Author's Note: And here is chapter number four. It's really easy to update a story that was already written (I had this done up to chapter six the first time around) as all I have to do is rewrite it and revise it. Woot. I just want to say that I really appreciate the reviews that you guys have left – I wasn't sure that anyone was going to find any humor in this at all. So, yay to the reviewers.

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

June 16, 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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Now that she was tiny again, she found that the lake of tears she had cried when she was huge had now turned into an ocean of sobs. Trying her damndest not to drown in her own tears, she began to tread the water. "I'm sure they would all get a kick out of that. The idiot that cried herself to death," she muttered, trying not to swallow any of the water. The tears were salty and tasted worse than the Atlantic Ocean did.

She looked around for something to grab a hold of. A wry smile came to her face when she spied the polite bottle from before. She doggy-paddled over to it and, when she was next to it, she noticed that it was a good inch or two bigger than she was – and the perfect size for her to climb inside so as not to drown.

"Hmm," she said, and slapped the inside of the bottle tentatively, "being shrunk down to near nothingness and floating around in a bottle. I never would have guessed that that would be how I'd spend today."

Wait. She smiled at the sudden thought. It looked like the bunny-boy neglected to shut the door behind him. Maybe I can steer this bottle right outside now that I'm small enough. Then I won't be trapped in this weird room and I can explore – where did Dave say I was? Newsieland? … Newsieland? And that's when it occurred to her that, truly, she wasn't in New Jersey anymore. Well, it's gotta be better than sitting through Kathryn's dance recital.

Standing on her tippy-toes, Stress reached outside of the bottle. Using her arms as oars, she tried to row her way over to the door. Just as she had expected, the bottle slid right through the open crack.

On the other side of the door there was water but not as much as there was in the little room. Damn, I must have cried a whole lot if it's flooded out here, too. She shook her head and looked around at her surrounding. She appeared to be on a city's side street, almost, except for the water that filled the middle of the road up. And, there, at the boundary of the water, there were three people, all her size, standing around, looking confused at the sudden flood. Stress waved her hands over her head. "Hey? Over here," she called out, trying to get their attention.

The tallest of the three girls was one with long raven hair and bright blue eyes. She took a step over and waited for Stress to float over to her. Once she ran out of water to sail her glass bottle on, the bottle tipped over and she climbed out. The tallest girl walked over to her, followed by the two others: a shorter girl with pulled back chestnut-colored straight hair and green eyes and one who was slightly taller than her companion with medium brown curly hair and blue eyes. They were both gawking at her and she felt self-conscious.

The dark haired girl extended her tan hand, offering to Stress. She took it and let the girl help her to her feet. Once she was standing, the new girl looked at her quizzically. "Hello there. Are you wet?"

Stress looked down at her clothes before crossing her arms over her chest; her white tank that she was wearing was now see-through. She rolled her eyes. "Duh."

The tall girl walked around Stress once before asking her another question. "Why?"

"Why what?" Stress looked to the two other girls, the ones who were watching the dark-haired girl circle her, for help.

"Wish wants to know why you're wet," said one of the girls, the girl with the ponytail and green eyes, as she pointed to the taller girl.

"I'm wet? Oh yes, I suppose I am." Stress said, but she was a bit lost now. She was getting extremely confused talking to these girls.

"Why?" Wish stopped circling Stress and repeated her question.

"Why what?"

"Why are you wet?" This time it was the girl with the curly hair and blue eyes asking the question.

"Wait a sec, didn't we just go through this?" Stress rubbed her temples, trying to figure out what was going on. She would almost rather fancy a round two with the small room and the weird glass table than continue this circular conversation.

Ponytail decided that she had enough of this type of talk. She interrupted Wish – who appeared to be readying herself to start the whole cycle again – by holding her hands out. "I have an idea. Why don't we just start over? I'm Gimmick," she said pointing to her chest before gesturing to Curly Hair. "That is Zippy over there," she continued and Curly Hair – er, Zippy – waved. "That one over there is Wish. Don't mind her – she's just the nosy head of the welcome wagon here."

"Welcome wagon?"

Zippy nodded. "Yup. That's us. Welcome to Newsieland."

Wish looked a little put out that the other two girls had piped up. She cleared her throat and waited for all the attention to be put back on her. When they were all looking at her, she smiled. "Thanks for the intro's, Gimmick. I'll take it from here."

Gimmick shrugged and turned away. Zippy smiled and waited for Wish to continue. Stress, on the other hand, tried to back away as slowly as possible. "I'm cold. I'm wet. And I'm stuck with a bunch of loonies who think they are the welcome wagon of Newsieland. Just great."

Wish looked at Stress as if she was just seeing her for the first time. "You're wet? Well, why didn't you say so? I know just the thing to get you dry." She smiled and began to jump up and down while clapping her hands excitedly.

Stress paused and looked at Wish expectantly, waiting to hear what was her ingenious plan to get her dry. When Wish just continued to jump up and down like an idiot, she turned to Gimmick and Zippy. "Hey, do you guys know?"

Zippy stepped forward and placed her hand on Wish's shoulder so as to stop her from continuing to jump. "Wish? What's your great idea?" It was a direct approach to get an answer and, surprisingly, it worked.

"A caucus race," Wish bubbled, a genuine smile crossing her face. Both Zippy and Gimmick looked excited at the prospect.

Stress, however, did not. "A caucus race?"

"A caucus race," affirmed Wish as she nodded and motioned to the other girls to join her.

"What's a caucus race?" Stress grabbed the ends of her long hair and tried to wring the excess water from it as she looked over at Wish, puzzlement written all over her face.

"The best way to explain what a caucus race is to just do it," Wish answered before raising her arms over her head. "Everyone ready? Okay, on the count of three. One…two…three!" She dropped her arms with flourish and began running down the street.

Stress watched in amazement as Wish, Gimmick and Zippy all began to run up and down the street, heading this way and that, zigging and zagging in and out, making circles and doing squares. "What the…?" she said, not quite believing her eyes. Sure these girls were loonies but this was bit extreme.

"You'll never get dry that way. You gotta run with the others!" called Wish as she ran up behind Stress and prodded her in the backside. Stress squealed and then began to run in the same sort of fashion as the rest.

As she ran past the spot where Gimmick and Zippy were pulling at each other, trying to keep the other one from reaching the streetlight at the end of the block, she yelled out to them. "You guys are cheating!"

Wish twirled passed her then, giggling. "That, my friend, is a caucus race."

All of a sudden Zippy stopped and ran forward, pointing to a large statue of Horace Greeley that was in the middle of the street. "The finishing statue," she yelled, flinging her arms over her head in victory. "Who's won? Was it me? Did I win?"

Wish leapt forward and, mimicking Zippy's gesture with her own arms, exclaimed, "I think that everybody won!"

Gimmick stopped and scratched her head. "Well, if we all won, we should all get prizes, right?"

"Of course! But, wait, who will give out the prizes?" asked Zippy.

"Why, the new girl, of course!" Wish stated matter-of-factly.

Wish, Gimmick and Zippy all turned to look at Stress, their hands outstretched as they waited for their prizes.

Stress groped around her pockets and her eyes lit up when she found something that was prize-worthy in her back pocket. "Here you are" She pulled out a soggy pack of Big Red chewing gum and handed each of the girls a stick of the gum, praying that her tears hadn't got inside the foil wrapper. "Enjoy!"

Each one grabbed at her prize eagerly, not even bothering to say thank you. Once they had each received their prize, they promptly started walking away from her.

Stress couldn't believe how rude they were. "Wait a second. Where are you going? Don't leave me here alone," she called after them. But alas, they did not answer her. "Great, now I'm alone again."

And, no sooner where the words out of her mouth, did she hear footsteps right behind her. Whoops. Spoke to soon.