Death of the Mad Hatter (4 page)

“For someone who is supposed to be
a genius, you can be very dense.” She snapped her fingers in front of me and then made a face. “You suggest hitting up a club
after
I asked you to hang out with me without
parentals
?”

No parental supervision?

It
just
registered that Courtney had asked me to come over to her house—alone. What was I thinking? Why was I acting so stupid? I opened my mouth, hoping that sounds would come out in a coherent sentence. Instead, I made an unmanly sound that I’d rather soon forget.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

(
Alice Mae: The First visit to Wonderland)

“A world where the impossibilities of our most far-fetched dreams come true—that was the essence of Wonderland.”
 

M.H, my mentor but more commonly known as the Mad Hatter, had said those very words during my first visit to the wondrous world of Wonderland, nearly eleven years ago. What he should
have said was: Wonderland was a magical world where the most far-fetched dreams come true. Alas, it is also where intoxicating nightmares run rampant.

The best times of my life happened in Wonderland, and also the worst. But, I was getting ahead of myself. It all started with a rabbit, a sly rumperbabbit to be exact…

… A pesky white bunny had been munching on my best carrots, which I appreciated as much as being hit over the head with a swab of used toilet paper. Thus, it was the reason for the garden pursuit. I tracked down that rabbit, following it into a hole next to my aunt’s apple tree.

My first fall down the rabbit hole—a po
rthole to Wonderland—was a painstaking one. It wasn’t so much because the drop felt like a free-fall from a five story building, or that I had been so sure I would be a splat in the center of the Earth, but because I kept reaching out with my arms in an effort to slow my descent. The rock walls scraped my skin and bruised my bones. The dirt embedded under my nails. I crashed to the bottom of the hole, but I hadn’t died, so I called it a win.

None of this dirtiness would have happened if I hadn’t chased a rather uncatchable rabbit in the first place
. My parents had sent me to live with my overly stern aunts because of unruly behavior that was unbecoming of a woman. At least that was what my aunts told me, but I had another theory. My folks sent me to live with them in hopes I’d straighten up out of sheer boredom.

It didn’t work
…

…
And so the story went: After I drank what needed to be drunk and ate what needed to be eaten, I had unlocked a mouse door that was guarded by a ceramic toad wearing a suit with a spade and the initials R.E. sewn on it. In its mouth was a bronze key that unlocked a mysterious realm I thought was possible only in my dreams. The colors of the sky and land were all wrong. The blue sky was too dark and was littered with dozens of sun dogs, like it was a dumping ground for rainbows. The ground beneath my feet was dark as mud but wasn’t wet. The leaves growing on the trees were multicolored like flowers, but the flowers were too big. One petal was the size of my head. I felt like an ant that crawled out from the dull dirt and into a spray painted world of wonders. The door I’d squeezed through was covered by bright yellow vines, essentially trapping me in this place.

A purple caterpillar lay on a branch of a white magnolia tree, munching on a blue leaf. He looked at me, and I
swore the little creature raised its eyebrow as if it was unimpressed with me.

“Where am I?” I asked, talking to myself.

“Where you are, is a state of being, a place in your head and a location in Wonderland—far, far from your own,” the caterpillar said before taking another bite of the leaf. “But more importantly, where you are standing is on private land. You’re trespassing on my property.”

My mouth dropped open. “You can talk!”

He spit out the leaf bits he’d been chewing and stuffed them into the tiniest hookah in the known universe. “Did you think you were the only privileged creature who had the ability to communicate using fancy words, stupid girl?”

“Ester, stop bugging the discombobulated girl.”
A gentleman walked over to me. He was dressed in a new white suit and tipped his top hat. The price tag was still hanging from the hat. His white soul patch matched the color of his hair, though the locks upon his head were more peppered gray. Gold rimmed goggles covered his eyes. A bright orange scarf was tied around his neck. His black-polished fingernails were tinted a slew of different colors. Traces of pink powder the size of sugar dusted his clothing. He smelled like apple pie and gumdrops.

I wondered if the man had been baking
. “Who are you, sir?”

He took off his
goggles, revealing the kindest eyes I’d ever seen—they looked like chocolate chips. There was a little bit of a fanatical look in them as well. The eye shadow was flicked on his eyelids, like he had been trying to recreate donut sprinkles with makeup. “My name is far too complicated to say and gets quite boring to listen to. Simply saying it will give your tongue a workout that is unnecessary. Far too much time will be wasted by constantly addressing me by it. Thus, I go by M.H, my dear girl. What is your name?”

“Alice Mae,” I said.
 

The caterpillar groaned. “The
One-Eyed Hare brought a
girl
with a
girl’s
name to Wonderland, not a
girl
with a
boy’s
name. Did Rutherford even bother to read the prophecy he found in the
Sweets for the Rabbit Hole Voyager
recipe book?”

“There is much still to uncover. The white rabbit has
excellent intuition,” M.H. said. “And you know he prefers to go by Mr. Ruth. He’ll get his tail in a twist if he hears you utter his proper name.”

“
Rumperbabbits are oversensitive about what the other creatures call them. They should be lucky they have names at all, despicable creatures.”

Having trouble following their sidebar
discussion about degraded rabbits, I asked, “What does M.H. stand for? I’ll still call you by the abbreviation, but it has made me curious. Perhaps it would be okay to tie your tongue to say it, just this once?”

“Marco
Hickerns? Marian Hoff? Oh! Perhaps Massive Human?” The caterpillar lit the hookah and took a drag. A blueberry aroma accompanied the smoke that Ester blew out his nose. “M.H. Has never told a soul his name. So we call the Madman the Hatter.”

“I will
, and have always preferred to, go by M.H.
instead of indulging in the silly nickname given to me by the critters of this realm.
Mad Hatter, can you believe it? Silly name,” M. H. said, but then pressed his finger to his lip. After a moment of pondering, he licked his finger and made a face like the colorful substance lining his fingers wasn’t to his liking. “I do suppose that nicknames hold the utmost significance, at times. Or is it the time that makes the nicknames significant?”

“When would nicknames ever hold any
value?” I asked.

“When they are given appropriately!”
M.H. placed his hands on his knees so that we were eye level. “My name is nothing of importance to you. Still, your name is one that
may
matter, but we’ll get to that in due time. Would you like some candy?” He held up his littlest finger to me like I was to lick it.

I
gently pushed his hand away. “My parents told me never to take candy from strangers.”

“Well,
they are quite smart! It’s a shame the Maude sisters stole you away from them.”

“They didn’t. They told me I was a t
roublemaker and needed proper watching over,” I said, mimicking Vida Maude.

“I suppose it doesn’t
matter why you came to be in their possession. But a more significant point is that you are in fact a trouble maker, or at least I hope you are. And you will not be eating candy, my dear girl,” he said, and wrapped his hand around the finger he offered me to lick. With a quick jerk, the finger came off. I wanted to scream when he handed it to me, but I kept my emotions under control. “It’s a caramel shell, my dear girl. One lick and you won’t feel like asking so many questions; a defense tactic of sorts.”

I didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, but I took his word. “Then why make candy
if you aren’t to enjoy them?”

“
I make candy because I have a bit of a sweet tooth, but sometimes others need them for unconventional reasons. I can show you if you want.”

I
didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I knew I didn’t want to spend any more time with a bug that called me stupid. I handed him back his caramel finger, which he tucked in his coat pocket.

“Who needs camouflage
d caramel?” I asked.

“A dear friend of mine—Robby. He needs all the help he can get, which weighs heavily on my candy making abilities,” M.H. said and looked at a pocket watch. The numbers were written backwards. The second hand turned clockwise, but the hour hand ticked counterclockwise. “We’re going to miss our flight if we don’t get a move on.”

“Are you trying to turn back
time?” I asked, ignoring his comment about flying.

M.H. gave me a hard look before sliding on his
goggles. His kind, brown eyes shimmered like the ocean when the sun shone upon it. “It is not the reversal of time I strive for, my dear girl. It is to prevent it from moving completely; an impossible feat that is yet to occur.”

“
If it’s impossible, then why try?”

“Because then the Reign of Terror shall end,” M.H. chuckled and exchanged a knowing look with the caterpillar who had been munching more leaves for his hookah.
“A world where the impossibilities of our most far-fetched dreams come true—that is the essence of Wonderland.” 

Looking around the upside-down realm, I certainly agreed that things were possible in
this world that were not in mine.

“I promise you that you’ll never have more
exciting adventures than the ones you’ll have in Wonderland. It is my greatest hope that you fall in love with this place and the people who live here,” he said, and offered me his hand. “Come and see for yourself. I’ll give you the bird’s eye view of Wonderland before I show you my candy shoppe.”

M.H. wiggled his charred eyebrows and dragged his hand through his singed hair as he inspected the ruins of the discarded seating contraption that had been strapped to Omar, an oversized, flying egret. However, the seat had been intact before the bird had antagonized Lowery, a penguin splashing in a nearby cold spring.

The flying adventure was promptly cut short after the argument
as to which bird was more suitable for flight—an egret or penguin. The ratchet straps broke promptly after Omar nosedived to duel the lowly penguin. When the seat came loose, it sent M.H. and I spiraling out of control. We collided into a cluster of hot rocks, where the dragon lizards socialized.

“You madman!”
A purple lizard screamed as it raced toward us.

Other lizards came out
of hiding when rocks were no longer shooting through the air. They went to work collecting the rocks and putting them into piles. Apparently there was a dispute to which location would be the best since M.H.’s flying apparatus was burning in their original place.

“Calm down, Liz,” M.H. said to the infuriated purple lizard. He took off his broken
goggles and tossed them into the fire.

“Calm down? Don’t you see what you’ve done?” Liz yelled. “You’ve caused anarchy in our village. Get that flying contraption off the rocks now!”

“But it’s on fire,” I said.

“Do you think I’m blind, stupid girl?” Liz yelled. “I don’t care if your pants are on fire. I want that pile of junk off my property!”

“In due time,” M.H. said, glancing at his pocket watch.

“In due time, he says,” Liz
mimicked, as she eyed M.H.’s backside.

It was in
that moment that I realized these lizards were actually fire breathing amphibians. Liz set M.H.’s pants on fire. He took off running like a rocket ship, patting his butt as he ran. His top hat fell off as he hopped over the sizzling rocks. Since I didn’t particularly want to keep the rampant lizards company, I chased after him, grabbing his hat along the way.

“Stop, you stupid girl!
You and the madman must stop!” Liz shook her fist at me as I raced across the hot rocks after M.H.

I giggled, recalling the absurdly tall M.H. running away from the wreckage, slapping a fire from his buttocks.
Fortunately, he wore suspenders to keep his trousers from falling to his ankles, since the fire had eaten away much of the material around the waistline. The hole revealed his bright blue underwear with his initials sewn on with green thread.