The Queen's Ways
(A Parody)
By Michael K. Robbins
Lewis put a leg out of bed, trod on a discarded poem he was writing the night before and fell through it.
It wasn't advisable, he realised as he fell (and fell and fell) to leave paperwork and reading paraphernalia by your sleeping space, however literate you were.
He landed with a thunk in a chair he didn't recognise. The company at the table was odd. The table was also unfamiliar, but he was prepared to let that pass.
“Dropping in?” The occupant of the nearest seat--hairy, long-eared, with a tiny nose and unfortunate teeth--fixed him with a golden eye and sniffed.
Lewis searched for something to say. “Do you have a cold?”
“Are you offering us one?” The stranger, who put Lewis in mind of a hare, or perhaps a lapsed rabbit, gestured to a short, bald gentleman with a ginger mono-brow, a twitchy-looking mouse who kept up a steady stream of mumbled dialogue with nobody in particular, a gigantic turtle and a bird Lewis recognised.
“You're a dodo!”
The bird looked down his beak at him. “It's rude to m-make personal remarks. You'll end up having to tell someone else n-not to do that yourself, I'd imagine. We'll see who's the D-dod-d-do-do-dod...then.”
“You're supposed to be dead.”
“Really?...How am I doing?”
“You're extinct!”
“I was n-never one of those. Can't abide tincts.”
This was the strangest gathering Lewis had been to. He took tea in the Nursery at home, and was unsure how to proceed. The bald man stood in the centre of the tea-table on one leg, his hands pressed together above his head, focusing on nothing and emitting a low hum. Perhaps he'd swallowed a bee.
“What're you doing?” Lewis asked.
The hare turned to face him. “Absolutely nothing. Quite enjoying it, actually.”
“I meant him.”
“No idea. Why don't you ask him?”
“I did.”
“You haven't. I'd have heard you otherwise.”
“You did!”
“Did what?”
Lewis tried again. “I'm Lewis.”
“Oh,” the hare said carelessly. “Why?”
“It's a nickname I invented.”
“How presumptuous.”
“Sorry?”
“What is the purpose of a Lewis?”
“I'm not sure...”
“No. I knew a gentleman named Shaw once. He's nothing at all like you. Miserable chap. Especially after the Queen cut off his hands.”
“What for? Who are you? Where am I?”
“You ought to take more personal responsibility for yourself!” The hare nudged the mouse. “He doesn't know where he is!”
The mouse paused in his incomprehensible tirade and droned, “May I introduce the Hare, Hattem and myself, the Mouse, the Actual Turtle and the Dodo. Pleased to make your esteemed acquaintance. Are you the new Chairman?”
“I'm only nine.” Lewis had never been chairman of anything.
“Doesn't m-matter. I'm seven,” said the Dodo.
“But you're a bird!”
“Why do you insist on making personal remarks?” The Dodo puffed up angrily. “When you sink to the l-level of calling the opposition rather s-stupid insults, you've already lost the a-argument. Do they n-not teach rhetoric in schools nowadays?”
“I don't go to school.”
“Then you needn't boast about it!”
“I wasn't...”
The Actual Turtle pushed his seat back and rose to his feet with solemn gravity. “I propose we take a vote.”
“A capital idea,” the Mouse said. “We haven't had a good vote since the last time we voted.”
“What are we voting on?” Hattem said, opening an eye.
The Mouse pointed at Lewis. “He shall decide on it.”
Lewis folded his hands behind his back, embarrassed. “Pardon?”
Hattem opened his other eye, shifted into another unnatural position--with his foot over his head--and regarded Lewis carefully. “You know, you have the head of a banker. Very thoughtful pre-frontal protuberances. Yes.”
“Sorry?”
“That's quite all right.”
“Have some tea?” the Dodo said. “There's n-no cups left.”
“Can't you wash one?”
“Oh, we break them. Saves bother. But if the Queen hears us, she'd h-have our hands!”
“She must have good hearing.”
“She's in the g-garden.”
“The garden?” Lewis thought they were already in a garden. He couldn't see signs of a house anywhere, or a castle, let alone a Queen.
Hattem moved, revealing a tall brown gate in the hedgerow. It opened. A thin man wearing a black and white mask ran through and blew a trumpet. After him walked a young lady in a billowing white dress with billowing blonde hair, whom Lewis guessed must be the Queen they were all so afraid of.
Hattem glanced behind him, and gave a tiny squeak. His knees buckled. He rolled off the table, taking some crockery with him. The Actual Turtle's head withdrew into his shell. The Dodo made over-posturing obeisances. Even the Mouse ceased to chatter and inclined his head.
However, the Queen was not looking at any of them. She was looking at Lewis, who by now had his hands in his pockets.
“You!” she said furiously.
Lewis glanced at the Dodo for help, who hissed “You're supposed to b-bow!” Lewis did so. He'd never met royalty before, and wasn't certain when it would be safe to stand upright again.
“Who taught you to bow with your hands in your pockets, boy?” the Queen said. Hattem reverently withdrew a chair for her. She didn't shout, which Lewis was grateful for, but neither did she sound pleased. She sounded as if a spider had chanced to crawl across her foot.
Lewis also sat down, although this meant he was facing her. He stared resolutely into his teacup and said nothing, feeling his cheeks go red.
“Who're you?” the Queen said. “Where did you contract such an unfortunate rash?”
The Actual Turtle peered over his armoured collar. “This young specimen is our new Chairman, Mr. Lewis-Not-Shaw, Your Majesty. He's come to...um. Mr. Lewis - Queen Aliss.”
Lewis peeked at her. If it wasn't for the haughty temper, she'd be quite pretty. “How do you do?”
“Do what?” The Queen's face clouded in confusion.
“I meant hello.”
“Then why don't you say what you mean?” Queen Aliss demanded. “I now call this meeting to order. Chairman, what's the first item on the agenda?”
Lewis was deeply bewildered. Dare he tell the truth in this situation and risk losing his hands, or fly by the seat of his breeches and risk losing his hands?
The Mouse rose gravely. “The first item is whether we have voted on it or not.”
“Have you?” the Queen said, now quite mild. “Who's keeping the written record of the verbal proceedings?”
“The minutes?”
Hattem coughed a little and pulled out a ridiculously large pocket watch. If timepieces could have health problems, this one had elephantiasis. “I can.”
The Queen nodded. “Hattem, be so good as to read out the minutes, so I know what was occurring in my absence.”
“Very good, madam,” Hattem said, colouring slightly - but remaining within the lines. “One minute past two. Two minutes past three. Three minutes past -”
The Hare sat up. “Why did they? You'd think that, being next-door neighbours, they'd have the decency to acknowledge one another. Anyway how can Two pass Three, when One has already taken its place...making Thirteen, by my calculations.”
The Dodo gasped. “How lucky. We should drink to it.”
“I didn't think thirteen was lucky,” Lewis objected.
“Oh, he is. Very,” the Queen sighed. “Item number two--”
“We haven't had number one yet.”
“We have. It was the vote,” said the Mouse.
“How do we vote when nothing has been suggested?” the Hare said. “Perhaps--”
“Voting first, then items.” The Queen was very stern about this. “Item two, Chairman?”
Lewis had no idea. “This is a nice place,” he said politely.
“All in favour, say 'Aye',” the Dodo said.
The Actual Turtle frowned at the Dodo. “You?”
The Dodo looked back at him. “What about m-me?”
“It's always about you. You've too much ego.”
“That's you. I doesn't.”
“I see.”
“Eyes do, visually.”
Hattem looked up thoughtfully from dunking the Mouse in his tea. The smaller, bewhiskered gentleman dangled and spun by his tail, held aloft in one hand, while he propped his chin up with the other. “Shall we play cards?”
Lewis goggled at this obvious display of physical abuse and cruelty to animals. “Why are you doing that?”
“This?” Hattem re-dunked the Mouse. “I find it greatly improves the flavour. Anyhow, he talks too much.”
Lewis gazed helplessly at the Queen. She only regarded Hattem with quiet approval. “Why not let's play cards? Does anyone possess a pack?”
The Hare chewed his bottom lip. “Neater Piker piffed a pocket of pippled pecked,” he articulated. “A niddled neck of piffled whiter Leaper Piper flecked.”
“Have you got that down?” the Queen asked Hattem.
“It's certainly not up.”
“Other Matters, then--”
“Does it?” the Mouse gurgled, resurfacing.
“What?”
“Matter?”
“Other Matters,” the Queen said firmly. “I'd like to know the answer to a question, which the court clairvoyant asked me. Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
They paused for thought.
The Actual Turtle stood up. “I believe it goes like this:
If a writing desk
Is raven-i-esque,
You've yet to blot it well;
If the writing squawks
And your best quill walks
You've too much bird in the inkwell!”
“I've had enough!” the Queen screamed, and got to her feet.
“How can you have enough when you've not yet partaken?” the Hare enquired, only to wither under her impatient stare.
“You!” she gestured to the Actual Turtle. “Kneel!”
It was difficult for the Turtle to do so, being encumbered by his armour, but the creature did his best. He hitched up his shell and bent stiffly. The Queen walked around the table and drew a long, sharp stick from the folds of her dress, removed the opera glasses from the end, and laid the stick on his left shoulder.
“Rise.” She tapped his other shoulder. “Sir Mockery Tortoise.”
Lewis didn't know what to make of such a knighthood. Was the Queen rewarding the Turtle or punishing him? He didn't think he'd find the name “Mockery” flattering, but when the Mockery Tortoise stood up again he looked pleased and waggled his ears.
“I'll call you,” the Queen promised, “whenever you're out of earshot.”
“I'll go for a swim without earplugs, then, Your Majesty.”
“Time for refreshments,” the Queen announced - rather late, Lewis thought - and proceeded to chew the tablecloth.
Hattem closed his eyes, either in despair or meditation.
The Mouse reacquired his seat, dripping wet. “Don't let it slip by you, Your Majesty, the three hags require their daily feeding. If they don't receive it, I fear the Twins will be upon us for neglect with Lawyers and so forth--”
“Oh shut up,” the Queen said. “You're too quiet.” She picked over what was on the tabletop, somewhat uncertainly. Of all the edible things - tea, bread, jam, biscuits - she chose a pat of butter, a teapot, a salt cellar, and a couple of empty saucers. “Chairman, if you'd be so kind as to carry these things and walk with me?”
Lewis complied. He'd never seen a hag, or at least not one who only ingested butter, salt and tea, but he wasn't about to contradict the Queen. She seemed perfectly capable of doing that herself. She led him out of the tea-party into a freshly planted maze with a brick well with a wooden cover in its centre. A bucket and a rope sat by it.
The silence grew acute. “My father knew a lawyer once,” Lewis said.
“Really? What do they live on?”
“Lawyers? I...don't know. Food.”
“You don't know because you're ignorant. Lawyers live on paper. They leave books riddled with holes, and whole books left full of riddles.”
“I think you mean bookworms.”
“I never mean bookworms.”
They stopped beside the well. The Queen lifted off the wooden cover and set it on the grass. It was rather a deep well, the sort that dripped quietly to itself when it thought nobody was looking. She took everything - saucers, salt cellar, teapot - and threw them down it. Loud sounds of smashing crockery and shrieking protestations echoed up to them.
“The hags are inside the well?” Lewis checked.
“Of course. They came by here every day, wishing for treacle. The well swallowed them. Can't say I blame it.”
“Is it a wishing well?”
“So it is. They're well-wishers.”
Lewis dared to peer over the side. At the bottom were three young girls, covered in butter, tea and flecks of china, who glared up at him in a sullen manner.
“They don't seem old enough to be hags. They're so young.”
“They're very far away. The closer you become to them, the older they get.”
“They must be bored,” Lewis said.
“Well, I threw easels at them. They draw things beginning with the letters of the alphabet, starting with A. It should make the time go faster. It doesn't.”
“You threw easels at them? That must've hurt.”
The Queen thought for a moment. “No, I didn't feel a thing.”
Lewis pointed to the bucket on the ground, so far unused. “Why don't you send things down to them using that, instead of throwing them?”
“Because I'm angry!” the Queen snapped. “Address me as 'Your Majesty' or I'll have your hands lopped!”
“Sorry Your Majesty.”
“Don't apologise! Hands out of your pockets!”
Lewis reluctantly did so. They walked back to the tea-table. Lewis thought the three well-women must be starving, not having any solid food. He wondered how he'd gotten into this situation and whether he'd ever get out.
They rejoined the party. The Hare, the Dodo and the Mouse were at one end of the table hunched over a game of cards. Lewis wasn't sure what they were playing, but the game was made exceedingly difficult by the cards' tendency to sprout insect legs and scuttle away when laid down. A Jack of Hearts lay on its back with its legs curled up in the air. It didn't move when he prodded it.
“That one's dead,” Hattem murmured, who was standing on his head. “One of the fatalities of the game.”
The assembled players were riveted by the battle taking place between a One of Clubs and a Five of Diamonds. As they watched, the One of Clubs stamped on the Five of Diamonds and shook its tiny fists in victory, or perhaps anger.
“You owe me a watch,” the Mouse smiled at the Hare. “Ought to serve your friend right for flavouring his beverage with my indignant personage.”
“You can't have my watch. We'd lose the minutes,” Hattem drawled. The Hare whispered in his ear. “What a splendid idea!” He turned right-ways-up and beckoned to the Mouse. “Come here, fellow. I need you for something.”
The Mouse approached with suspicion. “Not tea, I hope? Because insofar as much as I can tell--”
“Just come here.” Hattem spoke as if to an irritating yet amusing child. “My watch isn't running properly. See if you can fathom why.”
The Mouse sat. “Well...all right.”
Hattem dangled the watch in front of the Mouse and swung it gently from side to side. “Can you see what's what?”
Lewis watched with interest as the Mouse's eyes, which followed the hands of the moving timepiece in vain, grew heavier. He understood a little about hypnotism and was itching with questions to ask Hattem, such as where he'd learned to do it. He didn't interrupt.
The Mouse stopped talking and slid into a doze. It was oddly quiet.
“Like an infant!” The Hare placed the dormant Mouse inside another teapot for safekeeping. Lewis hoped it was an empty one, but feared it wasn't.
“You provide commendable entertainment.” The Queen's mouth was full of spoons. In one hand she held a toadstool. She spread jam onto it with a knife. “Not as good as Mockery's, I'm afraid - this is not quite good fare.” She crunched her teeth into the toadstool-with-jam as if it was a bun.
The Hare sighed. “The next time she calls a meeting, we should label what she can and can't ingest,” he remarked in an undertone to Lewis, who was unnerved by such a sane suggestion.
“Do you mean writing 'This is edible' on things that are edible?” Lewis didn't quite trust the sense of the idea.
“What's the point in that? I mean to label inedible things 'Eat me.'”
“Why?”
“You don't understand the Queen's ways. They're...have you ever heard of the Dumple Bumble?”
“No.”
“Nor have I.”
This frustrated Lewis. “Where am I?”
“Here!”
“But what do you call this place?”
“It's rude to call places names.”
The Dodo surveyed the sky. “Storm's c-coming.”
Lewis looked up. The sky was an untroubled blue. There wasn't even a wind.
“In my opinion,” Hattem said, “It's going.”
“Going?” said Lewis. This was confusing. How could a storm which wasn't there leave a place it had never been? “I can't see a storm.”
“Exactly.”
“Definitely going.” The Hare pointed. “Look!”
They looked, including the Queen, who was now in the process of chewing her own leg. A tiny black shape grew larger as it shot straight towards the tea-table.
“Take cover!” the Dodo shrieked.
“Why?” the Hare reasoned. “I don't want one.”
Hattem didn't waste time with words. The Queen was in imminent danger of being dive-bombed by a flying black blob. He emptied the rolls out of a silver bowl and placed it, upside down, on her head. No sooner had he done so than the missile resolved itself into a fluffy black chick, which schlunked into the side of the makeshift helmet with a pathetic deflating sound.
“Is that storm blowing raspberries at the Queen?” the Hare asked Lewis.
“It's a bird.”
“Oh, everything's a bird with you!”
“Hattem?” The Queen's voice sounded very dangerous indeed coming from inside the metal hat. “I was of the opinion you were of the opinion the storm was going...?”
“Indeed, ma'am. It was going towards us. Your opinion was quite right regarding my opinion.”
“You're far too opinionated.”
The Dodo was faint with species sacrilege as he watched the Queen peel the chick from the side of the bowl and make it disappear with a series of loud crunching noises.
“Why didn't you say?” Lewis asked Hattem.
“Because in order to do that, I'd have to make sense. Clearly, nobody comes here for that.”
The Queen pushed back the bowl and spat feathers. “Hattem, there's a position as court milliner available, should you choose to take it. Or I'll have your hands off.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. May I wear a wig?”
“Do you have one?”
“No.”
“Then you mayn't.”
The Dodo groaned. A couple of oddly-dressed figures were coming towards them. They wore exactly the same clothes and had identical faces. Both faces wore the same expression: worried.
The Dodo coughed delicately--it was a fragile cough. “The Twins.”
“Who're they?” Lewis said.
The Queen straightened her bowl with fortitude. “Humour them, they're only children.”
“I'm a child!”
“Don't be ridiculous. Children are seen but never heard. I can hear you perfectly. It's seeing you that's the problem.”
The Twins halted in front of them. “Hello,” one said, “We were playing with our pet crow -”
“Had him since he was a seed,” interrupted the other.
“That's right. But the string got tangled. It came down around here. Seen it?”
“No.” The Queen was truthful. “I was under a bowl at the time. Was it like a writing desk?”
The Twins examined the large quantity of black feathers on the ground. One of them started to cry. The other wrapped an arm around his brother and glared at them.
The Hare placed a paw on Lewis's shoulder. “Here's your culprit! He's been doing everything here since he arrived!”
“I haven't!” Lewis yelped.
“You deny being here?”
“No...”
“You weren't doing anything?”
“Well, I was...but -”
“You deny being the Chairman?”
“I've never been a chairman!”
“Imposter!” Hattem shouted.
Lewis ran. His knees and head felt strange. The members of the tea-party were close behind him, the Queen last of all, bellowing “Off with his hands!” Everything was distorted.
In the maze, he stopped with his back to the well. He could jump in, and take his chances in there. However, the fall would break his neck...
They were almost upon him now.
“I knew he was a Lawyer!” Hattem muttered darkly as they closed in.
Something cold pressed against his head. He felt hot and weak.
Lewis opened his eyes. An unfamiliar woman sponged his face and arms in a calm, business-like manner. It took him a slice of time to work out where he was - in his own bed.
When he tried to tell his mother about the Dodo, the Hare, the Hatter and the Queen about to cut his hands off, her only explanation was “You had a fever. Lie quietly.” He was almost comfortable with this.
However from that March onwards, he always wore gloves.
It wasn't advisable, he realised as he fell (and fell and fell) to leave paperwork and reading paraphernalia by your sleeping space, however literate you were.
He landed with a thunk in a chair he didn't recognise. The company at the table was odd. The table was also unfamiliar, but he was prepared to let that pass.
“Dropping in?” The occupant of the nearest seat--hairy, long-eared, with a tiny nose and unfortunate teeth--fixed him with a golden eye and sniffed.
Lewis searched for something to say. “Do you have a cold?”
“Are you offering us one?” The stranger, who put Lewis in mind of a hare, or perhaps a lapsed rabbit, gestured to a short, bald gentleman with a ginger mono-brow, a twitchy-looking mouse who kept up a steady stream of mumbled dialogue with nobody in particular, a gigantic turtle and a bird Lewis recognised.
“You're a dodo!”
The bird looked down his beak at him. “It's rude to m-make personal remarks. You'll end up having to tell someone else n-not to do that yourself, I'd imagine. We'll see who's the D-dod-d-do-do-dod...then.”
“You're supposed to be dead.”
“Really?...How am I doing?”
“You're extinct!”
“I was n-never one of those. Can't abide tincts.”
This was the strangest gathering Lewis had been to. He took tea in the Nursery at home, and was unsure how to proceed. The bald man stood in the centre of the tea-table on one leg, his hands pressed together above his head, focusing on nothing and emitting a low hum. Perhaps he'd swallowed a bee.
“What're you doing?” Lewis asked.
The hare turned to face him. “Absolutely nothing. Quite enjoying it, actually.”
“I meant him.”
“No idea. Why don't you ask him?”
“I did.”
“You haven't. I'd have heard you otherwise.”
“You did!”
“Did what?”
Lewis tried again. “I'm Lewis.”
“Oh,” the hare said carelessly. “Why?”
“It's a nickname I invented.”
“How presumptuous.”
“Sorry?”
“What is the purpose of a Lewis?”
“I'm not sure...”
“No. I knew a gentleman named Shaw once. He's nothing at all like you. Miserable chap. Especially after the Queen cut off his hands.”
“What for? Who are you? Where am I?”
“You ought to take more personal responsibility for yourself!” The hare nudged the mouse. “He doesn't know where he is!”
The mouse paused in his incomprehensible tirade and droned, “May I introduce the Hare, Hattem and myself, the Mouse, the Actual Turtle and the Dodo. Pleased to make your esteemed acquaintance. Are you the new Chairman?”
“I'm only nine.” Lewis had never been chairman of anything.
“Doesn't m-matter. I'm seven,” said the Dodo.
“But you're a bird!”
“Why do you insist on making personal remarks?” The Dodo puffed up angrily. “When you sink to the l-level of calling the opposition rather s-stupid insults, you've already lost the a-argument. Do they n-not teach rhetoric in schools nowadays?”
“I don't go to school.”
“Then you needn't boast about it!”
“I wasn't...”
The Actual Turtle pushed his seat back and rose to his feet with solemn gravity. “I propose we take a vote.”
“A capital idea,” the Mouse said. “We haven't had a good vote since the last time we voted.”
“What are we voting on?” Hattem said, opening an eye.
The Mouse pointed at Lewis. “He shall decide on it.”
Lewis folded his hands behind his back, embarrassed. “Pardon?”
Hattem opened his other eye, shifted into another unnatural position--with his foot over his head--and regarded Lewis carefully. “You know, you have the head of a banker. Very thoughtful pre-frontal protuberances. Yes.”
“Sorry?”
“That's quite all right.”
“Have some tea?” the Dodo said. “There's n-no cups left.”
“Can't you wash one?”
“Oh, we break them. Saves bother. But if the Queen hears us, she'd h-have our hands!”
“She must have good hearing.”
“She's in the g-garden.”
“The garden?” Lewis thought they were already in a garden. He couldn't see signs of a house anywhere, or a castle, let alone a Queen.
Hattem moved, revealing a tall brown gate in the hedgerow. It opened. A thin man wearing a black and white mask ran through and blew a trumpet. After him walked a young lady in a billowing white dress with billowing blonde hair, whom Lewis guessed must be the Queen they were all so afraid of.
Hattem glanced behind him, and gave a tiny squeak. His knees buckled. He rolled off the table, taking some crockery with him. The Actual Turtle's head withdrew into his shell. The Dodo made over-posturing obeisances. Even the Mouse ceased to chatter and inclined his head.
However, the Queen was not looking at any of them. She was looking at Lewis, who by now had his hands in his pockets.
“You!” she said furiously.
Lewis glanced at the Dodo for help, who hissed “You're supposed to b-bow!” Lewis did so. He'd never met royalty before, and wasn't certain when it would be safe to stand upright again.
“Who taught you to bow with your hands in your pockets, boy?” the Queen said. Hattem reverently withdrew a chair for her. She didn't shout, which Lewis was grateful for, but neither did she sound pleased. She sounded as if a spider had chanced to crawl across her foot.
Lewis also sat down, although this meant he was facing her. He stared resolutely into his teacup and said nothing, feeling his cheeks go red.
“Who're you?” the Queen said. “Where did you contract such an unfortunate rash?”
The Actual Turtle peered over his armoured collar. “This young specimen is our new Chairman, Mr. Lewis-Not-Shaw, Your Majesty. He's come to...um. Mr. Lewis - Queen Aliss.”
Lewis peeked at her. If it wasn't for the haughty temper, she'd be quite pretty. “How do you do?”
“Do what?” The Queen's face clouded in confusion.
“I meant hello.”
“Then why don't you say what you mean?” Queen Aliss demanded. “I now call this meeting to order. Chairman, what's the first item on the agenda?”
Lewis was deeply bewildered. Dare he tell the truth in this situation and risk losing his hands, or fly by the seat of his breeches and risk losing his hands?
The Mouse rose gravely. “The first item is whether we have voted on it or not.”
“Have you?” the Queen said, now quite mild. “Who's keeping the written record of the verbal proceedings?”
“The minutes?”
Hattem coughed a little and pulled out a ridiculously large pocket watch. If timepieces could have health problems, this one had elephantiasis. “I can.”
The Queen nodded. “Hattem, be so good as to read out the minutes, so I know what was occurring in my absence.”
“Very good, madam,” Hattem said, colouring slightly - but remaining within the lines. “One minute past two. Two minutes past three. Three minutes past -”
The Hare sat up. “Why did they? You'd think that, being next-door neighbours, they'd have the decency to acknowledge one another. Anyway how can Two pass Three, when One has already taken its place...making Thirteen, by my calculations.”
The Dodo gasped. “How lucky. We should drink to it.”
“I didn't think thirteen was lucky,” Lewis objected.
“Oh, he is. Very,” the Queen sighed. “Item number two--”
“We haven't had number one yet.”
“We have. It was the vote,” said the Mouse.
“How do we vote when nothing has been suggested?” the Hare said. “Perhaps--”
“Voting first, then items.” The Queen was very stern about this. “Item two, Chairman?”
Lewis had no idea. “This is a nice place,” he said politely.
“All in favour, say 'Aye',” the Dodo said.
The Actual Turtle frowned at the Dodo. “You?”
The Dodo looked back at him. “What about m-me?”
“It's always about you. You've too much ego.”
“That's you. I doesn't.”
“I see.”
“Eyes do, visually.”
Hattem looked up thoughtfully from dunking the Mouse in his tea. The smaller, bewhiskered gentleman dangled and spun by his tail, held aloft in one hand, while he propped his chin up with the other. “Shall we play cards?”
Lewis goggled at this obvious display of physical abuse and cruelty to animals. “Why are you doing that?”
“This?” Hattem re-dunked the Mouse. “I find it greatly improves the flavour. Anyhow, he talks too much.”
Lewis gazed helplessly at the Queen. She only regarded Hattem with quiet approval. “Why not let's play cards? Does anyone possess a pack?”
The Hare chewed his bottom lip. “Neater Piker piffed a pocket of pippled pecked,” he articulated. “A niddled neck of piffled whiter Leaper Piper flecked.”
“Have you got that down?” the Queen asked Hattem.
“It's certainly not up.”
“Other Matters, then--”
“Does it?” the Mouse gurgled, resurfacing.
“What?”
“Matter?”
“Other Matters,” the Queen said firmly. “I'd like to know the answer to a question, which the court clairvoyant asked me. Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
They paused for thought.
The Actual Turtle stood up. “I believe it goes like this:
If a writing desk
Is raven-i-esque,
You've yet to blot it well;
If the writing squawks
And your best quill walks
You've too much bird in the inkwell!”
“I've had enough!” the Queen screamed, and got to her feet.
“How can you have enough when you've not yet partaken?” the Hare enquired, only to wither under her impatient stare.
“You!” she gestured to the Actual Turtle. “Kneel!”
It was difficult for the Turtle to do so, being encumbered by his armour, but the creature did his best. He hitched up his shell and bent stiffly. The Queen walked around the table and drew a long, sharp stick from the folds of her dress, removed the opera glasses from the end, and laid the stick on his left shoulder.
“Rise.” She tapped his other shoulder. “Sir Mockery Tortoise.”
Lewis didn't know what to make of such a knighthood. Was the Queen rewarding the Turtle or punishing him? He didn't think he'd find the name “Mockery” flattering, but when the Mockery Tortoise stood up again he looked pleased and waggled his ears.
“I'll call you,” the Queen promised, “whenever you're out of earshot.”
“I'll go for a swim without earplugs, then, Your Majesty.”
“Time for refreshments,” the Queen announced - rather late, Lewis thought - and proceeded to chew the tablecloth.
Hattem closed his eyes, either in despair or meditation.
The Mouse reacquired his seat, dripping wet. “Don't let it slip by you, Your Majesty, the three hags require their daily feeding. If they don't receive it, I fear the Twins will be upon us for neglect with Lawyers and so forth--”
“Oh shut up,” the Queen said. “You're too quiet.” She picked over what was on the tabletop, somewhat uncertainly. Of all the edible things - tea, bread, jam, biscuits - she chose a pat of butter, a teapot, a salt cellar, and a couple of empty saucers. “Chairman, if you'd be so kind as to carry these things and walk with me?”
Lewis complied. He'd never seen a hag, or at least not one who only ingested butter, salt and tea, but he wasn't about to contradict the Queen. She seemed perfectly capable of doing that herself. She led him out of the tea-party into a freshly planted maze with a brick well with a wooden cover in its centre. A bucket and a rope sat by it.
The silence grew acute. “My father knew a lawyer once,” Lewis said.
“Really? What do they live on?”
“Lawyers? I...don't know. Food.”
“You don't know because you're ignorant. Lawyers live on paper. They leave books riddled with holes, and whole books left full of riddles.”
“I think you mean bookworms.”
“I never mean bookworms.”
They stopped beside the well. The Queen lifted off the wooden cover and set it on the grass. It was rather a deep well, the sort that dripped quietly to itself when it thought nobody was looking. She took everything - saucers, salt cellar, teapot - and threw them down it. Loud sounds of smashing crockery and shrieking protestations echoed up to them.
“The hags are inside the well?” Lewis checked.
“Of course. They came by here every day, wishing for treacle. The well swallowed them. Can't say I blame it.”
“Is it a wishing well?”
“So it is. They're well-wishers.”
Lewis dared to peer over the side. At the bottom were three young girls, covered in butter, tea and flecks of china, who glared up at him in a sullen manner.
“They don't seem old enough to be hags. They're so young.”
“They're very far away. The closer you become to them, the older they get.”
“They must be bored,” Lewis said.
“Well, I threw easels at them. They draw things beginning with the letters of the alphabet, starting with A. It should make the time go faster. It doesn't.”
“You threw easels at them? That must've hurt.”
The Queen thought for a moment. “No, I didn't feel a thing.”
Lewis pointed to the bucket on the ground, so far unused. “Why don't you send things down to them using that, instead of throwing them?”
“Because I'm angry!” the Queen snapped. “Address me as 'Your Majesty' or I'll have your hands lopped!”
“Sorry Your Majesty.”
“Don't apologise! Hands out of your pockets!”
Lewis reluctantly did so. They walked back to the tea-table. Lewis thought the three well-women must be starving, not having any solid food. He wondered how he'd gotten into this situation and whether he'd ever get out.
They rejoined the party. The Hare, the Dodo and the Mouse were at one end of the table hunched over a game of cards. Lewis wasn't sure what they were playing, but the game was made exceedingly difficult by the cards' tendency to sprout insect legs and scuttle away when laid down. A Jack of Hearts lay on its back with its legs curled up in the air. It didn't move when he prodded it.
“That one's dead,” Hattem murmured, who was standing on his head. “One of the fatalities of the game.”
The assembled players were riveted by the battle taking place between a One of Clubs and a Five of Diamonds. As they watched, the One of Clubs stamped on the Five of Diamonds and shook its tiny fists in victory, or perhaps anger.
“You owe me a watch,” the Mouse smiled at the Hare. “Ought to serve your friend right for flavouring his beverage with my indignant personage.”
“You can't have my watch. We'd lose the minutes,” Hattem drawled. The Hare whispered in his ear. “What a splendid idea!” He turned right-ways-up and beckoned to the Mouse. “Come here, fellow. I need you for something.”
The Mouse approached with suspicion. “Not tea, I hope? Because insofar as much as I can tell--”
“Just come here.” Hattem spoke as if to an irritating yet amusing child. “My watch isn't running properly. See if you can fathom why.”
The Mouse sat. “Well...all right.”
Hattem dangled the watch in front of the Mouse and swung it gently from side to side. “Can you see what's what?”
Lewis watched with interest as the Mouse's eyes, which followed the hands of the moving timepiece in vain, grew heavier. He understood a little about hypnotism and was itching with questions to ask Hattem, such as where he'd learned to do it. He didn't interrupt.
The Mouse stopped talking and slid into a doze. It was oddly quiet.
“Like an infant!” The Hare placed the dormant Mouse inside another teapot for safekeeping. Lewis hoped it was an empty one, but feared it wasn't.
“You provide commendable entertainment.” The Queen's mouth was full of spoons. In one hand she held a toadstool. She spread jam onto it with a knife. “Not as good as Mockery's, I'm afraid - this is not quite good fare.” She crunched her teeth into the toadstool-with-jam as if it was a bun.
The Hare sighed. “The next time she calls a meeting, we should label what she can and can't ingest,” he remarked in an undertone to Lewis, who was unnerved by such a sane suggestion.
“Do you mean writing 'This is edible' on things that are edible?” Lewis didn't quite trust the sense of the idea.
“What's the point in that? I mean to label inedible things 'Eat me.'”
“Why?”
“You don't understand the Queen's ways. They're...have you ever heard of the Dumple Bumble?”
“No.”
“Nor have I.”
This frustrated Lewis. “Where am I?”
“Here!”
“But what do you call this place?”
“It's rude to call places names.”
The Dodo surveyed the sky. “Storm's c-coming.”
Lewis looked up. The sky was an untroubled blue. There wasn't even a wind.
“In my opinion,” Hattem said, “It's going.”
“Going?” said Lewis. This was confusing. How could a storm which wasn't there leave a place it had never been? “I can't see a storm.”
“Exactly.”
“Definitely going.” The Hare pointed. “Look!”
They looked, including the Queen, who was now in the process of chewing her own leg. A tiny black shape grew larger as it shot straight towards the tea-table.
“Take cover!” the Dodo shrieked.
“Why?” the Hare reasoned. “I don't want one.”
Hattem didn't waste time with words. The Queen was in imminent danger of being dive-bombed by a flying black blob. He emptied the rolls out of a silver bowl and placed it, upside down, on her head. No sooner had he done so than the missile resolved itself into a fluffy black chick, which schlunked into the side of the makeshift helmet with a pathetic deflating sound.
“Is that storm blowing raspberries at the Queen?” the Hare asked Lewis.
“It's a bird.”
“Oh, everything's a bird with you!”
“Hattem?” The Queen's voice sounded very dangerous indeed coming from inside the metal hat. “I was of the opinion you were of the opinion the storm was going...?”
“Indeed, ma'am. It was going towards us. Your opinion was quite right regarding my opinion.”
“You're far too opinionated.”
The Dodo was faint with species sacrilege as he watched the Queen peel the chick from the side of the bowl and make it disappear with a series of loud crunching noises.
“Why didn't you say?” Lewis asked Hattem.
“Because in order to do that, I'd have to make sense. Clearly, nobody comes here for that.”
The Queen pushed back the bowl and spat feathers. “Hattem, there's a position as court milliner available, should you choose to take it. Or I'll have your hands off.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. May I wear a wig?”
“Do you have one?”
“No.”
“Then you mayn't.”
The Dodo groaned. A couple of oddly-dressed figures were coming towards them. They wore exactly the same clothes and had identical faces. Both faces wore the same expression: worried.
The Dodo coughed delicately--it was a fragile cough. “The Twins.”
“Who're they?” Lewis said.
The Queen straightened her bowl with fortitude. “Humour them, they're only children.”
“I'm a child!”
“Don't be ridiculous. Children are seen but never heard. I can hear you perfectly. It's seeing you that's the problem.”
The Twins halted in front of them. “Hello,” one said, “We were playing with our pet crow -”
“Had him since he was a seed,” interrupted the other.
“That's right. But the string got tangled. It came down around here. Seen it?”
“No.” The Queen was truthful. “I was under a bowl at the time. Was it like a writing desk?”
The Twins examined the large quantity of black feathers on the ground. One of them started to cry. The other wrapped an arm around his brother and glared at them.
The Hare placed a paw on Lewis's shoulder. “Here's your culprit! He's been doing everything here since he arrived!”
“I haven't!” Lewis yelped.
“You deny being here?”
“No...”
“You weren't doing anything?”
“Well, I was...but -”
“You deny being the Chairman?”
“I've never been a chairman!”
“Imposter!” Hattem shouted.
Lewis ran. His knees and head felt strange. The members of the tea-party were close behind him, the Queen last of all, bellowing “Off with his hands!” Everything was distorted.
In the maze, he stopped with his back to the well. He could jump in, and take his chances in there. However, the fall would break his neck...
They were almost upon him now.
“I knew he was a Lawyer!” Hattem muttered darkly as they closed in.
Something cold pressed against his head. He felt hot and weak.
Lewis opened his eyes. An unfamiliar woman sponged his face and arms in a calm, business-like manner. It took him a slice of time to work out where he was - in his own bed.
When he tried to tell his mother about the Dodo, the Hare, the Hatter and the Queen about to cut his hands off, her only explanation was “You had a fever. Lie quietly.” He was almost comfortable with this.
However from that March onwards, he always wore gloves.