CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SNARK CAVE

Sunlight did not reach far into the tunnel. Albert and Alice stood with their toes at the edge of the darkness that filled the space before them. Considering he had just slain a jabberwock, Albert did not feel very brave about going in. “Dark,” he commented.

“Very perceptive,” Alice said as she pulled a flat aluminum package from inside her jacket. “I got this at the sporting goods store back at the Flying Pig Mall.”

Albert took the package away from her. “You didn’t have to keep it to yourself,” he said. The package said it contained four Dandelighting puff balls—“vacuum packed for freshness.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, irritated by her secrecy.

Smirking in a way Albert did not find very becoming, Alice took back the package and tore it open. She dug around inside and pulled out something like did in fact look like a dandelion puff ball on a stem, the sort of thing kids blew on late in the year to make the little fuzzy seed umbrellas drift away. She held the stem in one hand and blew on the Dandelighting puff ball; as they flew off the stem, the tiny seed umbrellas began to glow brightly, filling with light what turned out to be an antechamber. The tiny umbrellas continued to float, kept aloft by the slightest movement of air.

“Pretty neat,” Albert admitted. “I hope we don’t need more than four.”

“I have one more package,” Alice said. “Come on.” She led the way through the antechamber and into a tunnel that was somewhat narrower than the opening to the plateau outside. The wind caused by their passing made some of the umbrellas follow them a good distance along the tunnel like faithful animals. Eventually they left the tiny umbrellas behind and Alice allowed Albert to illuminate the next length of tunnel by blowing on the second puff ball.

Though Alice had been helpful, Albert could not stop wondering whether she would allow him to try the object first—whatever it was, however it worked—so he could get home if it worked only a single time. If she had been the one who needed to get home, he knew that he would let her try it first. He glanced over at her and she smiled at him confidently. She was cute and charming, but that didn’t mean she was sensitive to the needs of other people. Old Vorpal said that back in Oxford she’d been known as Light-Fingered Alice. He feared that her own desire for wealth would be more important to her than his need to get home. He steeled himself to do whatever was necessary to get his chance.

They passed a few side tunnels, all dark of course, and Alice activated another puff ball. “How do we know what we’re looking for isn’t along one of those side tunnels?” Albert asked.

“We don’t,” Alice admitted. “But at least following the main tunnel we won’t get lost. And we might find what we’re looking for, whatever it is.”

“Maybe we passed it already,” Albert suggested. “Maybe it just looks like another rock,”

“Let’s hope not,” Alice said, “or we’re probably both screwed.”

The main tunnel wound into the earth like the nose of a tove, and more tunnels lead off on either side. “Where do you think the snark is?” Albert asked.

“You suggested yourself that it might be out,” Alice reminded him.

“Wishful thinking when we were outside,” Albert told her. “But I’d hate for it to come back now that we’re inside, and it would be between us and the exit.”

“That’s what happens when you fight monsters,” Alice said, quoting Albert.

Albert sneered at her.

They had used their third Dandelighting puff ball before they arrived at a dead end. The cloud of tiny seed umbrellas showed them bones strewn around and a bed of straw, making it obvious that some creature lived here.

“I don’t see any object that qualifies as magical,” Alice said.

Albert wasn’t so sure. He picked up a bone and stroked it as if it were a lamp like Aladdin’s. Nothing happened except that his hand got tired. He picked up another bone. “Aren’t you going to help?” Albert asked.

Alice sighed, but she also picked up a bone. She and Albert spent some time rubbing one bone after another with no result.

“If you start rubbing pieces of straw,” Alice said, “you’re on your own.”

Albert dropped the bone he was holding. He could see that Alice was right. “What about secret hiding places in the walls?” he asked.

“I suspect you’re giving the snark credit for more intelligence than it has,” Alice said. “A creature that lives this way can’t be very bright or sophisticated.”

Albert had to admit that she was probably right about this too. Then he saw a neat pile in a dusty corner. “How about one of these,” he said. Alice rushed over and immediately became excited.