"Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time, Iracebeth!"
Looking up into her mother's face, Beth attempted to recite the poem her mother had demanded of her, but it was very long with horrible tedious words and she simply couldn't concentrate when the flowers were all twaddling so loudly. Mirana had recited her poem with perfection, and was excused to play in the garden of the Second Square, where there were such lovely insects with which to quilip. Beth and her sister Mirana were the daughters of the White Queen, and it was tiresome being the pawns in a game which your mother controls half the time. After hours of lessons, curtseying, and learning the proper way to speak, it really makes one rather mimsy. Beth was so very tired of learning such things, and she felt the whole ordeal was rather pointless. Her sister would end up becoming the next White Queen anyway; Mirana opened her mouth so nicely when she spoke, although her laxness sometimes put her hair out of order. She was constantly losing her combs in it, while Beth kept her combs neatly tucked in the top of her bun.
Finally, after disastrously ruining the poem once again, Beth's mother let her go outside to join Mirana. But by then, Mirana had gone to play with the Tweedles in the Fourth Square, and Beth much preferred to be with the flowers and animals of Underland. They listened to her, and would do as she told them. She loved that (she could be very forceful sometimes). Quickly running out of the garden, she took the train straight through the Fourth Square, and in no time had run out of her mother's half of the board, all the way to the Seventh Square, and found herself in a very lovely forest. But the sky was growing dark, and Beth was rather worried, because these were the woods that held the Bandersnatch, and, she believed, the Red Knight. She decided to run very quickly along the path, and nearly fell over when she saw such a grand woman in front of her. She was dressed in a long red gown, her head topped with a tall crown with red jewels and not a speck of white in sight. It was the Red Queen.
Beth opened her mouth, but the Queen spoke more quickly, exclaiming, "think before you speak, always speak the truth, and write it down afterwards!" Thinking on this, Beth replied, in the most truthful manner of speaking, "I ran away from the White Queen, and now I must find my way back." "Your way back?" the Queen answered, "do you know your way?" Beth thought on that for only a moment longer, and spoke the truth again, "Yes, all the ways around here are my way." This was a rather unusual statement for a pawn. The Red Queen took note. She looked at Beth with berfuddlement, then suddenly with a most percepticative smile, said "You know, you are quite a child of meaning. Do you enjoy bread and butter?"
"Most certainly not, of course, it's such an idle practice. I much prefer spending my time finding things that will do as I tell them."
The Red Queen extended her hand to Beth, and told her that she would never come to any good with the White Queen. "Your potential will be much better exercised on my half of the board," she said, "you must come with me at once, and not look back. It's the only way you'll become a queen." Beth thought on it, but only for a few moments, then clasped her hand with that of the Red Queen's. There was nothing more she wished than to be a queen, and her head began to swell just at the idea of it. She and the Red Queen walked to the Red Queen's castle, and henceforth she would ever be known as Iracebeth of Crims.
