5. Wal-Mart?

Day 5

Alice had finally got the chance to go shopping. She was in desperate need of it now, considering her closet had been burnt down two days ago and this was her first chance to shop, moving all of Carlisle's books had made it impossible to do yesterday. She had been wearing the same outfit for two days, the thought made her shudder.

Rosalie was on 'making sure Jasper gets no clothes' duty, as well as 'sitting around nearly naked in front of your sexually repressed husband' duty.

Carlisle and Esme were very busy ignoring each other, and making sure not to end up in the same rooms. It was kind of funny actually, Alice thought, as soon as one entered the room the other left in pointed silence. It was completely un-Carlisle-and-Esme-like. She would have felt guilty for it, if she couldn't see her mother's smiling victorious face in her visions.

She walked into the nearest designer store and started to pick out a few dresses.

"Would you like some help?" the sales assistant asked her. "Perhaps someone to hold onto those while you look round?" Alice had to hide a smile at the question; like there was any chance she would struggle to carry a few dresses. But instead she said,

"Yes, thank you," and passed the dresses to the assistant while she went to look at shoes. It was as she was deciding on her third pair of shoes that the vision hit. Her credit card would get rejected at the till. She watched what happened as she decided to pay with each of her different credit cards, each time it got rejected.

"Would you like to pay now, miss," she heard the sales assistant ask. She was looking at Alice like she thought she wasn't right in the head. Alice quickly flickered through all the possible futures. All of her credit cards got rejected, if she went to a cash point it would tell her she had insufficient funds.

"Miss?" the sales assistant asked her, wondering if she was having a fit of something.

"I just remembered I left my purse in the car, I'll be right back," she stammered the first excuse that came to mind, before leaving the store as quickly as possible without looking inhuman. If she was still human, she was sure her cheeks would be bright red by now. She, of course, had no attention of going back.

I'll phone the credit card company when I get back, she thought. As soon as she had made the decision, she had a vision of the conversation. The man on the other end of the line would tell her they had cancelled the account at her father's request. This surprised her; she had considered sabotage from Jasper and Emmett as likely, but not Carlisle. Even with the whole 'book stealing fairy' thing, she had never thought her ever patient and calm father would actually retaliate.

*****

"Hello, Alice," Carlisle said calmly as she stormed into his office, it was bizarrely bare in it's current bookless state.

"What did you do?" she almost growled at him.

"How about you tell me what you did first," Carlisle replied, still as calm as ever.

"What do you mean?" Alice asked, even though she knew exactly what he meant. Carlisle raised an eyebrow sceptically, before gesturing at the bookless shelves.

"A book stealing fairy came and stole all your books," Alice replied determinedly.

"Well it that case, a credit card cancelling fairy came and cancelled all your credit card," he mocked her sarcastically.

"And how exactly am I supposed to replace my clothes?" she asked angrily.

"Don't human children get pocket money?" Carlisle asked her mockingly.

"What you guna give me $10 so I can go buy a dress at Wal-Mart?" she replied sarcastically. She scoffed at the thought, like that was going to happen. Carlisle smiled at her.

"Sounds like a plan." Then he pulled out his wallet and got out a $10 dollar note. He handed it out to Alice. "Don't spend it all in one place, my darling daughter." Alice glowered at him for a second before snatching the note of him and storming out.

Carlisle couldn't help but feel a little self-satisfied. Sure, he still didn't know what had happened or why his wife wasn't speaking to him. But he was fairly certain Alice was behind it all, and he had at least got one up on her in return.

A/N: I have never been in a Wal-mart (because I'm British and we don't have them here), but I've been to ASDA (which is part of the Wal-mart family). Anyway, I can't imagine it's the kind of place Alice would shop in a million years.

Reviews would be greatly appreciated. What do you think of events so far?