Impossible (A HEARTLESS Fanfic)

Chapter Three

Mr. Ferret was busy in the kitchen when Alice returned home. She slipped inside without a sound and snuck up behind him as he was preparing a snack of marinated field mice. The sight of the little tails coiled about their still bodies always made Alice gag, but Mr. Ferret ate them with such relish. Snaking her arms around him, she dropped her smol purse onto his plate. With a start, he whipped around, his nose quivering in surprise.

"Alice! You were out?" he asked.

"I snuck out this afternoon," Alice replied, sinking down into one of the chairs by the kitchen table.

"I thought you were napping?"

Alice smirked. "Mr. Ferret, I rarely ever nap. I thought you knew that by now."

"I should have known you were up to something. Where exactly were you?"

Alice threw her feet up on the table, crossing them as she leaned back in the chair, tilting it nonchalantly. "The Queen's tea party."

Mr. Ferret's tail fluffed up, and he became noticeably twitchy. "The Queen's tea party? You broke into the Queen's tea party?"

"It was simple, really. I just shrunk myself down with some Cake and snuck in through the gates. I was dressed appropriately, so no one questioned my presence."

He eyed the blue gown that seemed even more voluminous in the small, underground kitchen. "I should have known that dress would lead to no good. Blue is a very unlucky color!"

"Since when?"

"Since right now!" He was quivering and wringing his paws. "Oh, no, no, this is no good."

The chair Alice was lounging in came down on its legs with a loud thud, and she approached Mr. Ferret's half finished snack. Grasping her purse, she tried to get her guardian's attention.

"But Mr. Ferret, look at the goods I managed to snag!"

With that, she poured the contents of her purse onto the floor. Candlesticks, platters, silverware, rings, pocket watches, and far more goods than could conceivably fit in her little bag crashed onto the floor. Despite Mr. Ferret's fretting and trembling, his eyes widened when he took in the haul Alice had brought home. His nose sniffed at the sweet smell of silver and gold. Whiskers quivering with excitement, he couldn't seem to stop himself from taking a candlestick in his claws, cradling it as one would an infant.

"My, these are fine little trinkets, aren't they?" he cooed.

"They're more than trinkets. These are genuine castle goods. Imagine what they're worth!"

"So shiny. So pretty..."

Mr. Ferret no longer seemed to remember his concern over Alice's trespassing onto the castle grounds. He was running his clawed fingers along the decorated base of the candlestick, admiring his distorted reflection. Alice was well aware that Mr. Ferret did not care about how expensive an item was; he simply loved to collect, as was obvious by the state of his house. Every nook and cranny was crammed with some sort of stolen goods, from sewing needles to jewel encrusted monocles. Some of his greatest treasures were nothing more than trash. But if it caught his eye, he considered it precious.

Despite having been raised by him, Alice had not embraced his particular taste in stolen wares. For her, it wasn't necessarily the worth of the object but rather the difficulty or even the impossibility in acquiring it. 'The harder to have the better to hold' was her motto.

Her fingers danced as she refrained from pulling the tart from her sash. With some shame, she was not willing to share that prize with her beloved caretaker. And, considering his adverse reaction to her even sneaking into the tea party in the first place, she was certain his entire body would bristle knowing she had stolen the Queen's own baked goods.