Alice's Nightmare In Wonderland

by Jonathan Green

  There is of course one other reason for Alice’s adventure coming to an end, and that is if she successfully completes her quest, the very same quest that awaits her now…

  Down the Rabbit-Hole

  “You’re late! Wake up!”

  Alice wakes with a start and sits up, blinking in surprise and looking about her in bewilderment. It is a balmy summer’s afternoon and she is sitting beside a river, the long grass that has formed her bed dotted with daisies. The waters gurgle softly as they pass by on their way downstream.

  Something about the scene seems very familiar.

  “Don’t just sit there! Get up! You’re late!” comes the shrill voice again.

  The hot weather making her feel sleepy and dull-witted, Alice follows the sound to its source. There, standing in the shade of a chestnut tree, is a white rabbit.

  But this isn’t just any white rabbit. This particular rabbit is dressed in the manner of an English gentleman – jacket, waistcoat and all. The rabbit’s ears are a little threadbare, the stuffing poking out through holes worn in the skin, and as it tilts its head to one side to observe her with its glassy pink eyes, Alice thinks she hears a grating of gears.

  Alice jumps to her feet as it flashes through her mind that, once upon a time, on some previous occasion, she saw something like this rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket-watch. But there is no timepiece clutched in the rabbit’s paws this time.

  “Who are you to say I’m late when you are not even carrying a pocket-watch?” Alice asks, not one to be outdone by an animal that looks like nothing more than a taxidermist’s test subject.

  The rabbit says nothing, but simply unbuttons its waistcoat, and Alice gasps as her former cockiness is consumed by gut-wrenching terror. Where the rabbit’s stomach should be, a huge watch ticks – a clock large enough to fill the cavity from ribcage to pelvis – raw and ragged scrags of meat poking between the wire stitches that bind watch and rabbit together.

  “How can I be late,” Alice asks the rabbit, “when I don’t even know what it is I’m late for?”

  She is suddenly aware of the wind having picked up, as scuds of cloud race each other across the sky, a sky which has changed from sapphire blue to a seething, bloody claret.

  “You are needed in Wonderland,” the White Rabbit informs her, the twitching of its nose accompanied by a mechanical whirring sound.

  “Wonderland?” There is something familiar about that name, Alice is sure of it, but she can’t quite put her finger on what it is.

  “It’s the Queen of Hearts. The whole realm has suffered the ravages of her tyrannical reign, and if you thought things were bad before, they are considerably worse now. It’s a miracle I managed to escape her Tick-Tock Men.”

  “Before?” Alice whispers in a daze. “Tick-Tock Men?”

  “Yes, Tick-Tock Men! How else do you think I ended up like this?” the rabbit says, looking down at his stomach and the ticking timepiece embedded within what little flesh remains there.

  Alice stares at the creature in dumbfounded amazement before finally finding her voice again. “Why are you telling me this? What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Why?” gasps the rabbit, in incredulity. “We need you, Alice. Wonderland needs you.”

  “But what do you need me to do?”

  “We need you to kill the Queen, of course.”

  “Kill the Queen?” Alice echoes. “But why me?”

  The White Rabbit gives an exasperated sigh and takes a deep breath, in an attempt to compose itself, before speaking again.

  “Because it’s your nightmare!”

  Now turn to 1.

  1

  Alice stares at the rabbit unsure what to say, a dozen questions crowding her mind. Who is the Queen of Hearts? Who turned the White Rabbit into a walking timepiece? And how does he expect her to kill anyone? After all, she’s only eleven years-old. But before she can give voice to even one of the questions, the White Rabbit speaks again.

  “Come on, there’s not a moment to lose. The clock is ticking!” he says, looks pointedly at his clock-filled stomach cavity. And with that, he turns tail and scampers off across the meadow, through the long, wind-tugged grass.

  If you think Alice should set off in pursuit, turn to 20. If you think that following half-clockwork talking rabbits could never be considered wise, turn to 39.

  2

  Following the gravel path to its end, Alice stops before the front door of the neat little house. The brass plate has the name ‘W. Rabbit’ engraved upon it and above the door, on a lacquered piece of wood, someone has painted the words ‘The Burrow’.

  “Well, there will be no prizes for guessing who lives here,” Alice says to herself.

  Alice has been brought up to mind her manners and knows that she should never enter a room without knocking first, and that goes double for entering people’s

  houses. However, there are many things in this strange land that do not follow the usual order of things, so perhaps she should enter first and knock second.

  If you want Alice to knock on the door, turn to 10. If you want her to try opening the door instead of knocking, turn to 483.

  3

  Alice opens the box. Inside is a dainty cake in a paper case, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ have been painstakingly marked out in currants. It looks delicious. If you think Alice should take a bite, turn to 77. If not, what should she do next? Keep trying the doors around the hall (turn to 339), or drink the contents of the bottle (turn to 387).

  4

  Heading west Alice soon comes to a dead-end. She is just about to turn back when she notices the entrance to a rabbit-hole underneath the hedge.

  “I wonder where this one leads?” she says to herself, recalling what happened the last time she crawled into a rabbit’s burrow.

  If you think Alice should crawl into the rabbit-hole, regardless of what might happen to her dress, turn to 14. If not, she will have to retrace her steps – turn to 180.

  5

  Alice can tell from the way they move that the Tick-Tock Men mean her harm and so the best thing to do would be to try to escape their clockwork clutches. Picking up the skirts of her dress, she sprints towards them and then at the last possible moment feints right before throwing herself left.

  Take an Agility test. If Alice passes the test, turn to 25. If she fails the test, turn to 42.

  6

  And so, Alice finds herself at the entrance to a magnificent maze. If she stands on tiptoe she can just see the turrets and heart-carved crenulations of a high-walled palace beyond the towering yew hedges. It is quite apparent to Alice that the only way to reach the palace is to negotiate the leafy labyrinth.

  Taking a deep breath, she steps forward into its shaded pathways, and promptly comes to a junction. Laid out on the ground in coloured gravel is an ornate compass rose, with a large red heart at its centre. Left is north and right is south, so which way should Alice go?

  North? Turn to 38.

  South? Turn to 90.

  7

  Alice looks at the picture she managed to take from the wall. It appears to be a rather ugly portrait of an even uglier woman. She is sitting on a stool, beside the range in a smoky kitchen, holding a baby wrapped in a shawl. Alice can’t shake the feeling that she should know who the woman and the baby in the picture are.

  As she continues to tumble down the well she passes through pools of light cast by lamps and lanterns that hang from its walls. It is as she passes through one of these pools of light that she sees the image in front of her change before her very eyes.

  The screaming baby’s features melt and morph until Alice is no longer looking at a human child but a squealing piglet. Shocked by the unnatural metamorphosis, Alice hurls the picture at the wall, where it snags on a nail, tearing the canvas.

  Add 1 to Alice’s Insanity score and turn to 82.

  8

  “They may have bodies made of Christmas pudding and heads doused in burning
brandy, but if they are anything like other insects,” Alice says to herself, “then they probably have a fondness for sweet things. But then again, I am sure that dousing their flames would send them packing too.”

  If you want, Alice could try dousing the Snap-dragon-flies’ flames with the remaining tot of Shrinking Potion from the ‘Drink Me’ bottle (turn to 450). Alternatively, if Alice has a piece of cake she could try offering that up to the insects, in the hope that such an action will help her get past unharmed (turn to 92). If you don’t think Alice should waste such precious resources on her strange assailants, she will have to prepare for the worst (turn to 112).

  9

  “Thank goodness!” exclaims the Caterpillar, sounding genuinely concerned, the spiracles along its body opening and closing in agitation. “I was starting to think I had lost you to a higher state of being, for you never to return.”

  Alice’s encounter with the Paper Tiger was all in her mind. Restore her Endurance score to what it was before she fought the imagined threat.

  “Return to where?” Alice asks, still feeling as if body and mind are not quite one.

  “Why here of course,” says the Caterpillar. “Wonderland! I only wish we were meeting again under better circumstances.”

  “So what circumstances are we meeting under?” says the child.

  “It’s the Queen of Hearts. She’s even madder than she was before.”

  “We’re all mad here,” Alice mutters under her breath.

  “Her lunacy has infected this reality, turning the dreamscape of Wonderland into a nightmarish realm of imagined horrors and manifest phobias. Do you see?” says the Caterpillar. “That is why the Queen must die.”

  Alice doesn’t understand half the words the Caterpillar has been using, but she understands that everyone she meets in Wonderland seems dead set on her doing away with the monarch of mayhem and madness.

  “Do you have any questions before you set off on your way again?”

  “Yes, I do,” says the child, after pondering the question for a moment. “If we’ve met before, and you were a caterpillar then, why aren’t you a butterfly now?”

  “Old Father William says I have a bad case of neoteny. Now, if you want one last piece of advice, steer clear of the Duchess’s madhouse. The Nightmare has already well and truly taken hold there. Make for the Palace instead and remember, keep moving forwards, never turn back. Now, be on your way.”

  Record the word ‘Metamorphosis’ on Alice’s Adventure Sheet and then turn to 316.

  10

  Alice raps on the door with her knuckles and then waits. She doesn’t have to wait long before she hears pattering footsteps from the other side of the door and then a small voice squeak, “Who is it?”

  “Now that is a good question,” Alice says to herself. “I think I’m Alice. Yesterday things went on just as usual, as far as I can recall, but so many queer things have happened today I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night. Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!”

  “Alice?” she says out loud at last, if a little uncertainly.

  “It’s ‘er alright,” comes a second voice, gruffer than the first. “Best let ‘er in.”

  The front door opens and Alice finds herself staring at a Lizard wearing the cap and clothes of a gardener, and a Mouse dressed very smartly indeed, in the manner of a bank clerk.

  “This way,” says the Mouse. “And you can come too, Mr Bixby,” he adds, addressing this to the Lizard.

  The Mouse leads Alice from a tiled hall, into a room filled with glass cases containing displays of stuffed birds, animals and fish, and from there into a snug study. Waiting for her behind a green leather-topped writing desk is the master of the house – the White Rabbit.

  “Ah, there you are,” the Rabbit says, giving an exasperated sigh.

  Turn to 135.

  11

  “White to win in eleven moves!” Alice says triumphantly, moving the White pawn to Red’s side of the board. (Add 1 to Alice’s Logic score.)

  Alice has spent long enough in the library; it’s time she was on her way again – turn to 454.

  12

  As the dresser disappears again above her, Alice reaches a section of the well shaft adorned with framed maps and pictures hanging from hooks. If you want Alice to try to grab one of these, turn to 33. If not, turn to 82.

  13

  A trumpeted fanfare suddenly sounds from somewhere to the south, strident horns reverberating across the maze.

  “The Queen!” one of the gardeners shouts. “A summons from the Queen!”

  Ignoring Alice entirely now, the three gardeners down tools and hurry off westwards, clearly more in fear of failing to heed the Queen’s summons than making sure Alice doesn’t get away.

  Turn to 36.

  14

  Ignoring the worms and woodlice and other creep-crawlies that tickle the back of her neck as she crawls along the rabbit-dug tunnel, Alice keeps shuffling forward, using her knees and elbows to help her on her way.

  The tunnel twists and turns, but fortunately does not suddenly become the vertical shaft of a well, and then Alice sees a circle of daylight up ahead. The sight giving her the motivation to keep going, and it is not long before the child pulls herself from the tunnel to find that she is still inside the maze, only she is not sure exactly where.

  The only way onward is a path leading east, but, if you prefer, Alice could crawl back along the burrow to where she first entered the rabbit-hole.

  To send Alice back down the rabbit-hole, turn to 34. If you want Alice to continue by heading east into the maze, turn to 360.

  15

  Just as she is wondering which way to go, Alice catches sight of a broad grin, floating two feet above the path that leads east away from the fur-thatched cottage. Her curiosity piqued, she sets off along the path, even as the smile vanishes into thin air again, leaving behind it the rumour of a chuckle in the air.

  Turn to 6.

  16

  Incredibly, the White Rabbit still appears to be alive, but then he was already dead when Alice first met him beside the river bank, nothing but stuffing and clockwork. Although that might be considered a form of life.

  “Alice, you must go, the Queen is onto us,” the Rabbit’s head says.

  For a moment Alice is paralysed by shock, taking in the devastation in appalled horror, from the Rabbit’s decapitated body behind the desk, to the Mouse’s crushed skull, to the Lizard barely conscious in the corner of the room.

  There’s clearly nothing she can do for the Mouse but she might yet be able to save Bill the Lizard, or even the White Rabbit.

  If you want Alice to help the Rabbit, turn to 168. If you want Alice to help the Lizard, turn to 98. If you would rather Alice flee the scene as quickly as she can, turn to 179.

  17

  Putting any aspirations of climbing up to the nest behind her, Alice commences her wary descent of the crags, watching out for any loose scree that might send her tumbling down the side of the peak, or uneven rocks that might have her going over on her ankle.

  Eventually, her descent is done and Alice finds herself re-entering the tulgey wood, although now she can see the battlements of the ruined fortress beyond the tops of the unhealthy-looking trees.

  Turn to 512.

  18

  Is Alice wielding a Croquet Mallet? If so, turn to 68. If not, turn to 97.

  19

  “I wonder what they live on,” Alice muses. “Frumenty and mince pie, I expect, and they probably nest in Christmas boxes.”

  Such musings are all well and good, but they are not going to save Alice from the angry Snap-dragon-flies. Turn to 112.

  20

  Burning with curiosity, Alice runs off across the field after the rabbit. Just as she is starting to feel that she might actually be catching up with
it, the creature disappears down a large rabbit-hole under a hedge.

  Stumbling to a halt, Alice peers down into the earthy darkness. This is all looking very familiar, but she can’t quite remember why.

  If she pulls away some of the turf from around the entrance, she should be able to squeeze inside the burrow, but such activity will doubtless make a mess of her dress, and what would Nurse say? At her back, the wind continues to rise.

  If you think Alice should follow the White Rabbit underground, turn to 57. If you think that crawling down rabbit-holes is not behaviour befitting a young lady, turn to 64.

  21

  Warily, Alice breaks off a piece of the mushroom and, putting it her mouth, gives it a desultory chew before swallowing it as quickly as she can, so foul-tasting is the fungus. Almost immediately her vision starts to swim and unsettling hallucinations warp the world around her…

  Blinking, Alice finds herself in a room, not unlike the Hall of Doors she found at the bottom of the rabbit-hole. In fact, looking around her, she is quite sure that it is the same hall.

  Before her are three doors. Carved into the wood of the first door is an image of a labyrinth. The second door bears the image of a palace, while the third door has nothing carved into it at all. Alice is quite sure that she needs to open one of these doors, but which one?

  The labyrinth door? Turn to 40.