Trapped in Wonderland (Wonderland Chronicles Book 1)

 
TRAPPED IN WONDERLAND
 
Wonderland Series: Book 1
Dani Hoots


    Trapped in Wonderland Wonderland Series, #1
© 2017 Dani Hoots
Content and line edits by Justin Boyer of Bibliophile’s Workshop
Cover Design Copyright © 2016 by Dani Hoots
Formatting by Dani Hoots
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN for first edition paperback:978-1-942023-44-9
ISBN for first edition ebook: 978-1-942023-45-6


“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”
― Lewis Carroll


CHAPTER 1
I was falling
Or at least I think I was falling. It didn’t feel like gravity pulling me down and down, but more like something decided it wanted to sweep me off my feet. Kind of like in ballet when one of the guys would pick me up—sometimes for the routine, sometimes because they wanted to scare the crap out of me. I hated when they did that. You know, that feeling in your stomach where you don’t know if you are gonna hurl or if your stomach was just gonna move into your throat.
So you can imagine my confusion when it wouldn’t stop. At all. Not only that but inside the abyss I currently found myself in there were spiraling colors shooting out every which way. At least they were pretty though, mainly softer colors versus the neon colors that one expected in such a situation. Yes, I watched a lot of anime and sci-fi. Don’t judge me. Anyway, I made a mental note to paint them later. That is, if I survived.
Oh, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Alice Hughes, or at least that was the name I went by anyway. My real name is Meredith, but I always go by my middle name. Can you blame me? Regardless, I’m a freshman at East Salem High School, go Hunting Owls! At first I thought an owl was a bit stupid for a mascot, but an owl actually attacked a bunch of people in the park in downtown Salem, Oregon. I now appreciate, and fear, owls.
You may be wondering how I got into this mess, how I was falling (and falling and falling), and why I couldn’t stop. Honestly, I had no idea and was wondering the same thing as well. All I could remember was running out of the school, excited as it was a nice autumn day and I needed to bike to ballet and practice my splits. Then Kate, my best friend since grade school, asked me if I remembered my ballet shoes from my locker (wasn’t the first time I had forgotten them after all). Then I slammed my palm to my face and hurried back into the school…
Oh, that’s right. I had seen a group of boys open a locker and step inside, ones who'd just transferred to the district this year. Why the heck anyone would do such a thing and end up going to this school was beyond me. Perhaps it was the same kind of people who disappear into lockers, which defied the laws of physics by the way. Or, at least, I think it did (science wasn’t my best subject). Either way, it led me to believe I had eaten some bad mushrooms or something. Then, of course, curiosity got the better of me and I went to see what was up with the locker and now I found myself falling… And falling… and… falling.
The feeling didn’t seem to want to stop either, and when I looked down, there didn’t seem to be an end to the abyss. I supposed that’s why they called it an abyss. I glanced around every which way and honestly I had no idea which way was up or which way was down. It left me feeling a bit disoriented and I prayed that my lunch wouldn’t come back for a visit. That would make this situation so much worse.
As I fell, or maybe floated? I decided that was a better description of the situation. So as I floated, I wondered if this was what the people in space felt like, while experiencing zero-gravity. I always wondered what it would be like in space, though I probably would never find out. That is unless NASA started hiring artists to man their spacecraft. That would be the day.
“Crap!” The swirls of color had gone away and there was nothing but darkness. I felt a slight tug and came out of whatever inter-dimensional plane I had been in. I figured that’s what it had to have been, especially after watching so many sci-fi series and anime over the years. I had become something of an expert on all matters of what fictional stories were made of, and if I didn’t know better, I was in some kind of strange new world. That, or I had hit my head somewhere at school and was knocked out cold and this was all a dream, which really was much more likely. But I wouldn’t be careless, just in case. If I saw a pink-haired girl like in an anime, I was going to run away from her as fast as I could. Pink-haired girls always brought disaster.
Whatever I landed on was soft. I gently touched it, as I was still surrounded by darkness. I felt around me, curious as to what I had landed on. It felt short, almost like grass. It was not light enough to tell but I