Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Page 5

  “Well, as you can see, we’re still having tea,” the Hatter explained. “It’s all because I was obliged to kill Time waiting for your return. You’re terribly late, you know . . . naughty. Well, anyway.”

  “Sugar?” asked the March Hare.

  “Time became quite offended and stopped altogether,” the Hatter continued. “Not a tick ever since.”

  “Raspberry jam—my favorite,” the March Hare interjected.

  “Time can be funny in dreams,” said Alice.

  The Hatter gave her an odd look. “Yes, yes, of course. But now you’re back, you see” he hurried on, “and we need to get on to the Frabjous Day!”

  He seized the Hare’s left paw and the Dormouse seized his right. All three of them raised their clasped hands in the air. “Frabjous Day!”

  “Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid!” they chanted in unison. Then they all dropped their hands and looked at her expectantly.

  “What?” Alice said, confused.

  The Cheshire Cat rolled his eyes. He was lounging against the rabbit’s-foot fence, which occasionally twitched as if it found his presence rather irritating.

  “Down with the Bloody Big Head,” the cat translated for Alice. “Bloody Big Head being the Red Queen.” He glanced around again, checking the trees with narrowed eyes.

  “It’s a secret language used by us,” the Dormouse added. “The Underland Underground Resistance!” With a fierce expression, she raised her fist over her head.

  The Cheshire Cat rolled his eyes again and wandered up to the table, sliding into one of the chairs in a graceful, feline way. He picked up a teapot with half its spout broken off and poured some tea into a delicate porcelain cup with faded butterflies painted on it.

  “Come, come. We simply must commence with the slaying and such,” the Mad Hatter said, leaning forward emphatically. “Therefore, it’s high time for Time to forgive and forget! Or forget and forgive, whichever comes first. Or is in any case most convenient. I’m waiting.”

  As he tugged on one of his ears, the March Hare had a terribly anxious expression. He peered at his pocket watch, tapped its face, and listened to it for a moment. Then, to Alice’s surprise, the Hare dunked the watch into his teacup, pulled it out, and listened to it again. Tiny droplets of tea splattered onto the Hare’s furry white chest.

  He gasped. “It’s ticking again!”

  “Ooh!” The Hatter squealed.

  The Cheshire Cat made a disgusted face and set his teacup down. “All this talk of blood and slaying has put me off my tea.”

  “Wonderful flavor,” said the March Hare.

  “The entire world is falling to ruin, and poor Chessur’s off his tea,” the Mad Hatter said with thinly veiled hostility.

  The Cat’s tail lashed angrily. “What happened that day was not my fault!”

  Suddenly enraged, the Hatter slammed both hands on the table. Cups and teapots went flying, and Alice just avoided getting hot tea spilled all over her skirt. She pushed her chair back from the table, alarmed by the Hatter’s vehemence.

  “You ran out on them to save your own skin!” the Hatter yelled at the Cat. “You guddler’s scuttish pilgar lickering—” His speech disintegrated into wild, furious cursing, although it was all in a language Alice didn’t know. “Shukem juggling slunking ur-pals. Bar lom muck egg brimni.” But she didn’t need to understand it to guess what he was expressing. His rage kept building, and the curses flew faster and faster, as if he couldn’t stop himself. The Cheshire Cat slipped around the table and put his paws over Alice’s ears.

  “HATTER!” the Dormouse shouted.

  The Mad Hatter jerked to a stop. He blinked, composing himself, and then sat down and picked up his teacup again. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  This elicited a snort from the Cheshire Cat. “What’s wrong with you, Tarrant?” he asked, letting go of Alice’s ears and sitting in the chair on the other side of her. “You used to be the life of the party. You used to do the best Futterwacken in all of Witzend.”

  “Futter . . . ? What?” Alice echoed.

  “Futterwacken,” said the March Hare.

  “It’s a dance,” the Dormouse explained impatiently.

  “On the Frabjous Day, when the White Queen once again wears the crown,” said the Mad Hatter, lifting his chin. “On that day, I shall Futterwacken . . . vigorously.” At that moment, the Hare’s house bent over and tapped the Hare on the shoulder. “The Knave!” The March Hare gasped.

  “Uh-oh!” cried the Cheshire Cat.

  “Urg. The Knave!” the Dormouse added.

  The March Hare shouted. “Hide her! Hide her!”

  “Good-bye,” said the Cheshire Cat, then he immediately vanished into thin air. The Hatter grabbed a small bottle off the table and shoved it into Alice’s hands. It looked ominously familiar. “Drink this quickly,” he commanded.

  “Oh, no,” Alice said, remembering the room with the locked doors and the little glass bottle she’d found there. She tried to resist, but the March Hare and the Mad Hatter forced the liquid down her throat. Before she could even shriek in protest, she was six inches tall.

  And the indignity wasn’t over. The Mad Hatter picked her up and dropped her in the nearest teapot, which luckily was empty of tea. Alice stumbled to her knees on the cold porcelain floor. Her hands scrabbled at the smooth walls curving up on either side of her. The Hatter peeked in the top, and she saw his enormous hand descending with the teapot lid.

  “Mind your head,” he said, and then the sky disappeared. Alice sat down huffily and crossed her arms. It was dim except for a stream of light from the spout. She could hear their voices outside quite clearly.

  Soon Stayne arrived with his two Red Knights, following the bloodhound’s nose. The bloodhound headed straight for the table and began sniffing furiously.

  “Well,” sneered the Knave of Hearts, “if it’s not my favorite trio of lunatics.”

  “Would you like to join us?” asked the Dormouse.

  “You’re all late for tea!” shouted the March Hare, flinging a teapot at them (fortunately, not the one with Alice in it).

  The Knave didn’t bother to dodge. The teapot clattered harmlessly onto the path beside him as he surveyed the table with disdain. “We’re looking for the girl called Alice.”

  Inside the teapot, Alice shuddered. She couldn’t see Stayne, but she didn’t like the sound of him. Why was everyone here so interested in her? And why wouldn’t this dream simply end?

  “Speaking of the Queen,” said the Hatter as if the Knave had said something else, “here’s a little song we used to sing in her honor.”

  All three of them burst into song at the same time, although their tunefulness left a bit to be desired. “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!” they blared. “How I wonder where you’re at!”

  Alice buried her head in her hands. These were the people protecting her? What was she supposed to do if the Knave killed them or took them all prisoner? She’d be stuck in a teapot, six inches tall, and no one would ever think to look for her there.

  One day someone would buy the teapot from a stall in Portobello Road, and wouldn’t they be surprised to find her dusty bones inside. Alice felt quite sorry for herself for a moment.

  It’s just a dream, she remembered. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just a dream.

  Back outside, the song abruptly broke off as Stayne grabbed the Hatter around the neck. One Red Knight cracked the March Hare with his weapon, while the other seized a teapot (again, luckily not Alice’s) and poured hot tea over the Dormouse’s head. The Hare and the Dormouse yelped in pain.

  “If you’re hiding her, you’ll lose your heads,” growled the Knave.

  “Already lost them,” the Hatter said cheerfully, ignoring the thick hands around his neck. “All together now!”

  The other two joined in for the rest of the song.

  “Up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky!” They all started laughing crazily. “Twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle, twinkle!”

  The Knave let go of the Hatter’s neck and stalked around the table, looking disgusted.

  Peering up the spout, Alice saw a large black nose appear. The bloodhound put his paws on the table, sniffing the teapot vigorously. The Hatter glanced at the Knave, who had turned his back for a moment. While the other two kept singing, the Hatter leaned down toward the bloodhound and took a chance.

  “Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid,” he whispered. He gave the teapot a significant look.

  The bloodhound stopped dead. His large, sad eyes met the Hatter’s haunted ones for a moment. Then the dog dropped to the ground and kept sniffing, pretending to catch a new trail. He hurried off into the woods again.

  “Would you like some cream? Would you like a slice of Battenberg? The March Hare said.

  “Follow the bloodhound,” snapped the Knave, ignoring him. He lingered suspiciously as the two Red Knights galloped after the hunting dog.

  “Sugar? One lump or two?” the Dormouse offered.

  “You’re all mad,” the Knave growled at the caterwauling partygoers.

  “Pass the scones please?” the Dormouse replied.

  The Mad Hatter lifted the lid of Alice’s teapot. “Pardon,” he said. “One moment.”

  He produced a pair of milliner’s scissors from his pocket and quickly whipped up a miniature ensemble for Alice out of the tea cozy, a doily, and a swatch of her old dress. By now it was far too enormous for her to even drag around after her. The Hatter handed the new outfit down to Alice and closed the lid again to give her some privacy.

  A few moments later, there was a tiny knock on the lid. He opened it and let her out. Wearing the remade outfit. Alice had to admit it fit much better and was a lot more comfortable than the dress her mother had insisted on that morning, corset or no corset.

  “Ooh. I like it!” the Hatter cooed.

  “Good thing the bloodhound is one of us, or you’d be . . .” the Dormouse said, as she drew her finger across her throat with an ominous noise.

  The March Hare was wringing his paws again. “Best take her to the White Queen,” he suggested. “She’ll be safe there. Spoon . . .”

  The Hatter swept his hat off and put it on the table beside her. “Your carriage, m’lady.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows. She looked from the Hatter to the hat and back again. “The hat?” she asked.

  “Of course. Anyone can go by horse or rail,” he said blithely. “But the best way to travel is by hat. Have I made a rhyme?”

  Alice climbed up and sat on the hat, trying not to show how nervous this made her. The Dormouse trotted over and sat on the hat, too, shoving Alice aside. “Ooh! I love travelling by hat,” she said. But the Hatter was shaking his head.

  “Sorry, Mally,” he said. “Just Alice, please.”

  The Dormouse huffed, annoyed, and climbed off again. She glared jealously at Alice as the Hatter swung the hat and Alice up onto his head.

  “Fairfarren, all!” the Hatter sang, and started off into the woods.

  “Whatcha mean?” wailed the March Hare behind them.

  Alice and the Hatter ducked as a teapot hurtled past them. She couldn’t help thinking the Knave was right about these three. They were all quite mad.

  And yet . . . she had no one else. Mad or not, it seemed she was stuck with them.

  Chapter Eight

  Alice hung on tight as the Mad Hatter sauntered through the Tulgey Woods at a jaunty pace. Low branches brushed by right over her head and sunlight trickled through the green leaves. It was surprisingly peaceful, considering she’d nearly been eaten by a Bandersnatch and taken prisoner by a Knave not very long ago.

  The Hatter was muttering something, but even the words she could make out sounded like nonsense:

  Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

  All mimsy were the borogroves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  He warbled, like a child reciting a poem he’d memorized in school. Alice carefully climbed down the hat and perched on his shoulder. “What was that?” she asked. “What was what?” the Hatter asked. Then he continued:

  The Jabberwock with eyes of flame.

  The jaws that bite.

  The claws that catch.

  Beware of the Jabberwock, my son,

  and the Frumious Bandersnatch.

  He took his Vorpal Sword in hand.

  The Vorpal Sword blade went snicker-snack

  He left it dead, and with its head,

  He went galumping back.

  “It’s all about you, you know?” he finished.

  Alice thought it was high time she put this mad idea to rest. “I’m not slaying anything,” she said firmly. “I don’t slay. So put it out of your mind.”

  The Hatter stopped in his tracks. “Mmm . . . mind,” he said, plucking her off his shoulder. He dropped her onto a log and kept walking. Astonished, Alice followed him. With her new tiny size, she had to run to keep up.

  “Wait!” she called. “You can’t leave me here!” At this size, she was reasonably afraid that a hawk might eat her. Or perhaps a very hungry squirrel. If they even had squirrels here . . . She hadn’t seen any normal animals yet. The squirrels were probably ten feet tall and blue with dainty white gloves.

  The Mad Hatter whirled around and stared at her. “You don’t slay. . . . Do you have any idea what the Red Queen has done?” His voice became high-pitched, mimicking her. “You don’t slay.”

  She spread her hands. It wasn’t fair for him to mock her. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” she protested. Where would a nice Victorian girl have learned how to slay things? She couldn’t even kill the spiders and caterpillars that found their way into the house.

  The Hatter put his hands on his hips. His gaze was accusing. “You’re not the same as you were before,” he said. “You were much more . . . muchier . . . you’ve lost your muchness,” he finished, nodding as if that made perfect sense.

  “My muchness?”

  He crouched and poked her in the stomach with his finger. “In there,” he said. “Something’s missing.”

  The Hatter stood up and walked away again.

  Alice frowned thoughtfully. What did he mean? How would he know if she was missing something? And . . . was she? After a moment, she ran after him. “Tell me what the Red Queen has done,” she called.

  He stopped.

  “It’s not a pretty story.”

  “Tell me anyway,” she insisted.

  He scooped her up and plunked her back on his shoulder. They started forward again, although now Alice realized that the trees around them were changing. Instead of smooth brown trunks and fluttering green leaves, the foliage here was blackened and twisted, branches horribly charred like fingers clutching at the darkening sky.

  The Hatter pushed through a thicket of branches, and they came out into a place where the earth was scorched and barren in a wide circle around them. He blinked, his eyes tearing up. His voice was hoarse with emotion as he began to tell the tale.

  “It was here. I was Hatter to the Queen at the time. The Hightopp clan have always been employed at court.”

  His eyes stared blankly at the blackened place as he drifted back in his memory to the Horunvendush Day. His whole clan had been there—all the Hightopps, adults and children, festive in their shiny new top hats. He could remember them all cheering for the White Queen and her court as they rode in on gleaming white horses. Her long white robe flew out behind her as her horse trotted in the lead. Beside her rode the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat, and the White Rabbit, among others . . . all of them members of her court. And standing in the center of the clearing, holding the shining Vorpal Sword, was the White Knight, the one they had all come to see.

  He remembered the sudden feeling of terror that brushed against all their hearts as enormous leathery wings blocked out the sun. The woods went dark around them. All the upturned faces were filled with awe and horror. They
had never seen such a beast.

  The White Knight—their hero, their champion, the one who was supposed to fight for them against all horrors—gaped at the terrifying creature, dropped the Vorpal Sword, and fled into the trees.

  It took only a moment for panic to seep through the crowd. If the Knight was too afraid to fight, then there was no one to defend them all from the Jabberwocky. Screams broke out as everyone ran for his life, pushing and trampling anyone in the way. Fire streaming from the Jabberwocky’s mouth blazed over their heads.

  The Queen’s horse reared, and the Queen lost her crown. The Hatter ran forward to grab the reins, losing his hat in the process. He led her to safety, but for one moment he looked back.

  He saw one last thing before they escaped: the Knave of Hearts picked up the fallen sword and lifted it victoriously. With a howl, the Jabberwocky retreated, leaving carnage and disaster behind him . . . and only one surviving member of the once-sprawling Hightopp family.

  The Hatter had returned to the scene later. His face was contorted with shock and horror as he crouched, touching the still-smoldering earth where his entire clan had died. Only one burned and trampled hat remained. The Hatter picked it up, brushed the soot off, and placed the wrecked hat firmly upon his head.

  Alice watched him as he told his story. Her heart ached for him. Now she could understand his madness, and she couldn’t help but pity him. She looked up at the scorched hat he still wore, then to his tormented face. He twitched, driven to the edge of his madness by guilt, helpless rage, and deep loss.

  “Hatter?” Alice said. She remembered how the Dormouse handled these moments. “Hatter!” she shouted.

  He jerked, pulling himself back from the abyss. “I’m fine,” he said quickly.

  “Are you?” Alice asked.

  Instead of answering, the Hatter whipped his head around toward the dark trees that surrounded them. “Did you hear that?” he said softly. “I’m certain I heard something.”