CHAPTER NINE: THE TWEEDLE BROTHERS
“Hello!” one of the brothers cried.
“Welcome!” the other one cried in turn.
Albert and Alice did not know what to make of the sudden appearance of these jolly shrub creatures. Then they held out their hands to be shaken, and Albert and Alice each took one.
“Hello,” Albert said cautiously.
The boys looked at each other and smiled.
“Welcome, welcome to the Topiary Steppe,” Dum said.
“We have lots to show you,” Dee said.
They smiled at each other again.
“What do you think?” Albert asked.
“I think we’re in trouble,” Alice replied, “though I admit I don’t yet see how.”
“If you think this is trouble,” Dum said, “you may be right.”
“Contrariwise,” Dee went on, “if you don’t think you’re in trouble, you may be wrong.”
Immediately, the two little men turned to face each other and began to slap each others palms in the rhythm of a poem:
My mother, your mother
Live across the way.
Every night they have a fight
And this is what they say:
Aka baka soda crackah,
Aka baka boo!
Aka baka soda crackah,
Out goes you!
They each turned and pointed at Albert and Alice, which bothered Albert for reasons he did not yet understand.
“Boo?” Albert asked. “As in boojum?”
“Just a coincidence,” Alice said as she shook her head with disgust. “We don’t have time for this,” she went on. She marched off, but was stopped after a step or two when a finger of one of the little men suddenly grew into a whip-like tendril that twined around her arm. It dragged her back to where Albert was standing, unwrapped itself and subsided back into the hand of the little man. The tendril did not seem to have hurt Alice, but it was insistent.
“You haven’t see anything yet!” one of the little men cried with enthusiasm.
“On the other hand, you have seen something,” the other little man cried.
“But you have not seen everything,” his brother confided.
“We’re in kind of a hurry,” Albert said, causing the little fat men to smile at each other again.
“Look at this,” one of them said. A creature rose from the flat plain. Like the two little men, it was green, of course, being covered with grass. Otherwise, it might have been a big dog. It sniffed at Alice. Albert took a step toward her.
“Wait,” Alice said quietly. “Let’s see what it does.” She held still for the inspection. The dog sneezed and sank back into the lawn.
“I did it myself,” one of the little men said.
“I did this one,” the other said as a hulking beast rose from the grass, its long prehensile nose swinging up and back, testing the air.
Albert wondered if they had learned to bring up the creatures by magic, or if their power come from some special connection to the steppe—they seemed to be part of it. He was curious, but not curious enough to ask questions. It would only encourage the little men—though they didn’t seem to need much encouragement.
“We have to go,” Albert said a few times.
“But you haven’t seen all we’ve done,” Dum said,
“Contrariwise, there is a lot more to see!” Dee remarked.
While Albert and Alice became more frustrated, the little fat men brought up animal after animal—walkers and jumpers and crawlers—proudly displaying what they had “done.” They showed off each animal in turn, then allowed it to melt back into the grass.
The little fat men seemed as friendly as puppies, but they also seemed determined to prevent Albert and Alice from moving on. If they backed too far away, a tough tendril pulled them back.
“I’ve gone way beyond my capacity to enjoy this,” Alice said out of the corner of her mouth. “How’s that vorpal sword working for you?”
Not being used to carrying a weapon, Albert had forgotten he was carrying it. He had no experience with a sword, of course, but this might be a good time to practice. “We have to go,” he said to the Tweedle boys, giving them a last chance to cooperate.
“But there’s lots more to see,” Dum cried.
Albert pulled the sword from its scabbard and for a moment held it aloft in two hands. The eyes of the two little fat men widened with genuine surprise. The sword glowed and pulled at Albert. Suddenly, in one swift motion the sword sliced through the ropey trunk holding Dum to the ground.
Dum screamed as he fell to the grass carpet in a rattle of grass blades as dry as autumn leaves. The stiff blades that covered him turned black as they shivered in the constant breeze. Dee threw tendrils at Albert, restraining his movements. But by this time Alice had her knife out. With a wild shout, Alice ran toward Dee and hacked him loose from the ground. As Alice and Albert watched, the two little fat men melted back into the lawn, which was soon as flat as if they had never been.
“That was fun,” Alice said without enthusiasm.
“I guess the map was right about the Manxome foe,” Albert said. He looked at the sword, and swung it up and back a few times. It had stopped glowing and was once again a dead weight in his hand. He returned it to its scabbard feeling a little more confident about meeting the jabberwock.
“I just hope there aren’t any more,” Alice said as she pulled the tendrils, now weak and brittle, from her body.
After another few hours’ march the ground began to rise a little. The mountains, all spiky ridges and mysterious places hidden in deep shadow, made a wall that towered over them, their gleaming white tops seemingly touching the sky. The sawtooth peaks extended into the distance on either hand until they were swallowed by big white clouds.
“Now what?” Albert asked as he glared at the seemingly impassible wall.
“Any way we go,” Alice pointed out, “it looks like a long way around.”
“You go this way,” Albert said, “And I’ll go that way. We might find a tunnel. Or something,” he finished lamely.
As she marched off, Alice did not seem any happier about the situation than Albert. She hadn’t taken more than three steps when a green creature reared up out of the grass roaring like the end of the world. It was bigger than any animal that Albert had ever seen, and it seemed to be composed mostly of tentacles, all writhing wildly in their direction.
“It’s a bandersnatch!” Alice cried.
Albert wished that he and Alice could sink into the ground as the Tweedle boys had done earlier. He thought about once again pulling his sword, but he didn’t have time. All they could do was run.