by Robert McKay
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
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About the Author
Thank You
www.McKayManor.com
Copyright © 2015 Robert McKay
Book cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design
All rights reserved.
WONDERLAND
(Intergalactic Fairy Tales)
Robert McKay
For my wonderful wife, Faith.
My life wouldn’t be possible without you.
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CHAPTER ONE
“Arrr! Avast you scurvy dogs.” Alice jumped from the forecastle to the main deck, though they resembled a chair and tile floor. “First Mate, Dinah, be that a vessel ripe for plunder off the port bow?”
It wasn’t much of a vessel from what Alice could see. It sat fairly high in the water, so there was probably little in the way of cargo, but there was only one visible crewman. The man on board appeared unaware of their ship being within striking distance, ready to take him down. He was reading on a small electronic device, hardly appropriate for sea travel, and bore a striking resemblance to her father, but Alice wouldn’t be deterred.
“Mew,” replied Dinah, before returning to grooming her paw.
Alice heard an excited, “Aye, Cap’n!”
“Then what are you lot standing about for? I want to be painting a new name on that ship’s arse and counting my plunder before sundown. Bring us about!” She waved her sword in the air and pointed it toward the ship.
“Language, Alice,” said the crewman of the soon to be plundered ship, but he was too far away to be heard properly over the roar of the ocean.
After a bit of furniture rearranging, Alice’s ship was brought up alongside the other vessel. “Prepare to board,” called Alice. “If you lot want to eat tonight, make damn sure you don’t set this thing ablaze.”
“Mew,” said Dinah from her seat upon the forecastle chair.
“Excellent, First Mate, Dinah. I’m glad to hear that you want to lead the raiding party!” Alice hefted the black tabby cat into her arms, a mischievous grin on her face. “I can see you’re ready by your determined look. Then off you go!”
The black tabby landed on the end of the couch a couple of feet away with a soft plop, where she looked around in confusion and then tore off at high speed toward Alice’s father. When she hit his lap, she seemed even more confused and bolted out into the open sea. Unfortunately, she took her father’s reading tablet with her.
“Agh!” shouted her father, inspecting his thighs for claw marks.
“Alice,” hissed her mother from the kitchen doorway. “What in the world are you doing?”
Her mother entering straight from the open sea ruined the fantasy. Alice sighed in defeat. “I was just about to commandeer this vessel and rename it, making it mine by pirate law, and force it to join my armada of ships.”
Alice’s father was watching with a slight smile, which died the instant her mother turned her glare on him.
“You are thirteen years old, Alice. You are entirely too old to be playing silly games like this on the living room furniture.” Her mother shooed her off her forecastle chair so that she could put it back in its proper place. “Right, James?”
“Right,” said Alice’s father, sitting up straight in his seat and putting on his stern face. “Pickle, you’re getting older now, it’s time to put away childish games like playing pirate.”
“And no more silly nicknames either,” said her mother, stepping over and taking the stick Alice had been using as her sword. She threw it casually into the lit fireplace. Alice watched it burn forlornly.
“Right, you’ll be an adult soon enough, P—Alice. It’s time to learn how to behave like one.”
Alice scowled at them both. She loved her pirate books like nothing else she owned. They were dog-eared and the bindings were falling apart from the number of times she’d read them. There was nothing in the world she could imagine she wanted to be more than a pirate. It was complete freedom to do what you pleased and take what you wanted from wealthy merchants who would never miss a couple of ships a year. Adventure and danger lurked around every corner. She could never be a teacher like her father, or a doctor like her mother. Not nearly enough excitement. “It’s not a childish game,” she retorted. “I’m practicing for the life I plan to live. I refuse to be just like my parents the way the two of you are like Grandma and Grandpa.”
“You don’t have to be just like us,” responded her mother, sitting on the couch next to her father. “You don’t even have to decide right now. You just have to stop jumping around on the furniture and learn to act like a proper young lady.”
They’d had this conversation before. As reasonable as her mother sounded, she didn’t really care what Alice wanted for herself. She would have a choice of proper professions like scientists, doctor, lawyer, or teacher and she would be groomed to fit in one of those roles, regardless of what she truly wanted. Her cousin Vincent had declared that he didn’t want to be the corporate type after receiving his degree in philosophy. He went out and bought a tiny house in the country and planted a massive vegetable garden and started calling himself a plant wizard. It was the family scandal.
Vincent’s parents had come over to see Alice’s parents one evening to discuss how they could stop their son from leading the life of a dirt-poor farmer. They concocted a plan that involved taking him out for dinner at a fancy restaurant and introducing him to a proper young lady they knew. She was studying business and planned to be a marketing executive.
Alice was dragged along to the stuffy restaurant and sat next to her cousin. He talked the whole time about his meal, marveling at how amazing it was that you could put little seeds in the ground and a few months later, food popped out. He said it was the most amazing magic he could imagine, and Alice finally understood why he called himself a plant wizard. While it was a life she would never choose for herself, she could see why he had chosen it. Apparently, the proper young lady could too, because she ended up leaving school to move out to the country with him.
“I’ve already made my decision, Mother,” said Alice, putting on her most polite smile, the one just like her mother used when she was around company.
“Oh?” said her mother, a hopeful twinkle in her eye. Secretly, Alice knew, she wanted her to be a doctor like she was, though she never said as much out loud. She wanted to give Alice the illusion of no expectations.
“Yes,” said Alice, fol
ding her hands primly in front of her and willing her blue eyes to project seriousness. “I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and without any doubt, I can tell you that I want to be a pirate.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped and then clamped shut with an audible clack. “More games!” she fumed. Her father coughed, though it sounded suspiciously like a laugh, which earned him a wicked glare from her mother. “Up to your room young lady. You can go to bed without dinner tonight. And if I hear you up there tumbling around, you won’t be going to your friend Anna’s house this weekend.”
“Father?” pleaded Alice, knowing that he’d gotten her out of situations like this many times in the past.
He looked over to her mother, words of bargaining on his lips, but they died when he met her whithering glare. “Do as your mother says, Pickle.”
“James…”
“Sorry, Laura. Do as your mother says, Alice.”
Alice’s lip began to tremble and her eyes welled up with tears. She wanted to stay and argue further, but she wasn’t about to cry in front of anyone. That’s not something a pirate would ever do. If she had to cry, it would be in the privacy of her own cabin so that her crew would keep a healthy fear and respect for her. She stomped off as loudly as she could and ran up the stairs to her room and slammed the door shut behind her.
She continued to stomp around her room with no real intention, other than being loud. She wanted her mother to enact the ban on going to Anna’s house. It hadn’t been much fun going over there the last several months. All Anna wanted to talk about were which boys she thought liked her by the way they pulled her hair and said mean things.
The boys had started to pay more attention to Alice this year in school. She found it incredibly annoying. A well placed punch in Tommy’s mouth had taken care of that. Since that incident, the boys had little interest in Alice, and Anna had become completely insufferable under their added attention.
Dinah mewed her displeasure at all the noise. Alice scooped her up in her arms and flopped down heavily on the bed to make her displeasure known to her parents. “Sorry about that Dinah. You’ll get your plunder next time.”
The cat nuzzled her chin and licked her once with her rough tongue. Alice jerked her head back. “Augh. You know I hate that, Dinah.”
Dinah looked up at her innocently and Alice dissolved into giggles. “And that’s exactly why you did it, you little monster. You’d make a perfect first mate and I’ll definitely take you when I get my ship.”
The cat simply stared at her with her luminescent yellow eyes. Alice took that as a solemn vow to join her, despite the fact that she would likely get her paws wet and she hated that.
Alice lay back on her bed. Dinah curled up beside her and immediately went to sleep. “That’s right girl, rest up. Big day of pirating ahead tomorrow. Who cares what our parents say.”
Alice looked over her room, her eyes growing heavy. She stared longingly at the model ships and ocean paintings on her wall. She had read her first pirate adventure when she was eight years old. Throughout the intervening years, her room had gradually transformed from a princess’ palace to a scoundrel’s hideout. Her parents had encouraged her at that age, confident she would outgrow the phase like she had with her princess obsession. Her father was still a soft touch, buying her the blunted sword that hung above her bed just a few weeks ago, but her mother had long since stopped encouraging her.
She looked down at her blue dress and sighed. She knew she should get up and change into pajamas, but she suddenly couldn’t find the strength. The dress was her favorite and it always made her happy when she wore it, so her mother had tried to use it as a way to discourage her from being a pirate.
“Pirates don’t wear dresses,” she’d said. “They have to wear ugly brown pants that get torn and dirty.”
“Pirates don’t follow any rules, Mother,” Alice had said, as if she were explaining to a child. “That’s the glory of being a pirate, you can do whatever you want. And if I want to wear a dress, then I can do as I please.”
Her mother hadn’t liked that response very much, but she didn’t have a good argument to counter it. So, Alice went on wearing her dresses and practicing her nautical cursing, while daydreaming about what her ship would be like, despite the fact that there really wasn’t much trade on the ocean these days. The ocean held such mystery. Planes and high-tech machines like matter transporters had replaced ships when it came to cargo. She’d read about piracy in space, where things still had to travel on ships, but spaceships these days were mostly used for the Colarian war.
Once she stopped focusing on her room and began to imagine the life of a space pirate, it wasn’t long before she drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Alice woke slowly, her eyes barely able to focus in the gloom. Dinah still lay curled up beside her. The only light to be had in her room was from the moon shining in through her bedroom window. She got up and walked over to peer outside into the field behind her house, as she often did when she woke from bad dreams. She couldn’t recall her dreams this time, but going back to sleep felt impossible. Thoughts of her life spent in boredom as an accountant, handling other people’s stacks of plundered money instead of getting her own, haunted her.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and focused on the nighttime activities in the field. There were small animals scurrying about under the watchful eye of an owl that occasionally took flight and swooshed down in an attempt to snatch up a meal. As most things did, it reminded her of the pirate life and made her heart ache.
Then, without warning, something white and massive swooped down from the sky. The owl screeched and flew away, wanting nothing to do with the new arrival. It was so far away that Alice had a hard time guessing its size. It prowled along the edge of the forest on the opposite side of the field, dancing in and out of the shadows. It didn’t move like any bird she’d ever seen before, gliding without the need to pump its wings, if it had them. When it disappeared behind a stand of trees, Alice made her decision. She was going to follow it.
She held her breath and listened. Her parents were laughing downstairs. There was nothing keeping her in her room other than a window that opened to an easily climbable tree. Fear gripped her heart. She’d never been out in the woods at night by herself.
Dinah looked up at her and yawned. “Mreoooow?”
“Yeah, what am I waiting for?” asked Alice. “This is all just a dream anyway. There aren’t any creatures like what I just saw, so I might as well go check it out.”
Dinah laid her head back down and closed her eyes, satisfied that she’d done her job.
Alice slid open the window and eyed the closest branch. The full moon lit it well and she’d climbed on it so often that it may as well have been a paved road to the ground. Normally she wouldn’t dream of so openly defying her parents, but tonight she’d had enough. Pirates did as they wished and made no apologies. She swung a leg over the sill and placed it carefully on the tree branch.
Something nagged at the back of her mind, something she was forgetting. Scanning her room, her eyes locked on the blunted sword above her bed, illuminated in a stray beam of moonlight. One couldn’t have a proper pirate adventure without a sword. Even if it didn’t have a sharp edge, she could still do some serious harm with it.
Moments later Alice was down the tree and running across the open field, her sword tucked into a white sash she’d belted around her waist. It bounced reassuringly at her side as she barreled after the large creature as fast as her feet would carry her. The moonlight gave her plenty of light to run by, even if she hadn’t known the field like the back of her hand. A heady mix of elation tinged with fear suffused her limbs, urging her forward.
As quickly as the beast had been traveling, Alice expected to have to run for quite a lot longer once she reached the forest. Instead, it sat, or rather hovered, in the same spot she saw it disappear. She had to pull up short to avoid running into it.
The creature
was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. While it was obviously alive, since it was clearly looking at her with two large round eyes, it also very much resembled a ship. A good sized white ship, with what appeared to be floppy ears. On the whole, it looked like a spaceship had mated with an enormous white rabbit and this creature was its offspring.
“Hello,” said Alice, unsure of what else to say.
The creature didn’t seem to have a mouth, but that didn’t keep it from responding, if rather rudely. “You’re trampling my mushrooms.”
“Oh,” said Alice, looking down at her feet and finding that she was indeed standing on a few of the dozens of mushrooms spread around her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice them.”
“No matter, they work just as well all broken up,” said the creature. “Stand aside so I can collect them.”
“No,” said Alice, scowling up at the creature. “This field belongs to my parents, so these mushrooms belong to them as well. You’re trespassing and stealing.”
“Oh, dear heavens, how shall I ever live with myself?” retorted the creature and then rolled its eyes. It was quite an impressive feat, considering its eyes were almost twice her height.
“And now you’re mocking me,” said Alice, stomping a couple more mushrooms in spite.
“I don’t have time for this,” said the creature. “I’m going to be late. Absolem haggles for so long that I’m probably already going to be missed.”
“Well, if perhaps you were a bit nicer, I might consider letting you have the mushrooms,” said Alice.
“And if I try to take them without being nice?”
Alice drew her sword from her sash and pointed it at the creature’s massive eye. Strangely there wasn’t as much of a reflection as she expected to see. There was a large open space behind the glass of its eye. “Then you shall taste my blade,” said Alice as dramatically as she could.
“That blade is clearly blunted,” scoffed the creature. “Besides, you’re just a tiny little girl and I’m—oh bugger this, I don’t have the time.”
