I ran down the dirt path. Mr. Rabbit came rushing past, muttering "Late, late, late," and staring at his pocket watch. "Good morning," I called, but he didn't even notice me, and he was already too far away to call back.

I entered the woods, slowing down to admire the large oaks and to listen to the sound of forest creatures. "Hello, Alice," a voice purred. I looked around, but of course it was no use. "Hello, Cheshire Cat. How nice to see you, or, well, hear you." I was lucky to catch a glimpse of white fur in the trees. I had only once seen the entire cat before.

I kept walking down the path. I had memorized all the twists and turns, so I was eventually able to get to a small white cottage. I knocked on the door, ignoring the knocker. That thing just caused trouble.

The door opened, but the large hare standing inside wasn't even looking at me. Instead, he was staring at a newspaper in his hand and muttering about the price of tea bags and how nobody even made the actual good quality ones anymore. After maybe five minutes, which was actually quite early considering times when I had been forced to wait for almost an hour, he finally turned around. "Alice!" he said, delighted. "So kind of you to stop by. Oh my, I wasn't expecting visitors." I laughed. "March Hare, I told you I would come last week, and you promised to remember! You silly rabbit!" He smiled. "Hare, hare, not rabbit. Remember, they are two different things, and I quite like being different from Mr. White Rabbit. Mind your manners, young missy." I followed the March Hare inside, still giggling a bit.         

Like always, the table was set for a tea party. Tea bags sat in bowls, with a steaming pot of boiling water next to them. There were plates of cookies, too. March Hare insisted that guests should have the freedom to make their own tea, and to choose how much water or how many tea bags they put into it. I always chose jasmine tea, one tea bag with half a cup of water. 

That was how the March Hare had taught me ratios, with tea bags and cups of water. I had learnt that the ratio of my usual drink was 2:1, or 4:2, or 6:3. It was lots of fun to make different combinations, but I never drank anything but my favorite jasmine tea, with a ratio of 2:1. 

I sat down and searched the tea bowl for jasmine. There! I grabbed it, then poured a cup of water and let my tea steep. "What's the newspaper about, March Rabbit?" "Another one from that place called New York. What a silly name. I thought you might like it when I came across it lying in the garden." I took the newspaper from his hands. "Oh, look at these pictures. More humans! Did you know, March Rabbit, that your funny newspapers are half of why I come here?" He laughed. 

I studied the pictures. I loved the March Rabbit's newspapers because they always had human pictures in them. Besides the royal Princesses and Queen of Hearts, I was as far as I knew the only human in Wonderland. I had just appeared, and the flowers had been kind enough to let me live in Rose City with them, in the tree root houses. But I spent most of my time playing in the woods or having tea with the March Rabbit. I always stayed away from the Queen of Heart's palace because she could be mean and apparently the entire family hated every Alice, after one entered the palace and offended the queen. So there was no way I was going there, even to see another human.

The pictures in the newspaper were always so different from here. The people had so many hair and skin colors. Nobody was alike, not even the children. I wished that I could live in New York, where everything was bustling and busy. But nobody knew how to get to Earth, except for maybe the Blue Caterpillar, but asking him was out of question. 

Finally, both the March Hare and I had finished our tea and our share of cookies. I got up to leave. I was almost out the door when I realized I still had the newspaper. I ran back in. "I'm sorry! Here it is." "Oh no, you keep it. And are you going to be coming back again soon?" "It's no use telling you, you'll just forget!" "No I won't, I'll put it on the calendar, see?" He pulled a calendar from underneath a chair cushion. "How about next Tuesday?" he said, scribbling with a pencil. "But that's tomorrow!" "The sooner, the better. Now, out the door you go. Don't forget your newspaper!" I ran out the door and onto the dirt path again. 

            I kept thinking about the newspaper as I walked down the path. I couldn't wait to open it and read the entire thing once I made it home to Rose City. I started to skip a little. 

            I kept walking, but I realized that something was off. I had been walking for a long time, but I still hadn't heard the Cheshire Cat, and I was still in the heart of the forest. Suddenly, the trees seemed a lot scarier, and I couldn't hear small animals anymore, just a creepy slither, and the howl of a wolf and the hoot of an owl. I was scared, and probably lost.

            I must have taken a wrong turn. I started to head back, but a huge mushroom was in the way. It hadn't been there before. I looked around and realized that thousands of similar fungi were growing around me at a rapid speed. Just then, a mushroom sprouted under me. I fell down, bouncing on one of the mushrooms, then another, then another. It was like they were playing catch with me.

            By now, I couldn't even see the ground. It was covered in fungi. I couldn't get down, even if the mushrooms had stopped bouncing me.

            In an instant, everything was still. The mushrooms scuttled away to the side, dropping me to the ground, where I crumpled in a heap. I sat up and saw why the mushrooms had stopped. It was the Blue Caterpillar, the oldest and maddest creature in Wonderland.

             He was smoking a pipe, like everybody said he did. The smoke was curling into intricate shapes, like a rabbit, a hare, a skipping girl, before they all faded away in the air. 

            "Hello, Alice," said the Caterpillar. "I remember you. You came a long time ago, but you were not you. You were a different Alice. Two Alice girls in Wonderland. You are the second."

            I was silent. I watched the pipe make colored smoke. It turned into two figures. Two girls. One was me, and the other was like me, but not quite. She seemed to be bored, but I looked excited. I wondered why it was like that. Then, the smoke disappeared. 

            I heard a crinkling of paper. I looked down, and the Caterpillar was sneaking the newspaper from my hands. I looked back, and the Caterpillar was where he had just been before. But then he started to fade into the air. It was an illusion of smoke!

            "Hey!" I said and tried to grab the newspaper back. But the Caterpillar hurried away. I chased after him, but the mushrooms got in the way. I clambered over them, but now it was a huge sea of mushrooms with no end again. I could barely see the Blue Caterpillar waddling away underneath the mushrooms at the edge of my vision. 

            I held my breath and jumped into a small opening in the huge mass of mushrooms. The force of my jump made the hole big enough to slide through. I landed on the ground. 

            Now I was in a huge forest of mushroom stalks. I ran after the Blue Caterpillar, determined to get my newspaper back.

            I finally caught up to him outside of the mushroom forest. He was sitting on a log, smoking. "Good job," he said. "So, I believe you wish to be in the human world, yes?" I froze. How did he know? "Um, kind of, but, um-" "I'll take that as a yes. Here you go." He tossed me the rolled-up newspaper. I caught it, but suddenly multicolored smoke began pouring from his pipe. I was enveloped in it, and then the forest disappeared. 

            I couldn't see anything but clouds of smoke. My eyes stung, and I closed them. Suddenly, I felt like I was flying. I couldn't feel the ground underneath my feet anymore, and I seemed weightless. I touched the ground again. I opened my eyes and saw I wasn't in the forest anymore. But the place seemed familiar. The ground was hard and gray, not like dirt. Towering buildings rose into the sky, and strange metal creatures with glowing eyes and billowing smoke coming out of them rolled past at amazing speed. And all around, there were humans, sitting on the uncomfortable ground, leaning against buildings, many of them smoking small white sticks.

            Smoke enveloped me again. This time, when it disappeared, I was in a room. There were two doors, a window with curtains, and a blue sofa. The carpet was blue, too. I walked over to the window and looked outside. From what I could tell, I was in one of the tall buildings I had just seen from the street. 

            One of the doors creaked open. There was a girl, about my age, on the other side. She had brown skin, and lots of little, long braids with colorful beads on them. She was wearing a simple tie-dye T-shirt with ripped jeans. 

            When she saw me, she froze. "Who are you? How did you get here? And what are you wearing?!" I tensed. "Um, my name is Alice. The truth is, I don't know where I am, or how I got here. And the dress is from the tulips in Wonderland." The other girl crossed her hands. "I'm also Alice. Come with me, we're going to figure out where you came from. And also find you suitable clothes." I followed the girl out of the room and into the hallway. 

            We walked a few meters, passing two doors. Then the other Alice opened a door. Inside there was a small room, with a white sheeted bed and an open closet with lots of tie-dye clothes. Alice sat down and beckoned for me to sit next to her. "How long have you been in New York City?" she asked. "Wait, we're in New York?! I had no idea!" Alice looked surprised. "So, how long have you been here?" "About five minutes," I answered. Alice looked even more confused. "Where were you before here?" "Wonderland, in the forest near the March Hare's house," I answered. "So you're Alice from Wonderland?" "I guess," I answered. 

            By now the other Alice was looking creeped out. "This is just weird," she said. Then the door opened. A woman who looked like Alice, but with longer hair and no beads, was standing there. "Alice, please do your laundry-" Then she saw me. "Hello, who are you?" Alice quickly stepped in. "This is Alice. She just moved into the building. She had heard that there was another girl her age living here, and ta-da, I now have a brand new friend." Alice's mom laughed. "Now I have two Alice's in my apartment! Alice, would you like cookies? I just made a batch of them and put them in the oven." "Yes please!" both Alice and I said at the same time. Alice's mom laughed again, then she left. 

            "You have a nice mom," I told Alice. She smiled. "Yeah, I do. So, tell me how you got from Wonderland to New York City."

            I told Alice everything, starting from meeting the March Hare and ending with being enveloped in smoke by the Blue Caterpillar. She was laughing by the time I finished. "So you were raised by flowers and a crazy tea-loving rabbit?" she asked. "A hare, not a rabbit. But otherwise, yes."

            Just then Alice's mom came in. "Girls, do you want cookies or not?" I got up, and both Alice and I started eating the still-warm chocolate chip cookies. They were even better than the March Hare's. 

            When there weren't any cookies left, Alice's mom asked if we wanted to play a board game. Alice nodded, and she ran down the hall. When she came back, she had a box that said ‘Monopoly'. She started to set it up, taking the board and putting paper into piles. Then she took out three silver bits of metal. "Come over here, Alice and Mom! I'm gonna be the banker this round." Alice's mom smiled and sat down next to Alice. I did too. 

            The next hour was very confusing for me. I had never used paper money before, and I didn't understand the (complicated or unfamiliar?) rules. I was the first to get out, and after that I watched Alice and her mom play. I started to think about how I would be able to get back to Wonderland. Unless I could find the Blue Caterpillar somewhere, I didn't know how to get back. I already missed the March Hare and some of the flowers. I still hadn't touched the Cheshire Cat. There were so many reasons I wanted to go home!

            After another hour, Alice won the game. We both went into her room. "Do you know how to get back to Wonderland?" Alice asked. I shook my head. "Oh. Well, we'll have to think about it." She sat in silence for a moment. "While we wait, I have something to show you. Have you ever seen a cellphone before?" she asked. I shook my head. Alice pulled out a rectangle from her pocket, then tapped it. Magically, it lit up. "I thought that there wasn't any magic on Earth," I said. "This isn't magic," Alice said. "This is technology. I have an old one of these, if you would like it. If we have more time in the future, we can set up an email for you and other stuff. Then, even when you're back in Wonderland, we can communicate!"

I still didn't understand how the phone worked. Then Alice's mom shouted, "Girls, can you come here for a second?" I ran down the hall with Alice. Alice's mom was in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled delicious. "I was wanting to ask if Alice would like to stay for dinner," Alice's mom said. "Would you, Alice?" I nodded excitedly. "Okay, but you'll have to text your mom and dad, so that they won't be worried." Then Alice pulled me out of the room. 

            "You're going to love mom's food," she said. "Oh, and you don't really have a mom or dad you can text, do you? I doubt they have cell phones in Wonderland." "No," I said. "But I wish I could call the March Hare."

            Alice smiled at me for a second. "Don't worry, we'll get you back. We'll find a way, because there has to be one." I felt encouraged. "Okay." 

            Both of us went into Alice's room. I sat on the bed as she rummaged around in her cabinet. Finally, she pulled out a book. "This is called ‘Alice in Wonderland'," she said. I've always loved this book. I think you should read it, because it might give you some ideas on how to get back to Wonderland." 

            I started reading, and I was surprised. It started with a girl who lived in her regular world, with nothing wrong, but she was still wishing for something more, like how I had been before I had met the Blue Caterpillar. Then, just like with me, the other Alice had been taken from her world unexpectedly, and even though she had been wishing for that before, she still felt sad. And like me, she had learned about new and unfamiliar things, like magic and growth potions, and she had met the March Hare! That was the most exciting part of the story for me until I realized that this version of the March Hare was much more grumpy and boring than the real one. 

            It was the end that had confused me. If the entire thing had been a dream, why bother to write about it? And in my story, it was still missing the part where I got back home, safe and sound. That was the part that I wanted to happen soon. 

            I was a fast reader, and I had finished the book by the time Alice's mom called for dinner. I wasn't sure what the meat in crunchy yellow shells was, but I recognized salad and dressing. There were also tomatoes and lettuce in separate bowls.

            Alice sat down and picked up one of the shells with her bare hands. "Tacos!" Using her spoon, she moved some lettuce into the shell and bit into it. Juice dribbled out of the shell, from the meat.

            I sat down too, but I wasn't sure what to do. Alice's mom nodded at me, smiling, and I hesitantly picked up one of the shells, careful not to let juice drip onto my hands. I copied Alice, getting some lettuce from the bowl. 

            When I bit into the taco, my mouth exploded in flavor. There was chili, and other things I couldn't describe. It was unusual, but amazing. I quickly ate the entire thing, then ate another.

            When all the tacos were gone, I was completely full. I didn't even remember that I didn't have anywhere to stay for the night, until Alice said, "Mom, can Alice sleep over here? Her parents said they didn't mind if she did, and it's a pretty long walk to the first floor. Please?" Alice's mom sighed. "Fine. Alice, do you mind sleeping on the sofa?" I shook my head. "Okay, we have spare blankets in the cabinet. I'll get them for you."

            I went to bed a few hours later, after another game of Monopoly, which I lost, and reading a bit of Alice in Wonderland. 

            The next morning I woke up with Alice pulling the blankets off me. "Wake up, we're going to Central Park today! I can lend you some clothes!" 

            I picked out a pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt. With a spare coat on, I followed Alice and her mom outside.

            It was cold outside. The street was the same as it had been yesterday when I had ended up here in New York. The air smelled bad. I wished I could go back to the Wonderland forest. 

            Finally, we came to a place where there weren't as many buildings. Then I saw a park with trees and pathways twisting around. The leaves were yellow, orange and red, which made it seem more beautiful. "Welcome to Central Park," Alice said. 

            We walked down the pathway, through the trees. I almost expected the Cheshire Cat to start talking, but he didn't. The forest was silent except for the rustling of trees, and the crunch of leaves as we stepped on them. 

            Finally Alice's mom said, "I have a surprise for both of you girls." She led us down a path that branched to the side. We kept walking until I heard the trickle of a fountain. In the middle of a clearing was a bronze statue of a girl that seemed familiar. She was from the book, Alice and Wonderland, and from the Blue Caterpillar's smoke illusion! That was Alice!

            I also recognized the White Rabbit, and the Blue Caterpillar sitting next to Alice. I smiled. I hadn't known that New Yorkers knew about Wonderland, aside from Alice.

Alice's mom got some granola bars out of her coat and handed them to us. Then she left, saying she was going to get some street food, like a big pretzel or some hot dogs.

            When she was gone, we sat in silence for a while. "Do you think that I'll ever get home?" I asked. "I don't know," Alice said. "If you do, I'll miss you." "Well, I'll always have my phone to text or FaceTime you," I said, holding up the iPhone she had given me. 

            Just then, the water trickling down the fountain started turning into smoke. The statue of the Blue Caterpillar started to move. "Hello, Alice. I mean, the Alice from Wonderland," he said. "Do you want to go home now?" I looked at Alice. She was staring at the moving statue. Then she nodded at me. I knew she understood that I needed to go home. 

            "Yes," I said, stepping forward. The Blue Caterpillar took a big puff from his pipe, and then I was enveloped in the smoke again. 

            I woke up in my room in Rose City. Suddenly, I remembered what had happened. Then I remembered that the March Hare had been expecting me. Making sure my phone was in my pocket, I ran down the road towards his house. 

            I didn't even stop to talk to the Cheshire Cat. I kept running to his cottage. Finally, When I was there, I banged on the door. 

When the March Hare opened the door, he wasn't even reading his newspaper. When he saw me, he smiled wide. "Oh, Alice, I remembered the last time that you were supposed to come. And I became so worried. So, come inside and tell me all about it."

I sat at the table and told him absolutely everything. I told him about meeting Alice and her mom, the amazing tacos, and walking at Central Park. By the end, he was amazed. "Oh my, how about we have some tea, just so I can wrap my head around this." 

            So we did, and I had my favorite jasmine tea with one tea bag and half a cup of water, a ratio of 2:1.