"Oh no! No, no, no! He's doing it again, see you la..."

But Alice did not hear the rest of his lament. Chester started vanishing in front of her very eyes until nothing was left of him, not even the wide grin she loved so much. She sighed and curled up tighter around the four little balls of fur-- ginger, black-and-white, grey, and purple-- sleeping peacefully at her side in the wide wicker basket, lined with a couple of soft pillows. With a motherly lick to each tiny, fluffy head, making all the kittens meow feebly in protest, she closed her eyes sleepily, ready to go back to sleep.

The writer, sitting at his desk placed under the night-filled window, across the room from them, looked up from his notebook where he was scribbling something furiously upon hearing the sound.

"You will have him back soon enough, do not trouble yourself, Alice," he promised, his eyes dropping back to the papers spread on his desk.

The grey tabby looked up at her beloved owner and meowed reassuringly. She wasn't worried; she was actually grateful to him for not giving her Chester time to get bored. When a male, be it a cat or any other creature, got bored, trouble ensued...

Alice went back to sleep with that thought still on her mind. When she woke up again, her Chester was back, complaining grumpily, sotto-voce.

"I wish he would stop doing that. I'm tired. He whisks me out of here at his whim nearly every day, and I never know where will I appear in that mad Wonderland of his..." the tomcat murmured, mindful to not wake their sleeping kittens up, scowling at the writer who was still at work at his writing desk.

Alice glanced at Chester, her yellow eyes brimming with love as she snuggled closer to her sullen mate and licked his pink nose soothingly. "You keep forgetting that that's where you come from in the first place, silly, Wonderland is your home," she muttered. "If it wasn't for him, his idea to give me a perfect companion because he believed that I was feeling lonely, you would not even exist..."

"I know, but..." Chester shook his head, his orange fur, gilded by the moving light reaching them from the fireplace, resembling fused gold.

"No buts. Sooner or later, he will finish that book, and then you'll have all the time in the world to sleep..." And get bored, as nothing exciting ever happens here, in Oxford, she thought, sighing.

"You are right, Alice," he admitted, resting his chin on top of her soft, silvery head. "I wish you could come with me sometimes to see all those... weird creatures who inhabit that strange place. There's this girl called Alice like you, and she's equally curious," he smiled, showing off all of his teeth in his unique grin. "The White Rabbit, always hurrying somewhere, and the Caterpillar, never rushing anywhere. The Mad Hatter, who is the craziest of them all... Or maybe not, as there is this Queen of Hearts who..." he added, yawning widely, then drifting off to sleep immediately.

"I'm always right," Alice muttered, winking at her writer, who smiled at her and winked back.

Maybe I could persuade him to let me visit his Wonderland too... Alice thought, her eyes closing on their own accord.