Chapter 2- The Cheshire Cat
Alice gently laid out several blankets on the grass around the flowers in the luscious garden. Fireflies lit up the sky, creating beautiful flickers of yellow and white. The stars begin to dot the clear, open sky with graceful patterns.
Soon enough, her twin brothers loudly run out of the house, chasing each other while her father and mother carry trays of warm cookies and pitchers of lemonade.
Every Thursday night, their family sits in the garden and stargazes or plays games in the outdoors. It's always a family bonding moment for them, and they always enjoy it. As the boys keep up with their game of tag, Alice and her parents lay on the blankets, staring at the sky.
"That constellation," her father points, "is Orion. See his belt?" Alice's dad gestures to the three stars in a straight line and looks at his daughter with a smile.
She nods, "I always love that one!"
They continued to gaze at the brilliant sky filled with secrets and apparently in Alice's eyes, it was even more filled with mystery. Usually, her full attention was on stargazing, but after her encounter with the White Rabbit and "Wonderland" two weeks ago, her mind seemed to always drift toward those wondrous thoughts. Everything baffled her; why was she the only one that saw the rabbit? So many questions and yet, no answers; it drove her mad just thinking about it.
Suddenly, the crescent moon in the sky snatched her attention, and her blue eyes immediately widened. A look of curiosity, amazement, and shock takes over her face.
"What are you looking at Alice?" Her dad asked, searching for anything unusual above.
"Look..." she said softly, nodding her head towards the gleaming moon.
"Oh, the moon..." he takes a few seconds to take in its beauty.
"No," she said, shaking her head, "it's the Cheshire Cat."
"The what?"
"The Cheshire Cat from Wonderland!"
The second the word "Wonderland" came out of Alice's mouth, her mother nearly choked on a cookie, causing her to go into a coughing fit. "Alice, what did we say about this 'Wonderland' that you keep mentioning?"
Knitting her eyebrows, Alice mumbled, "That it's not real and to stop talking about it..."
"Right, so why am I hearing you talk about it?"
"Because the Cheshire Cat is right there!" Alice aggressively points to the moon, "Can't you see him smiling?"
Her father bursted into laughter at his daughter's so-called wild imagination, "Honey, Alice just thinks that the moon looks like a smile."
"No, Father! It's the Cheshire Cat. I'd recognize him anywhere!" Alice shouts. Her dad continues to see it as a childish act, but it was far from that. Alice really did see that mischievous, witty, over-sized, purple 'n' pink cat.
Alice looked back up to the Cheshire Cat in the sky and listened to him as soon as he began to speak, "Oh, by the way, if you'd really like to know, he went that way."
"Who did?!" Alice yelled out to the cat. In that moment, her father stopped seeing it as a joke and thought of it in a serious way. Her parents' eyes are glued to her as the conversation continues between the Cheshire Cat and Alice, but they can only hear Alice's words because to Alice, it was all real. The lines between reality and make believe were blurred by her, at the time unknown, mental condition.
"The White Rabbit," the Cheshire Cat said with a big smile.
"He did?" Alice replied, anxiously ready to search for the rabbit.
"He did what?" the cat grinned as he attempted to fool the curious girl.
"Went that way," she said, gesturing to where the Cheshire Cat first told her the White Rabbit went.
"Who did?"
"The White Rabbit!"
"What rabbit?"
The frazzled girl knitted her eyebrows at the cat, "But didn't you just say--I mean--oh dear..."
"Can you stand on your head?" He asked as his body detached from his head and he balanced on top of his head.
"Oh..." Alice grumbled and stomped her foot at the Cheshire Cat. His crazy laughs echoed in the night and in her mind as she wondered where could that worrisome White Rabbit could've gone.
"If I were looking for a white rabbit, I'd ask the Mad Hatter."
"The Mad Hatter?"
Her parents exchanged a concerned glance at each other before her father spoke up, "Alice, who are you speaking to?"
Alice huffed, still confused and frustrated at the cat in the sky, "Wasn't it obvious? The Cheshire Cat!"
With that, her mother ended their stargazing session early and led Alice back indoors for the night. With a calm voice she spoke to her daughter, "Look, Alice, I don't know what you've been up to or what you think, but there is no Wonderland, nor a Cheshire Cat and a White Rabbit in a waistcoat."
Instead of trying to explain to her mother everything she's experienced and why it's real, Alice knew it would be nearly impossible to persuade her, so she just agreed with her mum. The young girl promised to not speak of Wonderland even though she knew she would end up bringing it back up again.
Wonderland was a piece of her life now, and she's way too curious to just give it up.
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The Mad Alice
Fanfiction"Doctor, I'm afraid that my daughter has gone rather mad. It's as if she isn't connected to reality. Instead, Alice is stuck in place she calls 'Wonderland'. She'll go through these spells where she tends to babble on and on about her wondrous exper...
