Author's Note: Gah, it's much harder to write this from fresh rather than have a chapter that I wrote years ago to base an updated version on. So, if this chapter sucks, it's because I lost 'teh funnie'. Let me know what you think. I'm a little hesitant to post, now. Also, there will be a longer time between updates since I have to make the story up now – that, and I have about 7 stories I'm working on. Woot.
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 and her fixation with hopping newsies.
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Curiouser and Curiouser
July 2, 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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Crash. Crash. Bang! The pink house was still a ways away when Stress heard a series of crashes followed by a bang. She had no doubt about it, though; the sounds were coming from her destination.
Obviously put off by the destructive din, Stress paused just off from the walkway. She shielded her eyes with her hands and tried to get a good look at the hot pink monstrosity. The glare of the house diminished slightly, Stress saw a wooden sign; the sign read: Firecracker's House of Salt - home of the great Duchess of Newsieland, Medda. She squinted. The name 'Medda' had been crossed out with a marker and the name 'Bookie' was written right above it.
Firecracker? Salt? Duchess? Medda? Bookie?
Crash or no crash, Stress was going in. How could she resist? At least the pink was explained. If Medda Larkson, the 'Swedish Meadowlark', lived here at one time, it would make sense that the house be the most unattractive shade of pink possible.
She approached the house and, as she went up the walkway, noticed that there was another person there. It was a boy, near ten or so, with greasy brown hair and a lost expression on his face. He was sitting on a crate just outside the pink house; his back was to the door so that he would not have to see the garishness of it all.
Stress stopped a few steps away from the porch. "Hello?"
The boy didn't acknowledge her.
Puzzled, she walked in front of him and waved her hands in front of his eyes. He didn't move.
She shrugged and, rather than waste her time with the boy-statue, reached up to knock on the great pink door. Once her fist was made, however, the boy spoke.
"It's no use knocking."
Stress dropped her hand. "What?"
"I said, there's no use in knocking on the door. The only one that would hear you is me, and I'm already on this side." He was speaking but the only thing that was moving was his mouth; he kept on his crate, staring straight ahead.
She was even more confused, now. "Does that mean there is no one inside, kid?"
"Les."
"Les?" she asked, trying not to get close to the boy. He was beginning to creep her out.
"Oh, they're inside, alright. But they can't hear you."
"Well, then, I'll just go inside," she said.
He still didn't respond other than with words; his vacantness was really eerie. "Okay, just don't say I didn't warn you. As for me, I think I'll just stay here." And then he went as silent and still as he was when she first arrived.
Shaking her head at the exchange she had just held with Les, Stress reached out for the doorknob. She still wanted to get inside, more now than ever. Her curiosity always got the better of her.
Once she turned the door and stepped inside, she was struck by the color of the walls. While the outside of the house was a hot pink color, the color inside was bright purple. For a moment, Stress wished she would have brought her sunglasses with her.
She continued to walk inside, praying that the rest of the house wasn't so tackily decorated. When she heard another crash, she hurried forward. Now, it's never good to go running into a house in a place as strange as Newsieland – especially if you're running towards a crash – but, by now, we know Stress has no common sense.
When she stopped, she found that she was in the kitchen of the house. There was a girl, sitting at the table, with an elaborate tiara sitting atop her short brown hair, even though she was wearing a button-down shirt and slacks; she was hunched over a book and scribbling furiously. A second girl, with a head of wild red hair, was shaking two glass shakers over a pot on the stove. Neither noticed her entry.
Stress tapped the girl at the table. "Excuse me?"
She looked up. "Hello."
"Who are you?" Stress still needed to learn some tact.
The girl looked confused for a moment before she smiled. "Why I'm Bookie, of course – except now I'm also the Great Duchess of Newsieland." When Stress didn't say anything in reply, Bookie shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her writing.
Stress just stared at the girl. She had gone back to making notes in her ledger and was now ignoring her intruder. Stress shook her head and tapped the girl on her shoulder again. Bookie looked up. "Yes?"
"Are you really the Duchess?" Stress tried to ask the question respectfully - it didn't work. Instead, she sounded as if she really didn't believe that his petite gambler was royalty. Even in Newsieland...
Turning back to her numbers, Bookie nodded. "Yup."
"And, since you call yourself 'Bookie', I take it that you are, indeed, a bookie?" She knew she sounded slow but she was having a hard time comprehending this. A bookie that's the Duchess – no crazier than a newsie who is a rabbit, I guess or a cigar-smoking caterpillar. At least she doesn't hop or hasn't transformed into a prophetic butterfly – yet. Who knows, maybe I've met some semi-sane people now. She crossed her fingers behind her back. Here's hoping.
"That's right," the Duchess replied, writing something down with a pencil before crossing it out. Briefly, Stress peeked over her shoulder to see what she was writing: Queen Rae - four cookies. King Spot - twelve cookies. The twelve had been crossed out and now said fourteen cookies. Lent him a margin of two snicker doodles... Stress decided not to ask. She was still trying to figure out the whole 'Duchess' thing.
"If you don't mind me asking, then," – the red-headed chef snorted from her place at the stove but Bookie just placed her pencil down and looked back up at Stress – "how did a bookie become Duchess of Newsieland."
The girl shrugged her shoulders; her short brown hair barely moved with the gesture. "Simple. I won a bet."
Another snort came from the chef but Stress ignored her. "A bet?"
"A bet. Queen of New York and I, we made a bet. She was out of cookies, so she bet me a royal title. I won and the Queen kicked Medda out," the Duchess said proudly.
And that's when the chef picked up two large glass shakers and hurried over to the pair of girls. "Salt!" she hollered and shook her shookers – er, shakers. Thin, white grains of salt sprinkled down upon the heads of Stress and Bookie for a few brief moments before the crazy red-head echoed her cry – "Salt!" – and stopped shaking her shakers. Without another word she hurried back into her kitchen. Bookie acted like nothing happened, turning back to her book without so much as brushing the salt out of her hair.
Stress uncrossed her fingers. There was no need to keep them crossed now; these people were just as looney as the others. "Salt?" she asked out loud.
Bookie paid no attention to Stress's question at first. It was when she finally finished playing around with her numbers that she said, "What?"
Stress jerked her thumb into the kitchen. "Salt?"
That time the chef turned around again and rushed back over. "Salt!" she cried and shook her shakers maniacally for the second time. And, just like before, she repeated herself –
"Salt!" – before retreating to the stove.
Bookie smiled this time. "That's Firecracker. She likes salt."
Well, that's an understatement, Stress thought but kept it to herself; while Bookie was friendly even if she was a gambler, Firecracker seemed to like her salt a little too much. So, rather than say anything that would warrant another salt shower, Stress just nodded.
Bookie nodded in return.
Firecracker snorted again as she added more salt to whatever it was she was cooking.
Then one of those awkward silences crept up on the trio. You know, the sort that appear when three people are in a room together but have nothing to say to one another. Yeah, one of those.
Stress put her hands in her pockets and, while still nodding, looked around the inside of the house. Besides the intense purple walls that she noticed upon entering, there was not much else to see. "So," she began, trying to break up that awkward silence, "why salt?" Almost immediately she flinched. She hadn't meant to mention the condiment again; it had just slipped out.
To her surprise, Firecracker remained at her place in the kitchen. Bookie just shrugged her shoulders. "Because pepper makes us sneeze." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh." Her hands still in her pockets, curiosity still nagging at her, she nodded over to the kitchen. "What is she cooking that needs all that salt?" she asked as Firecracker dumped another round of salt into the giant pot.
Bookie shrugged. "Why don't you go see for yourself? Hey," she said, and Stress paused, "want to make a bet as to what's inside?" the gambler asked, petting her ledger fondly.
"Um, that's okay," Stress replied. She wasn't sure what type of money the people in Newsieland played with -- and, besides, she was fresh out of cookies. Then, when Bookie re-opened her ledger and went back to her figures, Stress walked into the kitchen. She tip-toed quietly, trying not to agitate the cook.
When she got next to Firecracker, she looked inside the large brass pot. But, when she saw the contents, all she could see was white. "What are you cooking?"
Firecracker picked up one of her shakers and sprinkled more salt into the pot. "Salt." I should have known. "Want some?"
The idea of eating even one spoonful of pure salt was enough to turn her stomach. "No thanks," she said, and began to back out of the kitchen. "I just remembered, I have to go find a rabbit."
Firecracker shrugged and added some more salt to her pot. "Suit yourself. More for me." She went to add more salt to her 'salt' when she noticed that one of the glass shakers was empty. Without a look behind her, she tossed the shaker. It landed with a loud crash right next to Stress. She shrieked and, without another word, went running from the house.
