Mad, Mad Wonderland

Chapter One: Alice

Amy Cahill was a scholar, or at least, she liked to think she was. In reality, she was actually a librarian, but when asked her profession, she claimed she was a scholar. It sounded much more sophisticated than librarian.

Many who knew Amy Cahill never would have guessed she would have become a librarian. She had always been a bright girl, what with her perfect grades and love of learning. Many would have guessed that she would have become a doctor or a teacher, but most certainly not a librarian.

Not that there was anything wrong with librarians. Amy practically lived and breathed books. She would read things from dictionaries to phone books to textbooks. She practically lived in her local library, and probably would have if she could. If she had had the time, she would have read every single book in her library. She had made a promise to herself to give every book at least one try. Never judge a book by its cover, right?

Amy had graduated high school as valedictorian in her class. Everyone who knew her agreed that she had a bright future ahead of her. She had heard the same statements leading up to her last days of high school, "You have a bright future ahead of you, Ms. Cahill." "We expect to hear many good things about you one day, Amy." "You'll surely become someone great." Nobody expected her to become a librarian and move to a small town that wasn't even on the map.

Amy had her whole life planned from the start. She would become someone great, and have her name known all around. She would be known as more than the shy quiet girl in the back of the class. Really, the only people who actually noticed her were her teachers. She hadn't had any friends in high school, and she was always ignored and stepped on. Most people hadn't even known her name before she had been named the valedictorian; not that Amy minded very much. She would get her chance to shine one day.

Even after graduation Amy didn't know what she would do in college. There were so many different careers for her to try out, but there was only one Amy. She knew she couldn't do all of them, so what would she choose?

The answer came to her one day in the form of an email from her younger brother, Dan Cahill. They had been separated from each other after the death of their parents many years earlier. Their parents had died when Dan was still only in diapers, and so he barely knew anything about his sister, and Amy knew next to nothing about him. Dan had been taken in by their great-uncle Fiske and Amy had been taken in by their grandmother Grace. She still wasn't sure why this was, and her grandmother had died before she could ask.

Grace had always told Amy stories when she was younger. Fairytales about knights slaying dragons and princes saving princesses from evil step-mothers. Wonderful stories filled with fairies and wizards and magic. It was from her grandmother that Amy had gotten her love of books. Seemingly boring words were suddenly pure magic when they came from her grandmother's tongue, and Amy could really picture the stories coming to life in front of her. She could always somehow relate to the stories she read, and she could really feel like she was in the story. At times when Amy wanted to escape the reality of her life and seek adventure, she could always take out a book and get lost between the pages.

To her knowledge, her brother felt the complete opposite about books. From what she knew of him, he was the more 'I'd-rather-be-playing-video-games,' kind of guy. Besides the fact that he loved playing video games- "The violent ones! With zombies and aliens!"- she didn't know much about him. She had received 'Happy Birthday' cards every year and pictures of him every so often, but that was it. He rarely ever sent her emails or wrote her letters, and she didn't even know his phone number. Perhaps most people would be horrified at not knowing your own brother's phone number, and Amy had to admit that she felt guilty at times because of that. She knew next to nothing about her own flesh and blood, and she had made no move to learn more about him.

So it was surprising to see an email from him that Sunday morning. As she read through it with her weary eyes, the surprise just grew. It had asked for her to come and live with him for a while. "To get to know each other better," it said. When she saw the town in which he lived, she was confused. She had never heard of the town 'Wonderland' and thought for a moment that he was mocking her. That is, until she looked it up. Wonderland, apparently, was a small town somewhere in New England. She had never heard of it in her life, and couldn't help but be surprised to find that it existed. It seemed like a joke. After all, who named a town 'Wonderland'? But it was real as real could be, and after much consideration, Amy decided to accept her brother's proposal. Perhaps that would give her time to think about her future occupation. Not to mention that Amy was naturally curious. Her aunt Beatrice had always claimed that she was too curious for her own good, but Grace begged to differ. She had always told Amy that that was one of her strongest traits. "Curiosity killed the cat," Beatrice had always said. Her grandmother had always replied with, "But satisfaction brought it back."

After various rounds of emailing, Amy discovered that her brother had managed to get her a job as the librarian at the only library in town. Amy thought that it was sweet of her brother to get her a job that related to her interests. That is, until she found out that it was the only job her brother could get her. She supposed she should be happy that her brother had decided to get her a job at all.

After a month of preparation, Amy bought a plane ticket to Maine and a bus ticket to Wonderland, for Wonderland was much too small to have an airport of its own, and Dan claimed that he had no money to offer her, (Although Amy had a feeling that that was not true.) After many hours of staring at passing buildings and trees through the foggy window in the mostly empty train, Amy had finally reached her destination.

~Curiouser and curiouser- Alice

a.n. I've always wanted to write a fic about the characters in The 39 Clues being based off the characters in 'Alice In Wonderland'. So I wrote this fic about 'Wonderland' being a small unknown town somewhere in New England and The 39 Clues characters being based off of the characters in Alice's Wonderland.

I put in a lot of thought into which characters were going to be which. I have certain reasons why I chose this character to be that character. And so I have a feeling that you probably won't expect most of whom I've based off of whom. The characters are based off of both Lewis Carroll's 'Alice In Wonderland' and QuinRose's 'Alice In The Country of Hearts,' or also known as 'Heart No Kuni No Alice,' which is both a manga and a game. I've only read the manga, since the game is pretty much a dating sim. :/ 'Alice In The Country of Hearts' is also based off of 'Alice In Wonderland'.

Why I've based Amy off of Alice: In the original 'Alice In Wonderland' Alice is shown to be logical and curious. In 'Alice In The Country of Hearts' Alice is shown to react a little more realistically to Wonderland, and really only wants to get back home. She's also a lot more cynical than the original Alice, and is shown to be quite jealous of her older sister. In her Wonderland, all of the residents there have clocks for hearts, and if they die, they'll just be replaced with another clock, but won't come back the same person. They don't value life at all there, and so the residents find interest in Alice because of how much she actually values life. It's also kind of funny how all of the residents in Wonderland fall in love with her, like how Amy has Evan, Jake, and Ian fall for her, which is another reason why I based Amy off of Alice. I'll be having pretty much all the main characters in this story, and I've based them off of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice In Wonderland,' its sequel 'Through The Looking-Glass,' and QuinRose's 'Alice In The Country of Hearts.'

Just so you know, it took probably about two hours to write this because my computer shut down twice. The things I do for you all...

And do any of you mind going to my profile and going to the website at the bottom? It goes to my Wattpad account. I've only got one story so far and two chapters up, but I'd still love to hear from you all what you think of it.