• Summer in The Land of Whimsy

    Chapter One

    Summer was very, very bored. In the back of her mind, she realized that this was what her mom had wanted—to punish Summer with boredom.
    And it was working, Summer thought drowsily, as she watched her older sister poke and prod at her Time Machine. Summer still couldn’t believe her sister actually thought she could create a machine that could go forward and back in time. The idea was ludicrous. But Autumn hadn’t listened to Summer’s scoffs and was still “adding the finishing touches” to a huge chunk of metal with lots of stray wires poking out of it and enough buttons and switches to last any playful toddler a year.
    All around Summer were the books she had been reading to stop boredom from killing her—Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Wrinkle in Time. But then Summer’s and Autumn’s mother had stomped into the room and said that Summer was not allowed to read until her punishment time was over.
    It’s not fair that she should punish me, Summer thought darkly, Mom bought those fabrics and buttons and feathers to create stuffed animals that she could sell right? She never said I couldn’t use them! And the vest I made really is lovely!
    She looked down at the vest that she’d laid on her lap. It was purple-and-turquoise-and-blue plaid, with black buttons, and a yellow and red bow polka-dotted tie to go along with it.
    Still bored, Summer fingered her necklace. It was a simple blue ribbon with a beautiful skeleton key tied on to it, made out of Summer’s old hair ribbon and a skeleton key she’d found on the ground one day.
    BOOM!
    ZAP!
    POOF!
    CRINKLE!
    Summer’s head snapped up just in time to see a red and a blue wire from the machine touch, sending huge sparks…
    …that hit more of the machine’s wires…
    …and one of them blew up, causing tons of other things to light on fire! Large clouds of pink gas were hissing out of the machine, making Autumn and Summer cough.
    Crud, what did Autumn do NOW?, Summer thought irritably, as the pink gas slowly pulled her brain into unconsciousness…

    Chapter Two

    Summer woke up on a grassy hill. She pulled herself up to see that the hill was hot pink with dollhouse pink stripes. How odd.
    Summer realized she was holding her hand-made vest, and she pulled her hands through the arm holes, finding comfort from wearing it.
    Where am I? Summer wondered. She looked around, and saw stripy rolling hills, patches of twenty-foot-tall grass, small cottages and large mansions, and basically anything you can think of that could come from a fairy tale or the mind of a really random writer. And far off was a huge factory with smoke puffing out of silver smoke stacks in great colorful bursts. The rest of the building was silver with pastel-colored stripes.
    “I bet there’s someone there who can point me back home,” Summer said out loud. She remembered a month in fifth grade when her English class read Hatchet, and the teacher had made them write an entire essay on how to survive in the wilderness.
    Smiling, Summer began to recite the “Rules of Those Unfortunate Enough to Have to Know How to Survive, For They Are Lost in The Middle of Nowhere”, which was what she had titled her composition
    “Step One: Always, always, gather materials first. You may need anything and everything you find, and it may not be there tomorrow! Gather foods like berries and fruits, and bring together all the things you have with you, to see if they may be useful—“ She stopped.
    “Now,” she said crossly, “If that was the first thing on the list of the essay I wrote, why didn’t I remember to do it?”
    She stripped off her vest and all her accessories until all she was wearing was jeans, her frosty blue flip-flops and a matching blue cami. She dropped her things into a small pile on the floor, which was made up of a small notebook for ideas and notes, a stubby pencil, her vest, the key necklace and a few dust bunnies.
    “Hmmm…” Summer murmured, “I can take notes on what’s going on with the notebook and pencil and I can wear the vest and the necklace, but I’m not sure what to do with the rest of these dust bunnies…” She shrugged unconcernedly, pulled on the vest and necklace, then stuffed the rest of her things back into her jeans pockets.

    Chapter Three

    She walked toward the factory for a while, but was distracted by a large tree surrounded by a green puddle. She walked up to it, curious. The tree was ordinary looking at first, but as Summer watched, one of the leaves dripped what Summer thought was a huge drop of green water, until it transformed into a spiky ball. From there, it fell onto the ground, rolled over to the puddle and sucked in some water, making the ball swell. Then it rolled to a patch of dirt and tunneled downward. Summer watched in amazement.
    “I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore!” she exclaimed. Summer whipped out her notebook and pencil and sketched a picture of the tree and its spiky ball inhabitant.
    Then Summer turned around and again headed toward the factory.
    The path to the factory was direct, but had many obstacles. The first one was a large field of grass more than twice as tall as Summer. She couldn’t go around it, two rivers met at its sides, so she had to go through it.
    “Geez, the lawnmower would probably break if we had to cut this kind of grass!” Summer muttered as she trudged between the thick blades.
    She stopped when she heard a splashing up ahead, then quickened her pace. The splashing noise got louder.
    Water, I’ll bet, Summer thought, Maybe a pond? I’m parched!
    There was a sudden opening in the grass, and Summer skidded to a stop just in time—if she had kept running, she would have fallen into the deep-looking pond that lay before her.
    “I was right!” Summer grinned. She knelt down and slurped up some water. It tasted like pink lemonade. She drank some more. Then she looked down, into the deep, clear, pond, and saw herself reflected in the water.
    She smiled, and her reflection smiled. But then Summer noticed something, something different…
    The reflection was not identical. It had Summer’s strawberry blond hair, forest green eyes and freckles, had her necklace and jacket and clothing, but there was something else. The reflection’s skin was a pale green, too pale to be noticed at first, and her hands and feet were webbed.
    Summer frowned. If that wasn’t her reflection, what was it?
    Her question was answered too quickly. The reflection pushed itself out of the water so the light hit her head and shoulders, making them sparkle slightly.
    “Hi!” the thing bubbled, “You’re different from everyone else here. It was fun being you. And I like your clothes!”
    Summer’s mouth dropped open. She floundered for a moment, then composed her face and said, “Thank you, I guess. Sorry if this is rude, but what are you?”
    The thing giggled a hiccup-y giggle and replied, “I’m a pond-mocker! I sit in ponds and imitate people I see! And of course, I keep all the things I replicate—like stuff they’re wearing.. That’s why it was fun seeing you. You have so many strange, unique things that when I transformed, I replicated and obtained all your things! I sell almost everything I get, but I don’t make much money because usually, I can only imitate common people and therefore only get common things. But your things are quite lovely.”
    Summer was a bit surprised still, but she said shyly, “Do you mind if I take notes on you?”
    “Not at all. Go ahead!”
    So Summer took out her notebook and pencil and scribbled down most of what pond-mocker had said. Then she drew a wobbly picture of it.
    Suddenly Summer remembered her quest.
    “I have to go, but it was nice meeting you!” She called to the pond-mocker as she scurried past the pond and back into the grass.
    Summer didn’t know why she was running. The pond-mocker wasn’t scary at all. But she felt like the farther away she was to something she had no control over or understanding of, the better she would be.
    “That certainly was weird.” Summer said aloud.

    Chapter Four

    Summer slowed and looked around. She was still in the grass, but it seemed to be darker. Wisps of fog surrounded her.
    Hmm, Summer thought, this place just went from wacky to spooky.
    Summer tip-toed forward cautiously, scared something dark might leap out at her at any moment.
    Then she looked down and squeaked in surprise and fear.
    A bottomless looking pit lay before her. Fog floated up from it. It was dark blue and very cold. Summer shivered. If she had taken one more step, she’d have been history.
    She edged away from the pit. Just then, a roar sounded behind her. Summer whipped around and saw the blades of grass tremble and shake. Another roar.
    “What—what’s that noise?” Summer gasped, terrified.
    Her question was answered before she could really decide whether she wanted it to be.
    Out of the grass tumbled the most fearsome creature Summer had ever dreamed of. Its body was like a lion’s, but with four heads—one snake, one wolf, one shark, one lion—sprouting from its neck. Its tail was long and scaly with a spiky ball at the end.
    The snake head hissed menacingly. The wolf head growled and bared its long, sharp fangs. The shark head snapped at the air, beady eyes locked on Summer. She could see every one of the shark’s razor-sharp teeth. She guessed there were millions. Enough to tear her to shreds. The lion’s head roared again, and the thing crept toward Summer.
    Summer screamed. The thing was going to eat her! She tripped backward…
    …and fell into the bottomless pit.

    Chapter Five

    Summer stopped being scared of hitting the ground after falling for an hour. After another hour, she stopped being curious about what was at the bottom. A while later, she stopped being confused about how this pit could really be endless, and started just being bored.
    Next time Mom wants to punish me with boredom, Summer thought dryly, he should just throw me down into this pit!
    After two and a half hours had passed, Summer found the bottom.
    She landed in a gigantic metal soup bowl filled with feathers with a soft FOOF. For a while Summer just sat there, having mixed feelings.
    I’m pretty happy to be alive, she thought, and also very curious as to where I am. And grateful someone put these feathers here. And scared of seeing something scary down here. And relieved to have finally landed. And, come to think, very annoyed that I’m too chicken to get out of this pot!
    It took some pestering, and whining, and threatening, but finally Summer convinced herself to have a look around.
    She crawled out of the pot and gazed at her surroundings. It looked just like the underground should. Blue-grey rocks were clustered everywhere. Craggy stalagmites met even craggier stalactites. The only thing besides the pot that gave any sign of anything living down here was a path worn into the ground. Without really thinking, Summer followed it.
    For a long time, all it did was twist and turn in different directions. Summer wondered if anything lived down here at all.
    She had just met her sixth dead end when a sound cracked through the air.
    Summer froze.
    The sound came again, like the splintering of ice. CRACK!
    It seemed to be coming from right in front of her. Summer, curious and hopeful, pushed on the cave wall.
    Immediately the wall creaked opened like a door. A rather rusty, unused door in need of a new paint job, but still a door.
    I wonder if all the dead ends I’ve met have all actually been doors? Summer wondered.
    She stepped through the door. Exactly opposite of her was a wall of sparkling ice. It looked like it never ended going up. Summer guessed it was another way out.
    Her attention was pulled from the ice very quickly. Climbing up the wall using pick were two toddlers in thick parkas lined with fluffy white fur. One of the parkas was pink and one was dark blue.
    Summer stared at them and then said timidly, “Hi?”
    The ice climbers’ reaction was not what Summer expected. They immediately dissolved into fits of giggles and tumbled off the ice.
    Summer dashed over to them.
    “Are you okay?” she asked, concerned, “I didn’t mean to…um…make you giggle so hard.” The thought that she was apologizing for making someone laugh was mildy amusing and Summer found herself smiling a little.
    The toddlers pushed themselves up, totally synchronized, and stopped giggling like maniacs.
    The dark blue one was a boy and the other was a girl. They both had huge brown eyes and freckles. They were short, though their parkas made them a little taller. Both had fair skin.
    They were the very pictures of innocence. Summer instinctively trusted them, felt allied with them.
    “You’re funny!” the girl squeaked.
    “Will you be our friend?” the boy asked eagerly.
    Summer answered warmly. “Sure, but first I’ll need to know who you are.”
    “We’re ice climbers!” They squealed, “We climb the ice and try to reach the top!”
    “Have you ever gotten to the top?”
    “Once. But it was boring and hot. So we came back down.”
    “What are your names?”
    The ice climbers glanced at each other. “If we tell you, will you do something for us?”
    Summer wondered why they acted as if their names were valuable.
    “Sure.” She said.
    The ice climbers squeaked, “But you have to promise not to tell the King. If he knows our names, he can put us in jail.” Before Summer could ask if they could explain that, the boy said, “I’m Plushy Teddy Bear Buttons Furry Soft Paws.”
    The girl squeaked, “And I’m Halo Angel Wings Feather Fly Cloud Sun Bright.”
    “Um,” Summer said, “Why don’t I call you Teddy and Angel? I don’t think I can remember all that. I’m Summer by the way.”
    Teddy and Angel promptly broke down into giggles. Summer wondered if it was her name or their new nicknames that had made them laugh.
    Then Summer heard another sound through Teddy and Angel’s chortles. A pattering of feet, coming faintly from behind her. Summer turned and gazed suspiciously down the path that led to darkness. The pattering got louder, closer.
    Angel and Teddy stopped laughing. Their eyes widened fearfully and they slid slightly to the side, behind Summer. She didn’t make a noise. Everything was quiet except for the sound of someone walking at a brisk pace.
    “How did they find us?” Angel whispered. She and Teddy gripped each other like lifelines.
    Suddenly a man appeared out of the gloom. At least, Summer supposed he was a man. He was wearing such a long black cloak that Summer couldn’t see any part of him.
    He stopped a few feet in front of Summer. “How dare you!” he hissed.
    “W-Who are you?” Summer stammered.
    The man hissed, “It does not matter!” then barked, “GUARDS!”
    Barely a second passed, then three huge, muscular men clad in black pants, black long-sleeved shirts and black ski masks emerged from the dark. Their eyes, the only things Summer could see through the masks, narrowed into slits.
    Teddy gasped and Angel whimpered. Summer slowly stepped backward and spread her arms out to protect the toddlers. She guessed these men were not friends.
    Summer opened her mouth to say something, maybe “We come in peace!” but before she could, all three men lunged at them.
    Summer didn’t even have time to get in one good punch before one of the guards had clamped his hands around hers and began dragging her toward the path that she’d come from. Summer, with a sudden rush of adrenaline that was probably powered by terror, bent and bit down hard on the man’s hand.
    He roared and let go of Summer’s hands. She bit harder, trying to ignore the horrible taste. The guard holding Angel threw the girl at the last guard, who caught her deftly, and rushed to help his companion. The cloaked man watched this all calmly.
    The guard Summer had bitten grabbed a stalactite hanging from the ceiling while the other man wrenched Summer away from the other guard so quickly that she cried out. Then he pulled a thick rope out of his pocket and tied Summer to the stalactite. She struggled for a second, then went limp.
    Summer, Teddy and Angel didn’t resist as the guards dragged them down the path to their doom.

    Chapter Six

    Summer closed her eyes once they started along the path. She was afraid that if she opened them, she would start crying.
    Suddenly she heard a booming voice say, “What is this?”
    Summer’s eyes flew open. They were in a room—a throne room, Summer supposed. After all, right in front of them were two huge, black thrones. In one of them, the bigger one, a man at least twice the size of the guards sat, wearing a long black cloak lined with white fur. On his head shimmered a jet black crown encrusted with blue diamonds. He was obviously a king.
    One the other one, a slim woman sat delicately. Her hair was made up of long, thin black braids. Her face was pale, and her eyes were marred by blue circles, as if she hadn’t been sleeping enough. Her black dress was skin tight down to the waist, and from there it flowed around the woman’s legs like a dark river. On her head, a silver tiara glimmered. She was the queen. Sadness shone in her eyes as she gazed at Summer, Teddy and Angel.
    “These,” rasped the cloaked man that had found Summer, Teddy and Angel, “are the ice climbers we’ve been looking for. The ones that GIGGLE.” The king’s eyes narrowed. “And the girl we found with them. Look at how she is dressed!” The king’s eyes were so narrowed that they looked like someone had carved slits into his face where eyes should have been.
    “Throw them in the dungeon for wearing inappropriate colors and showing signs of pleasure!” he snarled. The queen winced and looked away.
    Summer gasped. She couldn’t stay in a dungeon! She had to get back home! And who knew how long they would keep her there?
    Summer decided that she should speak up. “Um...sir? Your highness?”
    The king’s eyes snapped to Summer’s face. She continued meekly, “I’m not sure what rule I’ve broken—actually, I didn’t know there were any rules at all. I don’t come from around here. I got lost and fell down a hole and ended up in a pot and—and…” she trailed off. The king wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He was fiddling with his crown. But the queen’s eyes were wide and she was staring at Summer openly.
    Before Summer could yell something at the king to get his attention, or ask the queen why she was staring, or maybe even tell her its rude to stare and tell the king it’s even ruder to ignore someone, she was whisked away by the guards.

    The dungeon was dark, cold and wet. It was a small, circular room with water dripping from the ceiling, moss climbing the walls and no windows. Summer sat there and shivered, not knowing if she should try and escape or not. Wondering if anyone was going to feed her. Hoping this wasn’t a life sentence. And worrying for Teddy and Angel, locked away in the cell next to her, probably just as miserable as she was.
    Suddenly the door cracked open. A ray of light shown through like a blessing and warmed Summer. She looked up, startled. Who was there? The guards? The king? The cloaked man?
    None of the above. It was the queen.
    She slipped through the door with an anxious glance behind her. Summer squinted in the light. Then the queen tip-toed over to Summer.
    “Hi,” the queen started awkwardly, ”My name is Messilla.” She took a deep breath, “Will you help me escape from this awful place?” she blurted out.
    Summer blinked. “But you’re the queen! You live here. You’re married? Why do you want to leave?”
    Pain flashed in Messilla’s eyes. “I didn’t always live here. You know the story of Persephone and Hades, right?”
    Summer nodded. “Persephone, a happy and pretty young goddess, was stolen by Hades, a dark and evil god, and taken underground.”
    “That’s pretty much what happened to me,” Messilla whispered.
    “Oh,” Summer breathed, with a sudden rush of pity for the queen. “So how can I help you?”
    Messilla’s wistfulness evaporated, to be replaced by determination. “I want to get OUT of here!” she whispered fiercely.
    Summer thought for a minute.
    “Okay, I’ve got a plan.”


    Chapter Seven

    Summer watched as Messilla walked calmly up to the king. Hiding in the corner, Summer heard Messilla say, “Sweetie, may I ask you something?”
    “What’s that?”
    There was silence for a moment as Messilla climbed onto the king’s lap. She had explained earlier that this was how they talked, because to the king, Messilla was so small that if she weren’t on his lap, he couldn’t hear her.
    “I want to ask the girl and the twins you arrested today something. The girl says she’s not from around here, and by the key on her neck, I’m guessing she’s royalty. The key is probably to her palace, or perhaps her treasure chamber. And the twins have been hidden for so long…they must be using magic. Magic that we could use for ourselves.”
    This was Summer’s cue. She scrambled up the wall—it was made of uneven bricks, and was very easy to climb—and hid on the ceiling. There was always a chance the king would want to talk to Summer and the twins himself and would come out, so Summer needed to be hidden. Unfortunately, from her hiding place, Summer couldn’t hear anything. But in five minutes, Messilla walked around the corner gripping one golden key.

    “Teddy! Angel!” Summer whispered into their cell. Two heads covered by furry parkas shot up. Teddy and Angel ran toward the door where Summer was standing and hugged her legs wordlessly. Summer would have loved to duck down and comfort them, but it was a time of action. She scooped them up and threw Teddy at Messilla. Now both Messilla and Summer had a twin in their arms. They both ran toward where Summer knew the path was. While they were running, Summer explained the situation. Angel and Teddy both agreed to help, with a few quiet giggles.
    It didn’t take long to reach the ice. Summer set down Angel. Messilla did the same with Teddy.
    “Okay,” Summer said to them, “I need you guys to climb to the top of the ice, and tie this rope—“ she handed them a thick rope—“to anything sturdy. We’ll climb up.”
    Teddy and Angel nodded, looking determined, then flung themselves at the ice and began to climb.
    Summer and Messilla patiently waited through the twenty minutes that it took for Teddy and Angel to get to the top. But when Teddy threw down the rope, they got excited and both grabbed at it. Neither of them cared how uncomfortable it was for both of them to try and climb the rope at the same time. They were too close to freedom.
    At the top of the ice, Summer grabbed the ground with both hands and pulled herself up. Then she reached down and helped Messilla up. No one said anything. They just sat there, sprawled on the grass, and enjoyed the sweet taste of freedom.

    Chapter Eight

    Summer left Teddy, Angel and Messilla with a cheerful wave. She was free from the horrible underground world. The sun was beautiful. The grass was green. Life was good. Summer picked up the pace and began to run, enjoying stretching her legs.
    Summer slowed to a walk and looked around her. She was no longer in the grass, but was walking through a field of cotton—giant cotton!
    “Is everything here the wrong size?” Summer wondered, exasperated. The cotton was at least as tall as the grass had been.
    She had been staring at the cotton and had forgotten that she was walking until she bumped into an enormous acorn.
    “Oh!” Summer waved her arms frantically to stop from falling.
    A squeaky voice came from inside the acorn. “That was a rather loud knock! You should have used the doorbell. And you missed the door, anyway. Come in, come in!”
    Summer, quite flummoxed, called, “I can’t see a door!”
    The voice chuckled, “It’s up above! Most people miss it, I don’t see why.”
    Summer knew why. She hadn’t thought to enter through the top of the acorn, and she supposed no one else had, either.
    As Summer scrambled up the acorn, she said loudly, “Most people don’t enter houses from the roof! Why is your door up here?”
    As she reached the top of the acorn the voice said, “Why, that’s where the doorbell is, of course! And doorbells must always be by doors.”
    Summer looked around and then said confusedly, “But there’s no doorbell here!”
    The voice floated through the acorn. “Ah, so that’s why you haven’t rung it yet!”
    Summer was still for a minute, trying to figure that out, then dismissed it and lifted the acorn cap.
    All she could see beneath her was a giant cotton ball, probably to cushion the guests’ landings. Summer dropped down and landed with a loud WOOMF into it. She righted herself and looked around.
    Summer wasn’t positive, but it looked as if the inside of the acorn was at least twice the size of the outside. The shelves on the walls were stacked with pots and pans and vases, and all of them were filled with cotton. Other than that, random trinkets and junk were lying around. She also noticed a huge chest in the corner.
    But the most interesting thing in the whole room was the little man sitting in the middle of the floor, smiling widely at her. He looked like a human, but he had insect-like wings on his back and antennae sticking out of his messy orange hair. He was wearing what looked like a shirt and pants made of green and brown leaves. His eyes were covered by gadget-y goggles , and he was wearing a hat that was obviously just a flower turned upside down with half the stem chopped off.
    “Hello, my name is Summer—“ Summer began to introduce herself, but the man interrupted, “I’ll call you Candytuft. What do you need? People only come to me if they need something.”
    “Well, I don’t need anything, but I could use a bag to hold my things. And maybe a camera.”
    “Good, you want two things! Today is a two-for-the-price-of-one sale! I’ll make those right now.-
    He reached up and grabbed a handful of cotton, took out a hammer and whacked the cotton. It made a hollow ringing noise, twitched, and with a banging sound, transformed into a brown duffel bag. Summer pulled out her notebook and wrote this down.
    Just then, Summer realized that the bag also had a price tag on it. It said, ‘ONE PINCH OF COTTON AND A PET RABBIT’.
    “It used to be only one pinch of cotton, but I’ve had to make everything more expensive so I can afford the two-for-one sale.”
    Summer picked a bit of cotton of her Jeans and said, “Here.”
    “Thank you.”
    Summer also remembered the dust bunnies in her pocket, and dug them out.
    “These are dust bunnies,” Summer explained, handing them over to the boy, “They’ll never run away and don’t need any education, food or handling.”
    “Thank you! Here’s your camera.”
    He handed her what looked like a journal with large leaves for pages. She opened it, and there was a flash of light, then a picture of the acorn home appeared in the journal.
    “Oh, it’s lovely! Thank you! I must be going now. Good bye!”
    “Good bye, Candytuft!” He waved cheerfully, then frowned, “Or maybe it’s a Bad bye. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t checked the weather lately.”
    Summer paused, and again tried to unravel the man’s sentence to make it make more sense, then sighed and gave up.

    Chapter Nine

    Summer reached the factory what seemed hours later, but the sky hadn’t darkened one shade. She raised her hand and knocked, causing a loud MOOOOOO sound.
    A queer man opened the door. He was wearing a stripy yellow and red suit, with a polka-dot yellow and red bow tie, pants with red and yellow squares, and a red and yellow squiggly vest.
    “Tourist!” he boomed, “Welcome!” He yanked Summer inside. She was too surprised to resist.
    “My name is Regalius! I’m the owner of the Factory of Pompernickle!”
    “Pompernickle?”
    “Yes, my dear, Pompernickle!”
    Summer was quite sure she had never heard that word before.
    “This is the Bunny Hall!” Regalius boomed, “Through this door, here, Dribble Bunnies are made!” He pointed to a tall white door with black polka dots.
    Beneath Summer’s surprise, a spark of curiosity flared. What were Dribble Bunnies?
    “May I see them?” Summer asked earnestly. Regalius beamed and shoved Summer through the door.
    A huge tank of what Summer thought was goo was dripping little blobs onto a conveyer belt beneath it. The beige blobs wiggled and jiggled until they formed into bunny-like puddles. They had no noticeable paws, just two ears, two eyes, a round tail, an extremely tiny nose and a little bunny mouth. They rode the conveyer belt for a while, then dropped off it onto another conveyer belt, which led to a metal box. When the beige bunnies entered the box, it flashed like a camera. When they came out, they were no longer beige. Some came out brown, blue, green, and white, some were rainbow, some had zebra stripes and some had speckles along their backs.
    “Aren’t they marvelous?”
    Summer jumped a little at the sound of Regalius’s voice. She had been very absorbed in following a particular two blob-bunny things—they ended up being mouse brown and purple with large white splotches—and hadn’t really been focusing on her tour guide.
    “Yes,” she agreed quickly, “They’re really cute!”
    Regalius’s smile stretched across his face. Then he frowned and checked his watch.
    “Not much time, too much to see! Move, move, move!”
    Again, Summer was shoved out the door and into another.
    “This is where we farm Spud Bunnies!” Regalius pointed to the ground.
    As far as Summer could tell, they had stepped out of the factory and onto a farm. The dirt on the ground was squishy and dark. Every foot or so, two green leaves sprouted out of the ground.
    Summer had no idea how this was related to bunnies until one pair of leaves began to tremble. The ground around it trembled, too, and suddenly a spud erupted from the ground.
    Well, it’s not really a spud, Summer thought, It’s a Spud Bunny!
    She was absolutely correct. The spud had tiny eyes and a quivering nose, like that of a bunny. It had no legs or arms and no mouth, but it did have a fluffy bunny’s tail.
    The leaves are its ears! Summer realized.
    She bent down to touch the spud, but was dragged out of the room by Regalius before she could.
    “Last is Blob Bunnies!” He boomed, and flung open a lime green door.
    Inside was giant vat of lime green goo. Girls and boys Summer’s age scooped out goo with their hands and molded it into a bunny shape; they each had different styles and every bunny came out a little bit different. From there the bunnies hopped away and jumped down a hole in the middle of the room.
    “Where do they go?” Summer asked curiously.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Regalius said airily, “To their destinations, most likely!”
    Summer thought that was a little obvious. “And where are their destinations?”
    “Depends on the location!”
    Summer thought that through a minute, opened her mouth, and closed it again.
    If I ask him where their location’s are, she thought, he’ll probably tell me it depends on they’re destinations. So I won’t ask.
    Regalius brought Summer on tour of the Food Hall next, which had two doors. One of them was the home to Sugar Gliders, which were sugar shakers with wings. Another contained the Utensil Nursery, where forks and spoons hurried around to take care of their young, which were wailing in their cribs. Regalius explained, “When a fork mates with a fork, they get a fork. When a spoon mates with a spoon, they get a spoon. When a fork mates with a spoon, they get—“
    “A spork!” Summer interrupted.
    Next was the Flying Hall, which had only one door. It lead to a enormous room full of every species Summer could think of—foxes, squirrels, monkeys, penguins—and each had a set of cartoony, feathery wings. Summer gaped for a minute, but then Regalius hurried her out again and along to the Doll Hall.
    The Doll Hall had no door, just endless rows of shelves and an equally endless number of dolls. At the very beginning of the hall was a small machine that reminded Summer vaguely of the one her sister had been making. It spit out millions of dolls a minute, then inhaled all of the ones that weren’t perfect, missing an eye, or with three hands. It left only one or two perfect specimens were left. Regalius placed these on the shelf.
    The machine was puffing out all kinds of blue smoke. It was making Summer throat itch. She coughed and coughed, and before long, smoke filled the entire room.
    “I hope the machine stops soon!” Summer gasped, her eyes watering, only to see…nothing. Where was Regalius?
    “Regalius!” she rasped, “Turn the machine off!”
    She still couldn’t see him. All she could see was blue.

    Chapter Ten

    “Summer! Wake up!”
    Summer squinted blearily. What she saw made her eyes fly open.
    “Sis!” she gasped, “How did you get here?”
    Her sister looked confused, “What?”
    “The machine! It brought me to…to…How are you here??”
    Her sister’s face looked completely flummoxed. “Summer, we’ve been here for the last hour. The machine malfunctioned, remember? The smoke knocked you out. You’ve been asleep for quite a while.”
    Summer blinked drowsily. It didn’t make sense. She remembered being in a weird land, talking to her reflection, entering a giant acorn through the top, touring a factory… Summer’s mind was too tired to be able to put the pieces together.
    “It’s too bad,” she murmured, “I was really starting to like that place…I still don’t understand it, though…”
    And her befuddled sister was left to ponder that in silence and Summer fell asleep, back into dreams that showed her pictures of an strange tree surrounded by a puddle, a field of cotton and bunnies that looked oddly like potatoes.