Mad About the Hatter (4 page)

For one thing, the flora here was ridiculous. Each plant was outrageously oversized, sporting huge, heavy blooms of overly sweet-smelling, brilliantly colored flowers, and thick stalks of greenery that loomed well over his head. They formed a large, seemingly impenetrable rectangular area of foliage, and he had to crane his neck to see the tops of them. Thorns the size of bayonets precluded him from considering climbing over or pushing through the floral walls.

For another, there was a large caterpillar-like creature lounging nearby on an enormous mushroom. The bug was the size of a small pony, and covered with bright blue, spiky fur spotted with pale yellow. Worse, it was smoking from a huge purple hookah pipe. A lazy curl of bluish smoke coiled around its head, and a sweetly spicy smell hung heavy in the air, making Henry feel a bit light-headed.

Wonderful. Just what he needed. A contact high from a hallucination.

“Boy Alice, we are bored. Perhaps you would amuse us. Tell us… why are you?”

Great. He was hearing things as well as seeing and smelling them. Could seventeen-year-olds have strokes? Perhaps he’d had one of those. He put a finger to his throat, feeling for his pulse. It was strong and steady, and gave no explanation as to why he was being delusional.

The caterpillar responded to his silence by blowing a series of smoke rings toward him.

Henry coughed, waved a hand in front of his face in a futile effort to bat away the smoky air, and tried not to inhale. “Why am I…?”

“Yes, dull boy. Why are you?”

“What?”

“As dense as your sister, we dare say. We ask why you are and you answer you are what.” The caterpillar took a deep drag on his pipe. After a moment or two, he let out another long stream of smoke that encircled Henry’s head and neck like a hangman’s noose. “Why should we care what you are? You are you and we are we. Our only interest is why you are.”

Henry coughed again. “Why am I even having this conversation? You’re not real. Caterpillars do not grow to the size of lawn furniture, and even if they did, they don’t talk, and they definitely don’t smoke. You’re a hallucination.” He gestured around him, batting at a daisy the size of a truck tire. “I’ve had some sort of psychotic break. All of this is part of a delusion, probably brought on by whatever foul little concoction Alice made me drink last night. She poisoned me, the little twit!”

“Who is Twit? A relative, perhaps, of Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

“Who?” He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I need to get home.”

“And where is that, Boy Alice?” The caterpillar gestured in a circle with his pipe. “In which direction should you go?”

“Home is… it’s…. Well, I don’t know which way, exactly. I don’t know where I am.”

“It should be obvious. You are here, with us.”

“But… but where are you?”

“Again, the answer is obvious. We are here, with you.” The caterpillar inhaled again, then blew out another thick stream of blue smoke. “Really, you must pay more attention to the conversation.”

Henry’s head was beginning to spin pleasantly. He resisted the urge to take a deep breath, or better yet, ask for a toke on the caterpillar’s pipe. “Look, all I know is Alice made me drink something that knocked me on my butt. The last thing I remember is her voice
telling me to find the Mad Hatter. There was something else too, but—
”

That name widened the caterpillar’s eyes. He leaned up, gesturing toward Henry with his hookah pipe, cutting Henry off. “The Mad Hatter, you say? Why him?”

“I don’t know why. I don’t even know if such a person exists, or how he could help me.”

“Ah.” The caterpillar lay back down, and smoked for a moment. “Hatter exists, or at least, he did. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Exist.”

Henry shoved his fingers through his hair, pulling tight enough to bring tears to his eyes, nearly at his wit’s end with the irritating creature. Or hallucination. Or whatever the hell this thing was. “Of course I exist! I’m standing right here.”

“Perhaps you are a figment of our imagination.” The caterpillar blew an especially thick ribbon of smoke at Henry. “It would not be the first time we conversed with ourselves. We rather enjoy it, actually. We’re quite witty, you know.”

“You’re crazy!”

The caterpillar’s laugh sounded wet, like pipes gurgling. “But of course. All the best people are. Just ask Hatter.”

Henry gritted his teeth, trying to keep his voice level and his temper under control. He nearly succeeded. “Screw Hatter!”

“Please. We could care less about who Hatter chooses to sleep with or not. We might add, neither should anyone else.”

He frowned, and shook his head, then turned his back on the caterpillar. After a moment or two, he brightened. “Maybe I’m still unconscious, and this is all a dream. Perhaps whatever Alice gave me knocked me out, and I’m still sleeping.” His mood just as quickly deteriorated into a funk. “On the other hand, maybe I’m dead, and this is hell. Can’t be heaven, because I doubt giant, irritating caterpillars are allowed there, stoned or otherwise. I don’t feel dead, though, not with this wicked headache.” He began to massage his temples. “Although if I’m in hell, it stands to reason I’d be damned to endure all manner of suffering. Both pains in the head”—he glanced back toward the caterpillar—“and pains in the ass.”

He dropped his hands, determined to ignore the pain. Focusing his attention, he paced the rectangular area of the garden, looking for holes in the thick foliage large enough for him to squeeze through without being shish-ka-bobbed by the thorns, but found none. He couldn’t climb over it for the same reason. Tunneling out was not an option, not without a shovel. Finally, in desperation, he turned back to the Caterpillar. “How do I get out of here?”

The caterpillar took a deep drag on his pipe, seeming to contemplate the question. “Well, we suppose you could fly out.” He peered at Henry over the pipe. “Can you fly?”

“Do I look like I can fly?”

“You don’t look like you can do much of anything. That was not our question. We are well aware that looks can be deceiving, so we asked whether or not you can fly.”

Henry ground his molars, his jaw tightening. “No. I can’t fly.”

“Pity. It would be a very marketable talent.”

Henry smirked. “I’d say you’re flying enough for the two of us. Come on, there must be some way out of here!”

“Hmm.” The caterpillar gestured toward the thick foliage walls. “Can you not just push through to the other side?”

“No. It’ll hurt.” Henry took a step away from the wall of greenery and thorns, just to be safe.

“Perhaps the pain will not be as terrible as you fear it will be.”

“And perhaps it’ll be worse. Have you seen the size of those thorns? There’s got to be another way!”

The caterpillar smoked a while, seemingly lost in thought. Then he suddenly sat forward, and jabbed his pipe at Henry, looking stern. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun! The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Henry gaped at the caterpillar. “The Jabberwho? I never heard of a Jubjub bird, and ‘frumious’ isn’t even a word. Do you want to know what I think? I think that rank stinkweed you’ve been smoking has rotted your brain. Either that or this is still all a hallucination, one that’s devolved into total nonsense.”

The caterpillar sat back, tapping his chin with his pipe. “Hmph. Interesting. Alice didn’t understand it, either. We can only surmise the dullness in your family is genetic.”

Henry had had enough. Finding a few nooks and crannies in the giant mushroom to serve as foot and handholds, he clambered up to the broad, smooth head. Reaching over, he yanked the hookah pipe out of the caterpillar’s hand, and held it just out of reach of the caterpillar’s short, skinny arms.

The caterpillar screeched a thin, fragile, desperate sound. “No! What are you doing? Oh, you bad boy. You terrible boy! Give it back to us! Give it back!”

“Absolutely. As soon as you tell me how to get out of this garden! There has to be a way. You got in. I got in. Logic says if there’s a way in, there must be a way out.” He jiggled the pipe, taunting the caterpillar.

“All right, all right! Logic lies. The way out is illogical.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Now you’re getting it. Perhaps there’s hope for you after all. We told you the secret, boy! Give it back to us now!”

“You told me nothing but nonsense! How do I get out of here?”

The caterpillar banged ineffectual fists against the slightly slimy surface of the mushroom head. “To go up, one must go down. To go back, one must go forward. To get out, one must go in!”

“Go in? If I go in, the thorns will slice me to ribbons!”

“This! This!” The caterpillar banged the mushroom harder. “This will allow you to go in.”

Henry’s lip curled as he looked at the giant fungus on which they stood. “Do you mean I have to eat some of this slimy crap? I hate mushrooms.”

“Fine. Then stay. It is your choice. Now, we answered your question. Give us our pipe!” The caterpillar reached toward Henry, all sixteen hands making grabby motions toward the pipe, his face twisted in a snarl.

“Fine! But if eating it doesn’t work or makes me sick, I’m going to come back up here and stuff that hookah up your ass!” He didn’t know if the caterpillar actually had an ass, or if it did, where it was located, but it sounded like a good threat to Henry anyway. He tossed the pipe to the caterpillar.

The caterpillar grabbed the pipe and held it close to his chest, greedily guarding it against illicit snatches by terrible boys or otherwise unexpected mishaps.

Henry found an edge of the mushroom head that was soft, and was easily able to break off a small piece, about the size of a slice of bread. It felt a little bit slimy, and smelled like dirt, but he managed to take a tiny bite.

“As stupid as his sister!” the caterpillar snarled from behind him. “Annoying, irritating, and frumious! Get off our mushroom and out of our Lair!”

Henry felt something hit his back, pushing him over the edge of the mushroom. He tilted wildly for a moment, his arms windmilling, but he lost the fight with gravity and tumbled off, falling helpless through space. His last thought was that it seemed much, much farther going down than it had going up. It had to be the caterpillar. The damned bug must’ve done something to him. He hoped he wouldn’t break a leg or his back in the fall, so as soon as he finished falling, he’d be able to climb back up and strangle the caterpillar with its own damn hookah pipe hose.

T
HE
TRIP
from the Red Castle to Caterpillar’s Lair was uneventful, aside from a barrage of stones thrown at the royal coach by villagers, a close call with a rampaging Bandersnatch, and the overall bone-jarring, teeth-rattling, spine-shattering motion of the wooden carriage wheels clattering over stone-strewn, hole-infested dirt roads.

Still
, Hatter mused,
I suppose it beats walking.
As uncomfortable as the ride was, it shaved at least a day and a half off my travel time. Also probably shaved an entire quarter inch off my height by compressing my spine, but one can’t have everything.

The stone-throwing villagers were par for the course. He would’ve been more shocked had they not appeared and hurled rocks at his conveyance. After all, he was riding in the ridiculously red royal coach, an ostentatious and pretentious eyesore on wheels if ever there was one, a vehicle that practically screamed, “Here Comes the Red Queen, the Cause of All Your Woes.” Hatter knew the villagers bore him no personal grievance—they fully expected the Sovereign to be inside, not the Hatter. The villagers simply thought they had a shot at beaning the Queen squarely on her crimson noggin with one of their rocky missiles. They’d be ever so disappointed to find out they never had a chance since the Queen was safely ensconced in her throne room back in the castle. Hatter didn’t want to be the one to disillusion them, and would emit a loud, ear-piercing scream every so often just to hear the swell of cheers that inevitably followed it.

The Bandersnatch was another story. Foul creatures they were, full of teeth and claws and sour attitudes, but surprisingly tasty if well salted and cooked long and slow. Hatter sorely wished the one that nearly took a bite out of him was already seasoned and roasting over a low fire. The ugly thing may have succeeded in getting a mouthful of Hatter, had not one of its feet caught on a root that sent it tumbling into a nearby marsh. He fervently hoped a snaggletoothed crocodile might make its home in that marsh, one that thought the Bandersnatch would make an excellent and tasty meal. Hatter’s dislike of Bandersnatches really knew no bounds.

It was nearing teatime on the second day when the coach finally pulled up in a neck-wrenching stop in front of a rectangle of thick greenery. The foliage walls soared up so high that, had he been inclined, he would have had to crane his neck to see the tops of them. Having had his back and neck tortured by the rough roads and rougher ride for the past day and a half, and having seen said hedge tops on previous occasions, Hatter kept his gaze glued to the ground as he clambered awkwardly out of the coach. His face wrinkled in a grimace of pain as his spine slowly, if noisily, returned to its original, uncorked, uncompressed state.

A sign posted on the nearest wall had the word “Lair” written on it in exquisitely rendered calligraphy, full of delicate swirls and curlicues. Next to the sign, a tasseled purple velvet rope-pull dangled.

Caterpillar’s Lair, known well to everyone who lived in Wonderland as a place to avoid entering at all costs, was also one of Hatter’s least favorite locations. Not because it was as difficult to escape as a Chinese finger trap—he was, after all, one of the few people privy to the secret of escaping it—but because of its garrulous owner.

Caterpillar, with his absurd, drug-induced questions and habit of always referring to himself in the manner of the royal we, was enough to make anyone who wandered into his Lair consider impaling themselves on one of the gigantic hedge thorns as preferable to remaining in his company, Hatter included.