Chapter 2

The Timetable

Liza was shell shocked from the moment she rushed into the sunlight. This place, whatever it may be, was amazing! It was so bright ! The animals were strange too. There was a dragonfly that was literally a tiny dragon with the wings of an insect! And the flowers had faces! It was absolutely marvelous!

There was a quiet skittering behind her and Anna came out of the darkness behind the doorway and into the blinding sunlight.

"Look at it, Anna! Have you ever seen such a place?"

"No."

"Even you couldn't be bored with such a place! And here I thought that by going to Alice's party we'd be bored into madness in hopes that we could entertain ourselves! Come on let's go explore!"

Liza abruptly grabbed Anna's hand and tugged her down the path through the twittering flowers.

"McTwisp! I thought you said you didn't bring anyone back with you!" shrieked a shrill voice that seemed to belong to a dormouse with some kind of needle in her belt like a sword.

The white rabbit looked back at them with a jumbled expression. A large dodo bird in a jacket stood behind him and two rather round twins looked at them with confusion.

"Oh! Hello! Could you tell us where we are?We saw you trying to get Alice's attention, and we followed you!" chirped Liza to McTwisp, who was looking more scared by the second.

"Liza, give the poor rabbit some personal space please."

"Oops."

"I apologize for my friend. My name is Annabeth Ableman, and this is Elizabeth Humphries."

"Anna! I can introduce myself! "said Liza indignantly," You can call me Liza! What are your names?"

"Oh, I'm Tweedle-dee. He's Tweedle-dum."

"I'm Tweedle dum and he's Tweedle-dee."

"Nivens McTwisp."

"Mallymkun."

"Uilleam, the Dodo bird. And I think we should consult Absolem. Neither one of them is Alice after all."

"What's so special about Alice? "asked Liza, her blue eyes bright with honest curiosity.

"She's supposed to slay the Jabberwocky. And she was supposed to follow McTwisp down here! But we got you and you're Not Alice!" said Mallymkun indignantly as she scampered away, the others following her less energetically.

"No, I suppose we're not." Said Anna quietly as they followed the odd group through the chattering flowers and into a smoke covered clearing.

"And who are you?" inquired a rather large patch of smoke towards the back of the clearing.

"I'm Liza! Who are you?"

" Yes, you are Completely Liza. I am Absolem. "

Liza stepped up and fanned the smoke away, revealing a large, vibrantly blue caterpillar that was smoking some sort of odd pipe. He was lounging on a relatively large, brightly spotted mushroom, and he wore a monocle that made one of his eyes seem a great deal larger than the other.

Absolem inhaled deeply from his pipe and exhaled into the foggy patch of air in front of him. He adjusted his monocle, and squinted through the smoke at the second figure he didn't recognize.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Anna, but I'm not quite sure who that is yet."

"One should know who they are."

"One should."

Absolem leaned back and inhaled once again. He watched her intensely for a moment before endlessly exhaling.

"You are not who everyone will know you are."

"Things are not always as they seem."

"Indeed. Unroll the Oraculum."

Mallymkun scampered up a smallish toadstool nearby and pushed open an extremely yellowed scroll with her feet.

"What is it?" whispered Liza to McTwisp, sensing the mood.

"It's a calendrical compendium of Underland." He murmured back, his voice full of awe.

"Underland? Is that where we are?"

"Yes. "

"What's wrong with it? Isn't there supposed to be something on it?"

McTwisp looked twitchily at the scroll, his nose fluttering as he looked down at the partially inked parchment, his dark pink eyes widened almost comically as he took in the disappearing days. He watched as the Frabjous day faded slowly in front of his eyes, the ink dripping down off the waxy surface of the scroll.

"It seems," said Absolem calmly as he puffed on his pipe," that someone made a decision that Time did not expect them to make. He has to erase everything and start over from yesterday."

Anna leaned forward slightly, and dipped all of her fingers in the stream of ink that dribbled off the side of the parchment, dying the tips black.

"That won't come off you know." Said Absolem absently as he readjusted his monocle with one of his four hands, "I think it would be best to wait and consult to Oraculum again after it has been Tweaked. Until then, perhaps you can stay with the Hatter. He's quite mad, but there's always tea at least."

"I will not have them staying with us!" shrieked Mallymkun, her tiny face contorted with righteous fury.

"Now, Mally,"said McTwisp,"they most certainly can't stay with us, we have to work for the Red Queen after all. Surely there must be some place where you can put them."

The dormouse's face twisted a bit more before it finally relaxed into a complacent frown.

"Alright, but only until the Oraculum has finished being Tweaked. You two had best follo-"

She was cut off by a large, dusty creature crashing through the greenery. Its' eyes were beady and black and its' face was squashed, as though it had run into the side of a cliff.

Liza barely had time to comprehend that, yes it might be a good idea to run, when it swatted her down and snarled at her, saliva oozing down from its rugged teeth as it snarled.

Then there was snarl from behind her and the creature released her to face Anna, who had twisted into an animalistic crouch. Liza ran faster than she ever had before away from the clearing as Anna leapt for those tiny, beady eyes.

Anna scrabbled at them with ink stained fingers leaving long, bloody scars before she vaulted away, running madly after her companion. They followed the Tweedle's out of the vegetation and out onto the road, where they grasped their knees as they tried to catch their breath.

"What was that?" asked a breathless Liza.

"The Bandersnatch." SaidTweedle-dum.

"It's almost as bad as the Jubjub bir-" Tweedle-dee never got to finish his sentence as he and his brother were carried off by a shrieking salt-and-pepper colored bird.

"That was probably the Jubjub bird." Said Anna, her hands still stained from the ink and the vibrant blood of the Bandersnatch.

"How did you manage to harm that, bandersnatch, thing anyway?"

"I just did. It was actually kind of fun."

"Sadist," panted Liza," which way do we go now?"

"I'll follow you."

Liza shrugged and straightened before walking towards the gnarled trees to their right. Anna rose and twisted her neck until a crackling noise echoed around them before she made her way up next to her friend.

...

Thanks you for enduring through my second chapter. Any comments you have would be appreciated. If you have something you want to say and don't want to review, feel free to PM me. Thank you again.

Sincerely,

May-B-Madd