I studied the slip of paper clipped along with my history textbook and felt a grimace work it's way up my lips as the true meaning of the words sunk in.

Writing? I couldn't write. Hell, the only time I'd actually written something half decent was the time I'd bribed my sister into doing my work. And Lily was twelve then.

Another glance at the paper didn't make the words miraculously disappear (like I'd hoped) but simply made them seem all the more imposing. 'Write!' they seemed to say. 'Write, or we shall have you sent to the red queen, little Alice!'

A little smirk made it's way up my lips as I thought of the letter I'd written to myself. Mom was going to have a shock.

"A letter? For Alice?" I could almost hear her astonished voice, with the undertone of glee. "This is the Alice you're talking about, isn't it? There's no other Alice in the block, I hope."

The bell brought me out of my thoughts and I let out a loud sigh, preparing myself for the torturous class that was inevitable. I had just stuffed my schedule in when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Pushing my annoyance to the back of my mind, I let the black bag rest against the chair once again and turned around in anticipation.

"Your hair, young lady. You know we don't tolerate tardiness here." It was the librarian.

I let out a loud sigh, put the pencil I'd been unconsciously rolling between my fingers in between my teeth and raised my hands to put on my hair band when the screech of a chair scraping against the tiles made me stop in midway through the process. A minute passed and I was still unable to locate the source of the sound.

The second bell rang.

My eyes widened for just a fraction of a second and my hands seemed to have gained a life of their own. Loose papers were thrown between notebooks, pencils were stuffed into pockets and exactly three minutes and five seconds later, I found myself at the door of the class.

The teacher gave me half a glance and then nodded at my unasked question. I let out a breath I'd been holding, took my seat behind the desk and thanked my lucky stars. Detention wasn't something I had on my bucket list for the week.

I could only hope my lucky streak would extend to the letter too.