Sammi kicked her heels against the leg of the causeway bench like it was personally responsible for narrative continuity. “Okay, Eriko. You cannot keep calling it ‘Alice One’ like it’s a firmware version.”
Eriko, prim as a cathedral gargoyle, adjusted her imaginary spectacles. “Why not? It’s accurate. Alice’s Adventures Underground is the prototype. The manuscript. The—”
“The beta Alice,” Sammi purred, leaning closer. “The rough cut. The director’s cut. The for-your-eyes-only Alice.”
Eriko’s mouth twitched. “You enjoy being incorrect on purpose.”
“I enjoy you,” Sammi said, breezy and innocent, like she hadn’t just tossed a pebble into a still pond and watched the ripples. “So. Explain to me, Professor Lighthouse Mind: what’s the actual vibe difference?”
Eriko sat up straighter, happy to be useful in the exact way she pretended not to crave. “Underground—Alice 1—is intimate. It’s like hearing a story at the edge of a picnic blanket. The narrator is practically breathing the words into a child’s ear. Alice 2—Wonderland—is a performance. A public architecture.”
Sammi made a little “mm!” sound. “Architecture! Yes. Like, Alice 2 has… rooms. Corridors. Doors that are mean to you.”
Eriko nodded, pleased. “Exactly. In Alice 1 the weirdness is whimsical and personal. In Alice 2 the weirdness becomes a system. Not merely absurdity, but absurdity with rules—rules that are constantly betrayed.”
Sammi’s eyes brightened with mischief. “So Alice 1 is like: ‘We’re going on a strange walk, hand in hand.’ And Alice 2 is like: ‘Welcome to the bureaucracy of nonsense, please take a number.’”
Eriko’s laugh escaped in spite of herself, a small bright crack in her seriousness. “That is… surprisingly apt.”
“Thank you. I contain multitudes. Some of them are wearing bows.” Sammi swung her gaze toward Eriko. “Okay. What about tone? Because my impression is: Alice 1 feels… softer. More bedtime-story. Alice 2 is sharper. More teeth.”
Eriko’s eyes narrowed in delighted agreement. “Yes. Alice 2 is more satirical. It’s funnier, but also more cruel—more pointed. The jokes bite. The logic is weaponized.”
Sammi gasped theatrically. “Weaponized logic? In your favorite book? Who could’ve guessed.”
Eriko tilted her head. “Sammi.”
“What.”
“Do you like the cruelty?”
Sammi blinked once. Then she smiled like she’d been handed a loaded question and was deciding whether to kiss it or disarm it. “I like when it’s… mischievous. Not mean-mean. Like the book is teasing Alice because it knows she’s clever enough to survive it.”
Eriko’s voice softened. “In Alice 2, she survives by becoming more fluent in nonsense. She learns the local grammar.”
“Oh my god,” Sammi said, delighted. “Alice learns to code-switch.”
“Precisely.”
Sammi leaned in, elbows on knees, chin propped on her hands. “So would you say Alice 1 is more… dream? And Alice 2 is more… logic-dream?”
Eriko’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes. Alice 2 is dream logic turned into a social world. A dream with institutions. Courts. Tea parties. Pedagogies of cruelty.”
Sammi grinned. “Tea parties are absolutely pedagogies of cruelty.”
Eriko gave her a look. “You are thinking of middle school.”
“I’m thinking of every brunch.” Sammi sighed like a woman born to suffer mimosas. “Okay but—characters. People always forget: some stuff changes between versions, right? Like the shape of the scenes, the emphasis. Alice 2 is… more iconic.”
Eriko nodded again. “Alice 2 is curated for immortality. Alice 1 is a living artifact of a particular relationship—Carroll telling a story to a particular child, for a specific occasion. Alice 2 is Carroll telling a story to the world.”
Sammi’s gaze went a little dreamy. “There’s something… tender about that. Like Alice 1 is a gift. Alice 2 is a product.”
Eriko didn’t flinch from the word. “A product can still be art. But yes, the audience changes the temperature.”
Sammi hummed. “And Alice changes too. In Alice 2 she’s more… Alice. Like she’s been sharpened into her myth.”
Eriko’s eyes flicked to Sammi. “And in Alice 1?”
“In Alice 1 she’s a kid. A real kid. Not a symbol yet.” Sammi smiled. “She’s less ‘the heroine of Wonderland’ and more ‘a girl who is absolutely not impressed with your nonsense, sir.’”
Eriko’s lips parted, amused. “You’re saying Alice 2 is canon Alice, and Alice 1 is… indie Alice.”
“YES.” Sammi pointed at her like she’d scored a clean hit. “Indie Alice. Zine Alice. ‘I’m not here to learn, I’m here to vibe’ Alice.”
Eriko pretended to consider it gravely. “And yet both are, in their way, structured around a child encountering adult language games.”
Sammi’s eyes sparkled. “Language games. Mmm. That’s your love language, isn’t it?”
Eriko didn’t look away. “It’s a language.”
Sammi leaned closer, voice dropping into something warmer. “Is it the one you want me to speak?”
Eriko’s ears pinked—just a touch, like sunrise behind paper. “Sammi.”
“What? I’m being scholarly.”
“You’re being… you.”
Sammi softened, then—because she couldn’t help herself—tilted it back into play. “Okay, Scholar Eriko, here’s a spicy question: do you think Alice 2 is less innocent because it’s more public? Like, once the story is for everyone, the weird little adult shadows creep in?”
Eriko took a slow breath. “I think Alice 2 is more self-aware. In Alice 1 the dream is happening. In Alice 2 the dream knows it’s a dream and begins to comment on itself. That invites darker humor.”
Sammi nodded. “So Alice 2 winks.”
“And Alice 1 smiles.”
Sammi’s grin turned softer. “God, that’s cute.”
Eriko let that land. Then, very quietly: “Do you have a preference?”
Sammi rocked back, pretending to weigh it like a sommelier who only drinks chaos. “I think… Alice 2 is the one that lives in my head. It’s got the classic lines, the sharp scenes. But Alice 1—”
“Yes?”
“Alice 1 feels like a secret.” Sammi’s eyes met hers. “And you know how I feel about secrets.”
Eriko’s throat bobbed. “Dangerous.”
“Delicious,” Sammi corrected.
For a beat, they both sat there—two girls on a causeway bench, the air between them full of unsaid things shaped like small doors.
Then Sammi snapped her fingers. “WAIT. Another difference.”
Eriko blinked. “Go on.”
“Alice 1: ‘Come on, we’re going underground.’” Sammi pointed down, like she might find Wonderland beneath the paving stones. “Alice 2: ‘No, babe. We’re going inward.’ Wonderland isn’t below, it’s… sideways.”
Eriko’s eyes lit up. “That’s not merely poetic, Sammi. That’s a serious point about the imaginary geography. ‘Underground’ is a destination. ‘Wonderland’ is an epistemic state.”
Sammi preened. “Thank you. I am extremely smart when flirting.”
Eriko’s smile finally broke fully through, warm and helpless. “Apparently.”
Sammi leaned her shoulder lightly against Eriko’s—an easy touch, like punctuation. “So. If we were Alice, which version would we be?”
Eriko, after a moment: “We would argue about it until we became characters in the argument.”
Sammi laughed, bright as bells. “We’d get kicked out of the tea party for improper metaphysics.”
“We would start our own tea party.”
“With rules?”
“With rules we immediately betray.”
Sammi sighed, blissful. “God. Alice 2 behavior.”
Eriko glanced at her, eyes fond and wicked. “Or perhaps… the sequel.”
Sammi’s grin went slow. “Oh? You’re writing Alice 3 now?”
Eriko’s voice was calm, but her gaze was not. “Only if you promise to follow me.”
Sammi leaned in, as if to whisper a secret into the space between them. “Underground or Wonderland?”
Eriko’s smile was small and certain.
“Both,” she said. “But we go together.”
And Sammi—soft for once, just for the length of a heartbeat—said, “Okay.”
