Return to Wonderland Read online

  Suddenly, the three girls turned to Pig and stared at him.

  ‘Didn’t you say you used to be a pig before you were a boy?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘And didn’t you also say that you recalled being a baby before that?’ Lacie added.

  Pig nodded.

  ‘How did you get your name?’ Tillie asked.

  ‘Why,’ Pig said, ‘I thought the other wild pigs had given it to me. It’s what they call almost everyone in the herd. But perhaps I’ve had my name from back when I was a human baby, in a kitchen filled with pepper and broken crockery. Yes, I recall now . . . the woman who nursed me did call me Pig. And there was someone else who was always smashing plates and making me cry rather loudly.’

  ‘That was our rotten mother!’ cried Tillie. ‘And the rotten Duchess. You are her baby. We used to look after you. And now you’re grown as big as I am – and in almost a year and a day too! However did you manage it?’

  ‘Pigs grow a lot faster than humans,’ Pig explained, although to him this felt as if it couldn’t possibly be the reason. It was more likely the wondrous wild magic they’d referred to at work. He was only sad his mother wasn’t there to see his triumphant return. However mean she’d been, he still dearly felt that he would’ve liked to have met her.

  ‘But this means you’re Duke!’ Elsie said suddenly, for she was far more practical than the other two and consequently good at seeing what was what.

  ‘Duke?’ repeated Pig in shock.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lacie. ‘And this is your new home.’

  ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ Tillie said. ‘We live here too.’

  Pig stared at the cosy and familiar little cottage with ivy and roses running up its walls, and a sudden sense of elation filled his heart until he felt he might soar as high as a hog on the wing.

  He pushed past the Frog-Footman, who was now staring goggle-eyed at his new master, and reached out and opened the front door of the house.

  Beyond it was a small kitchen full of smashed plates. It smelt so strongly and recognizably of pepper that Pig had to pinch his snub nose to stop himself from sneezing.

  ‘Seems we’re in charge now,’ Lacie said, putting the bucket of treacle down on the table. ‘Tillie, show Pig the Duke’s old room so he can find something befitting to wear. Then get changed yourself. Elsie and Froggy and I shall start on the cleaning.’

  Tillie took Pig to a grand room along the passage where there was a big old wardrobe filled with dusty clothes that had formerly belonged to the Duchess’s husband, the Duke.

  The Duke, Tillie explained, had gone out one day, thirty-three months ago, to play cribbage with the King, and when he’d beaten His Majesty by two whole lengths of the cribbage board, the monarch, who didn’t like to lose at any game, especially not cards, had taken the Duke’s head in revenge.

  ‘Really, I don’t know why anyone goes to play games with the monarchy,’ Tillie said with a sad shake of her head.

  The Duke, it seemed, had not been a pleasant man, and so it was no great loss to the dukedom. But the King was not a beloved ruler either, and neither was the Queen, which was just as unfortunate for the kingdom.

  When Tillie finally left, Pig beat the dust from the Duke’s old clothes and tried them on. He was pleased to find they suited him down to the ground.

  Later, when he returned to the kitchen, he saw that Tillie, Lacie and Elsie had changed into clean outfits too and had done their best to tidy away the disorder. The Frog-Footman was nowhere to be seen, and Elsie revealed that he had rushed off immediately to tell the whole of Wonderland about the return of the new Duke.

  Pig smiled at the three sisters, whom he’d rescued and who’d revealed to him the truth of who he was. He felt in his pocket for the handful of acorns he’d picked up on the way home and put them on the table.

  ‘It looks like acorns and treacle for tea.’ He sighed, for they were not the sort of things he imagined a duke should eat for dinner.

  ‘If only we had something to go with them,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Oh, but we do!’ Tillie dashed over to a footstool in the corner of the empty larder, reached up and pulled a biscuit tin from the very back of the top shelf.

  Jumping down, she placed the tin in the centre of the table and took off its lid.

  It was filled with the most delicious-looking biscuits, each piped with pink writing. And this time Pig could read exactly what the familiar words on them said:

  ‘EAT ME.’

  ‘Do you really think we ought?’ Lacie asked.

  Tillie shrugged. ‘I don’t see what possible harm it could do.’

  The Queen of Hearts and the Unwritten Written Rule

  by Pamela Butchart

  I’m a big fan of all things weird and wonderful so Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has always had a special place in my heart. My husband and I even had a Mad Hatter’s tea party at our wedding – complete with cakes, a Mad Hatter Magician and one hundred tea cups full of Prosecco!

  I was delighted to be asked to be part of this wonderful collection of re-imaginings and of course chose to write about the wonderfully bad-tempered Queen of Hearts. I used to think a lot about this character as a child and found that as an adult I still had some questions about her. Does she have a softer side? Is she a necessary evil? Would she be any good at Parkour?

  I had so much fun writing about what the Queen of Hearts has been up to since Alice left Wonderland and I really hope you enjoy reading it.

  Pamela Butchart

  OK. So, EVERYONE knows who Alice in Wonderland is and how she fell into a hole made by a GIANT rabbit and ended up in a place called WONDERLAND where everything was pretty weird.

  But what loads of people DON’T know is what happened when Alice LEFT Wonderland. And what happened is that she forgot to SHUT THE DOOR behind her (but to be fair, that was probably because rabbit holes don’t actually have doors, so it’s quite hard to shut them).

  So anyway, when Alice got back home, she started telling loads of people EXACTLY where the rabbit hole was and all about the TEA PARTIES and the QUEEN OF HEARTS and the rabbit who could TELL THE TIME. And it wasn’t long before Alice got a bit famous, and then everyone wanted to go to Wonderland because it sounded BRILLIANT, and you didn’t even need to buy a plane ticket or use your Oyster card or anything like that because rabbit holes are FREE.

  So that’s when people started abseiling down the rabbit hole for their holidays, and Wonderland got SO POPULAR that they even had to close Disneyland in Los Angeles AND the one in Paris because no one was going any more.

  All the PEOPLE and ANIMALS and PLAYING CARDS that lived in Wonderland quite liked the fact that there were always loads of people on holiday in their land because when people go on holiday, they take SPENDING MONEY and then spend it all before they go home on stuff they don’t even need, like T-SHIRTS with the name of the place they are in on it, and MAGNETS and TOBLERONES. And it wasn’t long before everyone in Wonderland started opening SHOPS and STALLS selling all sorts of stuff like mini statues of Alice, and T-shirts with the Cheshire Cat’s face on them, and ANTI-SICKNESS TABLETS (because some of the tourists got a bit travel-sick coming down the rabbit hole).

  The Mad Hatter started hosting HUGE tea parties and making everyone pay for their TEA and MILK and SUGAR separately. And you even had to pay to RENT A SPOON to stir your tea.

  So, anyway, everyone was loving having all the tourists in Wonderland, and the King of Hearts even declared that every Tuesday morning was ALICE MORNING and every Tuesday afternoon was ALICE AFTERNOON (with an hour break between them). And when the tourists asked why he didn’t just make it ALICE DAY, he just laughed and said that they obviously didn’t understand how Wonderland WORKS.

  But everyone who lived in Wonderland knew that it was because the Queen of Hearts HATED Alice, and she didn’t want it to be ALICE DAY when she was eating her LUNCH, because lunch was the Queen of Hearts’s favourite meal, and she didn’t want it being ruined every Tuesday. And she even
said that she would probably throw up every last BIT of her lunch if she had to eat it on ALICE DAY. And no one wanted to see that, so the King of Hearts did the morning and afternoon thing instead.

  All the tourists LOVED Alice, so the Queen of Hearts had to keep her hatred of Alice a SECRET from them, which was hard because the PALACE was one of the most popular places to visit in Wonderland, and it was even rated NUMBER ONE on TripAdvisor (which is a website people go on to complain about stuff they didn’t like about their holidays, like if they found a hair in their food or if the sheets weren’t white enough or if it rained).

  So, the Queen of Hearts had to do loads of PRETEND SMILING when people came to visit. And one time she got so annoyed that she shouted, ‘OFF WITH HIS HEAD!’ while she was getting her photo taken with a small man who was dressed as Alice, and he almost got DECAPITATED, and Wonderland ended up losing a WHOLE STAR on TripAdvisor because of it.

  The Queen of Hearts didn’t like the tourists much, and she DEFINITELY didn’t like the CHANGES that were happening in Wonderland. But the King of Hearts said that he liked all the new YOUNG STUFF and that CHANGE WAS GOOD and also that they NEEDED THE MONEY. They probably needed the money because the King of Hearts liked being able to afford to buy every single type of cereal in the WORLD and eat it from a GOLD CEREAL BOWL and to be able to fly his PERSONALIZED HELICOPTER to the shops to get milk.

  So the King said that the Queen of Hearts just had to GRIN AND BEAR IT, which meant that she had to fake smile and try not to scream, ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!’ any more. And she found that really hard because chopping people’s heads off was her favourite thing, and she liked it even more than she liked lunch.

  But then one day someone went TOO FAR. And that someone was the Queen of Hearts’s own DAUGHTER, because I forgot to tell you that after Alice left Wonderland, the King and Queen had a daughter, and they called her LITTLE QUEEN GERTALINE WEETABIX CHEESE-AND-HAM SANDWICHES (but she just called herself Lil’ Queen).

  So, anyway, Lil’ Queen loved how much Wonderland was changing because she was obsessed with NEW STUFF and TECHNOLOGY and SMOOTHIES, and she was always ordering people to come down the rabbit hole to set up new stuff in the palace. Like a little BUTTON she could press to make her bedroom curtains open and close, and a KARAOKE MACHINE, and those TOILET SEATS that are already WARM when you sit on them.

  Even though Lil’ Queen was only eight years old, most people in Wonderland were actually MORE scared of her than they were of the QUEEN of Hearts because she could shout EVEN LOUDER. And when she got annoyed she shouted, ‘OFF WITH THEIR HAT!’ (which might not sound nearly as bad as what the Queen shouted, unless you know that ‘HAT’ stands for ‘HEAD, ARMS and TOES’!). So there you go.

  Anyway, one morning, the Queen of Hearts went to check on her servants to see how they were getting on making her sandwiches. But when she stepped into the kitchen, she saw that her kitchen WASN’T a kitchen any more because it was a COFFEE SHOP.

  The Queen of Hearts was FURIOUS about the coffee shop replacing her kitchen because there was a giant COFFEE MACHINE where her SANDWICH COOKBOOKS used to be and about FIFTY people she didn’t even know sitting around drinking coffee and asking her for the WIFI PASSWORD.

  And she got even MORE furious when she saw that her husband was sitting drinking a cappuccino and watching FUNNY CAT VIDEOS on his brand-new laptop. EVERYONE knew that people in Wonderland were supposed to drink TEA, not coffee. So the Queen grabbed a piece of cake off someone’s plate and starting eating it (because being furious made her really hungry). But then her eyes went REALLY WIDE, and she started spitting it out, because it was COFFEE CAKE – and that’s when the Queen said that it was the FINAL STRAW and then she started pointing at everyone who was drinking coffee and shouting, ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!’

  But before anyone had their head chopped off Lil’ Queen came rushing in and said that it was OK because it was a POP-UP coffee shop, which meant that it could be folded back down and taken to a different part of the palace. But the Queen said that was WORSE because it meant that when she was walking around the garden, or putting her pyjamas on, or sitting on the toilet, the coffee shop might just pop up out of NOWHERE.

  Then the Queen of Hearts said that coffee was now BANNED in Wonderland and that anyone caught drinking it or even SMELLING it would lose their head. She told Lil’ Queen to get rid of all the new stuff she’d had installed in the palace, even the SMOOTHIE MACHINE.

  As soon as the Queen said that about the SMOOTHIE MACHINE, Lil’ Queen’s face went RED. And then it went PURPLE.

  And that’s when Lil’ Queen challenged her mum the Queen to a game of CROQUET, because even when the Queen of Hearts was in a terrible mood she still ALWAYS wanted to play croquet because she got to hit curled-up hedgehogs with FLAMINGOS, which she thought was brilliant.

  Just before they started the game, Lil’ Queen said that if SHE won then her mum had to let her keep her SMOOTHIE MACHINE, and that if the QUEEN won, she’d get rid of it and all the other stuff too, even the toilet seat that made your bum warm. When she said that, the King of Hearts looked down at the ground, and he looked a bit like he was going to cry, and it was obvious that he LOVED the toilet seat.

  Everyone clapped and cheered as they watched the game, and someone even FAINTED when the Queen of Hearts won her first point. People took croquet very seriously in Wonderland, and they even had a Wonderland croquet WORLD CUP every four days, because four years was just too long to wait.

  But then, just as the Queen of Hearts was about to win, the King of Hearts SQUEALED at a butterfly because he didn’t like them, and the Queen of Hearts got such a fright that she dropped her flamingo, and it ran away. And that’s when Lil’ Queen cheered and said that she had WON the game of croquet and also that she had won COMPLETE POWER of Wonderland because of the UNWRITTEN WRITTEN RULE.

  The Queen of Hearts just STARED at her because she had no idea what she was talking about. So that’s when Lil’ Queen called one of the guards to bring the CROQUET RULE BOOK and, when he did, Lil’ Queen opened it and pointed to a blank page and said, ‘SEE?’ And the Queen said, ‘I can’t see anything.’ And Lil’ Queen said, ‘EXACTLY.’ And then she shut the book with a loud thump and explained that the UNWRITTEN WRITTEN RULE stated that if the Queen of Hearts ever dropped her flamingo while playing a game of croquet with her daughter then Wonderland would INSTANTLY belong to her daughter.

  And EVERYONE gasped.

  Then before the Queen of Hearts had a chance to say one word, Lil’ Queen ordered the guards to take her away to a spa called ‘CHILL’ that she’d had made and said that her mum needed to stay there until she learned to be CALM and ACCEPT that Wonderland was changing. And that if she didn’t she would be BANISHED from Wonderland for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS. And that’s when everyone gasped again, because, even though eight days might not seem like a very long time, it meant that the Queen would miss TWO FULL CROQUET WORLD CUPS.

  Even though the Queen of Hearts was probably the most furious she had ever been in her LIFE, she just went with the guards without trying to chop anyone’s head off, because she didn’t want to get BANISHED.

  The Queen of Hearts hated the spa instantly because they made her wear a FLUFFY ROBE and get her FEET MASSAGED and there wasn’t any normal tea with milk because there was only GREEN TEA. And when she got upset by things like people saying ‘HELLO’, all she wanted to do was scream, ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!’ but she had to take a deep breath and not do that because she knew that the royal guards were watching her.

  So the Queen of Hearts just sat on a yoga mat and pretended to look CALM and practised her PRETEND SMILING. But on the inside she was RAGING, and she knew she needed to come up with a PLAN to get control of Wonderland again.

  Back at the palace, everyone was having a great time because Lil’ Queen was getting LOADS of stuff delivered to Wonderland like COMPUTERS and LAWNMOWERS, and she’d even sent a smoothie machine to EVERY HOUSE in Wonderland and made sure there was one in e
very hotel room.

  And then loads of POP-UP coffee shops started popping up everywhere, and there was a GIANT LIGHT-UP STATUE OF ALICE that you could go inside and then climb up a spiral staircase all the way to her eyes, where there was a SMOOTHIE BAR.

  Even MORE tourists started coming to Wonderland, partly because they wanted to see all the new stuff, but also because Lil’ Queen had installed an ESCALATOR in the rabbit hole so people didn’t have to jump any more.

  But then Lil’ Queen said that she’d had ENOUGH of croquet and that PARKOUR was the NEW CROQUET, and that’s when people started to get a bit annoyed, because, like I said, people took croquet very seriously in Wonderland. And as soon as Lil’ Queen saw that even ONE PERSON was a TEENY BIT annoyed about the whole Parkour thing she started screaming, ‘HATS! HATS!’ and so everyone just started running and jumping on and off stuff (because that’s basically what Parkour is) because they didn’t want to get their heads chopped off.

  Back at ‘CHILL’, the Queen of Hearts was hiding in the toilets because someone outside was trying to make her drink an ENERGIZING BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE, and she absolutely hated smoothies because, like she’d told her daughter a hundred times, they were just TOO SMOOTH.

  But then, all of a sudden, someone knocked on the cubical door, so the Queen pulled her feet up so that no one would know she was in there. And that’s when someone wearing a bracelet that said ‘YOLO’ slipped a note under the cubical and ran away. And when the Queen of Hearts read the note she GASPED and then she GROWLED and then she KICKED THE DOOR DOWN WITH ONE FOOT, because the letter said:

  Lil’ Queen lied to you. She made up the Unwritten Written Rule (she wrote it herself and rubbed it out just before the croquet match).

  Love from Your Biggest Fan

  The Queen of Hearts had NO IDEA who’d slipped the note under the door, but she knew exactly what she needed to do. So she kicked off her FLUFFY SLIPPERS and stormed RIGHT past the guards and out of ‘CHILL’. And when the guards tried to stop her she just gave them a LOOK that obviously meant, ‘I’m the REAL Queen of Hearts. GOT IT?’ and they backed off.