Alice Finds the Tea Party in Full Swing

Wonderland had a curious quality, Alice had noted during the five and a half years she had wandered unhappily over its hills and dales, down its strange tunnels and rabbit holes, through its bizarre chambers and counting rooms. No matter where you went, you felt you had been there before, so it was of little surprise when Alice staggered up yet another ladder, crashed through the low brush at the edge of a forest and found herself again in a sunlit meadow on the far side of which stood the picnic table and its weird celebrants, shouting, throwing food and occasionally falling to the ground. Alice had no particular desire to join that party again, so she quietly turned left along the path, intending to resume her search for a way out.

But not quietly enough, it would seem, for the Mad Hatter presiding over the bacchanal was apparently possessed of exceptional hearing, an advantage, Alice mused, of his curious batwing ears and disquieting habit of jerking his head from side to side and shooting glances everywhere around him. "Hey, asshole!" he shouted across the meadow. "Come and have a drink!"

Alice was enticed neither by his manner nor his offer, but she was curious whether he might have something new to say about an exit strategy, so she disconsolately trudged through the high grass to the messy tableau beneath the oak tree. The Hatter was dressed as he was almost three and a half years ago, but his cutaway coat was now stained profusely with mustard and catsup and he was wearing a pair of wrap-around sunglasses. The silk top hat was pushed back from his low brow, and the ticket reading "9-11" was still stuck at a jaunty angle in his hat band. There were now only two others at the table, the troll-like character who spoke always from the corner of his mouth in a gravelly voice, and a dark woman with lacquered hair who had taken the precaution of donning foul weather gear and sat somewhat apart from the two others.

"I see your manners haven't changed at all," said Alice disapprovingly as she approached.

"I see you haven't changed that dress either," snickered the Mad Hatter. "Whatsa matter, you broke?"

He laughed heartily at this, and it may have been that the Troll laughed too, but whatever he did manifested itself only as a serie of snorting noises from his mouth corner.

"I have been lost," said Alice, "and I'm dreadfully hungry." She looked plaintively at the woman, who seemed to have replaced the Colon who was here on her last visit.

"Don't count on her," the Hatter jeered. "She ain't the maternal type. Anyway, nothin' to eat here. Things are a little bare in the cupboard."

"Yet winter's coming," said Alice. "Is it wise to plan so poorly?"

"What's a snot-nosed brat like you know about planning?" shouted the Hatter. Alice was about to repeat the question to him, but said instead:

"And why are things do drear?"

"The war, the war, the war," tooted the Troll from his mouth hole. "We must have the war, the war, the war."

"Surely you don't mean that same war," Alice said. "When last I dropped by, I thought you'd learned the Sadman was really no threat to Wonderland at all."

"Not the Sadman himself, but his aroused populace," the woman suddenly broke in, speaking in a monotone of great and practiced precision. "We remain in the Realm of Sadman because the populace resists our mission."

"The mission of removing his weapons?" said Alice.

"Nah, ya dummy," said the Hatter. "He's got no weapons. But imagine if we left now with that aroused populace of his, they'd be likely to come to Wonderland and mess up this place good."

Alice looked at the littered table, the empty bottles, the trash all around on the ground, and wondered how they ever would be able to tell.

"And why are they so aroused?"

"Because we're there, ya nitwit!" shouted the Mad Hatter.

"So that's why you needed to invade the Realm of Sadman, because they would have attacked here first?" Alice asked, acquiring again that sense of utter incomprehension that overtook her whenever she listened to the Hatter talk.

"Boy are you dense," said the Hatter. "They wouldn't have been aroused enough to do that until we invaded them."

"And your mission is?" said Alice.

"To make them happy," said the Troll. "Don't you even know that?"

"But they're obviously not happy," Alice pointed out, "or they wouldn't be planning to attack you."

"And I'm disappointed in that," said the Hatter. "because they should be happy."

"Because you invaded them?" Alice ventured.

"Because we toppled the Sadman," said the Troll.

"But if you toppled the Sadman, why can't you leave?" Alice persisted.

The Hatter sniggered derisively. "Like explaining things to a child! Oh, I'm sorry. You are a child. Just not a very attractive one."

"The country would descend into chaos if we left," said the Troll.

"If they're as aroused as you say, isn't it chaos now?" said Alice.

"Complete and utter chaos," growled the Troll, trying again to pour whiskey from an empty bottle into a greasy glass. "They attack us every day, all day long, and they kill each other by the bushel."

"My goodness," said Alice. "That sounds dreadful. Would it help matters if you left their Realm?"

"Maybe," chortled the Hatter. "But that's not completing the mission. That's cutting and running."

Alice thought about trying one more time, but just then the Troll seized a shotgun, shouted "Quail!" and fired both barrels at something in the meadow. His aim was a little off and he blew a stiff outcropping of black hair from the woman's head.

"Ol' Deadeye!" shouted the Hatter, and fell backwards off his chair. Alice took the moment to trot quickly away into the forest, vowing, if her luck should hold, never to be near these people again.