Go south to Trotter’s Bottom,” the Hatter hissed. It took Alice a moment to realize he was talking to her. “The White Queen’s castle is just beyond.”
She wanted to protest that she wouldn’t leave him, but everything was moving too fast. The Hatter swept the hat off his head and bowed in a conciliatory way to the Red Knights. With his face hidden, he muttered, “Hold down tightly.”
Perhaps if they didn’t find her with him, they’d let him go. Alice did as she was told, leaping onto the hat. The Hatter immediately flung his arms into the air, sending the hat and Alice sailing over the treetops. She shut her eyes tight and clung to the brim of the hat as it flew out of the woods.
Behind her, she heard the Hatter yelling triumphantly. “DOWN WITH THE BLOODY RED QUEEN!” he bellowed. Her heart seized in her chest. She knew what he was doing—distracting the Red Knights. They would never let him go now, even if they had no evidence that he’d been helping her.
The hat landed lightly in the soft grass, far from the scene in the woods. Alice looked back at the forest, then south toward gently rolling hills. Dusk was vanishing into pitch darkness, and strange night sounds were starting to fill the air. Wherever she was going, it would be safer in the day, when she could see. She slipped under the hat and curled up on the grass to sleep.
It was not a very restful sleep, full of Bandersnatch teeth and dark wings and burning top hats and screaming children. Alice was almost relieved when she woke up to the sound of sniffing just outside the hat.
Then she realized who it must be. She sat up as the hat was flipped over and early morning light spilled over the grass around her. A giant wet nose came closer, sniffing her. It was the same bloodhound from the tea party, Bayard. He was alone.
Alice leaped to her feet, furious. “You turncoat!” she shouted, whapping his nose with her hand. “You were supposed to lead them away! The Hatter trusted you!”
Bayard jumped back a step, his long ears flapping. He looked down at her with his sad eyes and sagging face. “They have my wife and pups,” he said mournfully.
This didn’t make Alice any less angry. She thought of the Hatter’s tormented expression as he stared across the blackened place. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
“Bayard.”
“Sit!” Alice said commandingly.
He cocked his head and looked at her curiously.
“Sit!” she said again, even more forcefully.
Bayard sat, amused if nothing else. Something seemed to occur to him. “Would your name be Alice by any chance?”
“Yes,” said Alice, “but I’m not the one that everyone’s talking about.”
Bayard pawed at the dirt. “The Hatter would not have given himself up for just any Alice.”
Alice couldn’t handle the pang of guilt this caused her. Why had he done such a foolish thing? What if she wasn’t the Alice he believed in so much? She couldn’t be—there was no chance she was going to slay a monster anytime soon.
“Where did they take him?” she asked. It was easier to change the subject than to argue about her Alice-ness.
“To the Red Queen’s castle at Salazen Grum,” said the dog.
The soft grass rippled around Alice as she turned to look at the Hatter’s worn old hat, remembering the pain in his eyes. She turned back to the bloodhound, resolute.
“We’re going to rescue him.”
The bloodhound shook his head. “That is not foretold.”
“I don’t care!” said Alice. “He wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for me.”
Bayard stood up, his fur standing on end as he shivered anxiously. “The Frabjous Day is almost upon us. You must prepare to meet the Jabberwocky.”
“From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole, I’ve been told what I must do and who I must be. I’ve been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I’ve been accused of being Alice and of not being Alice. But this is my dream! I’ll decide where it goes from here.”
Bayard’s claws dug into the ground. “If you diverge from the path—”
“I make the path!” Alice shouted.
She was so commanding, the bloodhound lay down at her tiny feet. Alice grabbed his long ear and climbed up to sit on his shoulders. The wrinkles of skin and short brown fur around his neck prickled against her bare hands.
“Take me to Salazen Grum,” she ordered. “And don’t forget the hat.”
Bayard obediently picked up the hat in his teeth and ran. Alice held onto his black spiked collar. He ran and ran and ran, speeding across strange landscapes like nothing Alice had ever seen before. At one point, his paws sank into a swamp of viscous red mud. He held the hat high to keep it clean as he waded through. The mud stuck to his fur and his paws in gooey clumps that gradually dried and flaked off as he kept running.
They reached a wide red desert, but not so wide that Alice couldn’t see the dark castle rising on the far side. Red sand whipped her face as Bayard’s paws pounded across the flat surface. She crouched lower, feeling the sun beat down on her back. A roaring reached her ears as they drew closer, and she realized there was an ocean on the far side of the castle. Waves pounded tempestuously against the shore below tall black cliffs.
The walls of the castle seemed to get higher and steeper and more foreboding as they ran toward it. Bayard slowed down as they approached the moat, a stinking circle of water with no bridge across it at the moment. Large, round, lumpish objects floated in the water, pale and bloated. Alice stared at them for a second, then realized they were the heads of the executed. She closed her eyes and shuddered.
“There’s only one way across,” the bloodhound said, pausing on the edge of the moat. He looked sadly down at the clutter of floating heads.
Alice followed his gaze to the grim moat, then took a deep breath for courage.
“Lost my muchness, have I?” she muttered. She swung down from Bayard’s shoulder and steeled herself. She crouched and leaped onto the first head, landing with an unsettlingly squishy thud. Quickly she jumped to the next head, then the next, and as fast as she could, she made it across the moat, leaping from head to head. They bobbed and smushed sickeningly under her feet and she was horribly certain she’d stepped on someone’s eye as she ran.
Finally she stumbled onto the grass on the far side and fell to her knees. This nightmare was far worse than the one she usually had.
At length she pushed herself upright and stared up at the impossibly high wall. It would be hard enough for a normal-size girl to climb it, let alone one who was only six inches tall.
Then again . . .
Alice looked down at the base of the wall. After a moment of searching, she found what she wanted—a crack just big enough for a six-inch girl to squeeze through. She turned and called back to the bloodhound.
“Bayard! The hat!”
Bayard picked up the hat in his teeth. Turning in circles like a discus thrower, he released the hat, and it and the hat sailed high across the moat and over the wall.
Alice wriggled through the crack in the wall. For a moment she was afraid she’d get stuck—yet another unpleasant way to die—but at last she tumbled out on the other side and found herself in a garden. It was neater and better-tended than the first garden she’d been in, and the flowers looked less likely to criticize her, given that they had no faces or opinions at all.
Alice crouched in the bushes and peered out onto a great lawn, wide and green and smooth. It reminded her a little of Lady Ascot’s great lawn, in fact . . . not least because there were people playing croquet on it.
But these were not ordinary people. Alice could guess right away which one was the Red Queen. A tiny crown sat atop her gigantic head, and her face was red with glee as she whacked away with her mallet. The three courtiers she played with were no less peculiar looking. One of the women had the largest nose Alice had ever seen, while the other had ears that hung down nearly to her waist. The third was a man with a huge protruding belly, so large that Alice couldn’t believe he could even see over it to hit the ball.
WHACK!
A small cry of pain followed the loud thwacking sound. The three courtiers cheered and applauded. The Queen sniffed and moved forward, swinging her mallet again. Once more Alice heard a tiny cry of pain after the mallet hit. She glanced around for the source, but it wasn’t until the ball rolled closer to her that she realized what was happening.
The ball wasn’t a ball at all. It was a tiny hedgehog with its four feet tied together. Its spikes were matted and filthy, and it rolled to a stop with its face buried in the grass. Alice could hear it panting and gasping for air. It was the saddest little creature she’d ever seen.
THWACK! The Queen hit the hedgehog again, and now Alice realized that the mallet was not an ordinary mallet either. Instead, it was a miserable flamingo with its legs bound together and clutched in the Queen’s hands. Each time its beak hit the hedgehog, both creatures flinched in agony.
The last thwack sent the hedgehog ball rolling right into the bushes at Alice’s feet. She crouched immediately and started to untie it. The hedgehog yelped with fear.
“Splendid shot!” shouted one of the Queen’s guards.
“Shh,” Alice said to the Hedgehog. “I want to help you.” Her hands shook with anger as she worked the tight knots. What kind of monster could do this to an innocent animal?
“Where’s my ball!” the Red Queen bellowed. “PAGE!”
The last rope slipped free, and the hedgehog stumbled to its paws. It gave Alice a mute, bewildered look for a moment, then staggered away into the foliage. Alice was about to follow it when a pair of furry white feet suddenly appeared in front of her.
She looked up and up and up into the face of the White Rabbit. To her surprise, he was now dressed as a court page. Did he work for the Red Queen? But then why would he have brought Alice to this world?
“Well!” he said, apparently as surprised as she was. “If it isn’t the wrong Alice. What brings you here?”
“I’ve come to rescue the Hatter,” said Alice.
The White Rabbit practically laughed in her face. “You’re not rescuing anyone, being the size of a gerbil.”
That was probably true. Alice thought for a moment. “Well, do you have any of that cake that made me grow before?”
“Upelkuchen?” said the Rabbit. He patted his pockets. “Actually, I might have some left.” His paws dug through his clothes until he unearthed a piece of cake. Alice seized it and shoved it in her mouth.
“Not all of it!” cried the White Rabbit, but it was too late. Alice shot upward. Buttons flew off her torn garments; the makeshift outfit the Hatter had given her split right down the seams instantly.
“Oh, no, stop!” the Rabbit cried, wringing his paws. “No, no, don’t—don’t do that!”
“PAGE!” the Red Queen screamed.
“Oh, dear,” said the White Rabbit.
Alice burst right through the shreds of her clothes and popped out of the bushes.
Alice looked down at the Red Queen and her courtiers, who were gaping at this strange naked girl who had suddenly grown out of the foliage. Luckily the tall bushes hid all but her head and shoulders, but Alice still felt quite embarrassed. She wished she was wearing anything, even a corset, right now. Poor Mother would have died of shock.
The Red Queen’s eyebrows came down into a menacing scowl. Everyone’s gaze went from Alice to the Queen as she pointed a long, shaking finger at Alice’s towering head.
“And WHAT is this?”