Alice Sierra Miller hugged her two best friends Erica and Muriel goodbye. Today she was moving out of the house and town she had lived in all her life and to a completely new town and house along with her family. She was already missing her two best friends terribly.
"Goodbye. I'll miss you both," said Alice with tears brimming in her eyes.
"We'll miss you, too," said Erica, also with tears in her eyes.
"This isn't really goodbye though," said Muriel trying to be optimistic as always. "We'll both write to you whenever we can, and you can call us as often as you like."
"And if it's ever possible we'll come visit you," added Erica.
"Thanks," said Alice, cheering up slightly. "I'll always remember you."
"And just to be sure of our memories of each other I want you to have this," said Erica. She took out a small palm sized blue and yellow music box which played the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.
Alice was deeply touched as she accepted Erica's gift for she knew it was one of Erica's most prized possessions. She was unable to speak because of the hard lump that had formed in her throat.
"And," added Muriel after a moment. "I would like to give you this." She took from her jeans pocket a single shiny copper penny which was none other than her lucky penny.
"Thanks," said Alice, finally finding her voice again and a single tear fell from her eye as she put the lucky penny in her own pocket.
Just then Alice suddenly heard a car horn honking and knew it meant the time to depart had come at last. So after giving them each one more quick hug she ran to her family's vehicle and quickly jumped in, slamming the door closed after her.
She waved goodbye to Erica and Muriel from the car window as they stood waving until the car drove away from their sight. Then she reached down and picked up her large gray and white cat named Dinah and stroked her fur and buried her face in it.
Alice sat in between her older sister Kathy, who was currently checking her makeup in her compact, and her younger brother Brian, who was busily playing with his Nintendo game-boy. Alice was a very common middle child, always seeming to receive the least amount of attention from her parents. Her cat Dinah was the only one who she could turn to in times of need and the only whom she told all of her secrets to and she was just grateful to at least still have Dinah with her.
Presently Dinah let out a rather melancholy sounding meow.
"I know, Dinah, I know it's sad," Alice whispered to her cat. No one knew how she often talked to Dinah but Alice believed she and her cat always knew what each other was thinking and feeling.
Hours later they pulled up in front of their new house. It was a grand two-story white painted building with a thatched roof on one end and an attached garage on the left.
They all got out of the car one after the other and stepped up to their new house. The father of the family took the new key out and opened the door and stepped inside with everyone following behind him.
"Here we are!" he sang out. "Home sweet home!"
Though Alice's face fell when she saw the condition the living room they were standing in was in. The wallpaper looked like it needed desperately to be changed and most of the furniture had sheets thrown over them and there were even a few cobwebs here and there. If ever there were a description for deserted this place fit it well.
Her mother, noticing her downcast expression, said cheerily, "This place just needs a little fixing up here and there. After we work on it it will be our home that no other place is like."
So they spent most of the next few days fixing up their new house and moving the possessions they had brought with them into their new places and sure enough it soon began to take on a much nicer appearance than before, though Alice's mood didn't lighten very much, particularly when she started her new school.
She walked up the steps into the large foreign looking building and entered the long halls packed with other students who were heading into their respective classrooms like it was the most natural thing for them and she felt almost like an alien walking among them as she wasn't even sure where her classroom was.
She finally found it though and stepped inside and instantly all the students turned and stared at her almost as if she had just in from another world. The teacher however greeted her kindly and showed her to her desk.
When lunch period came Alice found herself sitting in between two girls, one had long blonde straight her that flowed down her back and light green eyes, the other one had bright red short hair and light brown eyes and freckles. She wanted to talk to them but suddenly felt shy.
However the girl with blonde hair spoke to her first. "So, you're new here, aren't you?"
"Yes, I just moved here," replied Alice. "My name is Alice. Alice Miller."
"My name is Kimberly Brenton, but you can call me Kim as everyone does," replied the blonde girl.
"My name is Tina Jenkins," said the red-haired girl. "I moved here a few years ago.
"So Alice, have you read Lord of the Rings?" asked Kim.
"No," replied Alice. "What is it about?"
"It's just the most awesome fantasy series ever," said Kim.
"Have you heard of The Smashing Pumpkins?" asked Tina.
"No," replied Alice. "Who are they?"
"They're just the most groovy band of all," said Tina.
The three of them talked and chatted throughout most of the lunch period and gradually grew close to each other, though Alice wasn't ready to fully embrace them due to keeping the memory of her old friends.
Later in the day in English class Alice was listening to her teacher as he was going on and on about a book he was assigning them to read.
"Lewis Carroll was a very skilled intellectual writer," he was saying. "And his books are as fascinating as they are funny and wondrous in fantasy. The characters have so meaning layers with so many interpretations possible. So I would like all of you to take a good look through this book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and write about your own interpretations of it. I'd love to know them.
Shortly afterward the bell rang signaling the end of the day and Alice picked up her backpack and took her copy of the assigned book and headed outside. Kim and Tina soon caught up with her.
"Isn't it interesting," said Tina. "You have the same name as the character in the book."
"Yeah, I guess," said Alice.
"Hey, since you just moved in I'd love to see where you live and meet your family," said Kim. "Is there any good time for me to come over?"
"Well, my birthday is in a two weeks," replied Alice. "I guess you could come then if you like."
"I'd love to," said Kim.
"So would I," added Tina.
So two weeks later at Alice's twelfth birthday Kim and Tina were the only other ones their besides her immediate family.
Just before Alice blew out the twelve candles on her birthday cake she silently made a wish in her heart. I wish I could just go someplace where I could escape from this life.
She opened her presents shortly after she opened her presents. Among them she found a cell phone from her parents, and a new hairbrush from her sister, and a charm bracelet from her brother, and a copy of the first of the Lord of the Rings from Kim, and a CD of The Smashing Pumpkins from Tina, and there was also a present from her Aunt Carol which turned out to be a small stuffed white bunny rabbit wearing a black vest and bow-tie.
She thought had opened all of her presents but then her mother suddenly said, "Oh my, I almost forgot the last and most important one of all."
Curious, Alice followed her to the closet where she watched her take out a big long vertical shaped package in plain wrapping paper.
"Your Grandmother sent this to you last year before she died," explained her mother. "She always said it was her most prized possession."
Eagerly, Alice unwrapped the paper from it and opened the box though her face fell when she discovered inside was a long full-length glass mirror which had a very old-fashioned design and shape to it.
Her most prized possession was a mirror? She must have been so very vain, Alice thought secretly as she stared into the clear glass of the mirror at the reflection of her disappointed expression.
"Isn't it lovely?" said her mother with a smile. "It will look just splendid in your room."
So the mirror was carried carefully upstairs to Alice's bedroom where was set against the wall in the far left corner. Alice set down the rest of her gifts on her bedside table. She held the stuffed bunny in her hands and thought, The perfect gift for someone half my age as she looked into its shiny black eyes.
Then she went up to her new mirror and studied it. The glass was of the clearest she had ever seen and there was a wooden frame outlining it and there was an ornamental golden crowning at the top of it. She looked slightly closer at it and saw a small fingerprint smudge at one corner. Carefully she reached out to wipe it off and as she did something surprising happened.
Her fingertips seemed to be brushing not against glass but on a very strange and unfamiliar sort of liquid. She drew her hand back and stared at the glass which now appeared to be completely ordinary glass. She reached out touched it again and sure enough she got the feeling of her fingers sinking into a liquid substance. Curious, she drew her hand in further and was quite shocked to feel her hand going straight through the mirror and coming out on the other side of it. She could feel air on the other side which seemed like the outdoor kind of air.
"Hmm... I wonder," she muttered to herself. She drew her hand back through the liquefied glass which as soon as she had pulled her hand turned once again back into ordinary looking solid glass. She inched slowly closer and closer to the mirror. Then her nose touched the glass and she gradually drew her face through the liquefied glass.
She gasped in shock and amazement when she found herself looking into a most beautiful place with lush green grass and flowers in it everywhere of many varieties and odd looking trees were here and there, some of which bore strangely shaped fruit. She looked up and felt she had never seen a sky a more beautiful shade of blue or a sun shining down on everything so brilliantly.
She slowly, carefully pushed the rest of herself through the mirror which turned soft and transparent as she did so instantly. When she stepped foot on the soil of the seemingly new land she glanced over her shoulder and found she could see nothing there at all except for thin air. Curiously, she reached her hand out into the opening between two trees and once again she felt the peculiar sensation of her hand passing through a liquefied substance, only this time she noticed a rippling that appeared in the air like the way ripples appear in water when a hand dips into it.
She turned back facing the beautiful area she was now in and drew in a deep breath of the freshest air she had ever felt and thought to herself, Well, I might as well get to know this place better.