Maya picked an old green book and read the cover, then she handed it to Alice, “Let’s do Alice in Wonderland! It makes sense.”

                Alice looked at the book, feeling a little nervous. She turned to Erica, “How does this work exactly? Will we be in the story?”

                “Well, yes,” Erica said, “but you won’t be a main character, you’ll just be yourself. There are ‘choose your own adventure’ stories where you are the main character, but for story books like these we can’t have readers changing the stories, if you know what I mean,” she grinned, “so once you open that you’ll be pitched into the story, there’s no saying what point, since it isn’t an exact science, magic. Then when you want to get out, you say the code word on the inside of the cover.”

                “Anything else we should know?” Now that the rules were clear she was eager to begin, “I mean, it’s perfectly safe isn’t it?”

                “Perfectly,” Erica said, “don’t worry! You’re not any main characters, so that saves you from getting stabbed or eaten or anything like that. But the other characters will talk to you, so just sort of go along with it,” she backed away, “go to it ladies. Make sure you note the word to take you back.”

                Alice exchanged a look with Maya, who nodded. She opened the cover carefully, and read the word written in cursive on the inside, “Codswallop.”

                “Well that won’t be hard to remember,” Maya giggled nervously.

                “Ready?” Alice said, “What do I do, Erica? Just flip it open in the middle?”

                “You got it,” Erica leaned against one of the bookshelves, looking amused at their excitement, “go ahead ladies.”

                “Okay,” Alice took a deep breath and looked at Maya, “ready? She received a nod, so she flipped the book open to the very middle.

                She had time enough to hear Erica yell, “shut your eyes!” and then the world exploded in white and silver, the pages of the book looming up, swallowing up the room around them. Alice heard Maya shout in alarm, but she couldn’t see anything but black and white words whizzing by. The next moment there was the sudden heady sensation of falling, spinning wildly out of control. Alice gasped in alarm, and then beneath her a patch of green and blue appeared, spinning crazily toward her at high speeds, coming closer, closer, closer….

                Alice opened her mouth to scream. She was spinning out of control, about to hit the looming patch of green at what felt like one hundred miles an hour! Her body spun in midair, and then she hit the surface of the green thing, with a startled “oof!”

                For a second she just lay there, staring down at the green ground, then she rolled over with a groan, blinking up at a clear blue sky. It’s a nice day, she thought, not a cloud in sight. And I’m not dead. That’s nice. Why hadn’t she hit the ground way harder? Beside her there was a thump, and another loud grunt. She looked over to see Maya lying flat on her back on the grass beside her, looking stunned.

                Alice got her breath back, “Are you alright?”

                “I...I think so,” Maya stammered, “I may need a minute.”

                Alice struggled to sit up, feeling slightly dizzy. When she was once again in an upright position and the world wasn’t spinning in lazy circles, she looked around. They appeared to be in some sort of meadow, surrounded by gnarled old oak trees that seemed to lean over them in concern. The grass was vibrantly green underneath them, far greener than any sort of grass she’d ever seen in her life, and there were clusters of flowers at the bases of the trees, in the most outrageous shades of pink and purple.

                But strangest of all was the set up in the canopy of trees to their left. There in the meadow, looking terribly out of place, was a long table covered with a neat white cloth. On the table were teapots of all shapes and sizes. From where they sat Alice spotted a short poka dot teapot, a tall black kettle and an orb shaped, eggplant purple pot. There were also stacks of colorful tea cups that looked on the verge of crashing down onto the table, and towering plates of sandwiches and cupcakes with generous amounts of pink icing.

                Then she spotted the person sitting at the far end of the table and remembered exactly where she was.

                “Oh my,” breathed Alice.

                The man at the end of the table stared at her with enormous eyes. He had on a tall, stove pipe top hat, and his hair sprouted up crazily out from underneath on either side, as if it were trying to push its way out from under the hat. There in the band of his hat was the famous card that said ten over six. To his left sat an enormous grey hare, also wearing a top hat, and comically…a neatly pressed suit on his upper half. In the very center of the table sat a tiny brown field mouse, who appeared to be conversing earnestly with the hare.

                “No!” the field mouse was saying, “we shall celebrate your unbirthday today! Mine was yesterday.”

                “How kind,” the hare said, and he picked up the cup and saucer in front of him and balanced it delicately on one hand, “how very kind of you.”

                “Say!” The man at the end of the table, who Alice pegged as the mad hatter, stood up abruptly, nearly knocking his tea cup over, “You!” He pointed one very long, slightly crooked finger at Alice, who glanced over at Maya  nervously.

                “You!” The mad hatter hollered, “who are you? I saw you fall from the sky!”

                Alice stood up and brushed bits of grass off her blue jeans, “well, I suppose it won’t hurt to join the tea party.”

                Maya’s eyes were shining, “ let’s go!”

                They walked across the field towards the table, and the mouse and the hare both stopped talking and turned to look at the both of them with bright black eyes. Alice thought it was rather unnerving.

                “Who are you?” the hare said primely.

                “I’m Alice,” she was about to motion at Maya and introduce her, when the mad hatter flung his tea cup in the air quite suddenly, splashing dark liquid all over the table.

                “You can’t be Alice!” he shouted, eyes wide and alight with insanity, “it isn’t possible!”

                The field mouse nodded in agreement, “She’s just been by here, Alice I mean.”

                “It was her unbirthday,” the hare said.

                The field mouse looked confused, “I thought it was your unbirthday.”

                “it isn’t hardly,” the hare retorted, and he brandished a small white cake at the mouse, “have a sweet?”

                “I’m alright thank you.”

                The hatter was still staring at Alice, “You can’t be Alice,” he repeated, “it just isn’t done.”

                “But,” Alice stammered, “I’m a different Alice.”

                The mouse and the hare went silent. They were all staring at her again.

                “Ah,” said the mouse suddenly, throwing up his arms, “a different Alice!”

                “That makes sense,” the hare said, giving her an agreeable nod.

                The mad hatter appeared to consider this for a moment, “I suppose a different Alice is plossible.”

                “What’s plossible?” Maya wondered.

                “Possible and plausible,” the hatter looked proud of himself.

                “Of course my name is Alice,” Alice folded her arms and glared at him, “why do you look as though you’re deciding what I’m allowed to be? My name is Alice. My parents named me that.”

                The hatter mimicked her, crossing his arms across his frilly shirt, “Wasn’t very sensible of them, was it?”

                Alice huffed in astonishment, not sure what else she was supposed to say.

                “What about if it’s my unbirthday?” Maya asked.

                Alice jumped when all three of them jumped out of their chairs and began cheering.

                “Happy unbirthday!”

                “It’s her unbirthday!”

                “Many happy returns! Have a seat!” the hare indicated two empty chairs on the opposite side. “have a cup of tea, but you’ll have to duck if hatter gets excited.” He looked down, examining his waist coat, “he’s got tea on my best shirt.”

                Alice sat down, feeling a little bewildered. The mouse thrust a cake at her, and she accepted,

                “Er…thank you.” She bit into it, and was surprised that it tasted sweet on her tongue. They were able to taste things in the book? The spell must be very well created.

                “Now,” the hatter waved his tea cup at her, slopping more tea over the edge. “we must discuss what to call you.”

                “Pardon?” Alice stared at him, the cake was melting in her mouth. It was actually quite delicious.

                “Well, we can’t have two Alice’s wandering around, bumping into one another, can we?”

                “But I don’t…”

                Her protests were cut off, as the hatter began to mumble to himself, “What about Gerdy? Penelope? Twinkle sticks…”

                “Twinkle-what?” Alice sputtered, “that’s ridiculous. You’ll call me no such thing!”

                “Cabbages,” muttered the hare, apparently quite spontaneously.

                “No,” said the hatter gravely, “that’s no good.”

                “What about Suzy?” Maya peered at Alice over her tea cup, hiding a smile.

                “Not you too!” Alice shook her head, “I won’t respond to anything other than Alice.”

                The hatters head suddenly snapped up, “dogs,” he said.

                The mouse suddenly ran into an over turned tea cup, and the hair sunk down lower into his arm chair. “Oh dear.”

                “What’s going on?” Maya glanced over at Alice, who realized for the first time that her friend had probably never read Alice in Wonderland.

                “The red queen’s hunting for the other Alice,” she paused. Would that mean her name would get her in trouble? “Er…maybe we better run.”

                Maya looked frightened, and Alice remembered that the last time they’d done a spell induced day dream Maya hadn’t even wanted one with a man in it. She probably wasn’t quite ready for conflict.

                “Want to say the word?” The barking was growing steadily closer, and they could hear something big thrashing in the woods behind them.

                Maya nodded vigorously.

                What was the word again? Alice wracked her brains, “Eh…cogswogel?”

                Nothing happened. Crap, that wasn’t good. She’d forgotten it.

                “Cogswiggle?”

                Still nothing. More angry barking, more crashing in the underbrush behind them. Maya was clutching the table cloth with both fists, eyes wide.

                Finally it came to her, and she sat up triumphantly and yelled, “codswallop!”

                The ground lurched underneath her, and again, black and white began to swirl before her eyes. This time she shut her eyes tight, having no desire to repeat her earlier experience. The falling sensation began, and this time she braced herself for the impact.

                Still, it was jarring. She hit the wooden floor beneath her with a grunt, and then opened her eyes, rolling over with a groan to find Erica standing over them, grinning down at them.

                “Sorry,” the purple haired girl said, “I probably should have warned you about the falling thing.”

                “No kidding,” Maya groaned.

                Alice sat up slowly, feeling a little dizzy, “wow! That was crazy! It was so real. I could taste the cake when I ate it.”

                “The tea seemed real too, it was hot enough to burn my tongue,” Maya said excitedly, “that was so amazing!”

                Erica looked proud, “I like to think I do good spell work. She took the book from Alice, who realized she had been gripping it far tighter then was necessary. “You guys come back anytime. You can visit any book you like.” She grinned at them, “I’ll have to come check out Threads sometime. I’ve only heard good things about it.”

                “That’s good to hear,” Alice smiled at her, “thanks for letting us try out a book.”

                They said their goodbyes, and walked outside into the crisp air. Alice’s knees were a bit wobbly, and she made sure to tread carefully on the ice encrusted sidewalks. They pushed through the front door of the shop, the bell ringing softly to announce their arrival.

                “How was it?” Shakra greeted them at the front desk, “did you get to explore?”

                Alice exchanged a look with Maya and they both grinned, “you have no idea.”