Author's Note: Yes, it's me again. While my goal this summer is to hit a certain amount of words, I also want to hit 50 archived pieces here. This one shall become #49 – and, in a way, I'm cheating. This is a continuation/total rewrite of a story I started 4 years ago: Stress in Newsieland. While I have a whole mess of stories to work on, I have none that are 'humor'. I also wanted to do a parody – and as everyone chooses to do Wizard of Oz, I have chosen to do this. So, forget the earlier version of this story – this is going to be better. And, hopefully, finished.

I lost the cast list that was originally intended for SiN; if you want a comedic appearance, give me the usual in a review (name, nn, age, looks, personality, character). Hopefully you know what characters are in Alice in Wonderland; if anything, for the next chapter I need a dodo character and one or two caucus race runners.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: Newsies. No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, nor Disney's cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland. I own Stress, her cat Ashes (he really is a sweetie and would never let me bring him outside so that part is a total exaggeration) and her fixation with hopping.

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Curiouser and Curiouser

June 5, 2006

Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way.

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Slam. Without even turning behind her, she knew that the backdoor had closed tight. Good. The sound that the wooden door had made illustrated her darkened mood perfectly. With her free hand, she brushed a loose light brown curl out of her face. The way she felt at that moment, if the curl did not remain in place, she would rip it out. The lock of hair seemed to sense her frustration and, smartly, kept in place.

She continued storming away from the back of her house, intent on getting away as far as possible before she lose her temper entirely. She kept her quickened pace up until she had made it about four apartments down – where the building ended and the brief stretch of grass began. She placed the grey bundle of fur that she had held in her arms down on the ground before finding a seat under a nearby tree. Almost at once, the shade seemed to relax her.

"Why?" she asked aloud. Her grey cat, curled up at her feet, just mewed in a agreement. He wasn't too happy that she had stormed out of the nice, air-conditioned house, just to sit in the grass but he dealt with it by doing what he normally did: rubbed up against a pair of shoes and fell asleep. Ignoring the less than enthusiastic response of her feline companion, she continued to talk to herself. "Why did Kathryn's dance recital have to be today? Didn't she know what I was planning to do today?"

Annoyed, she leaned back up against the bark of the tree, hoping that none of those little green bugs would decide to drop in her hair. She sat in silence for a moment, picking up a blade of two of grass and ripping them absent-mindedly, before throwing them down carelessly. Then she began her rant again. "I've been talking about this Rally in the City for weeks now. All of my Newsies buddies are gonna be there." The girl, nicknamed Stress to those in the Newsiesverse – or, the Newsies fandom to those not cool enough to know what the Newsiesverse is – had been looking forward to the get-together all summer long – up until that morning, that is. It was just a few minutes ago that her mother informed her that the dance recital had been moved up – and family always comes first.

Stroking her cat's tail, Stress asked the one question that she had tossed at her mother before storming from the house. "Why did they have to change to day for that stupid thing?" She reached out, grabbed the cat around his middle, and lifted him up so that her green eyes were reflected in his golden ones. "Do you know, Ashes?"

He looked at her and meowed once before kicking out his hind legs. He hated to be held up like that.

She sighed and let Ashes fall back to the ground. The cat backed away until he was back at the tip of her outstretched feet. He went back asleep. Stress rubbed the edge of his triangle-shaped ears until she heard a slight hum coming from the sleeping feline. She smiled and, after scooting downward and away from the tree, stretched out on her back. She kept her eyes looking upward, focusing on the various shapes of the clouds; but her mind was not on the wisps and patterns of those clouds. She was thinking about the Rally that would be happening in the City in a few hours time. The Rally that she was going to miss.

Huffing slightly in frustration, Stress drew herself up, resting on her elbows. Rather than face outward and look at the constant stream of summer traffic down past the small field, she gazed at the line of trees that fenced off the edge of the apartments.

Just past the mini-woods that adorned her backyard, she could make out the baseball field connected to the local Community Center, just a few blocks away from her house. That's weird, she thought to herself, there's usually a whole mess of neighborhood brats playing out on the field – especially on such a nice day like this. But there was no one there. She was alone. I guess they all know better than be around me when I'm pissed, she thought, keeping her eyes on the tranquil scene. It was rare that it was so quiet out in the back.

How long she sat out in the grass, watching the field, she didn't know – her watch had been missing for a whole week now and, without it, she had lost all sense of time. All she knew was that, for all intents and purposes, she was alone. No one was bothering her and that was how she liked it.

And that is when it happened.

Just past the line of trees, over the chain link fence that surrounded the baseball field, and next to first base, a person appeared out of nowhere. Or, at least, she thought it was a person – while they were too far away for her to distinguish who, or what, it was, she could definitely see that they were hopping. Hopping?

She quickly got to her feet. If curiosity killed the cat, then maybe she should have been called Kathryn instead of Jessica. As quick as she could, and never taking her eye off of the hopping thing on the field, she clipped Ashes' kitty leash to his collar, and tied it around a branch of the tree. He mewed pitifully, but she ignored him. He only does it for the attention, she thought before hurrying away. Besides, I'll be right back. I just want to see that that thing is.

She rushed through the trees, and quickly climbed over the fence. Her muscles were telling her to take it easy – she wasn't a young kid anymore, she was 18 damn it! – but she ignored it. What if what she had seen was the hopping, jumping missing link? There was money to be made in such a discovery. And if it wasn't the hopping, jumping missing link? Well, then she could point and laugh and someone who spent their time hopping across a playing field. Heck, it might even make her feel better about missing her Rally.

And boy, was she in for a surprise. When she finally got over the fence, and began to power walk – she was too dignified to flat-out run – across the field, she could make out the thing: it was a boy dressed in turn-of-the-century style clothing with curly brown hair and narrowed blue eyes that were fixed on a golden pocket watch. He had paused momentarily in his hopping and, when he looked up from the time, she got a good glimpse at his face.

The boy was a dead ringer for David Jacobs. When he glanced up, and saw Stress a few yards away from him, he began to hurry away. And he was still hopping. She couldn't miss it from this proximity. The boy was hopping.

"Hey, dude, wait up," she called out to him. She was somewhat out of breath from crossing the field. The last thing she wanted now is for him to hurry away before she could talk to him and get an even better look at his face. He can't really be David Jacobs, can he? He's a character for goodness sake! As obsessed as she could be at times, Stress did have an ounce of common sense – sometimes.

Not surprisingly, David – or what she assumed was David; it's easier just to refer to him as such, right? – ignored her call. Instead, he reached in his pants pocket, withdrew that golden pocket watch of his again, and looked at the hands – while still hopping. He was still hopping. "I'm late," he said before shoving the watch back in his pocket and speeding up his hopping. Hopping.

She paused for a moment, trying not to laugh at the humor of the situation. Hopping? She just couldn't get past the hopping. She let herself laugh twice – ha, ha­ – before continuing after David. But he was gone. In the time that it took her to laugh twice, he had disappeared. "Shoot," she muttered under her breath. She increased the speed of her power walk – she still wasn't going to run – continuing on the path she knew the hopping boy had taken. As she went, she began to talk to herself, trying to convince herself that she hadn't seen what she thought she had seen. "That really can't be David Jacobs. He looks the same as David Moscow did almost 15 years ago – it's impossible. Movie characters just don't pop up out of nowhere, Right? Rigggggghhhhh—"

The rest of her mutterings were cut off when she stumbled into, and consequently began falling down, a rather large hole just passed the third base line. A hole which, she knew, had never been there before.