"Not good," said Kitty.

A FROG SQUIRRELED TWICE AND BACKED UP.

"What's not good?" asked Cedar. "What's wrong now?"

"Nothing, surely. Right? Keep the hutling moving," Lizzie said, but worry striPED ALONG THE RIVER.

"Narrator?" said Maddie. "You're just teasing us with the jibber and jabber, right?"

It was clear that something was indeed GALUMPHING, but with a certain SPECIFIC SOCK, THERE WOULD BE A DOG.

"The narration has gone wonky," Maddie saNDWICHED. "Maybe the Jabberwock's magic affects everyone-even our Narrator!"

Um, Narrator? Narrator, are you okay?

Please don't interrupt, Maddie. Everything is happening so rapidly I need complete concentration to observe and describe the FIDDLE-PIE-MY, OH THERE SHE GOES, WEEEE!

The, uh, the fiddle-pie-my? Narrator, do you speak Riddlish? Hat-tastic! But I couldn't quite translate it. What was that second part again?

I'm not speaking Riddlish. What I'm trying to say is this is a situation of UTMOST ROAST BEEF, and if I don't CACKLE TACKLE FINGER IN MY EYE, KNOCKS AT THE DOOR, A CHICKEN IN DISGUISE?

While the idea of "utmost roast beef" seems perfectly lovely, and I am hextremely fond of the odd thing, the oddness in your speaking is making me a little nervous.

Oh dear. Maddie, something is wrong with me. I can hear it now. I'm trying to tell the story, but HUMPTY LUMPTY OATMEAL WITH RAISINS! Oh no! I'm SPICY b.u.t.tERED NOODLES! I'm LOBSTER SAUCE!

No! Narrator, the magic just can't change you, too! If you can't tell the story, then it stops right here, skipping over the climax and resolution straight to The End, and Raven's still a raven and Apple's still an apple and Ever After High is jabberwocked forever after with no hope of undoing the doneness! Please, Narrator, you have to keep narrating! Please!

SPINACH BETWEEN MY TOES!.

Narrator?

SAND IN THE SANDWICH, MY, WHAT A CRUNCHY LUNCH!.

Okay. It's going to be okay. I am the daughter of the Mad Hatter. I must put on my thinking cap and figure this out. Let's see, I'm sure I have a thinking cap in my Hat of Many Things... ah-ha! Here it is, hiding under Apple-apple. Well, the cap fits a little snug, but it'll do. So think. No matter what, the story must go on. I read that in the Narration hextbook I borrowed from the library. And in order for a story to go on, it must have a Narrator. So if our Narrator is unable to fulfill the narration duties, we simply find an alternate Narrator. Someone who is untouched by the mystery-making magic. Which would mean a Wonderlandian. Perhaps someone who understands the basics of narration because she has been eavesdropping on Narrators her whole life. But... who could that be?

SQUIGGLE THE TIMES!.

I don't know what you're saying! You're not speaking Riddlish, and you're not speaking a riddle. Help me, Narrator, please! Who can narrate us through this story?

A DANCE OF SPOONS, STIRRING CLOUDS OF MILK.

I wish I could figure out what you're saying. But with this tiny thinking cap on, all I can think about is the tightness around my brow. And that makes me think of my own head. And that makes me think of me. Me. Me?

Yes, already! You! There's no one else!

Really, Kitty? You think I should narrate the story? That seems like a hero's job, something Raven or Apple would do to save the day. But I'm a Hatter. I have read about different types of characters in a narration book, and I'm clearly the quirky best friend or the comic relief. I'm the helper, not the doer. I'm definitely not the hero!

CINDERS AND ELEPHANT PIE. CINDERS AND ELEPHANT PIE!.

Okay. Okay. I'm the Narrator.

MADDIE? WHAT THE TIMBERSTICKS IS going on?"

"Uncertain how to proceed, Madeline Hatter began to speak, she said."

"Um, Maddie, what are you talking about?"

"All the girls were staring at her like Madeline had just eaten an entire gooseberry pie with her nose, she said."

"Did Maddie get hit on the head?"

"I don't think so, but I am always willing to give head-bonking a try. Fetch me a flamingo!"

"Maddie shook her head to clear cobwebs and tried to figure out this narration thing without talking, um, she said.... I mean, Maddie said. Wait. Am I supposed to say that out loud?"

"I'm confused."

"You aren't the only one, Cedar Scratchingpost."

"Oh dear, I'm really making a mess of this," said Maddie.

"Wait!" said Kitty. "Do that. You narrated asaid Maddie' instead of saying it aloud. That was more like how the Narrator does it."

"This is truly troubling," Cedar said, looking around nervously.

"That, too!" Kitty said, getting unusually excited. "Exactly! You noticed that I'm unusually excited, and you narrated that information. Wait... how did you do that? I can't normally hear your thoughts."

"I'm trying out something new," Maddie said. "I'm not just thinking about what's going on-I'm narrating it. It's different from talking and different from normal thinking. It's thinking out loud."

"But how?" said Kitty. "That's amazing, I wonder if-no, I don't wonder anything. I am Kitty Cheshire and I do not get involved. What's the matter with me? Shutting up now-cat's got my tongue and all that."

"What in the blighted name of bunnies is going on?" Lizzie shouted. "Tell me at once!"

"The Narrator is sick," Maddie said.

"Sick?" Lizzie bellowed. "How can a bodiless thing one barely believes exists be sick? And why do I apparently care?"

"The Jabberwock's magic is transforming our Narrator, too," Maddie said.

"Without a Narrator, the story would end," Cedar said, her eyebrows up high as if trying to make room for all the thoughts filling her head. "We would stay here, trapped inside a school that is all hexed up, being hunted by furniture, Raven and Apple and Cerise and all our friends transformed. Forever after."

The red-haired wolf cub nuzzled Cedar's ankle.

"She's keeping the story going," Kitty said, nodding at me. Er, nodding at Maddie. "She's trying to take over for the Narrator."

"Well," Lizzie said, "today is indeed a day of absurdicy and idiot.i.ty. But it is only right that the post be taken over by someone from our n.o.ble homeland. Carry on, Maddie. I will allow it."

"Okay, first priority, we need to figure out what to do now," said Cedar. "What do you think, Lizzie? Should we try to find a way out of the school, or would that damage the magical barrier that's keeping the Jabberwock in? Should we just keep hiding inside the hutling till the faculty gets rid of the Jabberwock?"

At the mention of the Jabberwock, Kitty's face went big-eyed and wince-y.

"Kitty Cheshire," Lizzie said all loud and grand-like, "disappear your way out of the school, beyond the magic barrier, and find Headmaster Grimm."

Kitty's nose went wrinkle-winkly, and she opened her mouth as if she would hiss. But instead, she shrugged and disappeared as Lizzie had suggested. Or ordered. Or something.

Kitty reappeared again a minute later, her Cheshire grin still grinning but not in a happy-making way. Now she did hiss.

"I can't. I'm trapped by the barrier, too. I do not like being trapped."

"Maddie, what do you think?" asked Cedar.

But Maddie had a hard time thinking about the problem and the solving. Maddie was too busy fretting, and fretting was a thing Maddie was not very good at, having had very little practice.

HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY PUDDING OF RYE, KISS THE BOOK AND NEVER CRY.

"Oh!" Maddie said aloud. "I think the not-me-Narrator is trying to give us a clue."

Maddie repeated the higgledy-and-cry bit. Kitty and Lizzie both nodded as if she'd just said something very un-boring, but Cedar rubbed her new, real eyes and shook her new, real head, worried that these Wonderlandians were as touched by the muddling magic as Daring-beastie and Raven-raven.

Wait, how do I... that is, how did Maddie know what Cedar was thinking and feeling? Maddie never had before, not unless she overheard the Narrator gabbing about it.

KISS THE BOOK.

Maddie had a library book in her backpack. She pulled it out: A Narrative History of the Grand Craft of Narration, by Narrators Anonymous. She scanned the first chapter, "Narration Basics."

"We'll just sit here while you read a book, then," Lizzie said.

"According to the book," said Maddie, "Narrators have splendid, magicky insight into characters' thoughts and motivations. This insight usually only comes after years of training, but some Narrators have so much desire to storytell, their skills come more quickly. Tea-riffic! Ooh, and did you know that the Narration Board writes down all of Ever After's narrated stories? The Narration Board prints them and sends them to libraries and bookstores. Real people far, far away might actually read what I narrate here! So hexciting!"

"What people?" asked Cedar. "How?"

"I don't know, but our conversation is probably being written down right now. And in fact, in the slippy-slinky way of time, somewhere in the Lands and Otherlands, someone could be reading it at this very moment."

Maddie leaned forward, squinting, and for the barest second, the world of cottages and castles and forests and magic parted, and she spied, far, far away and yet as close as her nose, someone holding the story she was narrating. A reader. (That's you.) Maddie winked. (Go ahead and wink back.) Maddie caught her breath. The story she was helping to tell had the power to connect characters and readers. This narration thing was as delightful as a bag of goldyfish!

Seemingly by its own power, the narration book flipped to another page near the back.

"Oh, to become a real Narrator-even just a temporary one-I'm supposed to take the Narrator's Oath. Okey-dokey, here I go." Maddie read aloud the oath. " aI, your name here, hereby take-' "

"I don't think you actually say ayour name here,' " said Cedar. "You probably say your actual name."

"Oh! Well, that doesn't make much sense, but all right. aI, Madeline Hatter, hereby take the sacred Oath of Narration. I swear to: only speak the truth; follow the story wherever it may lead; observe all that happens but report only the most important and interesting parts; honor the characters in both their greatness and their mistakes; serve only the story and the reader and no other, be it king or queen or baker or candlestick maker; and never, ever, ever, ever, ever interfere with the story. Ever.

" aIf I so do my best, may this story be recorded and printed and zipped and zapped into hands and eyes and ears and minds and hearts everywhere, and may it no longer be my story but belong to each reader who drinks it in, to make them bigger or smaller as needed; to fill in those tiny holes and smooth over the rough places; to make them sigh and laugh and dream and wonder; to pa.s.s a lonely afternoon or enliven a dull evening; to in every regard do just what a story is supposed to do, which is become whatever each reader needs most at that moment. And for this n.o.ble mission I pledge my skills and shortcomings, my talents and my weaknesses, until The End.' "

Maddie exhaled. Everything was so quiet you could hear the cottage breathing.

"Did the oath work?" Cedar asked. "Are you officially our Narrator? Can the story go on?"

"I think so," said Maddie. "I feel less worried, but we won't know if it worked till the story is over."

And in the meantime, I'll keep narrating the story! Oh wait, a Narrator isn't supposed to say "I." That rule was in Chapter One. But in my experience, they do sometimes say ahem.

So, ahem. The girls sat in the walking cottage and argued about what to do next.

"It doesn't seem fair," said Cedar, as the Raven-raven alighted on her head. "Some got so changed they can't speak anymore while I got what I've always wanted."

"I suspect the Blue-Haired Fairy laid deep magic on you, Cedar," said Maddie. "Maybe you were preprogrammed to change into a real girl, and so when the Jabberwock magic touched you, instead of turning into a plank of cedarwood or something, it triggered your change magic. You became real."

"Maddie, you are really smart."

"Am I? I wonder if that's new, or if I've always been smart."

"You've always been smart, Maddie," Lizzie said idly as she peered out the window. She seemed to realize she'd spoken that aloud, cleared her throat, and proclaimed, "But I, too, am quite bright! Exceptionally so! More than most!"

"If the Jabberwock is turning Ever After into Wonderland, why aren't you guys excited?" asked Cedar.

"That isn't Wonderland." Kitty pointed out the window, where giant pumpkins with wheels were ramming into each other. "You said it, Cedar. It's out of order. All messed up."

Outside the window, one of the pumpkins cracked apart with the impact, spilling seeds onto the ground, which were then gobbled up by a crazed legion of red paper envelopes.

"It's not Wonderlandish at all," Lizzie said. She paused, afraid to admit there was something wrong that she couldn't just rule into submission. But sad truth pressed up into her throat, and she let the words out. "Ever After cannot be transformed into Wonderland, not even by magic. The Jabberwock tries, but it comes out wrong, a hybrid of two places, being neither. A monster making monsters."

"Its magic is tearing things from the names they were and turning everything mad," said Maddie.

Cedar looked confuse-boggled, but Maddie's mind was Narrator-sharp, and so she tried to explain.

"Madness is life, but the unpredictable parts of life. See, a person is alive and so might do anything. A chair is not, so you know what it's going to do: just sit there." Maddie pointed to one of the school chairs outside, barking at the hutling. "Now that that chair is alive, it's no longer predictable. It might do anything, just like a person. The school and everything in it are turning mad. Nothing does what you expect. It's all unpredictable. It's all mad."

"But not the right sort of madness," said Kitty.

Lizzie pressed her fingers against the windowpane. "In Wonderland, a chair knows it is a chair. But things touched by the Jabberwock madness no longer know what they are. It's royally disappointing, like being promised hot tea and getting swamp juice in your teacup."

"Ooh, nice simile, Lizzie," said Maddie.

"The Jabberwock's magic is forcing things to be what they are not," said Cedar. "That is the wrong kind of madness." And so is this whole Royal and Rebel dilemma, Cedar thought.

The Raven-raven hopped onto Cedar's knee, and she petted the bird's wings, so black they glimmered with a sheen of purple. Headmaster Grimm's trying to force Raven to be evil was like the Jabberwock's forcing chairs to walk around and roar. Perhaps Royals were the people who would do the things they were supposed to do in their stories anyway. But Rebels wouldn't naturally do what their destinies tried to force them to do. And forced destinies could wreak as much havoc as a Jabberwock.

It was suddenly so clear to Cedar! She decided she should explain her insight to Headmaster Grimm. If she ever saw him again.

The chair herd had grown larger. They began clacking folding seats, stomping steel-tipped legs, and flinging one another at the hutling's door. The hutling baaaaked and braaaaked and darted about. The room swayed.

"This much madness is dangerous," said Cedar, sliding into a wall.

"I wonder if Alice felt like we do now when she fell down the rabbit hole," said Lizzie.

Kitty began quoting a well-known Wonderland poem: