CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE MAGIC THING

Stacked in the dusty corner were cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and glass jars—the kind of packages that Albert would find in any supermarket back home. But at home he never would have found the products they contained: Chocolate Frosted Sugar Wonkers, Pickled Borogove Tongues, King Yahdstick Rulers, Dredge: the Bathroom Miracle, and Cherub John Snack Cakes.

“This is all junk,” Alice said with exasperation. “What we’re looking for could be any one of these things, or none of them.”

“Even a snark needs a reason for collecting stuff,” Albert pointed out.

“Maybe it got tired of bones,” Alice replied.

Albert stared at the packages for a while longer, attempting to make them meaningful. “Maybe there isn’t anything to find,” he said finally. “Maybe even the fact that a magic thing is here is only an urban myth, a big story.”

Then Albert saw something he had not noticed before. Half hidden behind the stack was another rectangular cardboard box, this one with a picture on the side of a happy boy who looked very much like one of the Tweedle boys. He was eating crackers.

“Aka Baka Soda Crackers,” Albert said as he picked up the box. “Just like in the poem that the Tweedle boys recited to us, like the song the Cats With Thumbs sang. This is it. This must be it!”

“Let’s see,” Alice said and took the box. “You’re right,” she said. She began to back away from Albert and he was afraid of what was about to happen next. “I’m sorry Albert. I really need this box. It’s okay if you don’t get home. This isn’t really such a bad place.”

Albert growled and leaped at her, but grabbed only empty air and then fell onto a pile of straw. He got to his feet immediately, but she was already halfway up the corkscrew tunnel with the box of crackers when he started to run.

The fact that they were running up hill made them both a little slower than they would be if they’d been running on the flat. Even so, Alice was fast. Albert gradually closed the distance between them only because he was desperate. If he lost the race he knew he would never get home.

Albert almost caught up with her. He was so close that he could hear her hard breathing along with his own. He put out a hand to seize her, was inches from her shoulder, when a huge dark cloud tumbled from a side tunnel like a bundle of dirty laundry and came between them. It had fins and big round eyes, and it could only be one thing. Albert cried, “It’s a boo—” and the tunnel around him faded.