Mad About the Hatter (5 page)

Still, he had no choice if he was to find Boy Alice, or whatever the fellow’s real name was, and in doing so, hopefully eliminate his own date with the Axe. Not to mention feed his own curiosity, which was, at times, more of a ravenous beast than the most frumious Bandersnatch, and probably even more likely to be the means of his demise. He sighed, and reached out to gently tug on the purple velvet rope-pull.

From somewhere deep within the green walls, a dainty, musical bell chimed. It sounded like crystal fairy laughter, so delicate, fragile, and sweet it nearly gave Hatter a toothache from hearing it.

“Who’s come to our door?”

“It’s Hatter, Caterpillar. Is someone called ‘Boy Alice’ in there with you?”

Caterpillar’s wet laugh made Hatter grind his teeth. “Now, now. We have rules, as you are most well aware. We ask the questions.”

“Come on, ‘Pillar. Don’t be a prat. Just answer the question so I can get on with my life, and you can get on with… er, whatever it is you get up to in there besides sucking on that damn hookah.”

“Rules, Hatter! Without rules, the world is chaos. Without rules, civilization falls. Without rules, we get bored and will take a nap.”

Hatter gritted his teeth hard enough to hurt his jaw. “Fine. What’s your question?”

He could hear sixteen tiny hands clapping in joyous anticipation of an energetic round of riddling, and rolled his eyes.

The sound of Caterpillar clearing his throat floated through the leaves. It sounded like he was gargling glass. “What is cold at times and warm at others, and red for all, though some Red thinks theirs blue?”

Gods, how I hate these stupid games!
He thought for a moment, then sighed. It was so obvious! Caterpillar must be losing his touch. He used to come up with riddles that actually tested the intellect.

“The answer is blood, of course. Mammals are warm-blooded, reptiles are cold-blooded, and the royals claim their blood is blue.” He could practically smell Caterpillar’s disappointment because he’d gotten the answer so quickly. “My turn, now. Is Boy Alice in there?”

“No, no! There are no turns. We ask the questions, not you. You know the rules, Hatter!”

“‘Pillar—”

“We are going to go to sleep. It shouldn’t be a long nap… only three or four days.”

“No! No, don’t go to sleep. Go ahead, ask me another!” Hatter’s hands curled into fists as he fought to contain his temper. Naps for Caterpillar were more like drug-induced comas, and the last thing he wanted was to cool his heels outside the Lair, waiting for Caterpillar to go through days of self-induced detox.

Caterpillar’s voice was thick with smugness. “Very well. Another riddle, then. We see far, we see close, we hold spirits, we count hours. What are we?”

Hatter touched the tip of one of the huge thorns. It pricked his finger, drawing a bright drop of blood. He swore and stuck it in his mouth.
Just as sharp as I remember them
. No pushing through the greenery, then. While Hatter knew of a secret door through which a person might exit the Lair, he also knew it was one-way only. There were only two ways to enter that he was aware of—the first was by dropping in from the sky, and the second was waiting for Caterpillar’s invitation. Since he had no wings, the former was out; he had no choice but to opt for the latter.

Damn Caterpillar and these stupid riddles!
He sat on the grass, watching a flutterby’s erratic pattern of flight.
Think, Hatter! Far, close, spirits, hours….
“Oh, of course!” He jumped up, and went to the wall. “The answer is glasses, of course. Spyglasses see far, magnifying glasses see close, shot glasses hold alcoholic spirits, and hourglasses tell time.”

He took little pleasure in Caterpillar’s frustrated moan. He simply didn’t have time for any more foolishness. There was, he realized, one way to get answers without actually getting inside the Lair. It was dirty pool and a bit underhanded, but he was desperate. He dug in his pocket, his arm sinking in to the elbow, rummaging around for one particular object. A smile lit his face as his fingers closed around it and withdrew it. “Do you know what I’m holding right now, Caterpillar?”

“No questions! No questions! You know the rules.”

“Oh, I daresay you’ll want the answer to this one, ‘Pillar. That’s all right. I won’t force you to play. I’ll give you the answer. It’s a matchstick. A lovely, red-tipped, wooden matchstick. One strike against the sole of my shoe, and I will burn your precious Lair to the ground.”

“What? No, you lie!”

“Do I? You should know me better than that. I may be mad, and on occasion may make the truth seem like a crooked street in a twisted town, but a liar I am not.” Hatter lifted a foot and scraped the match across the sole of his shoe. A tiny flame burst into life, flickering at the end of the wooden stick. He held it toward the wall of greenery and gently blew on the smoke rising from the flame, watching the thin tendril snake between the leaves into the Lair. “Smell that? That’s plain ol’ smoke, my friend, but as they say, where smoke is, fire can’t be far behind.”

Hatter knew that, contrary to what most might think, the whackweed in which Caterpillar imbibed didn’t dull his senses, but instead, made him hyperaware of the slightest changes in his Lair. Caterpillar would perceive the thin plume of smoke from the lit match as a billowing, noxious cloud. Hatter smiled to himself and waited for the inevitable explosion.

There was a sudden cry of “Smoke!” followed by a cacophony of crashes, screeches, bangings, and bumpings from within the Lair. Hatter could picture Caterpillar in a tizzy, unsure of what to do, all sixteen hands flailing in panic. Bring Hatter in? Answer Hatter’s question? What to do? What to do?

Hatter seized the moment to press his advantage. “Where is Boy Alice, Caterpillar?”

“Gone! He’s gone. Got little and left!”

Oh, no. No, no, no!
“You didn’t make him eat the damn mushroom, did you? ‘Pillar, you know better. The Queen forbade you from feeding anyone a piece of that mushroom ever again!”

Caterpillar’s voice thinned into a whine. “We had to, Hatter! He was upsetting us. He refused to play by the rules. He raised his voice at us, Hatter.”

The flame ate the rest of the wooden stick, burning Hatter’s fingers. He shook it out and dropped it, shoving his slightly burned fingertips in his mouth. His voice sounded a bit distorted as he tried to enunciate around his thumb and forefinger. “You’re a grown caterpillar, Caterpillar. I would think you could hold your own in an argument without resorting to feeding poor, unsuspecting people bits of your slimy fungus. Which way did he go?”

“Did you blow out the match?”

“Answer me, and I’ll tell you.”

“He went… down.”

Well, of course, he did. The only other direction was up, and unless Boy Alice kept a cannon in his pocket with which to shoot himself into the upper stratosphere, down would’ve been his only option. “And then where?”

“We don’t know. We didn’t watch. We didn’t care.”

Hatter sensed Caterpillar was telling the truth. If Boy Alice was anything like his sister, he was probably annoying at best, disagreeable at worst, and positively frumious if the mood struck him. Chances were good Caterpillar couldn’t wait to get rid of him, hence why he risked the Queen’s ire by making Boy Alice eat the mushroom.

Eating the fungus was not Caterpillar’s only recourse. There was a much easier, safer way to leave the Lair—through a secret door in the foliage that only Caterpillar, Hatter, and a select few others knew about. Making Boy Alice eat the mushroom was an indication of just how much Caterpillar disliked him.

“Have you doused the flame, Hatter? Please, Hatter?”

Hatter sighed. For all Caterpillar was annoying, he was in essence a harmless, simple creature, who minded his own business unless you made the mistake of trespassing in his Lair, or letting him talk you into partaking of his pipe. His riddles were bothersome but benign. He’d done no real harm to Hatter this time, either, and he had answered Hatter’s question. Just because Hatter wasn’t happy with the answer didn’t mean Caterpillar’s Lair should burn. “Yes, it’s out. You’re safe.”

The relief in Caterpillar’s voice was quite audible. “We thank you.” Purple smoke again began to drift out from between the leaves of the walls as the smell of whackweed again filled the air.

Hatter turned his mind back to the problem at hand, namely, finding Boy Alice. The best place to begin his search, in fact, Hatter supposed, the only place, since he now knew for certain Boy Alice had eaten Caterpillar’s mushroom, was the ground under the towering mushroom. That meant the search was to begin with Hatter on his knees, since that was likely where Boy Alice would be—whether or not he’d survived the fall from the mushroom to the Lair’s ground.

If he was dead, Boy Alice’s battered and broken corpse would be lying somewhere in the grass in the shadow cast by the mushroom. If he’d lived through what was surely an extremely rough landing, he’d be wandering—most likely bruised, bleeding, and limping—among the jungle of grass stalks, no doubt trying to remain alive.

Sampling ‘Pillar’s mushroom made the eater shrink to the size of a largish bit of dandelion fuzz. That was how it was said the Red King met his fate—he ate ‘Pillar’s mushroom and a strong wind carried him away. They had yet to find the poor man’s body.

Of course, the King could be playing dead, Hatter mused, not for the first time. Faking one’s own death would be a bloody brilliant way to escape life with the Queen.

In any case, that was why the Queen forbade Caterpillar to feed his mushroom to anyone else. If she found out Boy Alice ate some, she’d have Caterpillar’s head. Even though Hatter didn’t harbor any particular fondness for Caterpillar, he disliked the Queen even more. No more heads for her, not if he could help it.

“Caterpillar? Let me in, please.”

“We have rules—”

“Do not start with me again. I have an entire packet of matches. Shall I light another?”

“Do come in, Hatter.”

Just like that—because, after all, that’s how magic works—Hatter found himself able to pass through the thick green walls of the Lair to the inside without earning a single scratch from the bayonet-like thorns. He knew, though, that going back out the same way would be impossible without them skewering him. This magic was one-way only.

Hatter dropped to his knees and began searching through the grass at the base of the mushroom. It wasn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack. Oh no, that would’ve been much easier because the needle rarely tried to hide, which he greatly suspected was indeed the case with Boy Alice.

Shrunk to the size of a largish dust mite, Boy Alice’s best survival tactic would be hiding from everything, including Hatter, who would look like a giant from Boy Alice’s point of view.

Hatter’s keen gaze slowly swept the ground. He found acorns, feathers, a stone shaped like a peanut, a peanut shaped like a stone, and a key, which he pocketed because you never knew when you might stumble across a lock in desperate need of one. He also found a half crown, a whole crown, and a tiara missing only two or three diamonds, all of which also found their way into his pocket.

He saw centipedes trundling along on a hundred marching feet, and millipedes, having ten times as many legs, speeding past them, causing the centipedes to spew foul curses. There were ants aplenty—red ants, black ants, elif ants, gi ants, pique ants, ascend ants, descend ants, girl ants and boy ants, and he thought he may have seen a clairvoy ant, but it must’ve sensed him coming because it disappeared before he could be sure. He found bottlecaps, snowcaps, hubcaps, and nightcaps, as well as jewelweed, hawkweed, carpetweed, and fireweed, which burned his fingers when he accidentally touched it.

The one thing he didn’t find was Boy Alice.

He sat up and stretched, feeling his spine pop like corn on the fire. It felt like he’d been searching for days, but a glance at his pocket watch showed less than an hour had passed. Why was it Time slowed down or sped up adversely to whatever he wished? If he wanted Time to pass quickly, the clock dragged its hands around its face with the speed of a dead snail. When he wanted Time to slow down, it sped up, zipping by him in a blur. Time, he decided, had a decidedly contrary nature, and still carried a grudge against Hatter from the whole Tea Party debacle.

Hatter blanched and immediately tried to erase the thought from his mind for fear he’d irritate Time again and end up searching the damned patch of grass forever, just as he’d nearly spent his life in eternal teatime when last Time cursed him. Time was much too sensitive and far too full of itself, as far as Hatter was concerned.

“Boy Alice! This would be so much easier if you’d just show yourself!” His keen gaze scanned the grassy area at the foot of the giant mushroom, then slowly panned out toward the towering green wall. The area within the Lair wasn’t so large, perhaps a mere quarter the size of the Queen’s ballroom, yet if he had to search it all on his hands and knees, he’d probably be a bearded old man by the time he finished. Or at least have extremely sore hands and knees.

He could claim Boy Alice was dead. March right up to the Queen and tell her Caterpillar ate him. Or smoked him, which might be more believable.

At which point, she would do one of two things: call for Caterpillar’s head, or spiral into a deep rage over losing her chance to kill Boy Alice herself, and lop off Hatter’s head as an inferior substitute.

Perhaps lying wasn’t the best of plans, after all.

Sighing heavily, he resumed his search.

He bent down low so his nose practically touched the dirt, scanning the ground for any sign of Boy Alice. At last, after he’d searched as wide an area as he felt Boy Alice could’ve covered in the few short hours since eating the mushroom and shrinking, he spotted a pair of teeny-tiny footprints in a mound of soft dirt.

Many hundreds of slightly larger footprints surrounded them. Then the teeny-tiny footprints vanished, and all that remained, leading away from the soft mound of earth, were the slightly larger prints.