Author's Note: I don't really have anything to say except here's the next chapter of Curiouser and Curiouser. Me and my sister went out to a new pizza place today and, I guess it didn't agree with us, because she just started to puke and I'm seriously not too far behind. I decided to work on some fic today to feel better but, not surprisingly, I still feel like ubercrap. I'm going to post this and work on Diabo. I wasn't sure if I was going to put it on hold for a bit, to make way for Ballad of the Street Rat, but I figure I would at least give myself another week on that.

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 24, 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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Due to her small height, it took a bit before she was far enough away from David's house for her to stop running. She almost expected him to come hopping her way any minute then, prepared to squish her for causing him to burn down his house. Even after the white building was behind her and she was lost in the field of grass that was his backyard, Stress continued to run. As she went she stumbled and tripped over the boulder-sized pebbles and the massive dirt piles in the way. Though she felt as if she had just fallen into a scene from 'Honey, I shrunk the kids' – and was expecting (and fearing) any giant ants – Stress kept going, only slightly moaning about her fate. "Why did I have to go and drink that stuff in David's house and then gobble up those cupcakes? Now I'm not even as tall as a blade of grass."

And she wasn't. As she stopped to catch her breath, she leaned against a single blade of grass that was easily an inch taller than she was. In her frustration, Stress swatted at the grass and was surprised when the blade came back and knocked her on her rear. She began to grumble from her position in the dirt but stopped when, as she looked upward, she saw a whole mess of thick smoke. Confused, she scratched her head. "Now, I know that I've gone far enough away from David's house that I should not be seeing the fire's smoke," she said to herself and pulled herself up to her feet.

Quickly swiping the dirt that had covered the seat of her blue jeans, Stress took off in the direction of the smoke. The closer she got to the smoke, the more aware she was that there was not a giant white house – David's house – in front of her. At least I was getting away from his home, she thought just as she exited a thick patch of crabgrass. She entered a brief clearing and that's when she came face to face with the thing responsible for producing the smoke.

It was a strange combination of a caterpillar and a boy. The face was distinctly human but the excess of arms and green colored skin told her he – she assumed it was a he – was not human. He had hair, black hair that seemed to suffer eternal hat-hair, and wore a plaid vest. His tubular-shaped boy was resting on a rather large mushroom and he was busy smoking a very large cigar.

Stress stared in surprise at the creature. He hadn't noticed her arrival and she wasn't sure if she should alert him to her presence or just back away slowly. But then she took another look at him and – despite all the weirdness she had experienced since landing in Newsieland – couldn't help but find out what exactly a boy/caterpillar hybrid was doing in David's backyard.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" Not the most tactful of introductions but Stress was curious and, when curious, she lost all pretense of tact.

The boy/caterpillar turned in her direction and, after sizing her up – which didn't take long considering her size consisted of only three inches – he inhaled on his large cigar. "I happen to be Racetrack the Caterpillar. Who are you?"

"To be perfectly honest with you Race – can I call you Race? – I'm not too sure right now," Stress confessed as she took a seat on the acorn that lay at the base of his mushroom.

Racetrack took another puff on his cigar and, when he exhaled, he breathed out an orange smoke ring. "Well, let me tell you, if you don't know, I sure as hell don't know."

Stress watched in amazement as his orange smoke ring wafted over his head before she returned her eyes to Racetrack's rather watery ones. "I know who I was when I woke up this morning but I've definitely been changed a few times since then."

"And what does that mean?"

Stress shrugged. "It means exactly what I said. Up until this morning, I've always been the same size – except for that growth spurt back in seventh grade – but now, look at me. I've been so many different sizes today that I'm so confused."

"Oh," Racetrack commented before taking another pull off his cigar. This time, when he exhaled, he blew out three blue smoke rings, all intertwined. They began the journey upward to join the singular orange one floating above his head.

"I hate change," Stress admitted as she leapt up and, before the rings could float any higher, poked her pointer finger through the holes, "and all there has been in this place is change, change, change. If you were to change – into a butterfly, maybe – wouldn't you get all PMS-y?"

The look Racetrack gave her told her that he didn't think too much of her idea. "No," he said, shortly. He seemed annoyed that his blue rings were now a smoky jumble.

Stress ignored the attitude the caterpillar seemed to give. "Well, I know that I am. I just want to be a fixed size, one and for all."

Racetrack rolled his eyes and, leaning downward from his mushroom, he blew green smoke into her face. "What size do you want to be?"

She waved the smoke out of her face before thinking about his question. She had thought he would have stopped listening to her. "I guess I would like to be a little taller," she answered, finally. "Three inches is such a sucky height to be."

At her answer, Racetrack's face lost its green caterpillar tint as it burned a furious shade of red. "I'll have you know," he fumed, "that I am exactly three inches high and I—" he began but was interrupted when he was surrounding by a big puff of purple smoke, more than his cigar could ever allow. When the smoke cleared, Racetrack was gone. All that was left on the mushroom was a spent cigar butt.

Stress was alarmed at his sudden disappearing act. "Race? Racetrack? Hey, Mr. Caterpillar, where did you go?" she called as she began to look around for him. He was nowhere around.

"Hey, kid." The nasally voice was coming from above her.

Stress looked upward and smiled when she saw that Racetrack hadn't fully disappeared; he had transformed into a green and purple plaid colored butterfly. "How do you feel, now, Butterfly Race? Do you like the change?"

Race ignored the flippant way in which Stress called out to him. Instead, he flapped one of his wings downward in the direction of the mushroom he had been resting on. "One side will make you taller. The other side will make you smaller."

"What? Huh? What are you going on about, Butterfly Race? One side of what?"

Even on his newly changed form Racetrack was able to smirk. "The mushroom, genius. What did you think I was doing, just sitting on the mushroom?"

Stress scratched her head. "Yeah, kinda. If you weren't sitting on the mushroom, what were you doing?"

"Guarding it, obviously. That's a special mushroom, remember? Everything's got a purpose, even here in Newsieland," he said and, with that, flew away, flapping his plaid wings as he went.

When she was all on her own again, Stress began to talk to herself. "Alright, if this mushroom is so damn important, I guess I better take some of it." She walked over to the side nearest to her and broke off a liberal chunk of the mushroom. Then she walked over to the other side and did the same thing. As she walked around the fungus, she continued to speak out loud. "Of course it would have to be mushrooms. I absolutely despise mushrooms." But, of course, she hated being only three inches – regardless of what a great height Racetrack thought it was – more. She wrinkled her nose and took a tiny nibble from the mushroom chunk she held in her left hand.

She waited a moment and let out a cheer when she slowly, but surely, began to grow. She went from three inches to three feet before stopping. She took a smaller nibble from the mushroom and grew another two feet. For the last remaining seven inches, Stress placed a tentative lick against the mushroom. When she was done, she was, once again, her normal height.

I better hold onto these. They might be worth something when I get back home, she thought as she put one mushroom in her right hand back pocket and the other in her left hand back pocket. She was very careful not to mix up the 'taller' and 'smaller' shrooms.

Now that she was her normal size again she looked around. She had left the dirty street that she had initially arrived on, and could also make out the fiery white building that belonged to David. "I guess they continued to try to burn it down, after all," she thought and turned away from that direction. She wasn't going back that way at all.

However, once she spun around, she saw that there was another house not too far off in the distance. It was just as big as David's house but was bright pink. With a smile, Stress began to head in that direction.