chapter 5

When Anna awoke the next morning she immediately scrambled to her feet to inspect her reflection in the full length mirror. To her eyes she appeared entirely unchanged and yet she a strange sense of unease hung over her.

"Dear, dear. How queer things are today. I wonder if I was changed in the night," she thought.

She turned back to her drab dormitory bed and found that at the foot of it the blue dress and white pinafore that she had been wearing the previous night lay neatly folded with the black ribbon that had adorned her blonde hair lying on top of them. Her patent leather shoes sat on the floor shining prettily back at her.

"But it can't be," she said, seizing up the dress. "It was in tatters last night."

The dress was intact and, when she examined it further to check that it was in fact her dress and not a replica sent to fool her, she discovered the same loose button at the neck and small tear on the hem that Aunt Ina always scolded her for being too idle to bother mending.

But how could it be? Could she really have dreamed the whole thing? She wondered in what dark and dank recess of her subconscious such a foul nightmare could have lurked. Had such thoughts truly come from inside her? Had they been within her for years without her knowing like a troll under a bridge waiting to attack? These troublesome thoughts were interrupted by her stomach emitting a loud gurgling noise.

"I wonder if there is a cook," she wondered aloud, all thoughts of her mother, the looking glass and the strange potion disappearing as she realised that she was ravenously hungry. "Or maybe the people here are so strange that they do not live on anything as prosaic as bread and butter."

Alice had been determined to single handedly undertake the task of educating her daughter but after her disappearance Anna had briefly attended boarding school. In later years Aunt Ina would explain that she had struggled to find a respectable governess willing to associate with their family but in hindsight Anna understood that her aunt had initially found it hard to adjust to the burden of raising a child.

She knew that near starvation in the name of instilling values of modesty and frugality was one of the many Draconian methods boarding schools used to prepare girls of slender means for lives of submission, self-denial and diligent hard work.

When she entered the dining hall she was expecting little more than stale bread and thin gruel but was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a large open kitchen alive with the bustling activity of a dozen chefs. The chefs were dressed in identical white uniforms with a heart and a number 1-12 stitched on their arm in red thread. Had Anna looked closely at the men she might have noticed that their faces were so bland and featureless that one could barely be distinguished from another but she did not look closely. She was more focused on the delicious sound of sizzling food and the intensely savoury aroma of salty and fatty bacon frying.

She noticed one of the chefs pouring crepe batter onto a large pan and deftly flipping the paper thin pancakes as they cooked in an instant. She remembered being impressed by an old French woman doing the same thing on the streets of Montmartre during a trip to Paris but before Alice could buy her one she had ran off, distracted by human statues scaring passers by, mimes trapped in invisible boxes and street artists offering to sketch her portrait for just a few francs. Now she could think of nothing better than sinking her teeth into a big stack of crepes sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice.

As she gratefully took a plate of crepes from the chef, she turned and surveyed the empty dining hall. She wondered why the school should employ so many chefs when still the only other student she had met was Cherish who was already seated at one of the long tables, her plate piled high with food.

"Good morning," she said, taking a seat across from Cherish.

"Good morning," Cherish said, that same unsettling grin still stretched across her face. "How are you finding the school?"

"I suppose it's fine..." Anna put a forkful of food to her lips and chewed thoughtfully for a moment before adding: "Don't you think this is an odd place?"

"In what way?"

"I think something happened last night but I don't think you'll believe me. I'm not sure I even believe it happened myself. It seems so impossible."

"Why ever not? Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

"Well, last night I was feeling so restless I couldn't sleep so I decided to explore the school and I found my mo- that is, Alice Liddel's study."

Cherish's eyes narrowed, flashing an almost feline yellow though her grin remained somehow fixed on her face, as permanent and unchanging as a scar. "How could you have entered Miss Liddel's study? It has been boarded up for years and only Mrs Hart may enter. Even the curtains are kept tightly drawn at all times to prevent the sunlight from damaging the precious original manuscripts and journals."

"But the door wasn't locked. It was the strangest thing, as if someone wanted me to enter and I saw -" She paused, her lips parted in a half formed word as all her memories of the night before seemed to melt away like snow.

Under ordinary circumstances Anna would have felt perturbed by losing her train of thought mid-sentence but this was no ordinary place and these were no ordinary circumstances. She found herself blithely unconcerned as she popped another forkful of crepe into her open mouth.

"What were you going to say?" Cherish asked, her grin broadening so much that it seemed to strain her chubby cheeks as her sharp little teeth crunched into a slice of toast covered in a thick layer or marmalade.

"I-I'm not sure," Anna said and then uttered a small, embarrassed laugh. "I suppose it can't have mattered if I have forgotten it already."

"i suppose not."

The two girls ate in silence for a while. Anna could not believe how delicious the food was and wondered how she could ever have brought herself to skip meals or leave the table without clearing her plate in the past.

No sooner had Cherish finished her breakfast than she rose to her feet. "Time for second breakfast."

"Second breakfast?" Anna marvelled that Cherish could still eat more after the vast quantity of food she can just watched the girl put away.

"Of course," Cherish said, patting her bulging middle. "I always have second breakfast. That usually takes me up to brunch and then it's time for elevenses and then lunch..."

Anna knew that she should feel disgusted at such a display of unbridled gluttony but she had to admit that she was still very hungry and very soon she was tucking into a plate of Eggs Benedict. She had only just cut into the poached egg, spilling its sunny yolk across the plate and was about to savour a mouthful of succulent ham blanketed in hollandaise sauce when the man who had almost knocked her over the day before came bustling into the dining hall, looking as anxious and twitchy as ever.

"Mrs Hart demands your presence in her office straight away! There must be no delay!"

"Of course, Mr Rabbit," Anna said, rather alarmed. "But won't you tell me what the matter is? Have I done something wrong?"

But the man did not reply, he only looked at his pocket watch and bounded off worrying to himself. "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late."

Anna realised that Cherish was regarding her with some amusement. "Why ever did you call him Mr Rabbit? That is Mr White."

"I... I don't know," she said, "But I suppose I ought to do as he says and go see Mrs Hart right away. Will you tell me the way?"

"On the other side of the school," Cherish pointed, her movements languorous from the food induced haze that she was stuffing herself into. "Beyond the courtyard with the rose garden."