The Story Of Phyrra by Sophia Oliveira (the lemonade war series TXT) 📖

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Prologue
“Alice is a straightforward girl with a mind of her own, and opinions she does not fear to voice,” said her mother Clara. “I was hoping that you could whip her into shape before she gets any wilder than she already is.” Alice was, as her mother described, a straightforward girl with a mind of her own. She had been into a great amount of trouble and mischief lately, so her mother had brought her to a finishing school in London. There was only one minor problem, Alice was but three years old. At three years of age, one would think that this was perfectly normal behavior, but Alice, Alice was a child prodigy, and at her level of intelligence, this sort of behavior was beyond her.
Alice, on the other hand, did not understand why she was brought to a finishing school. She had only tried to bring a few animals and bugs into the house, but what she thought was even stranger was that she could not remember anything before those few incidents. Not a single thing at all. But after her mother had found the squirrel, she packed Alice’s bags immediately and brought her to London’s best finishing school.
Chapter 1
Ten Years Later…
“Alice, do make sure you untangle those knots!”
“All right Miranda!” shouted Alice. Miranda was the new owner of the finishing school where she had been sent as a little girl, and now, she worked there also. When she had finished her classes two years ago, her mother didn’t show. Alice waited, and waited, and waited for one year she waited, and for one year her mother didn’t show, but Alice refused to think that her mother had wanted to get rid of her. But Alice knew that she was never coming, so she decided to take up a job in the same house she had grown up in her entire life, coaching girls who needed help on things that they were learning, and because she had more than basic knowledge of the course they offered, they obviously granted her the privilege. By the end of the year, the girls taking the course had finished two semesters worth of work, almost a record at the finishing school. The school had taken in three times more than they would have with one class. Alice was, as they said, their precious little gold mine.
But as Alice reached the age of fifteen, she became a little odd. She was no longer as refined and polite as she had been when she first arrived at the finishing school. She had so many unanswered questions. So, on the night of May first, Alice ran away to look for her family.
During her travels, she encountered many people who were willing to assist her, but knew little or nothing about her family. All that she could gather was that her family had mysteriously vanished after her mother had left her in London. At this news, Alice went to a place where she knew someone would be. Just outside of her family’s house, there lived a young woman who had a son; this little boy was her best friend, Thomas. But when she arrived, she found that, he too, had left. Alice now had nowhere to go.
She set off to the west, where the sun had set, along with her hope. After what she had guessed to be five or ten miles, she began to grow tired and set off to the side of the road to sleep before she resumed her journey.
In the morning, after Alice had packed all of her things, she noticed an old, gnarled, odd, yet interesting tree. Alice walked towards this tree and noticed small handful of curious creatures. Among them were a dodo bird, a mouse, a white rabbit, and a rather strange looking cat. The cat was grey with aqua blue eyes and stripes. But as her head emerged, Alice noticed that it was also smiling the largest smile she had ever seen. It reached all the way to his ears, and never ceased, even as it spoke in hisses and screeches that were deafening. As Alice continued to walk towards the tree, the animals continued to emerge and then, just as she opened her mouth to speak, she fell down a deep, dark hole, screaming all the way.
On her way down, Alice swathe animals jump as though to land on her, but it was at this point that Alice hit something hard and blacked out. When she woke, Alice was confuzzled, and muddled, and every other word that is equal to confusing…but wait, hadn’t she been falling down into a deep and dark abyss but a few moments ago. But at that very minute, Alice looked up and saw a tiny sliver of light, and noticed that she had been falling down a dark hole, but then she had fallen through something, and reached its bottom.
As she stood up, Alice noticed a rather large table. Hanging from it, was a small box of what looked like cake covered in chocolate. As she reached for it, she noticed that, written in frosting with small lettering was written ‘growth food’ upon every one of the cakes. As the table was very tall, Alice thought it a good idea to eat the sweets. But Alice hesitated; what if the sweets were poison?
“But why would anyone have poison in such plain sight?” Alice thought to herself.
So with that dilemma all reasoned out, Alice finally decided to eat the sweets. But no sooner than she had taken a bite of the first one, that Alice began to grow, and grow, and grow, until she had to crouch down to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling (which had magically materialized some moments before). She then reached to the table and, just to be safe, put all of the things that were on the table, along with the box of cakes that had magically refilled itself. After she had done this, Alice crouched down, and saw a smallish bottle with a clear liquid.
Since she was thirsty and had nothing left to lose anyways, Alice decided to drink it. Not at all to her surprise, Alice began to shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until she was approximately five inches tall. She went over to where she had placed the contents of the table. Among them were: the small bottle, the box of sweets, and a very curious looking key.
“But what on earth could a key be doing here?” But as she looked around the now huge room, she noticed several doors, at least twenty in all. But there was a certain small one that intrigued Alice more than the others: a very small, old, past its replacement date, red door. Alice picked up the key and went over to the door. Alice put the key in the lock and twisted it. The door opened with an eerie creak that belonged in horror films, but it was exhilarating, all at once. Any way she thought about it, Alice’s curiosity about what lay beyond the door, won over her common judgment to run away, as it always did.
She peered inside the door, and saw a beautiful wilderness, full of strange plants and colors, and teeming with life. There were brightly colored mushrooms, and tall, berry clad trees, and….what was this? Talking flowers? Alice had never seen such a thing. Alice’s jaw dropped so low, she could’ve sworn she saw it reach the floor. As Alice stepped through the door, she noticed that she was standing on a platform with some very fragile looking stairs leading to the forest floor. She ran down them as nimbly as she could, and to her luck until about ten seconds after she had landed on the forest floor after tripping on a vine that was laid a little bit too coincidently for Alice’s taste. But, she kept moving through the forest, if that was what it actually was, until she came upon a clearing with the same creatures she had seen before she fell down the hole, except now, they were as white as snow. The cat with the aqua blue stripes still had her stripes, and was snow white also. Then, something quite odd and startling happened.
“Alice, we have been waiting a long time for your arrival. When we called to you through your dreams, we could not reach you because of a spell protecting your mind from all other spell casters, including the one who cast the spell of protection on you, ” said the cat.
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I JUST FELL DOWN A HOLE THAT COULD GO TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, AND YOU ARE ALL ACTING LIKE TALKING PLANTS AND ANIMALS, AND CATS THAT SMILE, AND FOOD AND DRINK THAT CAN ALTER SIZE IS COMPLETELY SANE!” shouted Alice.
“Because we are accustomed to this bangle that is our world, while you are not,” they all said in unison.
“ Well you are correct in that I am not accustomed to your world, but back to the subject: why am I here?”
“We most certainly do not know why you are here.”
“But if you were trying to contact me, you must’ve had a reason,” said Alice rather angrily.
“In that, you are correct, we did and still do have a reason for contacting you,” they again said in unison.
“Well then, what is it?” inquired Alice.
“We do have a reason for contacting you, but at this current moment, it escaped us,” said the cat.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! What on earth is wrong with you? You see my distress written clearly upon my face, and do nothing about it. Clearly, you are heartless, cold, soulless beings!” shouted Alice.
“Enough of your foolish taunts girl!” said the rabbit really quite angry.
“We may be calm, yet distressing to you, but we are intent listeners. We know not why you are here. All that we know is that you are here, and cannot leave until all of the prophecies are fulfilled.”
“What prophecies? You spoke naught of a prophecy!”said Alice
“Three prophecies actually. But they are all interlinked so there will be no problem in fulfilling them in only a few weeks or so. Maybe quicker if you stop all of your rants and pointless questions,” said the rabbit. And with that, Alice ran into the forest and also conveniently ran into a tiger. She made a harness out of vines and some catnip that she had kept in her pocket. She fastened it to the tiger’s head, and realizing that it was asleep, shouted, “Wake up!” As she felt the tiger slowly awaken