Kendall in Wonderland

Advice from a Caterpillar

Kendall PoV

"Who...arrrre...youuuu?"

I whirled around in my spot, hearing a strange, deep voice speak to me.

My eyes scanned the top of the mushroom until they rested upon the strangest sight I had seen in the weird place so far...there was a blue caterpillar. With glasses. Like, the whole shebang...and it was smoking. A hookah. Like, a hookah pipe. Maybe all that liquid and salt water (tears) from earlier was getting to me.

I stared at the caterpillar, standing stock still. It looked right back at me. We went on like this, stating, for a looooong while. About ten minutes later, the weird blue pre-butterfly spoke again. Like, legit spoke to me.

"Who...arrrre...youuuu?" he asked again.

"Uh, I'm Kendall."

"Who is Kendall? I see no one by the name of Kendall. All I see is Aliiiiccccceee." he said, all snake-like.

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot lately."

"Ssssoooo just what is your name?"

I sighed. "Alice."

"Gooood. Now, I want you to recite me a poem."

"A poem? What kind of poem?"

"Any kind."

"Um..." my mind blanked out, so I went with the simplest route, "Roses are red, violets are-"

"No, no, NO. It's all wrong. Fix it. Or recite another one." the overgrown worm demanded.

I sighed. "Fine. 'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

'Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-'"

"No! It's still all wrong! I cannot handle you and your incompetence! You can't even handle a simple Edgar Allan Poe poem!" the evil, cancer holding worm huffed before he started crawling (well, slithering and inching, really) away from the mushroom. Before he was completely out of sight, the caterpillar yelled behind him, "One side will make you grow and the other will make you shrink." he called before he was no longer visible.

One side will make me grow...? What was that supposed to mean?

I shrugged and plopped down on the mushroom, face first. After a while of thinking and taking what the worm said into consideration, I realized that he was talking about the very mushroom I was laying on.

I tried the right side first. I shrunk and stared with a straight face at a tree for the longest time, thinking, seriously. Really?

Then, I picked off a piece of the left side of the mushroom and bit into it. Somehow, it had the same taste as that cake from earlier.

I felt absolutely...nothing happening. Then I realized what happened. My neck was starting to grow! Something similar to an ostrich's I could suppose...

Pretty soon, I could see above the clouds. Like, as if I was in an airplane or something. But I didn't think I'd ever flown on one before...

I couldn't move any further than the few inches my neck was moving, swaying in the wind. After a while, I felt something attacking my neck.

I looked down and saw a pigeon stabbing my flesh with its beak.

"Hey. Hey! HEY!" I tried getting the bird's attention.

It looked up at me. "What?"

"What do you think you're doing?! That's my neck!" I yelped.

"...your neck? I thought it was a snake or something that was trying to hurt my babies." The bird gestured to its nest. Her nest. Sure enough, there were about half a dozen little chicks in the nest, chirping their little featherless heads off.

"Hey, I'm sorry for scaring you, but it's just my neck, and I'm not trying to hurt your children or anything. You have my word." I said.

"Your word. Can I trust you?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Hmm...okay. I'm sorry for trying to break your neck."

"It's fine. Nice meeting you, I suppose! Any names to give me?"

"Ah, no, sadly. We don't live long enough for that."

"Well, mine's Kendall. I'll see you around, I suppose..."

The pigeon nodded and warbled before stalking back to her nest, leaving me alone with two small pieces of mushroom in my hands.

I bit into each piece repeatedly, until I reached my normal size once again.

I ran off after that, shoving the rest of the mushroom pieces in my pockets, making sure to separate them so that I was able to tell the difference.

I ran, breathless, in front of this little house in a clearing in the woods. And by little, I meant little. Like, the thing was only about 4 feet tall.

I took out the right side of the mushroom and shoved a piece in my mouth.

I took a last look at the normal sized tree before it steadily got even taller in front of me.