Author's Note - Sorry about the cliffy last chapter. I was swamped with school work so I had to stop it there. I've gotten some questions about where Edward was hiding his food in chapter three. The truth is...I actually don't know. He could have been doing anything with it. Who knows? I guess that's one thing that makes Edward so darn attractive though. He's a mystery to us all! R&R por favor!!

Disclaimer - Do I have to say it? It's just going to depress me.

Chapter 5

BPOV

"Oops," I said quietly. Charlie was going to murder me.

I turned and looked at the three guys around me. Edward had a small smirk on his face and was shaking his head slightly. Jacob looked as if he couldn't decide whether to gasp in shock, or burst out laughing. Charlie, however, looked furious. His mouth was agape and his eyes were bulging out of his head. In addition to that, his face was growing redder by the second.

"Bella," he managed to choke out, "what did you do?"

"I guess I kind of forgot to close my window this morning."

I heard Jacob snort beside me. I spun around to glare at him, then turned back to my bedroom.

The entire room was covered in white, fluffy snow. In some spots, like on the carpet, the snow had turned into a slushy mess, and mounds and mounds of snow and ice were piled up on my furniture and on the clothes I had left on my floor. The window against the wall was wide open allowing the fierce wind and more snow to enter the room.

I guess that explains the cold, I thought, ashamed that I had even considered a ghost being in my room.

There was no way I was sleeping in here tonight. As Jacob shone the flashlight around my room, I noticed that the lamp beside my bed was knocked over and the light bulb was shattered. Also, several of my books were strewn across the floor. This was probably the mark of our mysterious intruder.

I saw small footprints scattered in the snow and was suddenly reminded of the reason we had come up here in the first place. The others apparently realized this as well and we all turned slowly around at the same time.

Jacob pointed the flashlight out in front of us and I almost laughed out loud at what I saw.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Jacob chuckled.

Standing in front of us, staring at us with shiny black eyes, was a furry brown squirrel. He was chewing on something that looked a lot like a button off of my favorite jacket.

"Aw, it's so cute," Charlie said. He turned to us and scoffed, "You guys are such babies. All this fuss over a little squirrel."

We all whipped around to incredulously at Charlie.

"Well," Jacob asked, "shouldn't someone try and catch it?"

I turned to Edward and saw him looking towards my closet with a wary expression on his face that I couldn't understand. He shook his head, and then focused his attention back to the squirrel, which watched us motionlessly with wide horrified eyes.

"Don't make any sudden movements," Edward whispered.

He began inching slowly towards the squirrel. I knew Edward could have grabbed the squirrel and thrown it outside in the blink an eye. However, with Charlie around, he would have to put up an act. Unfortunately, the squirrel caught on to Edward's plan. A horrible screech-like sound projected from its mouth and the animal lunged forward, ducking between Edward's legs. Charlie screamed and jumped behind me, even though at 5'4" I wouldn't be much protection for anyone here. It was then that I realized that the flashlight was lying on the floor and Jacob was nowhere to be seen.

"Jake?" I called out as the squirrel landed right in front of me.

I was suddenly very frightened. What if this rodent had rabies? It looked pretty rabid to me. Its teeth were kind of sharp too. Did squirrels even get rabies? I looked up at Edward for help, but I found him staring at my closet again. I was thinking of sacrificing Charlie and making a run for it when Jacob ran up the stairs and threw a large pot over the squirrel. The squirrel scuffled and snarled from underneath it, but the heavy pot stayed firmly on top of him. Jacob brushed his shoulders off and smiled triumphantly. Charlie crept slowly from behind my back looking greatly embarrassed for the second time tonight.

"So," I questioned, "how do we get it outside?"

"Jacob," Edward directed, breaking out of his strange trance, "you lift the pot slowly and I'll catch him when he tries to make a run for it."

Jacob looked disgruntled at having to take orders from Edward, but did what he was told anyway. The thrashing about underneath the pot had stopped, but I didn't trust that squirrel one bit. He was trying to fool us. Jacob lifted the pot up and I braced myself for the attack. However, the squirrel simply sat there looking resigned and pitiful. Edward gently picked it up and trudged through the snow in my room to lay the squirrel on the windowsill and close the window.

"Poor guy," I said. "He just wanted to get out of the cold."

"Speaking of cold," Charlie grumbled, "can we go back downstairs? It's freezing up here."

"Sure, Dad," I answered.

"Hold on a second, Bella," Charlie said. "You are in serious trouble. Do you know how long it's going to take to clean up this mess? Think of all the money you've cost us in carpet and furniture damage?'

Ugh. I was hoping that the near death squirrel attack would make Charlie forget about my room. "I know, Dad. I'm sorry."

"Well, we can't do anything about it now. We'll have to wait until there's at least some light outside so we can see what we're doing."

Charlie and Jacob began walking towards the stairs. I tried to follow them, but Edward grabbed my arm gently, holding me back.

"Um…Dad," I said unsurely, looking at Edward, "I'll be right there. I'm going to see if I can try to salvage any of my possessions."

"Okay," Charlie grunted. I could tell he was still mad at me. "Come on, Edward."

"No, Dad, let Edward stay. I'm afraid to be in the dark by myself." I tried to put on my best innocent expression, but they weren't buying it.

"You can keep the flashlight, Bella," Jacob said. "We've got candles downstairs."

He threw the heavy flashlight at me. Big mistake. It slipped out of my grasp and would have gone crashing to the floor if it weren't for Edward's quick reflexes.

"I think it's best if I stay with Bella," Edward said. "Who knows what trouble she could get into in a bedroom full of slippery ice?"

I glared at him, but I knew that he had won. Charlie couldn't argue with those facts.

"Fine," he grumbled.

Jacob gave him a incredulous look but they turned and continued to walk angrily down the stairs. Once Charlie and Jake were downstairs and out of earshot, Edward pulled me into my bedroom and closed the door. I cringed as I looked around once more. It was going to take forever to get all the snow out of here. I doubted that my room would ever be completely dry again.

"Edward, what's going on?" I asked.

He didn't answer me, but pointed the flashlight towards my closet. I waited for about three seconds, and then watched in silent horror as my closet door began to open slowly.

"Hi, Bella," said the small, childlike figure in front of me.

" Alice?" It was dark and I didn't know if I was seeing things correctly. " Alice, what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," she answered looking at the snow covered floor.

"I've got time," I said.

"Yes, Alice do tell," Edward added. I saw a glint of amusement in his dark eyes.

"Well…" Alice began, "you know I was really excited about tonight. Then that werewolf decided to make an appearance and left me I the dark. I was becoming increasingly bored sitting at home, wishing I knew what was going on. Jasper, Carlisle, and Emmett had gone hunting and I got annoyed after hours of listening to Rosalie talk about herself. I tried talking to Esme, but I think she was starting to get tired of me after a while. I knew Edward wouldn't like it if I kept calling him all night," she stopped to smile sweetly at Edward, and he smiled politely back. "And I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to find out what was going on, so I decided to stop by and see what was going on firsthand. Your window was open by the way, Bella."

"Thanks, Alice. I know," I said dully.

"And then –"

"Wait, there's more?" I groaned.

"Of course," she answered. Did Alice ever keep anything short and sweet? "As I was saying, I climbed in through the window and to my surprise, there was a cute little squirrel in here. He was obviously surprised to see me as well because he jumped and knocked over that lamp. He was running frantically around the room knocking over everything in his path and I didn't know what to do. I thought of putting the little guy back outside, but then I saw you four decide to come upstairs so I just hid in the closet. I knew Edward would know I was there so I tried to block my thoughts for as long as I could. That's easier said than done, though. Years and years of practice helped, but I still couldn't hold out for very long. Then you all showed up and wrestled with a squirrel and now your here." She smiled as she completed her story.

All of this was said very rapidly and it took all my concentration to understand what Alice was saying.

"Now I'm done," she said, smiling wider.

"Now that that's all cleared up," Edward said, "what are we going to do with you?"

"I don't want to leave," Alice pouted. "I'll die of boredom at home. Not literally of course."

I chimed in, "But how will we explain to Charlie that you're here?"

"That could be problematic," she agreed. "Hmm..." Alice was thoughtful for a few seconds. "I know. We could -"

"That wouldn't work Alice," Edward cut her off. "Why don't we just wait until Charlie is asleep, and then you can quietly come downstairs. But until then, you have to wait up here."

Alice looked like she wanted to argue, but she could see that there was no other alternative.

"Fine," she sighed. "This isn't much better than being at home, but at least I can hear what's going on."

"Guys," I said, "I don't think Jacob's going to be too comfortable with having two vampires in the house. He can probably smell you already, Alice. I'd bet money he's downstairs right now hyperventilating."

They both gave me looks that said that they couldn't care less how a werewolf felt.

"So you want me to leave Bella?" Alice sounded like she was daring me to say yes.

"No, Alice," I said.

"Great!" she said happily. She twirled around in a circle then sat gracefully down on the icy floor. "You won't even know I'm here."

"BELLA!" Charlie yelled from downstairs. "ARE YOU DONE YET?"

"I'll be right there!" I called back. "Come on Edward. We'd better get back downstairs before Chief Swan comes to investigate."

We turned and exited the room, leaving Alice sitting happily on the ground.

I know! I'm sorry! I know I promised a really long chapter but I wasn't completely done with this chapter so I decided to stop it there and at least give you guys something. I'm horrible, I know. Please don't hate me : ) By the way, do you guys have any ideas of what should come in future chapters? I'm beginning to draw a blank.