asked us about the Denalis or the Cullens. If the police had arrived at this moment, nobody would have suspected that Angela and I had heard anything about an Alice that had ran away from Seattle.
After that, I gained in confidence and I managed to focus on school. As expected, Edward wasn't talking to me and I didn't try to change that. In gym, Emmett was still friendly but he was careful to act with me like he was acting with everybody else. And Rosalie was ignoring me like the previous weeks so that didn't change. But it was hard to be kept in the darkness of what was going on. Since I couldn't communicate with the Cullens or Denalis, I didn't even know if the police had really come to visit their houses and it was killing me.
But I was pretty sure that Alice' foster parents had indeed involved the police when I saw that Charlie was coming home later and later. It was always like that when a case was making him busy at the station and I would have bet that this time, this said case was the disappearance of Alice. But as much as I wanted to know if I was right and, if so, where they were in the inquisition, I didn't dare to ask, not wishing to draw Charlie's suspicion.
But one night, when Alice had been living in the house for 4 days, Charlie took the decision away from me when he raised the subject himself.
"How is school these days?" he began, obviously trying to sound casual. "Nothing strange happened?"
I tried to act surprised by his question while telling him that everything was just like usual. But he still looked tensed.
"You know that I don't like to involve you in my job Bella" He said. "I don't want to make it like an interrogation but if you could just help me a little"
"Of course" I said "Is there a problem at the station?"
"Yeah, I have trouble with the Seattle 'team", Charlie answered
I tried to remain impassible but my heart went in overdrive.
"What's going on?" I asked in a tone I intended only mildly interested
Charlie seemed to hesitate for a while but there was no reason to keep the problem from me.
"A girl ran away from there", he said "They think she might be hiding in Forks"
"In forks?" I asked, hopefully sounding surprised.
"Yes, she is supposed to have friends in your school", said Charlie.
"Really?" I asked, hoping my voice wouldn't betray me. "So they will look for her at their places?"
"They already did" Charlie said. "But they didn't find anything"
I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.
"So she is not in Forks" I concluded "Why do you have trouble with the Seattle team then?"
"They think she might be hiding somewhere else but still in forks" he explained.
I internally cursed the Seattle team to be so competent.
"And I had been trying to avoid it but the police want to come at your school and ask the students some questions." Charlie continued. "I don't think it's useful, it will only create disturbance. As if you could hide someone in a town so small"
He laughed at this impossibility and I tried to imitate him but it sounded really false.
Oh dad, if only you knew.
I felt kind of bad to see Charlie, tired from his days at work, looking for Alice and thinking it was his duty, while I knew very well where she was. But I also knew that I was doing the right thing. It would be time, when Alice would be 18 and safe, to confess to Charlie.
Charlie hesitated again before telling me:
"Maybe if you could answer some questions, they wouldn't need to come to your school"
It wasn't such a good idea to be questioned by Charlie. But he was expecting me to agree, so I did.
"Remember the F4? You were questioning me before." He asked
"mmm" I said vaguely. "What about them?"
"Do you know them?"
"I know Lauren Malory" I answered trustfully, knowing very well that Charlie wasn't interested in her.
"And the Denalis and Cullens?" he asked
"I really don't know Jasper and Rosalie seat next to me in math but we don't really speak"
Charlie seemed to understand.
"Oh yeah" I said suddenly. "The Cullens moved from Seattle right? Are they the people that know the runaway girl?"
I knew it was dangerous to say so much; but Charlie knew I wasn't stupid and it would have been more surprising if I hadn't made the connection between his questions.
"Yeah" he acquiesced. "Do you know who they friends are?" he asked
"I don't really know. Emmett is friendly with everybody but I don't know if he has real friends. I didn't pay much attention" I said. "And Edward is my lab mate in geology. I tried to speak to him but it's hard. He is really secretive and he doesn't talk to me anymore or to anybody else."
It was the truth. I didn't see the point on lying about things that were so easy to verify.
Charlie nodded wordlessly, as if my responses had leaded him to the same conclusions he had already reached.
"That's what I thought". He said. "I hope it will convince my colleagues that the girl isn't hiding in Forks. But if you could just give that to the front office tomorrow morning"
He reached for his bag and took about 30 sheets from it. It was posters with a picture of Alice, with a little note to ask for any information about her.
I took them, whishing my hands not to shake. It was going a little far for me. Alice was almost 18 and for what it looked, Charlie wasn't worried that she had been kidnapped. So why such extreme measures? The only answer I had was that Alice must be really really rich and her foster parents were trying everything to have this money.
I know, I stop somewhere where there is no real pause but I plan to upload quickly. Review please.
