ALICE
By Chad Perks
A slight breeze rippled through the tall, grassy meadow on the warm spring afternoon. It was the kind of place people would enjoy having a picnic on a nice Saturday morning. Although, this Saturday, it had been abandoned. No souls dancing rhythmically as they had the weeks before. Yet, one fourteen-year-old girl had skipped merrily in it all through the day….
Her name was Alice. It seemed to suit her with her blonde hair, blue eyes (that sometimes looked green), and white and blue dress. She danced, skipped, hopped, and even spun around for hours! This was her place. She felt safe and secure here, but this day was not like any other.
Alice had looked, paused, and looked around again for many minutes. The enormous oak tree situated in the middle had caught her eye. "I never saw that tree before!" she thought to herself. An odd feeling came over her. She wanted to touch the tree, just to see if it was really there.
It only took the young girl seconds to reach the monstrous tree. It towered above her like a skyscraper. "WOW!" she said out loud, "I never saw a tree out here, let alone a tree of this size!" But in that very second, a wave of sleepiness rushed through Alice like an oncoming storm. She had to rest.
She planned on dancing alone some more, but the drowsy feeling had overpowered poor Alice. She bent her legs and started to lay down on the tree. "This seems comfortable," she said to herself again. Her eyes began to close, and she left the world in a cozy slumber.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Little footsteps began to circle around. A small squeaky voice echoed a bit. Alice opened her eyes, slightly alarmed. "Oh my!" she whispered to herself quietly. A bunny was hopping along smoothly, but that's not what frightened Alice. Oh no! The cute white jackrabbit had no… HEAD! His entire head was missing, but it looked like it had a swift and keen sense of direction.
"Oh dearest me!" the bunny started, "I'll be late for tea again! They won't be pleased one bit!" The voice hadn't come from the decapitated body. It had come from a floating head on the side of the hopping body. "Tea where?" Alice asked politely, yet without a hint of fear. She said it almost as if she had seen headless bunnies before.
The rabbit jumped backwards fearfully. The rabbit's features seemed to show up some more. He had a golden stopwatch in a sleek vest pocket, two big front teeth, and two nice cuddly ears. He even wore glasses! The bunny made a squeaking noise again and started running crazily all over the place.
He soon ran to the other side of the tree, where Alice caught up with him in seconds flat. He jumped down a small hole and was free from the giant Alice. "OH! Now I'll never know about the rabbit," she said sadly. For some reason she had to see if it was magical. She stood back and took a flying leap, right into the hole. She could fit!
Alice started falling down, but she wasn't having a fun fall! She was freefalling at top speeds, making her hair tie fumble out of her long blonde hair. Speeds of a hundred miles an hour came easily to her fall. Her skin was on the verge of explosion from the neck brake speeds she had to endure for minutes. Yet, being there in person it seemed like hours of such harsh velocity. The ground had come in sight and Alice screamed as hard as she could. She was going to crash!
"HELP! Bunny! Come back and save meeeeee!" She shouted incoherently. The rabbit quickly came into view and clicked his stopwatch. Alice slowed down in seconds and lightly tapped the ground. "Get! Shoo! You must leave wonderland at once!" the rabbit croaked. He seemed to be under much stress….
"Wonderland? What's that?" Alice said just after the bunny hopped speedily away. She had no choice! Curiosity killed that cat, but Alice wasn't dealing with that. Something much, much greater than curiosity was forcing her to follow. The rabbit footsteps died down, and all that was left was the drip, drip of water.
Alice was in a great underground hallway. It was dirty and smelled of sour milk, but Alice decided she out to run through it, in case any rats were lurking around. Her run didn't stop for a few minutes, when she came to a door that was extremely peculiar. It was bright pink and had a vivid yellow knob.
She turned the knob quickly and easy. The door creaked open and revealed a brightly painted and decorated room. The decapitated bunny was just leaving this room from the other side. He was going through a super small door that Alice could never fit through it in a million years. The rabbit slipped through, and it was again out of sight. Alice had to get through somehow….
The only other thing in the room was a dinner table and moldy mushrooms on a platter. "I don't want to guess about eating them to get through!" Alice thought out loud. "It's the only way," her brain defended, "You must eat them!" Alice glanced at them once more and thought about how much she hated having voices in her head.
She trotted over to the platter of spoiled green mushrooms on the polka-dot table. She pinched her nose and grabbed one. She put it in her mouth and began to chew. Her taste buds sizzled angrily. The awful taste made her gag, but in a matter of seconds she began to shrink drastically! She grabbed three of them and gobbled them down excitedly. The disgusting taste tripled, but she shrank faster and smaller! She was now about the size of the headless rabbit himself!
She ran to the mini-door happily. The knob turned with some strain, but it revealed something wonderful and… deadly! A rainforest like area surrounded her! She immediately grew back to her original shape, yet it took a while for her left hand to come back to its original form.
Immediately a long dining table came into view. A funky-looking man dressed only in ties, a drunken mouse crawling around the table, a faceless woman wearing diamonds, a shaved dog with a beard, and the headless bunny all sat at the lengthy table. "Puuuuur! We have a visitoooooor!" said something in a tree. It looked like a cat but it was… a sock puppet with dentures! It sure was starting to creep Alice out.
"OH! Why hello! We are celebrating nothing today! How are you? My name is the Mad Tie. Would you like a drop of tea," said the person covered in ties. Alice nodded stupidly and grabbed a seat.
"What do you mean celebrating nothing? That doesn't make any sense. Is it any of your birthdays?" she asked quickly. She even wondered why she wasn't screaming of fear right now. "OH NO! I am celebrating the air. You know it really does help us breath," the Mad Tie said.
The bearded dog said, "I am celebrating the tea we are drinking because…" he didn't finish answering, he just started drinking some tea. "I am celebrating my stopwatch because it can stop going and start again!" the head of the rabbit said. The faceless woman just mumbled, and couldn't be heard without a mouth!
"That still doesn't make any sense! You are celebrating such stupid things! Celebrations and parties are only for special times!" Alice said getting annoyed. They all just drank some tea, ignoring her entirely.
She sighed and grabbed the teapot. She poured it slowly into her cup and nothing came out. She shook the teapot a few times and out popped a mouse! He fell into her teacup and looked up at her. He hiccupped as he said, "You must be one of those ~hiccup~ things that are in this ~hiccup~ place that we ~hiccup~ live in?"
Alice just stood up from the table and shouted, "I want to go home! How do I get out of this awful place?!" The Mad Tie stood up for a few seconds and sat back down. He started to drink some tea, forgetting about Alice. "I'll help youuuuu. I thhhhink youuuu have toooo gooo tooo the Queeeen of Heaaarts," the sock puppet cat said. His dentures flailed around violently in his cut out mouth. "Haaang ooon," the cat said quickly. He removed the dentures and said, "There! I don't sound like a weirdo now!"
"Where ever is the Queen of Hearts?" Alice asked scared. Fear had just hit her. The cat made her feel very uneasy, and almost sick to her stomach for some reason. The cat said in reply, "Go down the Red Brick Road." Alice looked puzzled and shocked.
"Don't you mean the Yellow Brick Road?" Alice said in defense. The sock puppet giggled. "Wrong fairy tale, sister. The queen had it painted red in light of her authority."
Alice, as confused as she was, took off at a run. She wanted to go home and try to not be traumatized for life…. She found the road without a problem, but it seemed to go on forever! She ran for minutes and the rainforest area seemed to just, stop. A red plain surrounded her. The grass was red, the bushed were red, and the castle up ahead was of deep red.
"Great move #7!" said (what looked like) a man in a card suit. It was a seven of hearts. "It was your idea #9!" said another man in a card suit. He was obviously a nine of hearts. "Now what are we going to do?" asked #7.
"Nothing! The queen will notice if the roses aren't red! I can't believe we got white roses!" #9 said. The other man in the card suit looked at Alice and said, "The person isn't wearing red! Hey! Great idea little person! We should stop listening to that fat queen and do what we want to!"
Alice looked pale and clammy. "How do I get out of here?" she asked helplessly. The two card men giggled. #9 said "We can tell you a way… only if you help us paint these roses black!" She looked up into the clouds and nodded. She would do anything to get out of this dreaded "Wonderland." She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She just nodded her head again.
They sat down and got to work with painting the roses black. Alice didn't understand why they were doing it, but she knew she could get out if she does. "We're painting the roses black! We're painting the roses black! We're painting the roses-" they had started to sing that song to pass time. Alice even joined in herself, but, just then, a loud rumbling shook the area.
"Oh no! She's coming!" they both said ending the song without Alice, who went on sing. She stopped abruptly to see what they had meant. "Who? Who's coming?" she asked curiously. "THE QUEEN!!!" they answered loudly. Alice looked confused. She looked back and… an enormous woman with an entire army of card men was coming! "Off with their heads!" she bellowed, "How dare they rebel against me? I am the almighty Queen of Hearts!"
Alice then thought to herself, "What is happening? What am I doing here? Where am I?" Yet, a hoarse shout from #9 echoed through out the area.
"RUN!!!" he yelled. Alice just started running. Her legs seemed really tired. She couldn't go on. The same odd sleepiness took control. She ran to the left of her and noticed a huge oak tree. She ran over to it and lay down under it. The muffled battle cries filled the area, but Alice couldn't hear.
"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" was chanted through the army of cards. Alice hadn't cared at all, though. She closed her eyes and went to sleep…. The cries of war slowly died down. The chanting went away. It was almost silent. The faint chirp of a bird awoke Alice.
She opened her eyes lightly. She quickly stood up and looked around. She was back in the meadow… she was home! It had all been one bad dream. She ran, skipped and danced to the end of the meadow with joy. She then stopped and looked back, and the tree was gone! It had disappeared.
She smiled and started home, but she looked back one more time. The tree stood there again with a rabbit head floating around it. "I think I'll just go home now…" Alice said and walked away.
1 The End
By Chad Perks
A slight breeze rippled through the tall, grassy meadow on the warm spring afternoon. It was the kind of place people would enjoy having a picnic on a nice Saturday morning. Although, this Saturday, it had been abandoned. No souls dancing rhythmically as they had the weeks before. Yet, one fourteen-year-old girl had skipped merrily in it all through the day….
Her name was Alice. It seemed to suit her with her blonde hair, blue eyes (that sometimes looked green), and white and blue dress. She danced, skipped, hopped, and even spun around for hours! This was her place. She felt safe and secure here, but this day was not like any other.
Alice had looked, paused, and looked around again for many minutes. The enormous oak tree situated in the middle had caught her eye. "I never saw that tree before!" she thought to herself. An odd feeling came over her. She wanted to touch the tree, just to see if it was really there.
It only took the young girl seconds to reach the monstrous tree. It towered above her like a skyscraper. "WOW!" she said out loud, "I never saw a tree out here, let alone a tree of this size!" But in that very second, a wave of sleepiness rushed through Alice like an oncoming storm. She had to rest.
She planned on dancing alone some more, but the drowsy feeling had overpowered poor Alice. She bent her legs and started to lay down on the tree. "This seems comfortable," she said to herself again. Her eyes began to close, and she left the world in a cozy slumber.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Little footsteps began to circle around. A small squeaky voice echoed a bit. Alice opened her eyes, slightly alarmed. "Oh my!" she whispered to herself quietly. A bunny was hopping along smoothly, but that's not what frightened Alice. Oh no! The cute white jackrabbit had no… HEAD! His entire head was missing, but it looked like it had a swift and keen sense of direction.
"Oh dearest me!" the bunny started, "I'll be late for tea again! They won't be pleased one bit!" The voice hadn't come from the decapitated body. It had come from a floating head on the side of the hopping body. "Tea where?" Alice asked politely, yet without a hint of fear. She said it almost as if she had seen headless bunnies before.
The rabbit jumped backwards fearfully. The rabbit's features seemed to show up some more. He had a golden stopwatch in a sleek vest pocket, two big front teeth, and two nice cuddly ears. He even wore glasses! The bunny made a squeaking noise again and started running crazily all over the place.
He soon ran to the other side of the tree, where Alice caught up with him in seconds flat. He jumped down a small hole and was free from the giant Alice. "OH! Now I'll never know about the rabbit," she said sadly. For some reason she had to see if it was magical. She stood back and took a flying leap, right into the hole. She could fit!
Alice started falling down, but she wasn't having a fun fall! She was freefalling at top speeds, making her hair tie fumble out of her long blonde hair. Speeds of a hundred miles an hour came easily to her fall. Her skin was on the verge of explosion from the neck brake speeds she had to endure for minutes. Yet, being there in person it seemed like hours of such harsh velocity. The ground had come in sight and Alice screamed as hard as she could. She was going to crash!
"HELP! Bunny! Come back and save meeeeee!" She shouted incoherently. The rabbit quickly came into view and clicked his stopwatch. Alice slowed down in seconds and lightly tapped the ground. "Get! Shoo! You must leave wonderland at once!" the rabbit croaked. He seemed to be under much stress….
"Wonderland? What's that?" Alice said just after the bunny hopped speedily away. She had no choice! Curiosity killed that cat, but Alice wasn't dealing with that. Something much, much greater than curiosity was forcing her to follow. The rabbit footsteps died down, and all that was left was the drip, drip of water.
Alice was in a great underground hallway. It was dirty and smelled of sour milk, but Alice decided she out to run through it, in case any rats were lurking around. Her run didn't stop for a few minutes, when she came to a door that was extremely peculiar. It was bright pink and had a vivid yellow knob.
She turned the knob quickly and easy. The door creaked open and revealed a brightly painted and decorated room. The decapitated bunny was just leaving this room from the other side. He was going through a super small door that Alice could never fit through it in a million years. The rabbit slipped through, and it was again out of sight. Alice had to get through somehow….
The only other thing in the room was a dinner table and moldy mushrooms on a platter. "I don't want to guess about eating them to get through!" Alice thought out loud. "It's the only way," her brain defended, "You must eat them!" Alice glanced at them once more and thought about how much she hated having voices in her head.
She trotted over to the platter of spoiled green mushrooms on the polka-dot table. She pinched her nose and grabbed one. She put it in her mouth and began to chew. Her taste buds sizzled angrily. The awful taste made her gag, but in a matter of seconds she began to shrink drastically! She grabbed three of them and gobbled them down excitedly. The disgusting taste tripled, but she shrank faster and smaller! She was now about the size of the headless rabbit himself!
She ran to the mini-door happily. The knob turned with some strain, but it revealed something wonderful and… deadly! A rainforest like area surrounded her! She immediately grew back to her original shape, yet it took a while for her left hand to come back to its original form.
Immediately a long dining table came into view. A funky-looking man dressed only in ties, a drunken mouse crawling around the table, a faceless woman wearing diamonds, a shaved dog with a beard, and the headless bunny all sat at the lengthy table. "Puuuuur! We have a visitoooooor!" said something in a tree. It looked like a cat but it was… a sock puppet with dentures! It sure was starting to creep Alice out.
"OH! Why hello! We are celebrating nothing today! How are you? My name is the Mad Tie. Would you like a drop of tea," said the person covered in ties. Alice nodded stupidly and grabbed a seat.
"What do you mean celebrating nothing? That doesn't make any sense. Is it any of your birthdays?" she asked quickly. She even wondered why she wasn't screaming of fear right now. "OH NO! I am celebrating the air. You know it really does help us breath," the Mad Tie said.
The bearded dog said, "I am celebrating the tea we are drinking because…" he didn't finish answering, he just started drinking some tea. "I am celebrating my stopwatch because it can stop going and start again!" the head of the rabbit said. The faceless woman just mumbled, and couldn't be heard without a mouth!
"That still doesn't make any sense! You are celebrating such stupid things! Celebrations and parties are only for special times!" Alice said getting annoyed. They all just drank some tea, ignoring her entirely.
She sighed and grabbed the teapot. She poured it slowly into her cup and nothing came out. She shook the teapot a few times and out popped a mouse! He fell into her teacup and looked up at her. He hiccupped as he said, "You must be one of those ~hiccup~ things that are in this ~hiccup~ place that we ~hiccup~ live in?"
Alice just stood up from the table and shouted, "I want to go home! How do I get out of this awful place?!" The Mad Tie stood up for a few seconds and sat back down. He started to drink some tea, forgetting about Alice. "I'll help youuuuu. I thhhhink youuuu have toooo gooo tooo the Queeeen of Heaaarts," the sock puppet cat said. His dentures flailed around violently in his cut out mouth. "Haaang ooon," the cat said quickly. He removed the dentures and said, "There! I don't sound like a weirdo now!"
"Where ever is the Queen of Hearts?" Alice asked scared. Fear had just hit her. The cat made her feel very uneasy, and almost sick to her stomach for some reason. The cat said in reply, "Go down the Red Brick Road." Alice looked puzzled and shocked.
"Don't you mean the Yellow Brick Road?" Alice said in defense. The sock puppet giggled. "Wrong fairy tale, sister. The queen had it painted red in light of her authority."
Alice, as confused as she was, took off at a run. She wanted to go home and try to not be traumatized for life…. She found the road without a problem, but it seemed to go on forever! She ran for minutes and the rainforest area seemed to just, stop. A red plain surrounded her. The grass was red, the bushed were red, and the castle up ahead was of deep red.
"Great move #7!" said (what looked like) a man in a card suit. It was a seven of hearts. "It was your idea #9!" said another man in a card suit. He was obviously a nine of hearts. "Now what are we going to do?" asked #7.
"Nothing! The queen will notice if the roses aren't red! I can't believe we got white roses!" #9 said. The other man in the card suit looked at Alice and said, "The person isn't wearing red! Hey! Great idea little person! We should stop listening to that fat queen and do what we want to!"
Alice looked pale and clammy. "How do I get out of here?" she asked helplessly. The two card men giggled. #9 said "We can tell you a way… only if you help us paint these roses black!" She looked up into the clouds and nodded. She would do anything to get out of this dreaded "Wonderland." She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She just nodded her head again.
They sat down and got to work with painting the roses black. Alice didn't understand why they were doing it, but she knew she could get out if she does. "We're painting the roses black! We're painting the roses black! We're painting the roses-" they had started to sing that song to pass time. Alice even joined in herself, but, just then, a loud rumbling shook the area.
"Oh no! She's coming!" they both said ending the song without Alice, who went on sing. She stopped abruptly to see what they had meant. "Who? Who's coming?" she asked curiously. "THE QUEEN!!!" they answered loudly. Alice looked confused. She looked back and… an enormous woman with an entire army of card men was coming! "Off with their heads!" she bellowed, "How dare they rebel against me? I am the almighty Queen of Hearts!"
Alice then thought to herself, "What is happening? What am I doing here? Where am I?" Yet, a hoarse shout from #9 echoed through out the area.
"RUN!!!" he yelled. Alice just started running. Her legs seemed really tired. She couldn't go on. The same odd sleepiness took control. She ran to the left of her and noticed a huge oak tree. She ran over to it and lay down under it. The muffled battle cries filled the area, but Alice couldn't hear.
"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" was chanted through the army of cards. Alice hadn't cared at all, though. She closed her eyes and went to sleep…. The cries of war slowly died down. The chanting went away. It was almost silent. The faint chirp of a bird awoke Alice.
She opened her eyes lightly. She quickly stood up and looked around. She was back in the meadow… she was home! It had all been one bad dream. She ran, skipped and danced to the end of the meadow with joy. She then stopped and looked back, and the tree was gone! It had disappeared.
She smiled and started home, but she looked back one more time. The tree stood there again with a rabbit head floating around it. "I think I'll just go home now…" Alice said and walked away.
1 The End