Alice in Zombieland (13 page)

 
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

 
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

-

     
‘That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,’ said the Gryphon.

 
    
‘Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Corpse Turtle; ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’

     
Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would
ever
happen in a natural way again. Her hunger was rising again, and she kept sneaking peeks at the poor Corpse Turtle’s pale underbelly, wondering if a piece might fall her way and there was a chance of snatching it up for a snack before the others observed her. All she wanted was a nice place to sit and eat until she didn’t feel so dreadfully hungry again.

     
And why she so cold now? She had never felt so bone-chillingly cold in her life. Of course, there was the wind off the cold sea; perhaps she hadn’t noticed it before. There was an icy look to the red wine waters that made her think of how the blood of a nice rare steak congealed to the bottom of her plate.

     
And of course all these thoughts of nearly raw, cold meat made her all the more hungry for something like meat pies that she almost wept.

     
‘I should like to have it explained,’ said the Corpse Turtle, drawing her attention back to her two companions.

     
‘She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on with the next verse.’

     
‘But about his toes?’ the Corpse Turtle persisted. ‘How
could
he turn them out with his nose, you know?’

     
‘It’s the first position in dancing.’ Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject—perhaps to where she could find some delicious meat pies.

     
‘Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated impatiently: ‘it begins “I passed by his garden.”’

     
Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:

-

 
‘I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

 
How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—’

 
The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

 
While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.

 
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,

 
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:

 
While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

 
And concluded the banquet—

-

     
‘What
is
the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Corpse Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’

     
‘Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so. Speaking of meat pies was just too much to bear in her state of mind. Another tiny bit of the Corpse Turtle slipped from his dead flappers and she heard her stomach rumble at the thought of chewing on the succulent cold meat of her companion.

     
‘Shall we try another figure of the Zombie Lobster Quadrille?’ the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you like the Corpse Turtle to sing you a song?’

     
‘Oh, a song, please, if the Corpse Turtle would be so kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her “Corpse Turtle Soup,” will you, old fellow?’

     
The Corpse Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:

-

 
‘Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

 
Waiting in a hot tureen!

 
Who for such dainties would not stoop?

 
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

 
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

 
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

 
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

 
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

 
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

-

 
‘Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

 
Game, or any other dish?

 
Who would not give all else for two p

 
ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

 
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

 
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

 
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

 
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

 
Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!’

-

     
‘Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Corpse Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of ‘The trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.

     
‘Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

     
‘What trial is it?’ Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered ‘Come on!’ and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:

-

 
‘Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

 
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!’

Chapter XI

Who Stole the Meat Pies?

     
T
he King and
Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great moaning crowd of dead things assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a jewel-collared soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the Black Rat, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of steaming meat pies upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them— ‘I wish they’d get the trial done,’ she thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’ But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time.

     
Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. ‘That’s the judge,’ she said to herself, ‘because of his great wig.’ The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig. He did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.

     
But there were some things in this court room that she was sure never were meant to be used in legal proceedings. For one, there were various bodies in various states of decay hanging along the walls, as if to signal the end of all trials. And there were various weapons, from halberds to swords, close to hand where the King and Queen sat.

     
Near the Red Queen was a small metal box, with bright lights all along its face. The old woman held the box close to her chest, as if protecting it from prying eyes. When she saw Alice looking her way, she turned so the box was hidden by her great bulk.

     
‘Now what could that be?’ wondered Alice. The lights were glittering and reminded her of the strange jeweled collars she saw around the necks of the jurors and most of the soldiers scattered throughout the courtroom. Could it be that the box had something to do with the collars, she wondered. She decided to see if she could get a closer look at the box.

     
But as she didn’t think it possible right now, she turned her attention back to naming the parts of the court room she did recognize.

     
‘And that’s the jury-box,’ thought Alice, ‘and those twelve zombies,’ (she was obliged to say ‘zombies,’ you see, because all of them were perfectly dead, and in various states of decay; all of them wore those strange jewel collars around their necks, be they beast or bird) ‘I suppose they are the jurors.’ She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, ‘jury-men’ would have done just as well.

     
Some of the twelve jurors were looking around confused, moaning and drooling; some of them had taken up writing instruments and were writing very busily on slates. A few stabbed themselves in their arms, chests and cheeks, as if some sort of game. None showed any sign of pain, and after a stab or two, resumed writing again. ‘What are they doing?’ Alice whispered to the Gryphon. ‘They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.’

     
‘They’re putting down their names,’ the Gryphon whispered in reply, ‘for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.’

     
‘Stupid things!’ Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the Black Rat cried out, ‘Silence in the court!’ and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

     
Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the undead jurors were writing down ‘stupid things!’ on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell ‘stupid,’ and that he had to ask his neighbor to tell him. ‘A nice muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!’ thought Alice.

     
One of the zombie jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little dead juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to bite the end of one of his little dead fingers and write with the bloody end of it for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left only smeared, indecipherable marks on the slate.

     
‘Herald, read the accusation!’ said the King.

     
On this the Black Rat blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:

-

 
‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some meat pies,

 
All on a summer day:

 
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those meat pies,

 
And took them quite away!’

-

     
‘Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.

     
‘Not yet, not yet!’ the Rat hastily interrupted. ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’

     
‘Call the first witness,’ said the King; and the Black Rat blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, ‘First witness!’

     
The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and someone’s bloody dismembered hand in the other, of which he was taking little nervous nibbles as he approached. ‘I beg pardon, your Majesty,’ he began, ‘for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.’

     
‘You ought to have finished,’ said the King. ‘When did you begin?’

     
The Hatter looked at the Dead Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. ‘Fourteenth of March, I think it was,’ he said.

     
‘Fifteenth,’ said the Dead Hare.

     
‘Sixteenth,’ added the Dormouse.

     
‘Write that down,’ the King said to the jury, and the zombie jury moaned in unison and wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence. Bill the Lizard was too busy nibbling at his own dead fingers to write anymore. But since he seemed quiet and happy, no one seemed to mind enough to stop him from devouring himself instead of doing his duty as juror.

     
‘Take off your hat,’ the King said to the Hatter.

     
‘It isn’t mine,’ said the Hatter.

     
‘Stolen!’ the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

     
‘I keep them to sell,’ the Hatter added as an explanation; ‘I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.’

     
Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted. She clutched the metal box close to her chest and sneered.

     
‘Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’