Are You Bill?

Beautiful!
Excited to know what happens next

Yepp! Wee~

I LOVE THIS!
I didn't really like Alice in Wonderland, and you know my favorite twin is Tom, but this seems like it's gonna be epic. ^-^
+ I enjoy reading stories that have good grammar and punctuation, otherwise, I don't bother. You've got that, so I'm sticking with you!
Update soon please! I really really love it so far!

Heehee. My turn to give back and read your writing! ^-^

Hehe yeah! XD

Chapter Two

BEYOND EXPECTATIONS

DOWN HE FELL, one minute went by, then two, fifteen, thirty, it seemed as though an hour had gone by and still he didn’t hit the ground. After a while he found things like chairs, tables going up instead of the direction he was falling. Suddenly after a matter of seconds he fell on the ground with a big crash.

“Ouch! They could have told me it was going to be painful,’ he remarked as he got up and dusted his clothes.

What had just started as make-believe was now very real. “What a strange thing to happen,” he thought (just as you might be thinking). “This game is much more serious than I thought, for here I just fell down a rabbit hole and I am on a road I’ve never seen, going to a place I’ve never heard of, and all because of a tollbooth which came from nowhere. I’m certainly glad that it’s a nice day for a trip,” he conducted hopefully, for, at that moment, this was the one thing he definitely knew.

The sun sparkled; the sky was clear, and all he colours he saw seemed to be richer and brighter than he could ever remember. The flowers shone as if they’d been cleaned and polished, and the tall trees that lined the road shimmered in silvery green.

WELCOME TO EXPECTATIONS said a carefully lettered sign on a small house at the side of the road.

INFORMATION, PREDICTIONS, AND ADVICE CHEERFULLY OFFERED, STAND HERE AND SHOUT.

With the first sound of a shrilly shout from Bill, a little man in a long coat came rushing from the house, speaking as fast as he could, and repeating everything several times:

“My, my, my, my, my, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, to the land of Expectations, to the land of Expectations, to the land of Expectations, to the land of Expectations. We don’t get many travelers these days; we certainly don’t get any travelers these days. Now what can I do for you? I’m the Whether Man.”

“Is this the right road for Dictionopolis?” asked Bill, a little bowled over by the effusive greeting.

“Well now, well now, well now,” he began again, “I don’t know any wrong roads to Dictionopolis, so if this road goes to Dictionopolis at all it must be the right road, and if it doesn’t go to Dictionopolis at all it must be the right road to somewhere else, because no wrong roads to anywhere. Do you think it will rain?”

“I thought you were the Weather Man,” said Bill, very confused.

“Oh, no,” said the little man, “I’m the Whether Man, not the Weather Man, for all it’s more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.” And with that he released a dozen balloons hat sailed off into the sky. “Must see which way the wind is blowing,” he said chuckling over his little joke and watching them disappear in all directions.

“What kind of a place is Expectations?” enquired Bill, unable to see the joke and feeling very doubtful of the little man’s sanity.

“Good question, good question,” he exclaimed. “Expectations is the place you must always go before you get where you’re going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not. Now, what else can I do for you?” And before Bill could reply he rushed into the house and reappeared a moment later with a new coat and umbrella.

“I think I can find my own way,” said Bill, not all sure that he could. But, since he didn’t understand the little man at all, he decided that he might as well move on – at least until he met someone whose sentences didn’t always sound as if they would make as much sense backwards as forwards.

“Splendid, splendid, splendid,” he exclaimed the Weather Man. “Whether or not you find your own way, you’re bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it’s quite rusty. You did say it was going to rain, didn’t you?” And with that he opened the umbrella and walked with Milo to the road.

“I’m glad you made your own decision. I do so hate to make up my mind about anything, whether it’s good or bad, up or down, in or out, rain or shine. Expect everything, I always say and the unexpected never happens. Now please be careful; goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, good…” His last goodbye was drowned out by an enormous clap of thunder, and as Bill walked down the road in the bright sunshine he could see the Whether man standing in the middle of a fierce cloudburst that seemed to be raining only on him.

The road dipped now into a broad green valley and stretched towards the horizon. And as he saw the clear sky, he was glad to be on his way again.

“It’s all very well to spend time in Expectations,” he thought, “but talking to that strange man all day would certainly have got me nowhere. He’s the most peculiar person I’ve ever met,” continued Bill – unaware of how many peculiar people he would shortly encounter.

As he walking along the peaceful road he soon fell to daydreaming and paid less and less attention to where he was going. In a short time he wasn’t paying any attention at all, and that is why, at a fork in the road, when a sign pointed to the left, Bill went to the right, along a route which looked suspiciously the wrong way.

Things began to change as soon as he left the main road. The sky became quite grey and, along with it, the whole countryside seemed to lose its colour and assume the same monotonous tone. Everything was quiet, and even the air hung heavily. The birds sang only grey songs and the road wound back and forth in and endless series of climbing curves.

Mile after
mile after
mile after
mile he drove, and now, gradually he walked slower and slower, until he was hardly moving at all.

“It looks as though I’m getting nowhere,’ yawned Bill, becoming very drowsy and dull. “I hope I haven’t taken a wrong turn.”

Mile after
mile after
mile after
mile, and everything became greyer and more monotonous. Finally, he stopped altogether, and, hard as he tried, his legs wouldn’t budge another inch.

“I wonder where I am,” said Bill in a very worried tone.

“You’re…in…he…Dol…drums,” wailed a voice that sounded far away.

He looked round quickly to see who had spoken. No one was there, and it was as quiet and still as one could imagine.

“Yes…the…Dol…drums,” yawned another voice, but still he saw no one.

“WHAT ARE THE DOLDRUMS?” he cried loudly, and tried very hard to see who would answer this time.

“The Doldrums, my young friend, are where nothing ever happens and nothing ever changes.”

The voice came from so close that Bill jumped with surprise, for, sitting on his right shoulder, so lightly that he hardly noticed, was a small creature exactly the colour of his shirt.

“Allow me to introduce all of us,” the creature went on. “We are the Lethargarians, at your service.”

Bill looked round and, for the first time, noticed dozens of them – sitting on the car, standing in the road, and laying all over the trees and bushes. They were very difficult to see, because whatever they happened to be sitting on or near was exactly the colour they happened to be. Each one looked very much like the other (except for the colour, of course) and some looked even more like each other than they did themselves.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said Bill, not sure whether or not he was pleased at all. “I think I’m lost. Can you help me please?”

“Don’t say ‘think’,” said one sitting on his shoe, for the one on his shoulder had fallen asleep. “It’s against the law.” And he yawned and fell off to sleep, too.

“No one’s allowed to think in the Doldrums,” continued a third, beginning to doze off. And as each spoke, he fell off to sleep and another picked up the conversation with hardly any interruption.

“Don’t you have a rule book? It’s local ordinance 175389 –J.”

Bill quickly pulled out the rule book from his pocket, opened to the page, and read, “Ordinance 175389-J: It shall be unlawful, illegal, and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate , or speculate while in the Doldrums. Anyone breaking this law shall be severely punished!”

“That’s a ridiculous law,” said Bill, quite indignantly. “Everybody thinks.”

“We don’t,” shouted the Lethargarians all at once.

“And most of the time you don’t,” said a yellow one sitting in a daffodil. “That’s why you’re here. You weren’t thinking, and you weren’t paying attention either. People who don’t pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums.” And with that he toppled out of the flower and fell snoring into the grass.

Bill couldn’t help but laughing at the little creature’s strange behavior, even though he knew it might be rude.

“Stop that at once,” ordered the fawn one clinging to his trousers. “Laughing is against the law. Don’t you have a rule book? It’s local ordinance 574381-W.”

Opening the book again, Bill found Ordinance 574381-W: “In the Doldrums, laughter is frowned upon and smiling is permitted only on alternate Thursdays. Violators shall be dealt with most harshly.”

“Well, if you can’t laugh or think, what do you do; we have a very busy schedule –

“At 8 o’clock we get up, and then we spend
“From 8.00 to 9.00 daydreaming.
“From 9.00 to 9.30 we take our early midmorning nap.
“From 9.30 to 10.30 we dawdle and delay.
“From 10.30 to 11.30 we take our late early morning nap.
“From 11.30 to 12.30 we bide our time and then eat lunch.
“From 1.00 to 2.00 we linger and loiter.
“From 2.00 to 2.30 we take our early afternoon nap.
“From 2.30 to 3.30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.
“From 3.30 to 4.00 we take our early late afternoon nap.
“From 4.00 to 5.00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.
“From 6.00 to 7.00 we dilly-dally.
“From 7.00 to 8.00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9.00 we waste time.

“As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.”

“You mean you’d never get anything done,” corrected Bill.

“We don’t want to get anything done,” snapped another angrily; “we want to get nothing done, and we can do that with your help.”

“You see,” continued another in a more conciliatory tone, “it’s really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just we were going to do when you came along. Would you care to join us?”

“I might as well,” thought Bill. “That’s where I seem to be going anyway.”

“Tell me,” he yawned, for he felt ready for a nap now himself, “does everyone here do nothing?”

“Everyone but the terrible watchcat,” said two of them, shuddering in chorus. “He’s always looking around to see that nobody wastes time. A most unpleasant character.”

“The watchcat?” said Bill quizzically.

“The WATCHCAT,” shouted another, fainting from fright, for racing down the road meowing and vanishing from sight and appearing from another spot was the very cat of whom they had been speaking.

“RUN!”

“WAKE UP!”

“RUN!”

“HERE HE COMES!”

“THE WATCHCAT!”

Great shouts filled the air as the Lethargarians scattered in all directions and soon disappeared entirely.

“M-M-M-E-E-E-O-O-O-W-W-W,” exclaimed the watchcat as he dashed up to Bill, loudly puffing and panting.

Bill’s eyes opened wide, for there in front of him was a large cat with a perfectly normal head, four feet, and a tail – and a body of a loudly ticking alarm clock.

“What are you doing here?” growled the watchcat.

“Just killing time,” replied Bill apologetically. “You see-“

“KILLING TIME!” roared the cat – so furiously that his alarm went off. “It’s bad enough wasting time without killing it.” And he shuddered at the thought. “Why are you in Doldrums anyway – don’t you have anywhere to go?”

“I was on my to Dictionopolis when I got stuck here,” explained Bill. “Can you help me?”

“Help you! You must help yourself,” the cat replied, carefully winding himself with his left hind leg. “I suppose you know why you got stuck.”

“I suppose I wasn’t thinking,” said Bill.

“PRECISELY,” shouted the cat as his alarm went off again. “Now you know what you must do.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” admitted Bill, feeling quite stupid.

“Well,” continued the watchcat impatiently, “since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.” And with that he hopped to sit beside Bill.

“Do you mind if I walk along with you? I don’t get any company nowadays.”

Bill began to think as hard as he could (which was very difficult, since he wasn’t quite used to it). He thought of bird’s that swim and fish that fly. He thought of all the songs he had written, all the song’s lyrics and notes. He thought of letters that began with J and numbers that end with 3. And, as he thought, he had finally the energy to move.

“Hehe I finally can move!” he shouted happily.

“Keep thinking,” scolded the watchcat.

He started to walk as his brain whirled with activity, and down the road they went. In the few moments they were out of the Doldrums and back on the main road. All the colours had returned to their original brightness, and as they walked along the road, Bill continued to think of all sorts of things; of many detours and wrong turns that were so easy to take, of how fine it was to be moving along, and, most of all, how much could be accomplished with just a little thought. And the cat, his nose in the wind, strutting around watchfully ticking.

i love this!!!!!! its sooooo wonderful!!!!!!! hehe keep it up!!! i wanna know what happens next!!!! xD

heheheehe well then go showw off your writing skills!!! it'll be worth the wait!!! xD hehe

why dont you like it when your mother reads your stories???

Eeek! I love ittt :3
I love the rules They're so randomly random and funny.
Can't wait to see what happens nextt! :3

oh i get it..hehe long lectures...i hate those too..hehe well anyways..take your time with it..

hehehe yeah....same here!!! xD

Sorry for the long wait, and okay it sucks. I think I'm losing my style of writing LOL XD And I needed to cut it short for some reason....But I hope you like it

Chapter Three

WELCOME TO DICTIONOPOLIS

“YOU MUST EXCUSE MY gruff conduct,” the watchcat said, after they’d been walking for some time, “but you see it’s traditional for watchcats to be ferocious…”

Bill was so relieved at having escaped the Doldrums that he assured the cat that he bore him no ill will and, in fact, was very grateful for the assistance.

“Splendid,” shouted the watchcat, “I’m very pleased – I’m sure we’ll be great friends for the rest of the trip. You may call me Tock.”

“That’s a strange name for a cat who goes ticktickticktickticktick all day,” said Bill. “Why don’t they call you ---“

“Don’t say it,” gasped the cat, and Bill could see a tear well up in his eye.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said Bill, not meaning to hurt his feelings.

“That’s all right,” said the cat, getting hold of himself. “It’s an old story and a sad one, but I can tell it you now.

“When my brother was born, the first kitten in the family, my parents were overjoyed and immediately named him Tick in expectation of the sound they we sure he’d make. On first winding him, they discovered to their horror that, instead of going ticktickticktickticktick, he went tocktocktocktocktocktock. They rushed to the Hall of Records to change the name, but too late. It had already been inscribed, and nothing could be done. When I arrived they were determined not to make the same mistake twice and, since it seemed logical that all their children would make the same sound, they named me Tock. Of course, you know the rest – my brother is called Tick because he goes tocktocktocktocktocktock and I am called Tock because I go ticktickticktickticktick, and both of us are forever burdened with the wrong names. My parents were so overwrought that they gave up having more children and devoted their lives to doing good work among the poor and hungry.”

“But how did you become a watchcat?” interjected Bill, hoping to change the subject, as Tock was sobbing quite loudly now.

“That,” he said, rubbing a paw in his eye, “is also traditional. My family have always been watchcats - from father to son, almost since time began.

“You see,” he continued, beginning to feel better, “once there was no time at all, and people found it very in convenient. They never know whether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was inventing to help them keep track of the day and get to places when they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more then could ever be used. ‘If there’s so much of it, it couldn’t be very valuable,’ was the general opinion, and soon it fell into disrepute. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were given the job of seeing that no one wasted time again,’ he said, standing up proudly, shouting with his arms outstretched – “it is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and---“

At that point in the speech, Tock’s foot hit a bump in the road and he collapsed in a heap with his alarm ringing again furiously.

“Are you all right?” shouted Bill.

“Umphh,” grunted Tock. “Sorry to get carried away, but I think you get the point.”

As they walked along, Tock continued to explain the importance of time, quoting old philosophers and poets and illustrating each point with gestures that brought him perilously close to tumbling headlong from a small cliff.

Before long they saw in the distance the towers and flags of Dictionopolis sparkling in the sunshine, and in a few moments they reached the great wall and stood at the gateway to the city.

“A-H-H-H-H-R-R-R-E-M-M---“roared the sentry, clearing his throat and snapping smartly to attention. “This is Dictionopolis, a happy kingdom, advantageously located in the Foothills of Confusion and caressed by gentle breezes from the Sea of Knowledge. Today, by Royal proclamation, is market day. Have you come to buy or sell?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Bill.

“Buy or sell, buy or sell,” repeated the sentry impatiently. “Which is it? You must have come for some reason.”

“Well, I ---“ Bill began.

“Come now, if you don’t have a reason, you must at least have an explanation or certainly an excuse,” interrupted the sentry.

Bill shook his head.

“This young man and his companion the watchcat have come to meet with the king, if you will be kind enough to let them in ---“

Bill and Tock turned and saw a young man, in his late twenties, stand in front of them. His hair wildly coming out from under his long hat, he had facial hair which seemed as though he had left it to grow only some time ago. He was wearing a suite, which was stained with tea in some places, his shoes were filled with dirt, and the look of being a tramp came from him.

“And what do you want Hatter?” the sentry asked impatiently.

“Hatter?” Bill interrupted without notice.

“I am here to escort Bill and Tock to meet the Red King, the Queen of Diamonds sent me here. If you don’t mind, we are in a hurry,” the Hatter tipped his hat and started to walk towards the sentry.

Bill was standing there in confusion, “How can he now my name?” he thought. He looked at Tock; he was looking as confused as he was.

“Aren’t you both going to come?” asked the Hatter. With that Bill and Tock started to walk alongside the Hatter.

“I wonder what the market will be like,” thought Bill as they walked through the gate; and before there was time for an answer they had walked they way into an immense square crowded with long lines of stalls heaped with merchandise and decorated in gaily coloured bunting. Overhead a large banner proclaimed:

WELCOME TO THE WORLD MARKET

And, from across the square, fiver very tall, thin gentlemen regally dressed in silks and satins, plumed hats, and buckled shoes rushed up to them, stopped short, mopped five brows, caught five breaths, unrolled five parchments, and began talking in turn.

“Greetings!”

“Salutations!”

“Welcome!”

“Good afternoon!”

“Hello!”

Bill nodded his head, and they went on, reading from their scrolls.

“Oh shut up, all of you! I was here to meet the King, not you people!” Hatter shouted, he grabbed Bill’s arm and led him to the castle, and Tock followed.

“Hey! How do you know my name?” shouted Bill, trying to get out of Hatter’s hold.

“Everyone knows your name in Underland.”

“Underland?” Tock cried.

And with that Hatter led Bill through the crowd to meet with the King.

This is greatt !
It has been a while since I've read fanfics
Keep it up ^^