Wonder

I end up with a bunch of Red cloaks that I can make a good, long rope from.

Standing erect, I finally face the leader of the Reds, now standing alone, pretending he isn’t afraid of me.

“You think we will spare you, Mrs. Wonder?” he says. “More Reds are on their way.”

“That’s sad,” I say. “Because you will not have enough time to give them orders.”

The Reds leader seems confused by my confidence. I raise my head and look for the sword I’d thrown up in the sky. Now it comes down, slashing him in two symmetrical halves.

Someone claps behind me, applauding my performance. I swirl back to face my next enemy, but it’s only the Pillar, sitting on a chair, smoking a hookah in the middle of the garden. Now back in real Pillar form. No more possessing doctors.

“You abandoned me,” I say. “I fought them all alone while you smoked your hookah?”

“It’s a good one, trust me.” He takes a drag. “Moroccan tobacco, brewed and chewed and extracted from a forty-year-old virgin plant.”

I turn and look at Tom Truckle hiding behind the trees. “It’s time for you to talk to me.” I pull him out.

“Not before you get me out of here,” Tom says. “More of them are coming.”

He is right about that. “All right, follow me.”

I pull Tom with me toward the door, intending to keep using my skills to leave Oxford Asylum. The Pillar, however, keeps smoking in the garden.

“You’re not coming?” I grimace.

“After you kill ’em all.” He breathes out a curl of smoke in the air. “You’re the one who has a triple black belt in None Fu. Welcome to the future, Alice.”

Chapter 30

THE FUTURE: ST. ALDATES STREET, OUTSIDE OXFORD ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY SANE

As I continue using my unmatchable None Fu skills, Tom Truckle hides behind me. He also answers some of my questions. It’s a weird way to have a conversation, but I want to know all about him.

“It’s my fault we lost the Wonderland War,” he says, as I strangle a few Reds.

“We?” I punch another. “Since when were you on the Inklings side?”

“There is so much you don’t know about me.”

“Better talk now, or I’ll do to you what I am doing to them.” I smash Reds into each other. “How come you’re the Mock Turtle? You’re a Wonderlander?”

“A neglected one, actually.” He ducks behind me. “No one ever noticed me back then.”

“I guess that’s why Lewis wrote so briefly about you.”

“Even though I inspired the famous mock turtle soup.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” I somersault and kick two Reds in midair. “Its taste sucks. Who eats turtle soup?”

“That’s why I decided I’d be the director of an insane asylum,” he says. “Among the Mushroomers who fear and respect me.”

“I doubt that. They thought you were the maddest one in the asylum.”

“I don’t care what they thought. I had a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Of course. I was supposed to co

“What kind of plan was that? Who told you that?”

“Lewis told me to.”

Chapter 31

I turn back and glare at him, choking a Red with one hand. With all of my skills, I wonder how we lost the war. “Don’t lie to me, Turtle!”

“I’m not,” he says. “Look behind you.”

I do, pulling Tom up with me while I’m doing another parkour move in the asylum’s corridor.

“Lewis wanted to guarantee the Inklings win the war. He set alternative plans everywhere to help the cause,” he says. “One day, when I was crying myself to death in Wonderland, he offered me a chance to be a hero.”

“You?” I don’t know if I am supposed to believe him. Shouldn’t it be me who becomes the hero?

“It was a long shot. The plan was that I collect the sanest scientists, teachers, and useful men and women into an asylum.”

“Are you saying the Mushroomers were sane?”

“In the begi

“That’s the most stupid plan I ever heard.”

“It’s not. Lewis knew the Queen would wreak havoc on the sane world, spreading the insane everywhere. Remember how mad the world already was when you were in the asylum? The wars, the poverty, and sickness? The Queen of Hearts has been pla

“Go on.” I punch another Red, advancing in the corridor. “Be brief.”

“I framed sane people into being insane, so I could get them into the asylum,” he says. “Of course, they weren’t supposed to know that. Who’d have believed me when I told them about Wonderland?”

“Are you saying I was framed into thinking I’m mad?”

Tom shrugs, pulls out a pill, and swallows it in the middle of my fighting. “I’ll explain all about you, but last.”

“Why? I want to know what you know about me now.”

“You have to hear the rest first.”

I am too busy to argue, having reached the vast Tom Quad. The garden is thronged with too many Reds waiting for me. I have incredible None Flu skills, but even Bruce Lee can’t fight an army.

“I kept framing sane people. I even created the Hole, where the March Hare was kept,” Tom continues. “Lewis had told me he was so valuable he needed to be kept away from the Queen and Black Chess.”

“Can’t you just summarize the story?” I am busy now, fighting aimlessly, with hopes of reaching the door at the Tom Tower. Once we reach it, we’ll be out of here. “I get it. Lewis ordered you to collect the sane people and keep them in the asylum, so when the Wonderland Wars came we’d have a secret army, disguised as mad people. I changed my mind now; the plan seems brilliant because it’d go undetected by Black Chess. But you said you were the reason why we lost the war. Why, Tom?”

“The pills,” he says. “Life in the asylum was driving me mad. My kids and wife hated me, and Lewis denied me the luxury to tell anyone about it.”

Chapter 32

“Not even me?” I say. “If you were on my side, you should have told me. Why did you resist the Pillar when he asked for me to kill Wonderland Monsters?”

“Like I said, I’ll be getting into that part later. What matters now is that when I took those pills, I didn’t know they had side effects.”

“Don’t tell me you forgot things.”

“I did.”

In the middle of my war, I try not to panic. It has been one of my worries that the Lullaby pills messed with my head. Now, Tom is proof I was right.

“Slowly I forgot who I am,” he explains. “Not like a clean slate, but visions came and went from me. One minute I remembered my purpose in life, another I didn’t. But in the later days when you and the Pillar were always leaving the asylum, I began to realize I had a purpose. That I had been told to do this, though I was not quite sure who told me. Then when Carolus Ludovicus came to London, I remembered that I was supposed to protect the Mushroomers. I remembered everything and was about to lock the asylum and protect them all until the Cheshire snuck in and suspected I was a Wonderlander. I guess he knew when he tried to possess my soul and couldn’t.”

“So why did you cause us to lose the war?” I’m nearer to the gate now.

“Because I sold myself to Black Chess at the last moment.”

“What? After all that Lewis told you?”

“It’s a complicated story. I was forced to do it. As a result, the Mushroomers were killed and the Inklings had no real army to face Black Chess. I’m really sorry.”

“Damn it, Turtle.” I pull him harder and kick the last two Reds away, then we rush outside the gate. “I need to hear more, but we need an escape vehicle first.”

“Which one?” There are a lot of damaged cars lined up outside.

“Like this one.” I smile, pointing at the Pillar’s fire truck.