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"Momma? What's this?" I asked.
"Oh, thats a drawing of a dream I had when I was young," my mother pointed to a cat grinning ear-to-ear. "This is a 'Cheshire Cat'. When I had my dream, he was smiling as if he were mad." My mother laughed a bit. " 'We're all a little mad sometimes', he told me."
"Don't fill up her head with nonsense of smiling cats and smoking catterpillars, Alice." My father said, putting down his newspaper.
"Smoking caterpillars, Mommy?" I asked, my curiosity now getting the best of me. She nodded.
"Yes, Alison. He smoked, and was rather rude," she commented, wrinkling her nose. I giggled.
"I want to have that dream too, Mommy!" I said, pointing to the twin boys who seemed to be laughing and the man wearing a hat that marked 10 1/2 gallons. "Tell me about it, please?" I begged.
Father let out an annoyed sigh, "You don't know what your asking, hon. It's the oddest thing." he said.
"Well, Mason. I told you back when we were children. On the school-yard no less. You believed me way back when." she said to him, smiling. She turned back to me, "Well. I was doing a lesson with your aunt and my catunder a tree. It was sunny and not a cloud was in the sky. I suddenly saw a white rabbit who was wearing old fashioned people clothes, except without pants. Naturally, I had to follow it. 'I'm late! I'm late!' he was shouting."
Mommy went on to tell me the story and I was now wishing that I truly did have a dream like that. I wanted to go to Wonderland...it seemed fun. Despite the evil Queen of Hearts, the easily angered smoking catterpillar, and the stories that made no sense from the identical twins.
Yes...that's what I wanted...when I was eight. Ten years have passed and so have my parents. Now living with my aunt and uncle on their wooded lands with my cousins, I can only wish I could go to Wonderland. 'But that's childish,' I'd think...until I saw something curious on my bed-side...
a cake that said "eat me".