Wonderland Read online

  The March Hare wasn’t having any of it. “Don’t be so lily-livered, Hatta, old pal, old chum. We’re here on royal appointment.”

  “That won’t stop us from being eaten,” the Hatter pointed out. “The last thing I want is to find myself sliding down some lolloping monster’s gullet, especially dressed like this.”

  All three of them—the Hatter, the March Hare and even Dum-Dum—were wearing bulky teddy-bear outfits that the Hare had procured from Madame Masquerade’s Famed Dressing-up Emporium. At least, that’s where he said he’d got them. The costumes smelled suspiciously meaty, the insides damp and sticky, with gleaming zippers freshly sewn into the tousled hides. Then there were the flies that buzzed incessantly around them, not the clothes-horse flies that used to flit around Wonderland on delicate fabric wings. These were bloated, with wiry hair and bulging eyes, their scissor-like teeth ready to rend and tear. The Hatter swatted a particularly relentless bug, trying to remember the last time he’d encountered such pernicious pests. The answer, of course, was never. What little was left of Wonderland was changing, rotting around them. Even their current surroundings seemed wrong. Since when did Wonderland have jungles made of concrete? What had happened to real trees, the ones made of candy and jam?

  “Will you stop waving your arms around?” the Hare said, snapping the Hatter out of his fly-blighted reverie. “You’ll draw attention to yourself.”

  “It’s just so hot in here,” the Hatter replied, spitting fur from his tongue. “And so hard to see.”

  “Just be glad you’re not Tweedledum,” came the less-than-helpful response. The Hare had a point. Poor Dum-Dum had been forced to squeeze into a bear-skin at least two times too small, a tight squeeze that was exacerbated by the fact that the apparently watertight suit was filling up with the ex-twin’s tears. Hatter had suggested putting off their mission to give Dum-Dum opportunity to grieve, but the Hare had merely produced the White Rabbit’s blood-smeared pocket-watch which now showed a time of ten past dread.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  Time was running out, and as they trudged through the gloomy trees the Hatter couldn’t ignore the voice at the back of his mind that kept repeating the same four words: It’s all your fault.

  That was crazy, of course. None of this was the Hatter’s doing. That was the trouble with having so many voices in your head. Hardly any of them made sense.

  The same could be said of the scene that greeted them as they drove deeper into the Jungle, stepping over grasping concrete roots and avoiding calcified creepers. The entire forest was carpeted in a thick dusting of snow, flakes streaming down from the branches high above. How could it be snowing within the Jungle? Little could get past the chunky canopy, the interlocking leaves forming an impenetrable umbrella above their heads.

  The Hatter shrugged, ignoring the wet sensation of slimy bear-skin against his shoulders. “At least it might cool things down?”

  “I’m not so sure,” the Hare said, sticking out a tongue to catch a snowflake. It wasn’t his own tongue, of course. That was impossible while wearing an oversized teddy-bear head. No, it had belonged to the White Rabbit. The Hare had decided to keep it as a lucky charm when sawing off the bunny’s foot proved too much work.

  “It’s not snow,” the Hare exclaimed, peering at the white flake at the end of the lagomorph’s severed lolly-licker. “It’s cement. The trees are crumbling.”

  “But what if they crumble away to nothing before next Tuesday?” the Hatter asked, wishing he could give the brim of his hat a good wring to ease his nerves.

  “The sky will fall,” the Hare replied, stuffing the Rabbit’s tongue back in his pocket.

  Tweedledum didn’t comment. He was too busy gargling with his own tears.

  This was worse than any of them had thought. Wonderland was disappearing faster than ever. Just that morning, the Sherbet Dunes of the Dessert Plains had blown away and, according to the Caterpillar, who had heard it from a bellied pig who in turn had heard it from a platypus-billed duck, the seasides of the south coast had collapsed, taking with them the sea-bottoms and most of the sea-tops.

  It’s not my fault, the Hatter told himself, as they pushed on through the freshly fallen dust. Why would it be?

  And yet the Clock kept ticking.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick—

  “What’s that?” the Hare asked, stopping abruptly.

  “It’s the Alarm Clock,” the Hatter replied.

  “No, not the ticking. Listen.”

  The Hatter did as he was told, praying that he wouldn’t hear the growl of the dreadfoul Grindlemeer. Of all the monsters still in Wonderland, the Grindlemeer was by far the worst—crueller than the Bandersnatch, sneakier than the Jubjub bird, and, if you could believe it, deadlier than the Jabberwocky itself.

  Luckily, he couldn’t hear a growl or the sound of gigantuous paws stalking towards them. No, it was the chink of china. The trio peered around a trunk to see the Dream Girl kneeling on a chequered blanket, laying out tea-things from a large wicker basket. She looked up and, catching sight of them behind the tree, beckoned them over with a beaming smile.

  “It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for so long.”

  The Hatter frowned as they approached the picnic blanket, which seemed miraculously free of crumbling concrete. Everyone said that the Dream Girl had fair skin, blue eyes and long blonde hair. And yes, at first sight, the human on the blanket matched the description perfectly. However, now they were closer, the Hatter could clearly see that her skin was dark, her eyes a rich chestnut brown and her hair a glorious swell of tight curls. Instead of the much-reported blue dress, complete with its starched white apron, the girl wore olive-green overalls with rubber-soled sneakers, a collection of strange tools tucked into the pocket on her narrow chest.

  The girl placed a small plate in front of him. “I’m so glad you made it. I do so love a party. Any kind of party will do. A tea party. A birthday party. Even a political party.”

  “Don’t forget an injured party,” the Hare said, trying to peek in the girl’s basket as they sat down.

  “Oh, of course,” the girl said. “An injured party is a wonderful thing, as long as you bring enough bandages.” Her freckled face fell, as if remembering something. “The only party I don’t enjoy is a slumber party. If you ask me, everyone around here has had enough of those to last a lifetime. Scrambled eggs?”

  “I’m sorry?” the Hatter asked, finding it hard to keep up with the conversation. For some reason, the girl’s prim and proper voice didn’t match her appearance, as if it had no business spilling out of her mouth.

  As he watched, she reached into her basket and drew out a silver platter piled high with steaming eggs.

  “If that doesn’t take your fancy,” she continued, popping them next to his plate, “I can also offer you bacon, kippers, porridge or muffins. I did have toast and marmalade, but I’m afraid I got rather hungry while waiting. Is that awfully rude of me?”

  “Not at all,” the Hare said, his teddy-bear head wobbling alarmingly. “As long as you have tea…”

  “Of course I have tea,” the girl said, drawing a bone-china teapot from the hamper. “What is breakfast without tea?”

  “Breakfast?” the Hatter asked. “Surely it’s lunchtime.”

  “It is,” the girl agreed, the teapot posed in her hands. “But Mama once told me that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, so I resolved to eat nothing but breakfast, morning, noon and night. Shall I pour?”

  The Hatter was about to nod, when the Hare interjected. “What about milk? We must have milk with our tea.”

  The Dream Girl gasped, appalled at her faux pas. “Of course, we must have milk. How silly of me. Now, I know I have a jug in here somewhere.” Putting down the teapot, she searched through the basket, and when she couldn’t find what she was looking for, climbed into the thing so only her chunky sneakers were sticking out from the opening. “I was sure I packed it this morning.�
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  The Hare winked—which was quite an achievement when wearing a stuffed head—and revealed that he had stolen the girl’s milk jug and hidden it behind Tweedledum’s ever-expanding bulk. Before the Dream Girl could emerge from her search, he threw a small glass vial to the Hatter who, thanks to the increasingly rancid mittens that were covering his hands, nearly dropped it.

  “Squeeze a couple of drops of that into the teapot, and for goodness sake, don’t take a sip after she’s poured you a cup.”

  “What is it?” the Hatter asked, shaking the vial, the liquid inside slopping lazily around the glass.

  “It’s a sleeping potion, strong enough to send her to the land of nod. Once she’s asleep we’ll carry her back to the four Queens and claim our reward.”

  “There’s a reward?”

  “Yes,” the Hare replied. “We get to keep our heads where they belong.”

  The Hatter’s own head was aching. Lights were dancing in front of his eyes, and his throat felt parched. He could certainly have done with a cup of tea, doped or not.

  “Hurry up!” the Hare whispered, but the girl emerged from the basket before the deed could be done.

  “I do apologise,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “But the milk seems to have vanished.”

  “It’s going around,” the Hatter murmured.

  “I did, however, find these,” she said, ignoring his comment to produce a pair of juicy lemons.

  “Perfect,” the Hare said, snatching the citrus fruit from her grasp and jumping to his feet. “If we are to have a picnic, then we need entertainment.”

  He began to juggle the fruit, adding the eggs, bacon, kippers, porridge and muffins as the girl applauded, delighted at the spectacle. Her face only fell when he added a bloody strip of muscle to the mix. The girl glanced at the basket, looking rather bemused.

  “I don’t remember packing tongue,” she said, unaware that the Hatter had used the distraction to tip two drops of the sleeping draught into the teapot’s bone-white spout. “Certainly not for breakfast.”

  “Then, maybe you should have a drop of that tea,” the Hare said, slinging the plates over his shoulders. “To refresh your memory.”

  “A grand idea,” the girl said, finally pouring the brew into the four cups. “This should wake us all up!”

  The Hare picked up his cup, as did the Hatter. Tweedledum just kept wailing, his bear suit now swollen to twice its normal size thanks to all the tears. The Hatter watched expectantly as the girl raised her own cup to her lips. He felt slightly guilty, as the child seemed actually rather nice and not a little familiar, although for the life of him, he couldn’t fathom why. He considered swiping the tainted tea from her hands but reminded himself that the fate of Wonderland hung in the balance.

  She was just about to take a sip when the concrete trees echoed with the sound of a ferocious roar.

  The Hatter’s blood froze in his veins. There was no mistaking that sound. It was the roar of the Grindlemeer, whose breath could petrify, and stare befuddle. Sure enough, the beast stalked into the glade, its great mane a riot of impossible colours and its eyes burning like starfire.

  “Who dares enter my Jungle?” the creature growled as the Hatter fought the urge to run.

  “I dare,” said the girl, springing up to face the beast. “And if you don’t mind, my friends and I are about to enjoy a lovely, rousing cup of tea, so I would thank you to slink back to wherever you came from.”

  “What?” boomed the Grindlemeer. “I have never heard such insolence. I shall gobble you up without delay.”

  “Don’t you mean gobble me down? Most food goes down to one’s belly, after all.”

  “Up or down, I shall devour you all the same,” the Grindlemeer bellowed, closing his indomitable jaws around the slight girl, crunching her bones as one might chew on a particularly crisp biscuit. The March Hare and the Hatter could only watch in dismay. The girl was dead, and if the Grindlemeer didn’t kill them, the four Queens certainly would.

  The Hatter was just wondering if they should offer the beast a cup of the dosed tea when a voice asked: “Was I tasty?”

  The Grindlemeer whirled around to find the Dream Girl standing behind him, a pleasant smile on her not-at-all-chewed face.

  “But that isn’t possible,” the monster gasped.

  “Then you’d better kill me again.”

  “Happily,” the Grindlemeer said, bringing a paw the size of a small cow down on her head, snapping every bone in her young body. The Hatter winced as he ground her remains into the dirt just to make sure that she couldn’t get up again.

  “You’re really not very good at that, are you?” the girl said from where she had miraculously reappeared at his side.

  “Yes, I am,” the monster insisted, proving his point by slicing her into bloody pieces with one swipe of his razor-sharp claws.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, resurrecting for the third time in as many minutes.

  “How are you doing this?” the Grindlemeer demanded.

  “Would you like to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” said the Grindlemeer, Hare and Hatter in unison.

  “By taking my medicine,” the girl said, producing a small glass bottle.

  “What kind of medicine?” the monster asked.

  With a pop, she pulled out the stopper and held the bottle under his nose. “The kind that makes you feel like it’s a brand-new day.”

  His whiskers quivering, the Grindlemeer took a sniff and his eyes went wide. Then the rest of him followed, swelling up like a balloon before exploding. The Hatter threw up his hands, expecting to be splattered by monstrous innards, but the inevitable gush of entrails and vital organs didn’t follow. The Grindlemeer had simply vanished.

  The girl smiled as the ground shook, the concrete fracturing.

  “The Jungle’s cracking up,” the Hare yelled as the trees pulled themselves apart, the rubble shooting heavenwards as if caught in the pull of a gigantic magnet.

  “I know the feeling,” the Hatter cried out as the ground beneath him crumbled, great chunks detaching themselves to fly upwards. “We’re going to disappear like the Grindlemeer!”

  “Not yet.”

  The Dream Girl hovered in the midst of the carnage like an avenging angel, her form flicking between a freckled black girl with an awesome Afro and Wonderland’s blonde-haired bugaboo. “But it will happen soon enough. Tell the Queens what you’ve seen. Tell them about the Destroyer of Wonderland. Tell them about their waking nightmare!”

  The Hare had already turned tail and run, leaping from one rocketing outcrop to the next as the Jungle disintegrated around them. The Hatter yanked at Tweedledum’s bear suit, but the weight of the grieving sibling’s collected tears was too great.

  “Let me go,” the ex-twin bawled. “I want to be with my brother.”

  “You don’t mean that,” the Hatter said, pulling with all his might as the glade shot into the sky, picnic blanket and all.

  “Yes, I do!” Dum-Dum yelled, shoving the Hatter hard in his chest. He tumbled back, his costume snagging on a jagged rock and splitting in two. He fell away from the disappearing forest, screaming as he flipped over and over before landing on his best friend.

  “Come on,” the Hare said, scrabbling up and grabbing the Hatter by the hand. “We need to get to safety.”

  But the crisis had passed. The Grindlemeer was gone. The Jungle was gone. Tweedledum was gone. The Hatter looked up into the starless grey sky, searching for any sign of the Dream Girl, but she had vanished too. The only thing that remained was the resounding clang of the Alarm Clock striking half past calamity.

  More of Wonderland had been lost, and, this time, they’d seen it with their own eyes.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  “It truly is the end of the world,” the Hatter wailed, dropping to his knees. “What are we going to do?”

  The Hare pulled off his st
uffed head and grinned wolfishly. “What do you think? We’re going to throw a party!”

  * * *

  Of all the hare-brained schemes his friend had ever come up with over the years, the Hatter had to admit that this one made sense.

  Almost.

  “The Dream Girl loves a party,” he told the Queens, after explaining what had happened in the Jungle. “She told us herself. So, if we throw the biggest shindig in the history of revelry, she’s bound to turn up, especially if we serve breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” the Queen of Clubs said, indicating for her executioner to sharpen his axe.

  “Don’t ask,” the Hare replied quickly, and for once the rulers complied.

  Within hours, invitations for the mother of all garden parties had been sent to everyone in Wonderland, a task helped by the fact that the kingdom was a fraction of its former size. Only a handful of the Queens’ subjects actually showed up, mainly because only a handful were left. They gathered in the shadow of the Alarm Clock, sipping from buttercups and watching a dandelion-trainer place his head in the mouths of various ferocious flowers as the afternoon’s entertainment got underway.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  “So,” the Queen of Clubs hissed. “Where is she?”

  The Queen of Diamonds looked equally displeased. “You said she’d be here.”

  “Were we wrong to trust you?” the Queen of Spades asked, as the Queen of Hearts floated the idea of cutting off the Hare’s quivering ears while they waited.

  “There is no need,” said a voice from where the dandelion-trainer had been eaten by a petunia. In his place stood the Dream Girl, looking none the worse for dying three times before breakfast.

  “What did I tell you?” the Hare crowed, triumphantly. “I have delivered the Destroyer to you. Quick. Off with her head.”

  “That’s my line!” the Queen of Hearts spat, grabbing her executioner’s axe and lopping off the Hare’s head in a fit of pique.

  “That’s not very fair,” the head said as it bounced towards the Dream Girl.