Chapter one

Cynicism meets Innocence

If one was to put on a scale those people who believed solidly in facts on the far right, and those who loved the realm of fancy on the far left then one would be able to place every person on that scale in between the two.

Ivy Robertson was a person who believed herself to be on the extreme far right of the scale. She had been quite imaginative as a young child, but somewhere along the way she had chosen never to let her imagination rule her or influence her in any way.

This was why she had felt sick to her stomach when she had drawn her first English assignment of the year from her Professor's ratty old hat. The assignment was to, as a demonstration of writing skills; write a short paper on why some fictional characters enjoyed long notoriety. Ivy had been hoping for Sherlock Holmes, or even Scrooge. She had drawn Alice.

Alice, of all things! Why, she hadn't even touched one of the Alice books since her father had read them to her at the age of seven! Ivy hadn't even thought about Alice since the age of 11. It was a perfectly ridiculous choice.

All the Professor had said was "Get Reading."

Ivy, seeing as she had no choice in the matter did just that. She had read both the Alice books, she had streamed countless versions of films of Alice in Wonderland, and read countless biographies of Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. She had read about the real Alice, Alice Liddell, and had even gone online and borrowed every possible pastiche she could find from the library. Nevermind that, she had read every online pastiche she could find as well as too much fan-fiction. She still had no idea why Alice was so popular.

Which was, of course, why two days before the assignment was due, she was sitting outside on a park bench, and staring at the one line she had wrote. It was a reasonably warm day in late October, and the wind was playing invitingly in the trees. Ivy was focused on her joke of a paper. She was so focused that she did not notice the rabbit until it had ran right across both her sneakers. She looked at it. It was white, it was wearing a waistcoat. It was looking at her with irony written across its face.

"Ha. Ha. Very Funny." Ivy glanced around to see whether the prankster was around. She wouldn't put it past some her friends to pull a trick like this. It was just like the Harris twins to do something like this, Jeff Harris and Mark Harris were the two biggest scallywags in her neighbourhood, and had at the age of nine achieved notoriety in what was known as the oyster incident. No one was around. She looked at the rabbit. It was hopping away towards the road. Whatever. She wasn't responsible for anybody's jokes.

She turned back to her paper. The problem was she herself couldn't see why Alice or anyone in the books was popular. To her it was just the story of a confused and possibly disturbed little girl wandering from place to place randomly. It didn't even have a proper plot for goodness sakes!

"Hello," a small sweet voice said.

Ivy glanced from her paper. The voice belonged to a little girl, about seven from Ivy's guess. She was dressed in what seemed to Ivy to be an old-fashioned blue dress. Her feet were in small black shoes, her hair was blond and her eyes were brown. She was smiling sweetly.

"uh...Hello?" Ivy said nervously. "What's your name?"

"I'm Alice...Hey that book has my name on it!" The girl, Alice smiled sweetly.

"Figures..." Ivy muttered. It was going to be that kind of day. "Where's your mum Alice?"

"At home...Have you seen a white rabbit?" Alice asked.

"Yes, but it's gone."

"Which way did it go? Does that book have pictures in it? What's your name?" Alice listed off her questions in rapid succession.

"I didn't see which way it went. Yes this book has pictures in it. My name is Ivy. Where do you live and where is your mum?"

"I live in wonderland. My mum is there."

"Okay, the joke's not funny. Who told you to dress like this and talk like this?"

"Nobody. This my very favoritest dress. What's that?" Alice pointed to a car that was whizzing down the road.

Ivy got a sinking feeling in her stomach. "That's a car. You haven't seen a car before?"

"No. We don't have cars in wonderland. What's that?"

Ivy looked up. "That's an airplane."

"What does it do?"

"It takes people across the world."

"Why?"

"um...because that's what it does."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Is your dad around here somewhere, maybe?"

"Dad's at home."

Ivy glanced into the sky. This was a problem. "So is that your Halloween costume?" she asked hopefully.

Alice looked puzzled. "What's Halloween?"

"You don't know about Halloween?"

"I don't think we have it at home."

Why me, Ivy groaned inwardly. The kid was obviously serious, and honestly believed what she was saying.

"Does anyone know you're here?" Ivy demanded.

"No. I was playing with the cat and then the rabbit ran by, so I followed him because I wanted to play with him. Can I see the pictures in that book?"

"Yeah go ahead." Ivy handed her book over to Alice. Alice hopped onto the park bench and sat down next to Ivy. Ivy tried to think of what to do with the little girl. Certainly she couldn't just leave her here. Maybe she should call the police?

"Oh, Alice darling. You've worried your Mummy quite terribly."

Ivy felt Alice stiffen and move closer to her. Ivy glanced at the woman speaking; she was short and rather fat with a scowl on her face. She was wearing a red suit, with a big red heart embroidered on one of the pockets. She was looking at Alice hungrily.

"Come on darling," the woman said snappily. "Come and give your Mummy a hug."

"That's not my mummy," Alice whispered in Ivy's ear.

Oh bother, thought Ivy. Hopefully it wasn't too late to get uninvolved...