They Told It Wrong

Chapter One—Down the Rabbit Hole

            The five-year-old girl jumped onto her bed and pulled her sheets up to her neck.  She flopped around, getting comfortable.

            "Are Daddy and Mom having a good time on their daaaate, Aunt Cordy?"

            "I bet you they are," Cordelia said from where she was kneeling by the small bookcase.  "Any particular bedtime story, 'Lonna-Bear?"

            "Something to do with birfdays!"

            "BirTHday.  In honor of your mom's birthday, huh?"

            "Yep!"  The girl sat up and smiled winningly at her babysitter.  "How long until MY birthday, Aunt Cordy?"

            "Well," Cordelia smiled as she pulled a book from the shelf.  "Today could be your UnBirthday, if you want.  Just like Alice."

            Alonna giggled and lied back down.  As Cordy sat next to her, she glimpsed at a picture of the girl with her mother.

            "You know what?"

            "What?"

            "The author of Alice in Wonderland told the story wrong.  But I know what really happened.  Do you want to hear?"

            "Yeah!"

            Cordelia put the book on the bedside table and leaned forward, eyes twinkling. 

            "There once was a beautiful, brilliant girl named Alice.  She was alone in a library, trying to find the answer to a very tough problem.  All of a sudden, as she was reading aloud, something distracted her.  There was a loud whooshing noise, and then this black swirly hole appeared in front of Alice.  Now, because Alice was VERY smart, but not very strong, she couldn't fight the force of the hole, and she fell into it—"

            "Oh NO!  Was she all right?"

            "Yes, yes, she was.  But she was in a strange, scary world, and she had no idea how to get home.  There were weird animals there, and the people were all green."

            "Like Uncle Lorne?"

            "Yep, like Uncle Lorne.  But they weren't all as nice as Uncle Lorne, and one particularly nasty lady took Alice prisoner!"

            "The Queen of Hearts?"

            "Nope, she was just a regular lady.  This world didn't have a queen, but there was a prophecy—"

"What's a pro—pro--?"
"Prah-fuh-see."

"Prophecy?"

"A prophecy tells the future.  And this one said that there would be a princess for that world someday, and she would be pretty and nice and wonderful.  But she wasn't there yet, and Alice was all alone and scared.  But she used her brain and escaped from the mean old lady who held her prisoner.  She ran into the forest and lived there for a while, until she wasn't sure if she even remembered the world where she really belonged.  But soon she met a prince.  He was from her world too, and he had been looking for his friend—a pretty, nice, wonderful girl who had also fallen into a swirly hole."

"The Princess!"

"Absolutely.  Alice and the Prince and the Prince's Knights joined teams, and they realized that there was a lot of other people just like Alice who were being held prisoner.  So they fought and they fought and they stormed the castle, where they found the Princess and helped her set all the people free."

           "And they all lived happily ever after?"
           "Hold on.  They still had to find out how to get home.  Well, one of the Prince's Knights was smart—as smart as Alice herself.  He read all the books in the Castle's Library and found a way to make a swirly hole for them to go home.  They all got ready to go—even the Princess, because she didn't want to be away from her friends forever, and she knew that the people of that world would be okay now—and they went home.  But Alice didn't remember a lot about her world anymore, and she was still very afraid.  After some time, she saw her mom and daddy again, and she began to make friends with the other Knight, and they got married and lived happily ever after."

"I liked that story, Aunt Cordy."
"I thought you would.  Go to bed now."

"Love you."

"Love you too, sweetie."