Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast (2 page)

ROAR!

...would be on her in a Wonderland moment. And she hadn't yet found a champion for the fight. So she raced past the tea table, waving her hand.

The tea-party trio did not even stop arguing long enough to call out her name. Alice knew from long experience that Wonderland friends were hardly the kind to send postcards or to remember your birthday, but she had thought they might at least wave back. After all the times she had poured for them, and brought them cakes from the Duchess's pantry! The last trip to Wonderland, she'd even come down the rabbit-hole with her pockets stuffed full of fruit scones because the Dormouse had never tried them with currants. He had spent the entire party after that making jokes about currant affairs, and the Hare had been laughing the whole time. “Hare-sterically,” according to the Hatter. We'd had a simply wonderful tune, Alice thought. It made her a bit cranky that the three ignored her now, but she didn't stop to yell at them or complain. The Jabberwock's roars were too dose for that.

Directly across the clearing was a path. On some of her visits the path was there; on others it was twenty feet to the left or right. She raced toward it, hoping the White Knight would be waiting. He was the best of her champions, no matter that he was a bit old and feeble. At least he was always trying. Quite trying, she thought suddenly.

She'd even settle for the Tweedle twins, though they fought one another as much as they fought the Jabberwock. Dee and Dum were their names, but—she thought a bit acidly—perhaps Dumb and Dumber more accurately described them.

And then there was the Beamish Boy. She didn't much like him at all, though he was the acknowledged Wonderland Ace. Renowned in song and story for beating the Jabberwock, he was too much of a bully for Alice's tastes. And he always insisted on taking the Jabberwock's head off with him. Even for Wonderland, that was a messy business.

Of course, this time, with the beast having gotten such an early start, Alice thought miserably, she might need them all. She had hoped for more time before the monster arrived on the scene. Wonderland was usually so much more fun than a vacation at Bath or Baden-Baden, the one being her mother's favorite holiday spot, the other her grandmother's.

But when she got to the path, it was empty. There was no sign of the White Knight or the Tweedles or even the Beamish Boy, who—now that she thought of it—reminded her awfully of Cousin Albert.

And suddenly the Jabberwock's roars were dose enough to shake the trees. Green and gold leaves fell around her like rain.

Alice bit her lip. Wonderland might be only a make-believe place, a dreamscape, or a dream escape. But even in a made-up land, there were real dangers. She'd been hurt twice just falling down the rabbit-hole: a twisted ankle one time, a scratched knee another. And once she had pricked her finger on a thorn in the talking flower garden hard enough to draw blood. How the roses had laughed at that!

However, the Jabberwock presented a different kind of danger altogether. He was a horrible creature, nightmarish, with enormous shark-toothed jaws, daws like gaffing hooks, and a tail that could swat her like a fly. There was no doubt in her mind that the Jabberwock could actually kill her if he wished, even in this imaginary land. He had killed off two of her champions on other visits—a Jack of Clubs and the Dodo—and had to be dispatched by the Beamish Boy. She'd never seen either of the champions again.

The thought alone frightened her, and that was when she started to cry.

"No crying allowed,” said a harsh, familiar voice.

"No crying aloud,” said a quieter voice, but one equally familiar.

Alice looked up. The Red and White Queens were standing in front of her, the White Queen offering a handkerchief that was slightly tattered and not at all dean. “Here, blow!”

Alice took the handkerchief and blew, a sound not unlike the Jabberwock's roar, only softer and infinitely less threatening. “Oh,” she said, “thank goodness you are here. You two can save me.”

"Not us,” said the Red Queen.

"Never us,” added the White.

“But then why else have you come?” Alice asked. “I am always saved on this path ... wherever this path is at the time.”

“The path is past,” said the Red Queen. “We are only present, not truly here.” As she spoke the dirt path dissolved, first to pebbles, then to grass.

“And you are your own future,” added the White Queen.

Alice suddenly found herself standing in the meadow once again, but this time the Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse were sitting in stands set atop the table. Next to them were the Caterpillar, his fishing pole over his shoulder; the Cheshire Cat, grinning madly; the White Knight; the Tweedle Twins; the Beamish Boy, in a bright red beanie; the Duchess and her pig baby; and a host of other Wonderlanders. They were exchanging money right and left.

“My money's on you,” the White Queen whispered in Alice's ear. “I think you will take the Jabberwock in the first round.”

“Take him where?” asked Alice.

“For a fall,” the Red Queen answered. Then, shoving a wad of money at the White Queen, she said, “I'll give you three to one against.”

“Done,” said the White Queen, and they walked off arm-in-arm toward the spectator stands, trailing bits of paper money on the ground.

“But what can I fight the Jabberwock with?” Alice called after them.

“You are a tough child,” the White Queen said over her shoulder. “You figure it out.”

With that she and the Red Queen climbed onto the table and into the stands, where they sat in the front row and began cheering, the White Queen for Alice, the Red Queen for the beast.

“But I'm not tough at all,” Alice wailed. “I've never fought anything before. Not even Albert.” She had only told on him, and had watched with satisfaction when her mother and his father punished him. Or at least that had seemed satisfactory at first. But when his three older sisters had all persisted in calling “Tattletale twit, your tongue will split” after her for months, it hadn't felt very satisfactory at all.

“I am only,” she wept out loud, “a tattletale, not a knight.”

“It's not night now!” shouted the Hatter.

“Day! It's day! A frabjous day!” the Hare sang out.

The Beamish Boy giggled and twirled the propeller on the top of his cap.

Puffing five interlocking rings into the air above the crowd, the Caterpillar waved his arms gaily.

And the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, burst out of the tulgey wood, alternately roaring and burbling. It was a horrendous sound and for a moment Alice could not move at all.

“One, two!” shouted the crowd. “Through and through.”

The Jabberwock lifted his tail and slammed it down in rhythm to the chanting. Every time his tail hit the ground, the earth shook. Alice could feel each tremor move up from her feet, through her body, till it seemed as if the top of her head would burst open with the force of the blow. She turned to run.

“She ain't got no vorpal blade,” cried the Duchess, waving a fist. “How's she gonna fight without her bloomin' blade?”

At her side, the pig squealed: “Orpal-vay ade-blay.”

The Beamish Boy giggled once more.

Right! Alice thought. I haven't a vorpal blade. Or anything else, for that matter.

For his part, the Jabberwock seemed delighted that she was weaponless, and he stood up on his hind legs, claws out, to slash a right and then a left in Alice's direction.

All Alice could do was duck and ran, duck and ran again. The crowd cheered and a great deal more money changed hands. The Red Queen stuffed dollars, pounds, lira, and kroner under her crown as fast as she could manage. On the other hand, the Dormouse looked into his teapot and wept.

"Oh, Alice,” came a cry from the stands, “be tough, child. Be strong.” It was the White Queen's voice. “You do not need a blade. You just need courage.”

Courage, Alice thought, would come much easier with a blade. But she didn't say that aloud. Her tongue felt as if it had been glued by fear to the roof of her mouth. And her feet, by the Queen's call, to the ground.

And still the Jabberwock advanced, but slowly, as if he were not eager to finish her off all at once.

He is playing with me, Alice thought, rather like my cat, Dinah. It was not a pleasant thought. She had rescued many a mouse from Dinah's claws and very few of them had lived for more than a minute or two after. She tried to ran again but couldn't.

Suddenly she'd quite enough of Wonderland.

But Wonderland was not quite done with Alice.

The Jabberwock advanced. His eyes lit up like skyrockets and his tongue flicked in and out.

“Oh, Mother,” Alice whispered. “I am sorry for all the times I was naughty. Really I am.” She could scarcely catch her breath, and she promised herself that she would try and die nobly, though she really didn't want to die at all. Because if she died in Wonderland, who would explain it to her family?

The Jabberwock moved closer. He slobbered a bit over his pointed teeth. Then he slipped on a pound note, staggered like Unde Martin after a party, and his big yellow eyes rolled up in his head. “Ouf,” he said.

“Ouf?” Alice whispered. “Ouf?”

It had all been so horrible and frightening, and now, suddenly, it was rather silly. She stared at the Jabberwock and for the first time noticed a little tag on the underside of his left leg.
MADE IN BRIGHTON,
it said.

Why, he's nothing but an overlarge wind-up toy, she thought. And the very minute she thought that, she began to laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh, until she had to bend over to hold her stomach and tears leaked out of her eyes. She could fed the bubbles of laughter still rising inside, getting up her nose like sparkling soda. She could not stop herself.

‘Here, now!” shouted the Beamish Boy, “no laughing! It ain't fair.”

The Cheshire Cat lost his own grin. “Fight first, laughter after,” he advised. "Or maybe flight first. Or fright first.”

The Red Queen sneaked out of the stands and was almost off the table, dutching her crown full of money, when the Dormouse stuck out a foot.

"No going off with that moolah, Queenie,” the Dormouse said, taking the crown from her and putting it on top of the teapot.

Still laughing but no longer on the edge of hysteria, Alice looked up at the Jabberwock, who had become frozen in place. Not only was he stiff, but he had turned an odd shade of gray and looked rather like a poorly built garden statue that had been out too long in the wind and rain. She leaned toward him.

“Boo!” she said, grinning.

Little cracks ran across the Jabberwock's face and down the front of his long belly.

“Double boo!” Alice said.

Another crack ran right around the Jabberwock's tail, and it broke off with a sound like a tree branch breaking.

“Triple...” Alice began, but stopped when someone put a hand on her arm. She turned. It was the White Queen.

“You have won, my dear,” the White Queen said, placing the Red Queen's crown—minus all the money—on Alice's head. “A true queen is merciful.”

Alice nodded, then thought a moment. “But where was the courage in that? All I did was laugh.”

“Laughter in the face of certain death? It is the very definition of the Hero,” said the White Queen. “The Jabberwock knew it and therefore could no longer move against you. You would have known it yourself much sooner, had that beastly Albert not been such a tattletale.”

“But I was the tattletale,” Alice said, hardly daring to breathe.

“Who do you think told Albert's sisters?” asked the White Queen. She patted a few errant strands of hair in place and simultaneously tucked several stray dollars back under her crown.

Alice digested this information for a minute, but something about the conversation was still bothering her. Then she had it. “How do you know about Albert?” she asked.

“I'm late!” the White Queen cried suddenly, and dashed off down the road, looking from behind like a large white rabbit.

Alice should have been surprised, but nothing ever really surprised her anymore in Wonderland.

 

Except...
          except...
                 herself.

 

Courage, she thought.

Laughter, she thought.

Maybe I'll try them both out
ON
Albert.

And so thinking, she felt herself suddenly rising, first slowly, then faster and faster still, up the rabbit-hole, all the way back home.

MAMA DIED four nights ago, giving birth my baby sister, Ann. Bubba cried and cried, “Mama gone,” in his little-boy voice, but I never let out a single tear.

There was blood red as any sunset all over the bed from that birthing, and when Papa saw it he rubbed his head against the cabin wall over and over and over and made little animal sounds. Sukev washed Mama down and placed the baby on her breast for a moment. “Remember,” she whispered.

“Mama gone,” Bubba wailed again.

But I never cried.

By all rights we should have buried her with garlic in her mouth and her hands and feet cut off, what with her being vampire kin and all. But Papa absolutely refused.

“Your Mama couldn't stand garlic,” he said when the sounds had stopped rushing out of his mouth and his eyes had cleared. “It made her come all over with rashes. She had the sweetest mouth and hands.”

And that was that Not a one of us could make him change his mind, not even Granddad Stokes or Pop Wilber or any other of the men who come to pay their last respects. And as Papa is a preacher, and a brimstone man, they let it be. The onliest thing he would allow was for us to tie red ribbons 'round her ankles and wrists, a kind of sign like a line of blood. Everybody hoped that would do.

But on the next day she rose from out her grave and commenced to prey upon the good folk of Taunton.