Mad About the Hatter (12 page)

He nudged Hatter. “Who—or what—are they?”

Hatter swept off his hat and swiped an arm across his forehead, wiping away the perspiration beading it. “That’s the Gingerbread Army. They’re the first line of defense for the Molasses Baker Tribe. In battle, they’re fearless and deadly. Practically unstoppable, really.”

Movement from far down the valley caught the corner of his eye. A dust cloud was swirling in the distance. Henry turned, squinting to see. “What’s that down there?”

Hatter stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew a telescoping spyglass. He pulled it out to its full length and put it to his eye, studying the churning dust. He swore and removed the spyglass, handing it to Henry. “Take a look. It’s the Chocolatier Baker’s Sugar Militia. Looks like the Gummy Cavalry is in the lead.”

Henry peered through the spyglass, swinging it in the direction of the dust cloud. Indistinct shapes began to emerge; jewel-toned candy riders mounted on puffy marshmallow horses rode slowly toward the waiting Gingerbread Army, with rows of chocolate soldiers marching behind them. They stopped about halfway down the valley, and all grew deathly quiet.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom split the silence and echoed down the valley. Henry watched in horror as a brown ball flew through the air and punched a hole in the middle of one of the gingerbread soldiers’ chests. The soldier fell forward and lay still.

Hatter grabbed his arm and tugged him to the ground. “Keep your head down unless you want a chocolate malt cannonball to take it off. The battle has started!”

A long figure stepped out from the front line of gingerbread soldiers. He wore yellow licorice epaulettes, and carried a rock candy sword. He raised it and pointed at the Sugar Militia. His voice was surprisingly deep and rumbly for a cookie. “Charge!”

A roar rose up from the valley as the Gingerbread Army surged forward. Advancing in a stiff-legged, shambling run, they fired their icing guns at the Sugar Militia. Streams of sticky white frosting hit the cavalry, sending marshmallow horses and their gummy riders sprawling.

Additional booms sounded in response, followed by more gingerbread soldiers blown into cookie crumbs by deadly chocolate malt cannonballs. The chocolate soldiers marched double-time, pressing onward up the valley, spearing gingerbread soldiers with sharp, candy cane lances. Every so often, a gingerbread soldier would throw a Red Hots hand grenade in an arc over the heads of the Sugar Militia, where it would explode in a spray of melted chocolate.

As they watched, a marshmallow horse caught fire, galloping away from the fray until it blackened and fell to the ground in an oozing, bubbly marshmallow puddle.

Hatter pulled on Henry’s arm. “Come on! This is our chance, while the armies are busy trying to kill one another.”

“What? We can’t go down there! We’ll get ourselves killed.”

“It’s our only chance. They’re too busy trying to destroy one another to see us. If we wait, we’re likely to be captured by whichever side wins this skirmish. Now, let’s go!” He began running down the side of the hill into the valley, dragging Henry along with him.

The smell of smoke and cinnamon lay heavy in the air on the valley floor. Henry had to swallow hard at the sight of fallen gingerbread soldiers strewn across the ground, most missing limbs, and all sporting terrible wounds. Chocolate malt cannonballs lay here and there, covered in gingerbread crumbs.

War, even of the confectionary variety, was hell.

Hatter tugged him along, sidestepping puddles of icing, melted chocolate, gingerbread, and gummy bodies. The smoky air made it difficult to see where they were going, though. More than once the soles of Henry’s shoes stuck in something sticky, pulling up taffy-like strands of goo when he finally broke free. He didn’t want to look at the puddles too closely. They smelled strongly of marshmallow.

A whistling sound caught his attention. Before Henry could react, Hatter pushed him to the ground and fell on top of him. Over Hatter’s shoulder, Henry saw a chocolate ball the size of a bowling ball arc over, crashing to the ground next to them.

“Oh my God! That could’ve killed us!” Fear froze Henry’s chest, making it difficult to breathe. It had been a really close call. If Hatter hadn’t pushed him down, the ball might’ve taken off Henry’s head. He turned his gaze to meet Hatter’s. “You saved my life.”

The corner of Hatter’s mouth quirked into a halfhearted smirk, but since he remained lying atop Henry, he couldn’t really hide his fear. Henry could feel Hatter’s heart racing. “Nothing to it.”

Hatter made no move to get up. The longer Henry lay there, the press of Hatter’s body pinning him to the ground, the more the sounds of battle seemed to fade away. He began to notice how the dark hair dusting Hatter’s jaw accentuated its sharp edge. How Hatter’s eyes were a warm, dark brown, not fully black as Henry had first thought. And mostly, how full Hatter’s lips looked, and how soft. He wondered if they would feel warm, and what they’d taste like.

How is it, with war raging so close by, with chocolate malt cannonballs flying and icing guns firing, that I can be thinking of kissing him? This freaking place has finally pushed me over the edge. I must be nuts. Crazy. Certifiable. Why are we just lying here? We need to get out of here before we get killed!

In his head, he fiercely berated himself, but he spoke not a single word aloud. Instead, he lifted his head and touched his lips to Hatter’s.

As it turned out, they were every bit as soft and twice as warm as Henry had supposed, and tasted like peppermint tea.

Nothing surprised him more, though, than when Hatter kissed him back, his tongue teasing at Henry’s lower lip. Except maybe for the fact that for a long, happy moment, Henry was perfectly content to lie there on the battlefield in Wonderland, bits of gingerbread soldiers and Sugar Militia all around him, chocolate malt cannonballs flying, being kissed by Hatter.

It was Hatter who finally broke the spell.

He cleared his throat, and rolled off Henry, clambering to his feet. “Um, sorry. Well, I think we should, um, go. There. Away.”

Henry smiled and pushed himself to his feet. “Definitely. We should go.” Hatter looked positively dazed, and somehow, that made Henry feel as if he’d won a skirmish.

Another chocolate malt cannonball whizzed by them, striking the ground nearby. They both jumped and let out half-strangled screams. It was all the impetus they needed to get them moving.

They began running, bent nearly in half, keeping their heads down, and quickly crossed the valley floor to the other side.

In front of them, the first of the Confection Mountains rose steeply from the valley floor. He and Hatter took a moment to stare up at its intimidating presence. A narrow, well-trod path of firmly packed graham cracker crumbs began at its foot, winding its way up the face of the mountain.

Hatter broke off a small piece of rock from the foot of the mountain, and popped it into his mouth. “They’re made out of rock candy, you know. The mountains, I mean. I’ve heard that confectioner’s sugar dusts the peaks in six- and eight-foot drifts. Legend has it the Bakers built the mountains to keep enemies from stealing their recipes, but they’re so paranoid about their secrets that they often suspect one or more of their own brothers of trying to steal them. That’s when these wars break out. He clapped his hands together, rock candy dust flying. “Well, we’d best get climbing. I’d like to get to the other side of the mountains before dark.”

They climbed for what seemed to be an eternity to Henry. The path was steep, and before long his knees and back were aching. He looked back once, and saw the valley and its war-sundered baked goods spread out far below. They’d come farther up than he’d thought.

A thunderous pounding startled him, so deep he could feel the reverberations in his bones. He grabbed Hatter’s arm. “What was that?”

Hatter looked around wildly, then pulled Henry into a tight crevice in the mountain wall. They barely fit inside, chest-to-chest. Hatter’s dark eyes were wide, and fear sparkled in them. “Shh. Don’t make a sound.”

Henry held his breath and waited as the crashing sounds came closer, getting louder by the minute. A huge shadow, seemingly almost as large as the mountain itself, fell over them. It was as if night had suddenly fallen. Henry could no longer see Hatter’s face, even though it was mere inches from his own.

The booming sounds continued, growing farther away, and within a few moments the shadow passed, and the sun returned. Hatter made them wait another full five minutes before slowly creeping out from their hidey-hole.

Henry was still almost afraid to speak. He could see a gigantic figure blotting out the sun at the far end of the valley. He lowered his voice into a feathery whisper. “What was that?”

“One of the Baker Giants. They’re not especially neighborly folk. Everyone is a potential spy to them. Had he found us, he would’ve likely ground us up and added us as flavoring to the next batch bound for the oven.”

Henry kept casting glances over his shoulder as they continued to climb, but eventually, in the absence of any more Baker Giants, his mind began to wander. Once freed from fear, it made a beeline directly back to their kiss.

Neither of them mentioned it aloud, but for Henry, at least, their kiss never quite left his mind, not even when the Giant passed so close Henry could smell the Giant’s aftershave—a bit spicy and nutmeg-y, like his grandma’s pumpkin pie. He found the memory of it almost as nice as the kiss itself was, but he couldn’t help but wonder what Hatter thought about it.

Hatter seemed content to pretend nothing had happened. Henry could understand that, to a point. He wasn’t so stupid as to believe everyone was out and comfortable in their own skin. Some people denied the attraction they felt.

It wasn’t the first time Henry had kissed a boy. He’d had a boyfriend once. He and James had dated for almost six months as sophomores, and done more together than simple kissing. A lascivious grin creased his cheek as he remembered. He’d dated Sarah before James, and Rachel afterward, and neither one of the girls had worn purity rings, either.

Still, none of them had been what Henry would consider “serious” relationships. They’d been fun, but he hadn’t been too heartbroken when they’d ended. All his life he’d felt as if he were looking for something, that something was missing that he couldn’t even name, but he did know neither James nor either of the girls had been it.

Could it be he’d been seeking Wonderland all along? Even when he berated Alice for telling lies and believed it couldn’t possibly exist? For the first time, he began to question his own motives for disbelieving Alice. Had it been because he truly thought she’d been lying, or had some small, ugly part of him been jealous of her tales?

He didn’t know. It was all too confusing. What he did know was that no one he dated before had kissed him blind in the dust of a battlefield, while chocolate malt cannonballs whistled overhead, and the smell of gingerbread hung heavy in the air. None of their kisses had so burned themselves into his memory that not even the thundering footsteps of a giant could dislodge them.

None of them had kissed him like Hatter.

He was smiling as he followed Hatter up the mountain path.

S
URPRISINGLY
,
IT
never got any colder no matter how much higher they climbed. The temperature stayed warm because of the enormous ovens inside the foothills. Heat traveled up, and they produced enough to warm even the uppermost mountain peaks.

The steep path wound around the western face of the mountain, evening out for a while before beginning its descent on the other side. The snow—which was actually confectioner’s sugar, powdery and dry—while not as deep as it was on the higher reaches of the mountain, was still enough to slow their travels. It was knee-deep in places, and the breeze lifted it into the air, blowing it into their faces, making breathing difficult. Hatter dug into his pocket for his handkerchiefs again, which they tied around their faces to keep the fine particles out of their noses and mouths. Heads bent into the wind, they pushed on.

The going got much easier as they crested the mountain peak, and the path dipped downward again. As they left the heavy drifts of confectioner’s sugar behind, the trail led them into pretty forests of slim lollipop trees and fat gumball bushes, interspersed with a few marzipan shrubs.

Wildlife, conspicuously absent on the Baker Giants’ side of the mountains, reappeared. Colorful birds darted between the trees in rainbow streaks. Hatter caught sight of a few shy deer hidden deep in the foliage, a family of raccoons cautiously watching their progress, and a white rabbit wearing a pocket watch and a shamelessly dated brocade waistcoat—

Wait. What?

“Rabbit!” Hatter swore and gave his head a violent shake. “No. Absolutely not.”

Rabbit gasped and hopped up to Hatter, shoving a large, gold pocket watch in his face. “Have you any idea what day it is? What time? Where have you been? You’re late, Hatter. Very, very late. You’ve put the Queen in a most disturbing temper.” He glanced at his watch again, his small pink nose twitching, and began to whimper. His overly large feet nervously thumped the ground. “Oh, look at the time! I’m to accompany you straightaway to the Red Castle, Hatter. Your sentencing is set for this very afternoon, and you mustn’t be late for that. Heavens, no. It would be most unpleasant.”

“Sentencing? Rabbit, what are you talking about?”

“Her Majesty has accused you of the crime of killing Time. Again.”

“What? Oh, not again! Why, I haven’t even seen Time in—”

“It matters not. The Queen believes you’ve done it. Oh, your trial was quite spectacular, I dare say. Arguments raged on for so long, the Queen actually yawned. I’ve never seen such an exhibition. Of course, in the end, you were found guilty.”

Hatter folded his arms across his chest and glowered at Rabbit. “Of course I was.”

“Very sensible of you to agree. Now, if you don’t mind, what’s say we hurry, yes? We’re late.” Rabbit showed Hatter the face of his pocket watch again, as if to prove to him how late they really were.