“You nasty little short Tock.” His eyes widened. “You always know how to please me.”
Mrs. Tock’s cheeks reddened. She shrugged her shoulders and walked the streets. The first thing she did was push a car near the edge of the bridge, so when they brought time back the driver would have no time to veer it back, and would splash into the River Thames.
Mr. Tick caught the idea and started manipulating people’s positions. Now two strangers, man and woman, were kissing. Another two, one slapped the other. Then there was this businessman — Mr. Tick took his clothes off. Now he’d wake up naked in public.
On and on, they spent the next few minutes preparing the world for chaos. They even pulled a couple of news reporters from their desks and placed them ready with their microphones and cameras on the streets, so the news would go viral on the spot.
“Oh, fantastic!” Mrs. Tock knocked her cane on the ground.
“I can’t wait to watch what happens,” Mr. Tick said, fiddling with his time-stopping watch again. “Ready?”
“So eager to see the world in chaos.”
But right before Mr. Tick could bring back time, his phone buzzed. An old banana cell phone that hadn’t beeped since about fifteen years ago — who’d call time, anyways?
“Someone’s calling me?” Mr. Tick said.
“It’s a message,” Mrs. Tock corrected him. “Why haven’t I received one too?”
Then her phone buzzed.
“You’re Mrs. Tock. You’re always late, that’s why.” Mr. Tick glanced at his phone and read the message. Mrs. Tock struggled with opening hers, as she wasn’t tech savvy.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“It’s an offer,” Mr. Tick said. “Someone knows we’re bored to death.”
“What kind of offer?”
“An offer from a Wonderland Monster.” Mr. Tick’s eyes met hers.
“Oh.” She considered this. “Well, we love chaos, but we’re not quite Wonderland Monsters.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. We don’t belong to either Black Chess or the Inklings. I think we should decline the offer.”
“But what’s it about?”
“It’s an offer to hurt someone.” Mr. Tick shrugged. “Really hurt someone.”
“Why would a Wonderland Monster think we’d accept that?”
“Because we’re bored. And honestly, as time, we’re known to be cruel.”
“That’s it?”
“And because it’s about Alice.”
“Alice?”
“Yes, Alice.”
“Alice who?”
“Alice. Alice.”
“The Real Alice?”
“Just Alice.”
“Did they find her?”
“Not sure yet, but they think we’re supposed to do something to her to confirm she is the Real Alice.”
“Alice is dead.”
“That’s not what the message says.”
“Hmm…” Mrs. Tock said. “Wouldn’t it be frabjous if Alice is alive. What else does the message say?”
Mr. Tick neared Mrs. Tock and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Tock’s eyes bulged. She almost lost balance with her cane. “Really?”
“I think we should do it,” Mr. Tick said. “I’m curious – and very, very bored.”
“Of course we should do it.” She sneered all of a sudden. “I never thought so much fun was possible. But first…”
“I know,” Mr. Tick said, rubbing his watch. “Let’s first bring back time and watch this beautiful chaos in the streets of London.”
Chapter 1
LECTURE HALL , OXFORD UNIVERSITY
Hi, my name is Alice. Could be Mary Ann. Who knows? What matters is that I am a person who saves lives. I really exist.
So I am sitting in a Physics 202 class in Oxford University, trying to learn. Having gotten permission from Dr. Tom Truckle to attend classes, I’ve been coming to college for the last two weeks. If I’ve learned anything about studying in college, it’d be that learning sucks.
The professor is talking gibberish about the scientific possibility of time traveling. He mentions Einstein a couple of times. I am about to raise a hand and tell him about the Einstein Blackboard in Oxford University, the one I used to travel back to Wonderland.
But who’d believe me if I told the story? Better keep it to myself.
The Real Alice from Wonderland is now a lame student in college, taking the road usually taken by every young boy and girl in the world. Grow up, study, get your certificates, get married, have kids, and die. Thank you very much for attending the joke called life.
They end up not knowing about the Wonderland Monsters trying to bring this world down every week — although it’s been two weeks now and no monster showed up.
I think I have grown a measure of pessimism lately. How can’t I when I am sitting all alone in a long row in the auditorium? All by myself. It’s been the same since the first day I arrived.
Students don’t talk to me here. Someone spread the news about the girl who killed her classmates in a school bus a few years ago. That mad girl, you know her? Stay away from her. She is bad news.
At least they don’t know I live in an asylum.
And here I am. The professor speaks. The students listen. I am the lonely black sheep trying to fit in this world.
On a few occasions I want to scream at them and tell them how I saved their assess every week. But I’m a mad girl, after all. Everything I say is laughable, even if it’s the sanest thing in the world.
Somehow, in all this mess, all I think about now is Jack. Wouldn’t it be fun if he were here with me?
But Jack is gone. I have no idea why. Since two weeks ago when I traveled to Mushroomland, he hasn’t shown up. I feel guilty leaving him behind in the asylum, and hope to God nothing bad has happened to him.
The lecture ends and I get out.
I take the walk of shame into the hall, eyes stuck on me, whispers behind my back, and a blurry future in front of me.
Future? The word resonates because I wonder how it’s possible to think of my future when I hardly know enough about my past.
Who am I? Mary Ann? Alice? The Real Alice? An orphan? Who are my real parents? Is any of this really happening?
Still walking, I come across a peculiar picture framed on the university’s walls. A photo of one of its most memorable professors. Professor Carter Pillar.
Funny how he looks like a nerd in the photo — a few years back, I suppose. The photo must have been taken before he read the Alice’s Adventures Under Ground books. Before he went mad and killed twelve people.
Am I ever going to see you again, Pillar?
Last time I saw him he told me he’d see me in fourteen years. I know he looked like he meant it. As he is sometimes a vicious and morally conflicted man, it’s hard to confess this: I miss him.
Fourteen years is a long time, professor. I’ve been thinking about it for the last two weeks. And I wonder: does it have anything to do with the number written on my cell wall? January 14th?
I walk through the Tom Quad and leave the university. Outside, people are gathered. The streets are in chaos. Car accidents everywhere. A man has drowned in the river, they say.
Everyone is bothered, concerned, and worried. All but me. Because it looks like a Wonderland Monster has arrived.
Is it a bad thing to admit I’m happy? Oh, how bored I have been without a Wonderland Monster in the picture.
Chapter 2
THE INKLINGS BAR, OXFORD
Back in the Inklings, I am thinking there is a new mission for me. But I am wrong.
Fabiola, once the White Queen and the Vatican’s most loved woman, is sitting by a table near a bar, drinking beer. She is surrounded with all sorts of drunk customers who have more tattoos than hers. It’s a drinking contest. Fabiola is winning. I can’t believe my eyes.