a/n: First, let me say this: I AM DEEPLY SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING FOR A MONTH, AND I SWEAR IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN. /pelted with rocks, rotten tomatoes, and other strange objects/ I HAVE EXCUSES. HERE, TAKE THEM. First, there was Christmas break, then, there was school, and I was busy with other stuff and writer's block jumped on me and squished me dead. And plot bunnies from other fandoms have also jumped on me and squished me dead. And I've been reading fabulous fanfiction by fabulous people.

Also: LOOK AT WHAT MY NEE-CHAN MADE FOR ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY! ht tp: / /tewi. us/ tegaki/ dblog. php? u =110000 (percent)20 & e=131 2543 Just take out all the spaces (and replace the word (percent) with an actual percent sign) and look at it RIGHT NOW. She drew my characters for mee~ Better than I could have myself~ I'm still gleeing over it, over a month later. [glee]

Last time, Romano and Feliciano grew big enough to fill the White Rabbit's house. Yes, that means that this time, the Dodo gets to (try to) burn the house down. I do hope that it's clear who's what character. I did try to make them obvious. There will be a complete character list at the end of the story.

And now, I'll shut up so you can read the story. It may be a little choppy in places because writer's block killed me. If you spot any grammar errors, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THEM. I mean it. I do not mind criticism.

x.x.x

Romano was interrupted from thinking—he was not sulking, dammit!—by the presence of voices out in the garden. He recognised one of them as the rabbit-bastard's and another as that Dodo-lady's. They seemed to be arguing over something.

"I don't care what it is, I just want it out of my house!" the White Rabbit was saying.

"Clearly," the Dodo replied, "the only solution is to burn the house down! That'll get rid of it! Anybody got a match? I'm all out."

"Be~ Get us out of here!" Feliciano wailed, flailing as much as he could with the limited space.

"Stop that, idiot!" Romano cried, though he was also slightly nervous—he was not frightened, dammit!—about what exactly would happen if the house burned down with them still inside. "Oy, rabbit-bastard, don't you dare try anything like that!" One of his arms poked out a window, so he used that hand to flip the rabbit-bastard off. There was a surprised shout and the sound of shattering glass.

"There go the cucumber frames!" the Dodo declared cheerfully. "Up you get, up you get."

Evidently, the Rabbit had slipped again, for there was more shattering glass and a happy cry of, "Oopsie daisy!" from the Dodo.

Romano flailed his hand outside the house, hoping to "accidentally" hit the White Rabbit. More crashing—how many cucumber frames did this guy have?—and Romano's hand smacked into a plant which was covered in small, round, squishy things. Carefully, he pulled a handful of the round things off the plant (most likely some kind of fruit) and drew his hand back inside the window. After discovering that the plant had been a tomato plant (and the subsequent internal whoop of joy), he stuffed a few of the tomatoes in his mouth. It had been a while since he'd had tomatoes this good.

Feliciano snagged a couple of the tomatoes. "Be~ These are tasty!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Romano muttered. "Wait a second—are we shrinking again?"

The house grew around them until they were small enough to slip out through a crack in the wall.

The twins wandered through the grass of the garden—they were so short, it was about as tall as they were.

"Be~ fratello, I'm scared." Feliciano clung to his brother's arm.

"Don't be, aru," a new voice said from above. Both twins looked up.

Seated casually on a mushroom cap, one arm propped up behind him—her?—was yet another person in some sort of animal costume. He—she?—was dressed as a caterpillar, one leg folded over the other and a long pipe in his—her?—other hand.

"Who are you, aru?" the Caterpillar asked, tossing a long black ponytail over one shoulder.

"My name is—" Feliciano began, but Romano clapped a hand over his mouth.

"What business is it of yours, bastard?" Romano snarled.

The Caterpillar blinked slowly, caught a little off-guard at Romano's hostility. "I was simply asking, aru. Is there a reason why you're so unhappy, or are you normally like this, aru?"

Freeing himself from his brother's hand, Feliciano said cheerfully, "Yes, fratello is always like this."

"Shut up, idiot," Romano growled. To the Caterpillar he said, "I've been changing sizes all day—smaller, larger, smaller, larger—and now I'm three inches tall!"

"Shouldn't it be three inches short?" Feliciano corrected.

"Anyway," Romano went on, completely ignoring any interruption, "I'm three inches tall or short, and it's really a terrible size to be!"

"Excuse me?" the Caterpillar huffed, jumping to his—her?—feet, and Romano saw that he—she?—was, in fact, exactly three inches tall.

"I'm sure fratello didn't mean it!" Feliciano cried, frantically waving his arms.

The Caterpillar relaxed and sat back down, still slightly miffed. "You never actually answered my question, aru. Who are you, aru?"

Romano muttered something uncomplimentary about nosy Caterpillar-bastards who couldn't just leave off on questions.

Feliciano smacked his brother's arm lightly. "Be polite, fratello." To the Caterpillar he said, "My name's Feliciano, and this is my brother Romano! He's been having kind of a bad day, but I'm having fun! Be~ have you seen a White Rabbit anywhere?"

The Caterpillar shook his—her?—head. "I'm afraid not, aru. However, I—" He—she?—broke off abruptly as his—her?—face scrunched up in pain. "Oh, bother, aru," he—she?—muttered as his—her?—back split open, allowing a pair of magnificently coloured butterfly wings to unfurl.

"You're a butterfly!" Feliciano exclaimed.

"Way to state the obvious, moron," Romano muttered.

The Caterpillar smiled. "I do have two pieces of advice for you, aru."

"Don't want to hear it," Romano growled, grabbing his brother by the arm. "C'mon, Feliciano."

"The first piece of advice," the Caterpillar called after them, "it don't lose your temper, aru."

Romano ignored him.

"Also! One side will make you grow taller, while the other side will make you grow shorter, aru!"

"One side of what? The other side of what?" Feliciano asked.

"The mushroom, aru!" The Caterpillar's voice faded as the brothers walked further away.

Feliciano stopped. "Be, fratello, let's go back! Don't you want to be taller again?"

Romano froze. "Fine. But I still hate that Caterpillar-bastard." He spun on his heel and marched back to the mushroom, now devoid of any Caterpillar or Butterfly.

"Be~ How do we find two sides of a circle?" Feliciano wondered.

Romano sighed. "Pick a spot, and I'll go opposite. That should be close enough."

They each broke off a piece.

"The Caterpillar didn't say which side did what, did he?" Feliciano asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Hmph. Useless Caterpillar-bastard," Romano muttered. "I s'pose the only way to find out is to try them." He nibbled a bit of the piece he was holding and yelped. His chin had nearly collided with his foot, he shrank so fast. "Dammit!" he cursed.

Feliciano picked a crumb off the edge of his piece. "If that side made you shorter, then this side will make you taller!" he reasoned, stuffing the crumb into his brother's mouth. Sure enough, Romano returned to being about three inches tall. Er, short. Er, tall. Whatever.

Through a slow process of nibbling first one piece of mushroom then another, the brothers managed to get themselves back to something close to their original size.

"Thank Heaven," Romano sighed. They continued wandering through the forest. Unfortunately, they were not looking where they were going very well, and so they collided with a strange duo, sending all four of them tumbling to the forest floor.

x.x.x

a/n: Ooh, who's this? I'll tell you this: they're twins and they recite stupid poetry. And they sing about manners. With a really, really obnoxious song.

I do, in fact, know the gender of the character who plays the Caterpillar. Romano, however, is suffering from Viewer Gender Confusion, and the story is mostly from his point of view. Thus the uncertainty about gender-specific pronouns.

For this chapter, I didn't look at the book at all. Thus, there are only a few lines from the book. This will probably continue to be the case.

Disclaimer: Hetalia is not mine, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is not mine.

Reviewers, I love you all. All…six of you. Er. Please, do take five seconds to tell me how I'm doing! It really helps me become a better writer, which means you get better stuff to read!