Malice in Wonderland Prequel Read online

  “Oh for goodness sakes,” Alice muttered to herself. “I have had quite enough of this foolishness.”

  Alice crept up to the entrance and peeked in, hiding as much as she could behind the edge.

  She saw the Knight punching himself in the face inside a small cave that was filled with pots and pans. “Ow!” shouted the Knight. “You struck me a good blow that time. But you shan’t be victorious!” He clanked his blood-covered sword onto a pot, making a loud clank noise. “There, take that blow!” He then punched himself in the face again. It was a solid blow, too, because he fell over unconscious onto the ground.

  “Oh my!” Alice shouted. She rushed over to him. She would have hated for the Knight to have seriously harmed himself while fighting his imaginary dragon.

  But she also knew she couldn’t allow this charade to go on any further.

  He didn’t seem horribly harmed. After chaining his hands and feet together, she checked the blood on the sword. She tasted it. It was catsup. She roused him by softly slapping his face. “Wake up!”

  “What? Where am I?”

  “You managed to knock yourself out.”

  “Eh? You mean the dragon did.”

  “No, not at all. I know you were faking. It’s bad to lie, you know! It’s very unchivalrous.”

  “What? I did not! Where is the dragon? Did it flee?” He looked around.

  Alice finally lost her temper and screamed in outrage and punched the Knight on the side of his face, but since she was only 8, it wasn’t very forceful.

  “Ow! I’m tender there!”

  Alice immediately regretted her outburst. “Oh, I’m sorry dear!” She kissed his cheek. She looked at him. “It’s just that it is not nice to lie. I can’t allow you to keep up this charade.”

  The Knight looked back and sighed. “I know. It’s just that…I wanted so bad to be a hero. I needed a monster to slay. I can’t slay the Jabberwock, because we’re friends, after all. There’s just not enough monsters around here.”

  “What of the Bandersnatch?”

  A frightened look came over his face. “You want me to be killed?!”

  “No, I’m sorry. Of course not.”

  “Will you unchain me?”

  “First you have to tell me how you tricked us. What inventions did you use?”

  So he told her about the voice-distorting megaphone he’d used to disguise his voice and the blinding dust he’d blown into their eyes that would blind people for about ten minutes.

  He tried to get up. “Now will you unchain me, please?”

  “Not until you promise to confess to everyone.”

  “Confess?! That would be humiliating.”

  Alice nodded. She felt sorry for him. Then she had an idea. “Well, how about you give me that blinding dust and megaphone of yours so you can’t use them on others, and we can both agree to never mention this thing with the dragon again.”

  “What? But I made a poem and everything!”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, but you see, you didn’t actually slay a dragon. You shouldn’t brag about things you didn’t do. Just say you couldn’t find the dragon. It’ll be a white lie.”

  “Oh very well then, you goody two-shoes! Can I at least tell you my poem?”

  “That sounds pleasant.” She unchained him—as she did so, she apparently wasn’t paying enough attention, since she stumbled—why, her feet almost fell out from beneath her!

  Then she had a change of heart as she fixed him with a look with her fist to her side. She was thinking about using the dust and megaphone for a little payback. “Now about the blinding powder…”

  “Oh yes yes, you may have it. I have no further use for it.”

  “How long does the blindness last? It wouldn’t be permanent would it?”

  “No, it lasts ten minutes at the most. Now will you let me go?”

  Alice agreed.

  Before they left to go back to their respective abodes, the Knight recited the poem he had written about himself, which went thusly:

  Oh, hear the tale of this brave knight,

  Who smote the dragon in its lair.

  The fearsome creature he did fight,

  While others would have felt despair!

  The dragon was so dangerous,

  More fearsome than a bandersnatch,

  And vicious and so devious,

  But this day it had met its match!

  To save the damsel in distress,

  The knight faced claws and searing fire!

  He is so brave, all must confess,

  This lightning rod of girls’ desire!

  He smote it with a skillful strike,

  He chopped it all to bits of gore,

  This handsome knight who all girls like,

  Then chopped it more and more.

  So no, its head he hasn’t brought,

  But please to him, don’t nag.

  He’s still the stud all girls have sought,

  Although I hate to brag.

  After the recitation, they went their separate ways. A few hours later, she discovered that the shoes she now wore weren’t the goody two-shoes. The Knight must have switched them out unbeknownst to her. It seemed he was capable of some cleverness after all. But she hardly missed them, for she was very focused on paying a “special” visit to Humpty Dumpty.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Humpty Dumpty

  When Alice was 8

  She snuck up on him carefully, from behind, in the cloak of night. At this time, Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t be expecting her, and she was armed with just the right weapon. A non-fatal one: the blinding dust.

  Payback time would soon come.

  In one hand she held the voice-altering megaphone, with the other, she reached into a pocket of her ninja outfit for the pouch that contained the blinding dust. She wore goggles to protect herself for its effects. She’d also brought a small bag filled with the quick-rising cupcake mix she’d gotten from the Cook.

  She was behind him now, kneeling just at the base of the low wall he liked to sit on top of. It really wasn’t much of a wall, not very tall and not very wide—the Queen of Hearts had taken his other, bigger wall away. He seemed to be talking to himself. He said, “Oh woe is me! Why did I do that to her, when I shall come to love her?! Oh, I hate having to be mean to her!”

  Alice listened, with a puzzled expression beneath her mask. Who was he talking about? Surely, he couldn’t be talking about she herself? But then again, he had earlier been mean to her by kicking her after she called him an egghead. He was sensitive about the fact he looked like a large egg with a face on it.

  Now Humpty Dumpty moaned and whimpered and rocked back and forth. Alice had never seen this side of him—and she meant it literally, too, because he seemed on the verge of toppling over and landing on her, and then she would see the inside of him too! But no, that’s silly, she thought. Humpty is too experienced with sitting atop that wall of his to fall off so clumsily.

  With a woeful voice, he called out:

  “I’m Humpty Dumpty, here on my wall!

  I’m Humpty Dumpty and I cannot fall!

  …into love, that is, for it will bring pain,

  So I’ll just stay heartless and full of disdain.”

  Alice was growing more and more confused. What was he going on about? Humpty Dumpty had never been the whiny lovesick sort. But here he was moaning privately about not wanting to fall in love? Well frankly, who would be the girl he fell in love with, and for that matter, who could possibly love that vicious jerk back?

  “Oh I wish my dear Alice could just hurry up and kill me, so that I might love her again…”

  This stopped Alice cold. He had just made an unintended confession to her. She almost wanted to call out to him, to ask him what he was going on about, but no, that would be humiliating for him, and she could never be that cruel to him. Because I am Alice and through-and-through nice, although perhaps too nice.

  And that is why she could never bring herself to kill him, es
pecially after seeing this sensitive, vulnerable side of Humpty.

  Oh, she had started out wanting to kill him, to get her revenge, but she knew she would never be able to bring herself to go through with it.

  She would have to settle for a cruel prank. That’s why she’d liked the idea of the blinding dust. It wouldn’t be permanent, so her conscience would hopefully be clear? Maybe? She felt such guilt for what she was about to do. And yet, she knew he deserved it.

  And now he was whimpering while rocking and muttering. “Oh my Alice, someday, maybe someday. Someday…”

  She was struck by a panic that he knew she was there. But as she listened, it seemed he was just talking to a hypothetical Alice. She was confused, but she decided she wouldn’t waste anymore time trying to understand.

  She waited for a good opportunity. Soon his mutterings dissolved and she saw that he was covering his eyes with his hands, completely lost in his misery.

  Now was the time. She crept around the wall as Humpty said to himself, “But why? Why would I even want love when it brings so much pain?!”

  She didn’t stop to ponder the words.

  She was up against the wall, right beneath him, so close, but he couldn’t see her with his hands over his eyes. She lowered part of her mask, then brought a handful of the dust into the palm of her hand. She rose up with a handful of the powder and blew—whoof!—a cloud of dust into his face, then backed away a few feet.

  She’d brought the megaphone in preparation for this moment and would have to remember to use it every time she spoke. As the cloud drifted over him, she uttered the words she had planned—her voice came out raw, guttural, and unrecognizable. “Someone you wronged sends their regards.”

  Humpty Dumpty yelped in surprise and drew back, but always the skilled wall-balancer, of course he didn’t topple over. She had expected that.

  He’d lowered his hands and the cloud had done its work. “I can’t see!” he shouted out, obviously, because that was the whole point. He rubbed at his eyes, as she went about the second part of her plan.

  As she brought out the small bag, she called up to him in her raspy megaphone voice, “And you never shall again.” It was a lie, because the blinding dust would wear off within ten minutes.

  “Who are you?” he called out, in anguish as he rubbed his eyes. “What do you want?”

  As she sprinkled the chocolate-tinged quick-rising cupcake mix around the base of the wall, she couldn’t help herself. Playing with her false voice augmented by the megaphone, she became ever-so-dramatic. “I am justice, here to right what you have wronged. I will break you!”

  “What? How have I wronged you?!”

  “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.” She said it in her scariest voice. In combination with the megaphone’s effects, she sounded outright demonic.

  “No, please!” he shouted. “Look, why don’t we talk about this? I can give you something maybe? Maybe we can work something out.”

  Alice cackled. “There is nothing to work out. What goes up must come down. Cupcake arise!” The cupcake mix rose up instantly, forming a large cupcake surrounding the egghead’s wall. The cupcake was topped with icing and was a couple of feet shorter than the wall, which stuck out from the middle.

  “What is this under my feet?”

  She ignored the question. “Why do you sit on that narrow lame wall anyway?”

  Despite his obvious terror, he sneered. “None of your business!”

  “Tell me or die!” she shouted in her voice that sounded outright demonic.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Are you afraid to fall?”

  “What? Of course! Love is scary!”

  “No, not fall in love.” She huffed in frustration. Yet, her curiousity got the best of her. “What can you offer me to not push you off your wall?”

  “Do you like Alice? I can give you a lock of blond hair I just this morning tore off her head.”

  And that’s when Alice lost control, screaming like a banshee. “Awooo! I’ll tell you, since you are as blind as a bat…I am about to push you off your lame pathetic wall! You won’t survive, I fear. Oh well.”

  “What?”

  “This is for Alice,” she said.

  She jumped and with both hands pushed him off the wall. He tumbled over while screaming in terror, and plopped into the sticky icing covering the plumpy cupcake.

  She could hear him flailing and screaming for several seconds, but couldn’t see him behind his wall.

  “What?” he said. “Am I still alive?”

  “Yes. You’ll be okay if you just lie still. I just wanted to scare you. You’re on a bed made of moist pastry.”

  “I can smell it,” he said. “Chocolate.”

  “That’s right. Be grateful I didn’t kill you.”

  “And my blindness?” he said.

  “Oh, that shall be permanent,” she lied. “That’s your punishment for being such a meanie head!”

  “No!”

  “Goodbye,” she said, and with that she took off walking back to her hut.

  “No! Come back! You mustn’t leave me like this!”

  She didn’t respond.

  “At least tell someone I’m stuck here!”

  She stopped walking. She didn’t feel as good inside as she thought she would. In fact, she felt quite yucky. She turned around and walked back to him. Unfortunately, she still had to use the megaphone, so her voice sounded soothingly demonic. “I’m sorry Humpty. You won’t actually be blind forever. The powder will wear off in a few minutes.”

  Then she walked off, paying no heed to his calls asking who she was or his orders to inform others to help him.

  She had stowed her usual black dress outside her hut and changed into it. She peeked into her hut to see that the guard card was still there in his chair snoozing away, and it was a simple matter to sneak back to her desk and fasten the chain back to her wrist using the lockpick she’d made from a hairpin.

  It was just in time too, because just then the guard card woke up and stretched his arms.

  Alice didn’t wish to appear suspicious, so she rolled her eyes at him.

  “Have a nice nap?” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tweedle Twins

  When Alice was 11

  The Queen of Hearts was in the middle of a perfectly winning game of croquet, using that fool, obnoxious blowhard of a pink flamingo named Morley as her mallet, when in burst an interrupting guard card to break her concentration just as she was lining up her shot!

  “My Queen! I have urgent news!” He prostrated himself face down upon the ground before her.

  “Well now my shot is ruined!” she said, trying not to lose her temper. Nobody seemed to respect just how good a job she was doing of keeping it together, lately. She hadn’t had anyone beheaded in three days.

  “My apologies, Your Highness,” the pathetic card whimpered into the ground.

  “Well, now that you’ve interrupted my shot, tell me what the big emergency is then!”

  “Yes, My Queen. It’s just that the Tweedle twins—they’re at each others’ throats. They are going through a disagreement and are seeking a divorce of sorts, a divorce of brothers, you see.”

  “And so? What has that got to do with me?”

  “It’s just that they say you promised to be their judge if such a thing happened.”

  “Argh! So I did!” She set the pink flamingo Morley upon his feet. He all of a sudden, now chose to begin trembling. Shaking like a leaf, he was. “You’re pathetic,” she sneered to him, “just like your so-called ‘poetry’.”

  Morley merely ducked his long neck and wobblingly exited the game field.

  “Well, where are they then?” demanded the Queen.

  The guard card said, “They await you in your throne room, along with the Cheshire Cat.”

  “Oh, that cat! Tell him I shall have him beheaded if he doesn’t leave!”

  She made her
way to the throne room. There stood the chubby Tweedle twins, staring each other down while shaking their fist at each other.

  “I’m so sick of you!” said one of the brothers. “Likewise!” shouted the other brother.

  The Cheshire Cat’s head was swirling around them in the air. The Cat had a habit of only materializing his head without his body, a tendency which severely irritated the Queen.

  The twins were so engrossed in their argument that they failed to notice her entrance, which she found quite disrespectful. She considered having them executed on the spot.

  Instead she shouted, “Your Highness is here, you nitwits!”

  The Tweedle twins bowed. The Cheshire Cat sneered then went on displaying that creepily large grin of his. He was a most exceedingly rude feline. She would have to figure out a way to have him beheaded.

  One of the twins said, “There’s the Queen. Now you shall get yours.” “Contrariwise! You shall get yours!”

  The Cheshire Cat giggled. “Are you gonna let him talk to you like that?”

  The Queen couldn’t tell which twin he was speaking to.

  She groaned. She desperately wanted to get back to her croquet. “You wish for Your Highness to preside over the proceedings?”

  The Tweedle twins looked at her with a puzzled expression. The Queen felt that the boys just weren’t all that smart.

  The Cat said sarcastically, “Well that was some alliteration.” The opposite of the twins, the Cat was too much of a smart ass.

  The Queen groaned. “Why am I always surrounded by imbeciles? Tell me quick. What do you want me to decide? You want me as a judge?”

  “Yes,” said a Tweedle, “because I wish to get a divorce from him.” He pointed at his brother. “No, pay him no nevermind,” said the other. “It is I who wish to be divorced from him.”

  The Queen huffed. “A divorce? You’re not married. But I think I know what you mean. But why now? You’ve always had your little tiffs before, but it’s never come to this.”

  Tweedledee said, “The Cat informed me I shouldn’t put up with this.” Tweedledum said, “Nor I with that.”

  The Queen sneered at the Cat.

  In his bored-sounding voice, the Cat said, “Yes, I helped them see the hopelessness of their arrangement.”