CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SNARK ISLAND

Above them, the volcano continued to dribble lava and to occasionally hiccup, giving off puffs of smoke and shooting glowing bits of rock that peppered the sky like a terrific fireworks display. Albert wished he was able to enjoy the show. As he and Alice climbed over and around rocks, Albert thought about other fantasy stories he’d read in which at the moment of greatest danger the hero just wakes up in his bed at home. He’d always hated cheater endings like that, but he had to admit that it would be real handy if he were to awaken in his own bed right now.

To their right the long fall of rocks continued up the mountain, and to their left a forest began. The trees were very much like the redwoods Albert had seen around the Site back in the Valley of Enchantment, but instead of pine needles each of them had branch after branch full of big green hands that now and then applauded in the wind. From the air, Alice had identified them as tumtum trees. Alice and Albert stopped at the edge of the forest and peered into the darkness beneath the trees.

“If those are tumtum trees,” Albert said, “this is jabberwock country.”

“A Tulgey Wood if I ever saw one,” Alice agreed.

Something deep in the forest cried out—a cry between a bellow and a whistle, with a sneeze in between. Albert had heard it before. “Sounds like a rath outgrabbing,” he said, remembering the animal that had been chasing the jackalope.

“One of those green warthog things,” Alice agreed.

“Do you want to go back to the boat?” Albert asked.

“Do you?”

“I asked you first.”

An answering outgrab came from another part of the forest.

“Come on,” Albert said, and strode into the shade under the tumtum trees before he lost his nerve entirely. The cool air had a good spicy smell, and Albert was pleased to no longer be clambering among the big rocks in the hot sun. Some of the branches hung low enough that the leaf hands brushed against their heads as they walked. He and Alice walked for a long time without speaking.

They came upon a clearing with a small house illuminated by a spot of sunlight.

“Who would live out here in the middle of nowhere?” Alice asked.

“It’s all nowhere on this island,” Albert answered.

When a nearby rath outgrabbed, the house suddenly broke up into millions of tiny pieces that leaped into the air. “Digitized,” as Albert thought. The tiny pieces flew off in a buzzing cloud and settled a few yards away, forming into a small house just like the original one.

“House flies?” Albert asked.

“That’s what we always called them,” Alice said.

Figures, Albert thought. “You’ve seen these before?” he asked.

“Something like,” Alice said, “This house looks a little different from the ones you see in Oxford. No house flies where you come from?”

“Er, they’re sort of different where I come from too,” Albert explained. “Do these sting?”

“The ones in Oxford never have, but these might be wild house flies.”

They circled the clearing, taking care not to disturb the house flies again. Neither of them wanted to find out the hard way whether a wild house fly stung.

A mile or two farther on they came upon another clearing, in which lizard-like animals with long corkscrew noses danced in circles around a half-dozen or so sundials on pedestal columns. Albert and Alice hid behind a tree and watched.

“Toves,” Albert said. “I recognize them from the one Old Vorpal kept outside his cabin.

“Great,” Alice said. “As good as a circus. But where is the snark’s cave? Even an island this size would take weeks to explore.”

As if in answer to Alice’s question, they heard something neither of them expected to hear in a place like this. “A car horn?” Alice asked.

“Sounds like it,” Albert admitted. The horn gave another couple of beeps. “But how—?” He interrupted himself. “It must be Floyd-Bob’s truck,” he said with amazement. “I saw the jabberwock pick it up and carry it off with him inside.”

“Who is Floyd-Bob?”

“He was the leader of a posse sent out to slay the jabberwock.” Albert sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“Sounds as if your buddy found what he was looking for,” Alice remarked.

“He did,” Albert said. “Wouldn’t you say that the chances are good that the truck is near wherever the jabberwock is.”

“Good but not perfect,” Alice said. “The jabberwock could have dropped the truck anywhere.”

Albert nodded. It was true. “Do you have a better plan?” he asked.

Alice admitted that she did not, so they set off in the direction from which the horn honks seemed to be coming.

They followed the horn as it beeped intermittently all through the rest of that morning. It seemed to be coming from the center of the island, maybe from somewhere near the volcano itself. They went along, occasionally glimpsing a view of the smoke and flying cinders through the trees. They drank cold water from a brook and rested briefly.

“You know,” Alice said, “horns don’t honk themselves.”

“Maybe it’s Floyd-Bob calling for help,” Albert suggested. If it was him, who would he expect to hear it? But it probably wasn’t: the chances of surviving capture by the jabberwock were two: slim and none.

“Yeah, right,” Alice said, apparently agreeing with Albert’s thought rather than with what he said.

“Maybe something found the truck and it likes the noise.”

“I kind of like it myself,” Alice said, “though I would give it a rest occasionally.”

They filled their water bottles in the brook and set off again. Following the constant beep-beep they eventually they came to a hot smoking rivulet of red lava.

“It looks as if that stuff is flowing from the direction we’re going,” Alice said.

“It smells bad,” Albert pointed out.

“It smells awful,” Alice agreed.

Without further discussion they followed the rivulet as it wound through the Tulgey Wood. Soon after the horn stopped the rivulet led them out of the Tulgey Wood at the bottom of the central volcano. Now that Albert and Alice were out from under the tumtum trees, they had a clear view of the volcano seemingly many miles above them. The same smell that came off the lava flow was much worse here, and the sound of lava bubbling somewhere deep in the mountain sounded like so many gun shots. On a plateau not very far above where they stood they saw a battered wooden box on a pair of broken wagon wheels. Near the box was what remained of Floyd-Bob’s truck, which looked like a toy next to the enormous box.

“I’m no expert,” Alice said, “but I’d say that was a bathing-machine.”

“It looks pretty big,” Albert said.

“Big enough for a snark to live in?” Alice asked.

“Depends on the snark, I guess,” Albert replied. “But where’s the jabberwock?”

“Out hunting?” Alice suggested. “Anyway, I’d be just as pleased if we could get into the snark’s cave without fighting it.”

Like a couple of acrobats on a tightrope, they carefully stepped across the lava flow on a fallen tree, and then made their way up the side of the mountain among the big rocks, stopping occasionally to drink from their water bottles. Despite that, they were both hot, sweaty, and ready for a rest by the time they arrived at the plateau. They sat in the shadow of the bathing-machine, which towered over them like a ten-story building.

“Not much water left,” Albert noted as he took a small sip from his water bottle.

“We’ll survive long enough to be killed by whatever was beeping that horn.”

“That’s reassuring.”

At one end of the plateau was a tunnel entrance big enough for a freight train. Albert knew he and Alice would have to go in there soon, but he wanted to do something else first.

“Where are you going?” Alice asked with irritation.

“I just want to have a look at Floyd-Bob’s truck,” Albert said.

The hood of the truck was dented in as if something large and heavy had rested on it—the snark? The jabberwock itself? Albert imagined it sitting astride the hood of the truck and reaching in through the hole torn in the roof to delicately tap the horn pad in the middle of the steering wheel. Knowing the creature enjoyed primitive music made it more difficult to hate, but Albert thought he could manage. He tried not to imagine Floyd-Bob’s last few minutes of life. His terror must have been horrible.

Albert and Alice turned suddenly at a squeak and a bang behind them. The door of the bathing-machine had been thrown open, and standing in the doorway was the jabberwock. It burbled at them, making a sound like the lava bubbling in the volcano.