The servant strode to the center of the room and, reading from a paper, said, "The next test is a riddles test. Your numbers, once again, shall be cut. Two or three will remain."
"Depending on what?" One of the girls called.
"Her Majesty's mood, of course," the servant replied snootily. "If you'll follow me."
He led them down a series of corridors, each more fancily gilded and brilliantly colored than the last, until they arrived in a circular room. In it were six desks.
Four were the regulation type that Delia was able to remember from her previous life. The fifth was a bit more old fashioned but from the same pattern, and the sixth was a great big desk decorated with elegant carvings. Alice, of course, sat behind that one.
A smile crossed her lips, too wide to be a real one and too genuine to be fake. "There comes a time in all little girls' lives," she said, "when they must pass a test to gain honor. If you have not taken a test yet, then today is that day. Come up to my desk. Form a line. Yes, that's right. Now take a paper. The first three up will win." Again, the strange, mad smile crossed Alice's lips. "Yes, indeed, your reward shall be great."
Delia took the piece of paper and crossed to a desk. She sat down and stared at it, her mind completely blank. There were about ten questions on it- ten totally foreign questions that seemed impossible to answer.
Delia, quite literally, sat there, staring blankly at the sheet of paper in front of her, for half an hour. By the end of that time, she saw out of the corner of her eye Emile shaking his head. Teodora, who had been about to rise, sat back down. Another girl stood up at the same time, and giving the two of us a triumphant look, strode up to the desk.
"Ah," Alice said, licking her lips. "We have our winners. The people who deserve the ultimate reward." She took out her sword and, almost too fast to see, cut off the heads of the three astonished girls. "Death is such a reward compared to life, don't you think?" She asked, cocking her head to the side. Teodora nodded hurriedly, but Delia just scowled, thinking of the words of the Red King.
She'll kill you and go on, laughing....
YOU ARE READING
The Alice Games
FantasyApplying for the Wattys 2014, because what the heck? This is another story dedicated to my friends; this time Emili, Kylee, Dylan, and Christina. It's a fanfiction of sorts, for Alice in Wonderland. I don't know which version of the story you're fam...
