WONDERLAND ✯ Louis Partridge

1 | Down The Rabbit Hole

Y/N

_

"SIT UP STRAIGHT, AND SIT LIKE A LADY."

I blinked, my eyes trying to adjust to the bright sunlight streaming down onto the courtyard. A plump woman was pacing in front of me, the glint of her spectacles blinding me for a split of a moment, but her heavy voice rang clear.

Sit up straight, she said, sit like a lady.

I never realized that ladies had to sit a certain way. Was putting thier rear-end on a chair not enough? Did ladies have to sit on thier heads instead? Wear polka dot socks if they did? Fend off a twenty-foot tall wombat while they sat?

My point is, I hate society, and I hate this Finishing School For Fine Ladies my mother sent me to.

"[y/n], are you paying attention?" The woman snapped.

I just realized she had somehow ended up right in front of me. Her, and her big, green eyes, large mole, and breath that smelled like bitter tea and the loss of human emotion.

Great.

"No," I said bluntly, adjusting the hem of my blue skirt, "what were you saying?"

She pursed her thin (and almost non-existent) lips, "we are in the middle of a lesson about poise and posture."

"Oh, well, carry on then."

"I take it you'll stop daydreaming and pay attention like your peers?"

"No," I shrugged, "but don't let that stop you from teaching."

You might have guessed it by now—I tend to run my mouth off at the worst of moments. I could pin it to my hatred of socialized femininity, but I also have an attitude problem that sent me to this school in the first place.

As soon as my response left my lips, I heard gasps come from the table of girls around me. Most of them were snobs, with their lengthy hair pinned tightly into buns, and their dresses imported from the southern regions of France, so I paid them no mind.

My blue-polyester dress and white apron could one-up them any day.

"I've had enough of your brazen behavior, [y/n]," the woman hissed, clicking her tongue in disappointment, "if you will not pay attention in your studies, you'd better finish your chores until I have time to figure out reasonable consequences."

I nodded my head, springing out of my chair, "I'll be in the garden, then."

"And see to-it that you hold your tongue from now on."

I ignored the rest of the girls, skipping out of the courtyard and towards the pillering maze of bushes a few yards away.

From the limited time I'd spent in the finishing school, I realized the only consolation was the garden. It was peaceful here, with its towering, bright green hedges, roses that poked out in the most unseemly of places, and the smell of lavender always in the air, which made it my comfort place. I could rarely get any quiet in the boarding house; I was always being chased after and punished for my resistance to ladyhood.

My given chore was to trim the flower beds. Make sure the daisies weren't taller than the sunflowers and what-not.

It was the one thing I didn't complain about.

"Sit like a lady," I mocked under my breath, stomping through the maze, "hold your tongue!"

Damn rules, I hated them all.

It wasn't long before I reached my usual spot, an empty clearing with a small metal bench in the center, and I plopped down in haste. I made a point of sitting as sloppily as one could out of spite.