Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: HnKnA- not mine. Martella, Iris, and plot- mine.

Chapter Three- The Tree Runner

Iris- in our world

I grasp a tree branch hanging above my head and pull myself up. I take pride in climbing trees and even more so running through them from branch to branch. It's the only thing I'm good at, I suck at academics because I'm dyslexic and ADHD so I can't concentrate in class, and I can't draw, sing, or play an instrument because I'm tone deaf and have no artistic skill, and I really just don't like any other sports except for what I call tree running.

I feel like a squirrel, jumping around. I've been able to go through two miles of trees without ever touching the ground. The bell rang for class, but as something seemed to be going on below I didn't go that way.

I never really use it to spy on people, but I followed a girl who was ground running, and carrying a viola case. I see another person come up and he has on rabbit ears and white hair! He reminds me of some of the girls who like manga at school, except they wear cat ears. He sees the girl running and chases after her.

She trips dropping her instrument case. I hear them talking and I lighten my breathing so they don't hear me. They're talking about what happened to make her run; apparently that witch Rosie broke her instrument. She takes it out to show us, it looks horribly mangled. I've seen her play sometimes and it used to be so beautiful. Rosie is going to pay for that.

The man who is talking to her tells her that he'll take her away if she wants, to a place where they can fix it.

It just seems too sketchy but she doesn't care, she's emotionally compromised. I then hear him say Wonderland needs one more person and I fall out of the tree, which is rare for me, so rare it's never happened before.

Shocked, the two of them turn to me and the rabbit man smiles.

"Well I think we've found our second person."

The girl, I think her name's Martella, just stares at me with her tearstained eyes. I don't think she recognizes me, we've never worked together before and we both keep to ourselves.

"How much did you hear?" the rabbit man asks, helping me up.

"Pretty much everything, but what about Wonderland?" I ask him.

"I'm the prime minister there and I've been sent to bring two people back with me," he informs me.

"Can I come?" I ask him.

"Do you have anything here to hold you back? Friends? Family?"

"No I'm pretty much on my own, I stay with my Aunt but she doesn't care for me. Wait do they have trees in Wonderland, like a lot of them?" I ask eagerly.

"Yes they do and you can come," he confirms not registering the oddness of my question.

"Thank you so much!" I exclaim hugging him. Not really knowing what to do he pats my back.

"Okay then let's go to Wonderland," he says and leads us to the garden of a huge beautiful house and there's this huge rabbit hole right in the middle of the garden just like in the book. The rabbit waves to a girl in the window and then he turns around and jumps in. I wonder who that is?

"I'm not so sure about this," the girl says to me, looking warily at the hole. She's clutching both her case and sketchbook.

"Are you kidding? It looks like fun! Let's go," I grab her by the arm making sure not to drop her stuff and jump in dragging her with me.