Shrinking down to the size of a dog, the Jabberwock darted through an open window. It flapped behind them, its breath sizzling the air. The milk pitcher melted and covered the floor, making it slick as ice. The girls slipped and slid and almost fell.
They turned a corner, and all fell flat to the floor as fire shot through the air, temporarily slowing the miniature Jabberwock. Squinting to see the source of the fire, Maddie spotted a four-wheeled cart blocking the hall.
"A fire-breathing wagon," Kitty murmured. "Everything is Ever After and Wonderland confused together."
Lizzie smashed a window with her scepter. "Out," she said. "Everyone."
She helped Maddie up to the sill and waited for Cedar and Kitty to escape before she followed. Her expression was slightly puzzled, as if she wasn"t sure why she wasn"t going first.
The girls grabbed hold of the ivy growing over the outside of the school and climbed down. The vines giggled. The vines sighed. Giggles and sighs come from mouths. And things with mouths can bite.
"Don"t bite," Lizzie ordered the vines. "At least, don"t bite us."
STARS IN YOUR EYES! FOAM IN YOUR BEARD!.
Not now, not-me-Narrator. I"m trying to work here.
So the girls were hanging from the vines when the Jabberwock appeared above them, again as huge as a dragon, which is even huger than a wagon. Its three-toed feet reached, claws clinking, sharp as the edges of things.
Cedar screamed. Maddie would have screamed, too, but she was too busy concentrating on the narration.
And then the vines opened their leafy mouths and began to bite the Jabberwock. It clawed at the ivy, giving the girls a second to drop down onto another windowsill and climb into a new room. It was- BEES KNEES DON"T BEND UNLESS WELL-HONEYED.
Stop interrupting, not-me-Narrator. Don"t you see how hard it is to narrate a story? All this running from deadly terror is happening too fast! I"m getting thinking pains as it is, trying to imitate your talkage and wordage and not get too wonderlandiful in my descriptions "cause that"s not how you would do it. When you were normal, anyway. And-ack!
A crab slightly smaller than Maddie grabbed her hands in its claws and began to dance. Each girl was claimed by a similar partner. An overlarge oyster at the front of the room counted time. "One, two, one, two, heel, toe, slide..." And meanwhile, outside the window, the Jabberwock was clawing its way free from the vines.
Lizzie fought out of her partner"s grip and swung open the room"s only door.
"Keep dancing!" shouted the oyster. "There are no makeup days for crab-dancing cla.s.s!"
The girls followed Lizzie out the door, shutting it behind- DON"T TRUST YOUR LEFT LEG.
Please, not-me-Narrator, this is getting out of control. I need you to behave yourself so I can concentrate, okay? Please? Pretty please with shoelaces on top?
m.u.f.f.
Is that a yes? You"ll behave now and let me narrate?
m.u.f.f.
I"ll take that as a yes. Ahem. And so they kept running, the Jabberwock always close behind, each new hall and room more dangerous than the last. Just when they thought they"d found a safe place- SCOODLE-MOO EAT A DOO.
Argh!
LIZZIE HAD HAD IT WITH RUNNING. IT WAS bad enough when Coach Gingerbreadman made them run, run as fast as they could in Grimmnastics cla.s.s, but running just to stay alive was unseemly. They had turned a corner and had finally lost sight of that despicable Jabberwock when the walls shook with the sound of a battering ram. Lizzie stumbled.
"Off with its head!" she yelled automatically.
"Wait, when the rest of the building shook, that red door didn"t move," said Cedar.
The red heart-shaped door looked exactly like the one in Lizzie"s dorm that transported her into the Grove. This galloping corridor definitely wasn"t her dorm, but nothing looked like itself anymore. Perhaps the door had traveled, searched her out, even. A certain tingle tickled Lizzie"s hand when she turned the doork.n.o.b.
The Jabberwock rounded the corner behind them. Magic hissed from its huge mouth, melting reality.
"In!" Lizzie yelled. She pushed Cedar, Kitty, and Maddie through first and then jumped after them, slamming it shut. She leaned against it, expecting the pounding of the Jabberwock trying to force its way through the door, but it never came.
The air had changed, warm, soft, quiet. They were no longer in the school. They were in the Grove. Lizzie"s center relaxed just a little, and strangely she thought she might cry. Which was absurd. Crying was not relaxing at all. Right?
"You saved us," Cedar said.
"I pushed you," Lizzie said.
"You pushed us into safety," Cedar said.
"Through the door that you noticed," Lizzie said. "So, technically, you saved us."
Cedar reached out to take Lizzie"s hand. "Thanks, Lizzie."
Cedar"s thank-you made Lizzie feel all huggable and candy-sweet, and she had to fight the ridiculous urge to say a thank-you back.
"Thank... uh, I"ll thank you to take back that grat.i.tude as soon as you are able," Lizzie grumbled. "It is unseemly."
The Grove looked exactly as Lizzie had left it, unchanged, un-Jabberwocked. The beast"s magic was running rampant in the school castle but, trapped by the barrier, it had not reached beyond into the school grounds. So far the Grove and, thankfully, Book End were safe. Lizzie breathed in again, relishing the familiar scents of spicy flowers, sweet tree sap, and minty gra.s.s. This was the smell of Wonderland. Of real Wonderland. Like her, it was between Wonderland and Ever After. The thought gave Lizzie strength.
"Not that I"m complaining," Kitty said, "but why didn"t the Jabberwock just tear down that door and eat us?"
"This is a special place," Lizzie said, confident it was true.
"Hey, if that door transported us outside the school, then we"re beyond the magic barrier, right?" said Cedar. "We can go find the faculty!"
Cedar began to run.
"Stop!" Lizzie yelled. Feeling so huggable-sweet and thanky had been uncomfortable. Time to shout orders again.
Hedgehogs nosed around in the gra.s.s near Lizzie"s feet. She grabbed one and threw it, hitting Cedar"s shoulder.
"Ow!" Cedar yelled. The hedgehog dropped to the ground and scampered away. "Poor little thing! Don"t hurt it!"
It was not hurt at all, the Narrator was twiddly anxious to a.s.sure the reader. Wonderlandian hedgehogs are bred for sports and in fact frequently nap their way through a croquet game in which they are the b.a.l.l.s.
Lizzie picked up another hedgehog.
"Stop throwing animals at me," said Cedar.
"I"m not. You just got in the way," Lizzie said, flinging the creature over Cedar"s shoulder. The hedgehog stopped suddenly as if it had struck an invisible wall. The air buzzed with the impact and brightened to a deep yellow. The hedgehog dropped to the ground, twitched, and wobbled back to the gra.s.s.
"Oh! We"re still inside the magic barrier," Cedar said.
When Ever After High was normal, the heart-shaped door had sent Lizzie from her dorm to the Grove, which was on the edge of the school grounds. But it seemed even the door couldn"t transport them outside Baba Yaga"s barrier. If they were in the Grove yet still inside the magic barrier, then the barrier had made an extra bubble around the Grove to trap whatever tried to escape the school.
"Are we safe?" Cedar asked. "Can we just wait here till the teachers figure out how to fix everything?"
"Or until the monster figures out how to get in?" Kitty echoed.
"Hey, I have a signal!" Cedar said, punching numbers on her MirrorPhone. "We must be far enough away from the-h.e.l.lo? Headmaster Grimm? This is Cedar Wood."
His irritated voice crackled on the speaker for all to hear. "Miss Wood, do not bother me right now. We are very busy-watch out for that pixie!-very busy concocting a spell to banish the Jabber-we need three more c.o.c.kroaches!-banish the Jabberwock."
"Ugh! They don"t know what they"re doing!" Lizzie shouted. "Tell them an Ever Afterish spell won"t work!"
"It won"t?" Cedar asked in a small voice.
"Not the right kind of magic," Kitty said. "I can"t believe they don"t know the only thing that can defeat the Jabberwock."
Maddie nodded solemnly. Lizzie recited part of the poem aloud.
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought- So rested he by the Tumtum tree...
"The vorpal sword, Headmaster!" Cedar said into her MirrorPhone. "You need the vorpal sword, like that poem says! Only the vorpal sword can defeat-"
"The vorpal sword is in Wonderland, Miss Wood," said the headmaster. "And all portals into Wonderland are sealed. So we will use-newt eyeb.a.l.l.s! Rumpelstiltskin, we need more newt eyeb.a.l.l.s!-will use a spell. Get to safety and kindly don"t interrupt me again."
Click.
Cedar stared at the phone for some time. Kitty faded into a soft shadow. Maddie sat on the gra.s.s.
"So... so we have no hope?" said Cedar. "Raven will be a raven forever? Daring a beastie-thing? Hunter a tree? And we"ll live out the rest of our lives inside this Grove?"
Maddie took Cedar"s hand. Kitty reappeared, sitting with her back to them, but after a moment, she curled up on the gra.s.s, her head on Maddie"s lap.
"Their spell might do something," Kitty said. "I guess."
Lizzie was tired. The more time she spent with these girls, the more she was reminded that she felt things. Helpy things. Unselfy things. Crawling feelings like worry and hope. Burn-ish feelings like fondness and friendliness. And worst of all, sappy grabby feelings like Concern For Others.
Lizzie opened her mother"s deck of cards and found the one she was searching for: Above all else, avoid these things: vats of poison, Jabberwocks, paper cuts on fingertips, and Concern For Others.
If ever you detect Concern For Others squirming into you, shout at people till the feeling goes away.
Or the people do.
"Off with your heads!" Lizzie shouted. "Off with all your heads! I am a princess of Wonderland and I... I... I am shouting at you!"
"Um..." said Cedar.
Lizzie"s blood was up now. Enough feeling things Mother had forbidden her to feel. And enough waiting. A queen, even a queen-in-waiting, does not wait. Especially if you"re a mad queen. And Lizzie was mad.
"I am going to fix this ridiculousness, as it appears no one else will, so things can return to as they were and I don"t have to crawl with worry and feel burn-ish and battle Concern For Others!" Lizzie shouted.
The Narrator could tell that Lizzie was not really angry, just anxious, but did not make the observation aloud. Just as she didn"t observe how the meticulous tending of the Grove revealed just how desperately Lizzie missed Wonderland.
"Wonderland!" said Maddie. "Someone of Wonderland would understand better than Headmaster Grimm."
Kitty admitted, "I"ve been trying to phone the White Queen without luck."
"Same with my dad," said Maddie. "But there is someone in Wonderland I sometimes talk to."
"What? Who?" Lizzie still felt choked by that unfortunate hope-ish thing perched in her chest. "Tell me at once! How dare you keep a someone of Wonderland a secret from your future queen!"
"There"s a book I sometimes find that has a letter in it," Maddie said. "When I write back, the letter-writer responds, and I just know the writer is in Wonderland because he or she writes such Wonderlandish things. The book was in the library once. At other times inside a stocking, on top of a chimney, at the bottom of a bucket of frogs, beneath a bag of marshmallows..."
"Tales of wandering un-books is exactly what we shouldn"t be wasting time on," Lizzie said, pacing. She had to solve this by herself, but she couldn"t think when everyone was nattering on so.
"What does the letter writer write?" Cedar asked.
Lizzie realized they weren"t going to hush up, so she stalked off to gather a few hedgehogs. Hedgehogs always got people"s attention.
"The first letter just said, aMy ears itch," " said Maddie. "Another said, aClap your hands if you can read this." "
One hedgehog, two... Lizzie would need at least three, one for each of them. Maybe some extras in case she missed.
"I wrote a letter about all the things in Wonderland I missed," said Maddie, "and the letter writer told me how things are now. It made me feel less homesick."
Lizzie grabbed one of the hedgehog b.a.l.l.s and c.o.c.ked her arm back but was stopped by a thought. It was not an Off with your head! kind of thought. Nevertheless, inside Lizzie"s head, beneath her red-streaked black hair and impressive gold crown, it felt big and important and as wonderful as Wonderland.
"Maddie?" Lizzie dropped the hedgehogs, and they scampered away. "Do you think this mysterious Wonderlandian might know how we could get the vorpal sword?"
"Ooh, that is a big and important and wonderlandiful thought, Lizzie!" Maddie reached into her hat and pulled out a small leather-bound book with the t.i.tle Hutch and Housing for Hare and Architect.
"Ah-ha! Here it is!" said Maddie. "What luck! It"s never been in my hat before."
Maddie flipped through the pages and came to a small red envelope. Lizzie grabbed it and tore it open. The letter was handwritten and stamped with a bunny paw print at the bottom.
" aLife in a poisoned land is actually less poisonous than it is lonely," " Lizzie read. Her voice tripped over the word lonely, the word going as wobbly as her middle. She touched the bunny paw print. "Very well, then. Let"s put this leather-bound postman to the test. Someone, fetch paper and pen!"
Maddie rummaged in her hat and managed to find sc.r.a.ps of notepaper and a pen.
"Cedar, you will scribe for me, as you do the Artsing and the Craftsing," said Lizzie.
Then she dictated in her most queenly voice:
Book Letter Person/Animal/Thing-