I spent what felt like hours tying all that cloth together before I heard a banging on my door. I froze, staring at the door, waiting for it to bust open when I heard another knock on my door.
"Just a minute!" I called out. At least he had the manners to wait for me to invite him in before he just barged right in and saw my makeshift rope.
"Will you join me for dinner?" I heard him ask uncertainly and I scoffed at the question.
"Have you lost your mind?" I asked him. "You take me as a prisoner and now you wish for everything to be normal? As though there is nothing wrong with this situation? Are you insane?" He banged on the door and I backed away from it feeling the anger pouring through it in large waves.
"I told you to join me for dinner!"
"I refuse to dine with someone who takes his anger out on innocent people!" I shouted at him before Madame De Garderobe woke from her nap once more with a small gasp.
"What time is it?" she asked but I ignored her and looked back at the door. "What's happening?"
"I'd sooner die than eat with you." I turned back to the window and went to complete the rope I was working on.
"Well, be my guest!" he shouted at me. "Go ahead and starve!" I heard the pounding of his footsteps walk away before he spoke to someone with him. "If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all. Idiots!" I went to yell again but his footsteps grew softer in the distance as he walked away and I clenched my hands together before grabbing a pillow and screaming into it. I sat on the floor holding the pillow to me tightly before I'd noticed tears soaking it. I was hungry, tired, angry, but mostly lonely. I'd never been without Belle or Papa by my side for so long. I sat and cried for what felt like hours before I heard something crumbling outside. I got up and looked out my window to see bits of the castle fall to the ground and I quickly wiped my tears away. This was no time for crying! I had to go home to my family. I finished tying all the clothing together and tossed it out the window after tying it to the bedpost as an anchor. I lowered as much of it as I could before a gentle knock was heard at my door again.
"I told you to go away," I reminded my captor when a voice I hadn't heard before came through.
"Don't worry, dear. It's only Mrs. Potts." I quickly tried to hide my escape attempt before the door opened and a tea cart with a kettle on it rolled in. "Oh! Oh, aren't you a vision! How lovely to make your acquaintance." Behind her, a cup and saucer was trying its best to hide shyly from me. "It's a very long journey," she said and I followed her gaze guiltily at the floor. "Let me fix you up before you go. I have found that most troubles seem less troubling after a bracing cup of tea." She poured the tea into the cup and the cup and saucer jumped down onto the floor and skitted towards me. "Slowly now, Chip." I knelt and picked up the Chip and took a small sip of the tea. He giggled and turned to me.
"Pleased to meet you."
"And you." I offered him a kind smile as I nodded my head in a little bow.
"Wanna see me do a trick?" he asked excitedly. Before I had a chance to answer, he seemed to hold his breath and blow a large bubble with the tea inside. It popped at his rim inseated of taking off into the air above him.
"Chip," Mrs. Potts seemed to warn and he just giggled lightly. "That was a very brave thing you did for your father and sister, dearie."
"Yes. We all think so," Madame De Garderobe told me.
"I'm worried about them," I confessed. "Papa and Belle aren't the types of people to give up when they believe something and knowing my sister, she'll believe I'm in danger here."
"Cheer up, my poppet," Mrs. Potts told me as I placed Chip back on the tea cart. "Things will turn out in the end. You'll feel a lot better after dinner." I gave her a confused look.
"But he said, "if she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all"," I reminded her.
"Mmm, people say a lot of things in anger," she pointed out. "It is our choice whether or not to listen. You coming, poppet?"
"Go!" Madame De Garderobe urged and I listened to them and followed Mrs. Potts and Chip out of my room.
