Chapter 8
Buckingham Palace, London
The Queen of England—discreetly known as the Queen of Hearts—spat on the flowers in her garden.
She jumped in place, angry with the terribly red flowers. Unfortunately, no matter how high she jumped, she was still shorter than the average queen anywhere in the world.
But she was used to that. Ever since Wonderland her height had been her worst nightmare. She remembered having built a tall throne for herself she had to climb up with a ladder, so she could rule and be feared, only to realize how small she looked atop it.
Her own people had made fun of her that day.
However, the Queen always had a solution to shut them up—forever. She’d cut several thousand heads off, silencing the rest of the Wonderlanders.
Off with their heads!
That phrase never ceased to amaze her. It had the power to instantly put things in their place.
Thanks to King Henry VIII, the Queen thought, the Tudor madman whom she had learned the trick from. King Henry had chopped off more heads than anyone else in history—most of them were his wives’. Most people didn’t know he was a Wonderlander, and that his ghost still roamed the darker corridors of Oxford University.
Lewis Carroll had based the phrase on the king. But that was another Wonderland memory for another time.
Right now, the Queen’s problem was with her flowers.
“Why are my flowers red?” she yelled in a loudspeaker she could barely grip with her small fatty hands.
“I thought you liked your flowers red, My Queen,” Margaret Kent, the Duchess, replied.
“I like my flowers white!”
Margaret looked confused. Everyone who’d ever read Alice in Wonderland knew the Queen liked to paint her flowers red as she chopped off some heads. “But you’ve always liked them red,” she argued. “Ever since Wonderland you prompted us to paint them red.”
“See?” the Queen sighed. “That’s the problem with you stupid people. What’s your IQ, Margaret? Five and a half marshmallows? Do you even have a brain behind your surgically-enhanced face? Why didn’t you opt for a better brain instead of a prettier face to address the nation?”
Most guards in the room wanted to laugh, the Queen knew. But none of them would risk their heads being cut off. It was a scientific fact: you couldn’t live without a head unless you were the headless horseman from Sleepy Hollow.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “I thought you like to paint all roses red, so I found a genetically-enhanced species that grows only red flowers. It was designed by the March Hare, and I filled the castle with it.”
Of course Margaret wasn’t sorry, the Queen knew again. This duchess was a vicious woman who only bent over for her queen. There was a reason for that—and it wasn’t respect.
“And what am I going to order my guards to paint red now?” The Queen stepped up on a chair and roared in the loudspeaker. “Here is the logic of it. I paint white roses red because they are white. The purpose is to suppress their nature and force them to turn into the color I want. It’s a psychological thing. A Queen’s thing. A message for the masses. Whatever your color is, I will color you my way. Do you get it?”
Margaret nodded.
“So when the flowers are red, I am losing my argument,” the Queen followed. “Now I have no choice but to force everyone to only sell white flowers in England.”
“Only white?”
“Yes, from this day on, England only sells white flowers.” She jabbed a finger in the air. “What a brilliant idea.” She jumped off her chair and adjusted her stiff troll-like hair. “Not only that. I want the Parliament to have a meeting and issue a law that prohibits the use of white flowers.”
“But that’s contradictory”
“And beautiful!” The Queen grinned. “Let’s mess with those obnoxious human citizens. Let’s see what they can do about it.”
“As you wish, My Queen.” Margaret chewed on the words. “On the side, I wanted you to take a look at another Wonderland Monster who showed up today, if you don’t mind.”
“I have no time for your silly requests, Margaret,” the Queen dismissed her. “I’m more interested in the results of last week’s Event. Please tell me my employees are wreaking havoc and madness all over the world. Please. Please. Please tell me they are driving the world mad.”
Chapter 9
Columbia
I land and bounce on a fluffy large mushroom—did I really say that? Well, it’s the truth. Way crazier than the Alice in the books.
It’s a huge mushroom, coated with what would make a perfect mattress. Yet it’s both bumpy and has a jelly feel to it on a few spots. I curl my body, tangled in my parachute, and roll on until I fall off the edge, right into the mud.
Splash!
Somewhere behind me, the Pillar laughs.