Ah, chapter three! Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! The chapters just feel like they're getting shorter and shorter though... eh. It's about to get fairly interesting, so at least I'm not boring you through mindless chatter!

Um, this chapter has a fairly close tie-in to Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Enjoy!


Chapter 3
Laughing the Roses Red

"Oh drat!" Erin Mahogany cried when her shaking hands splotched over another messily painted nail. In the week following Alice's arrival, she had grown to like Erin Mahogany -- her roommate -- very much despite her size and sleeping habits. They weren't friends, technically, and only spoke to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom. "Acquaintances," Bert queued to Alice on the third day of Alice's arrival at Marionettes. "You two are acquaintances."

It amazed her how much Bert knew -- about everything, really. From words to books to mathematics, and even history. He was a walking tome of knowledge, and he cleaned chimneys for a living.

"Alice?" Erin craned her neck over rolls of fat to spy Alice, contently curled in the corner of her bed with a book in her lap. "Alice?"

The golden-headed young woman raised her head and blinked herself into the room again. For a moment she could have sworn she was at sea, the wind in the sails and the waves exploding against the underbelly of a black pirate ship. Hesitantly, she closed the book. "Yes?"

"Will you please help me? I shan't go to the dinner tonight looking like this!" She waved her fat hand, colored almost completely orange, at her roommate. "Oh, woe is me! If only I had Cecilla here to do this for me! Mother wouldn't let me bring her, you know. She said I had to learn on my own."

Cecilla, as Alice soon found out on the first day at Marionette's, was Erin's favorite subject -- both conversation and person-wise. Days were filled with constant chatter about Cecilla and how delicious her scones were on hot summer days, and how beautiful she could fix Erin's hair until even the Queen of Sheba glowered with envy. Erin told everyone her life story at least twice a day, most of it involving her caregiver Cecilla. Alice, on the other hand, kept to herself and chose not to talk about her summers, and those glorious golden afternoons.

"What color do you want them?" Alice asked, making her way over to Erin. She set her book down on the end of the dresser and picked up the vibrant orange. "This color?"

"Well, I don't know anymore! The color is so loud…"

"Then we shan't choose this one," and Alice separated it from the dozen other vibrant colors. "What color is your dress tonight?"

Tonight. She gulped at the thought. Tonight she'd get to see her parents again. Her heart fluttered with joy, but then sank again when she realized why she read instead of primped for the night. She had nothing to wear.

"A very beautiful white," Erin fluttered her hands. "Almost angelic, Cecilla said! I, of course, think it looks more like snow than angels, but--"

Ignoring her roommate's explanation of the color of her dress, Alice ran her fingers along the pretty colored bottles, and stopped, hovering over a single vial. Her eyes widened.

Ooh, this calls for a song, my good friend!

"This one," she said breathlessly.

"Well, I don't --"

Painting the roses --

"Red," Alice grabbed her outstretched hand and began her work. Each fingernail she covered in a vivid and flushing red -- rose red, so deep it looked like blood, and yet so beautiful it reminded her the evening sunset glow. She migrated from one hand to the other, the song faint and bubbly in her ear, as if the wind whispered it.

We're painting the roses red!

"Do you hear that, Alice?"

We dare not stop!

Or waist a drop!

"Dear me, the chimney sweeps must be at it again, those buggers!"

And unbeknownst to even dear old Alice, she was humming along as well.

So let the paint be spread!

"Alice? Are you listening?"

Oooh, painting the roses red!

"Alice! Stop it!"

And many a tear we shed!

"ALICE!"

With a gasp, the golden-haired young woman jumped in her seat beside Erin, and covered her mouth with embarrassment. "Dear me, was I singing?"

"Good gracious, you're not the only one you stupid girl! Listen!"

Because we know--

And so Alice listened.

"They'll cease to grow!"

Her eyes grew wide. "Oh dear. I do hear it!"

"Well aren't we both glad of that!" Erin fanned herself furiously. "Go and shut them up, will you? They are ruining my preparation!"

Alice was already far ahead of her roommate's instructions for she had already flung open the windows to the bright and lukewarm day. Victry Street was dotted with fast little men in black suits, ladies with lace umbrellas, and two simpleminded chimney sweeps on the opposite rooftop, cigars hanging from their mouths, as they danced among the potted roses and ferns. Grayish smoke belched from their lips as they laughed and swung around each other, paintbrushes in each hand. For a moment, Alice gaped.

"In fact they'll soon be dead!" cried a third voice as he joined their ramparts. He popped up from the chimney with another bucket of paint. "Mrs. Shire'll love these, mates! Cans to pass around! Quick, we ain't got much time Neil!"

"Always about time with you, ain't it?" said the partially smudgy brunette named Neil. He was the shortest, but also the quickest. To Alice, she suddenly fancied him with long brown ears and a pink twitchy nose and a cotton tail. "Time, time, time! Oh for God's sake Bert, put your pocket watch up and let's finish the job!"

"And yet we go ahead byyyyy--" the last boy sang, slopping a glob of red onto the nearest yellow rose. He was taller than either Bert or Neil, and the way he moved was maddeningly lanky, as if his bones were made of slinkies, always swaying and moving.

Neil grabbed the paint can, uncapped it, and swung around to steal the holey top hat from the tallest boy's head.

"HEY!" he shouted. "Give that back, you rotten thief!"

Bert hopped out of the chimney and plucked the hat from Neil's hand, and sat it on top of his own head. "Painting the roses--"

The tallest grabbed his hat as Neil sloshed the whole can onto the flowers.

"--RED!" they shouted in chorus, and laughed themselves silly.

Alice pressed her hands to her mouth to keep herself composed, her sides shuddering for a good laugh too. She sat sideways on the bed, and tried not to loose it. Oh, how it felt so good to laugh. As if her body yearned to abandon the strict molds of marrionettes and just be itself again. To just be Alice. And laugh. But she knew that if she dare tried to laugh and smile, then there would be consequences. Proper young ladies did not laugh, after all, and neither should she.

"So will you finish painting my nails red?" Erin asked, and was overly annoyed to see Alice suddenly crumple into a ball and fall to the floor in hysterics.

A laugh, a laugh, our kingdom for a laugh!

Victory is ours!

In a fit, Erin puffed out her pillow-like cheeks and proclaimed loud enough for Alice to hear over her fit of giggles, "Cecilla would never paint them red!"


Ah, victory is sweet!

That was a cute little chapter...