Okay I am not giving up on 'uh oh' but I just wanted to write this because I had a weird idea….
It was a calm sunny day, the perfect day to drift of in Alek's opinion. Yes, he had important work to do. Yes, he had walker training, but maybe for once Prince Aleksander could relax for a bit. His father and mother were away and he pretty much had orders of the estate to himself. Not even his bothersome teachers dared interrupt his calming break from all reality. All was calm under the tree where he slept and all was right.
This of course lasted about ten seconds.
He bolted up right when he heard the hurried sound of footsteps in the grass. He looked around and saw nothing. Hoping he could get back to the dream he had been working on, he lowered his head to the grass and closed his lids. There it was again. Closer this time. He bolted upright and there was nothing to see. Alek insisted to himself that it must be a rabbit or something and tried to sleep. For the third time he heard the footsteps and whatever had made the noises must have stopped nearby. Alek could not have guessed that the noise had come from a tall man in a suit and top hat. He looked oddly familiar, but the boy could not place his finger on it. Perhaps one of the butlers, which he had no patience for at the moment.
"What is it?" he grumbled tiredly.
Instead of giving a straight answer, the man grabbed Alek's hand and ran.
"There is not much time," said the butler, "We are running late."
Alek had no idea about what he could possibly be late for, but he was too drowsy to protest. He had, after all, just woken up. Once the prince had finished being drowsy, he abruptly pulled his hand away and demanded an answer.
"Who are you and what business do you have with me?" he asked sternly.
The butler did not flinch as a normal one would at being spoken to so harshly, instead giving a short and rather useless explanation.
"My name is Wildcount Volger, I have to get you out of here" With that they were running again.
Alek was once again too taken aback to make much of an effort to wriggle out of Volger's grip. Finally, after running for a couple of minutes of minutes, they came to a rabbit hole.
"Down" said Volger. Alek looked down the hole.
"I am not going down there!" he complained, "I would barely fit!"
As if for an answer, Alek was pushed down the hole. He thought he would hit his head on the tree's roots the rabbit hole sat by, but her kept falling. The boy looked around to see he was falling through a dark hole. A rather deep one too. How on earth was this? He fell for a few minutes until the walls around him changed. They resembled a sort of laboratory now, with test tubes handing from the walls, it was still very much a hole he was falling down, but looked more scientific. He would be killed once he hit the floor. He had been falling for quite a while now and must have gained some speed. With a loud thump he finally hit the ground.
Alek got up to see if any damage was done, found nothing wrong, and (surprise, surprise!) looked around. This time he was in a corridor leading to a small door at the end of the room. He went up to the little door and tried to get through. He was much too big. Just then he noticed a table next to him with a bottle labeled 'drink me' on it. Now as the Archduke's son, Alek knew very well that poison lurked in every corner. He looked the bottle over then proceeded to smell it. He came to the conclusion (Rather to quickly to be in his right mind) that it was safe to drink. With one sip he began to rapidly grow smaller. Soon he was just the right size for the door.
It was then he was confronted with another problem. The door was locked and young Alek was oblivious to any key. He tried to bang on the door to see if anyone on the other side would let him in, but no one answered. He saw a cookie near the table. This one said 'eat me' on it. After a quick and hurried examination, it was not poisonous either. He took a bite and became larger again. To his luck, there was a key on the table. He took it and began to search for the drink me bottle. He found it and took a sip. Now with the key, he made his way through the door. That felt as if it should not have ended like it did. Alek thought to himself.
Once through the door, he found he was in a forest. The symphony of humming and chirps was enough to make him smile as he made his way through. While exploring, he once again came across Volger. This time the butler paid no attention to the boy. This made Alek angry. How dare he wake me from my sleep, push me down a hole then ignore me! He waved to Volger but had no response. In the intellect of the moment, Alek decided to follow him to whatever he was late for.
The plan worked only for a little while, in seconds Alek had lost him. Now Alek was alone in a forest with no knowledge of how to get home. Perhaps if he were to go back to the rabbit hole and try to climb out he could get back home in time to have his lessons. It was getting late. He wandered for hours looking for the path he had taken, but the wild chase after Volger had confused him of his direction. He was about to give up for lost when he heard a voice.
"It is rather difficult once you're in too deep"
He looked up to find the strangest animal he had ever seen. It was a sort of dog he supposed, but with stripes on its back and a long snout. Not to mention the odd phenomenon of it being the speaker.
"I suppose you are new around here?" the thing asked with an irritatingly posh English accent, "I can assure you that most get lost the first time."
The thing looked down his snout at me.
"Though you have made a record of getting lost within your first twenty minutes."
"Well if you are so educated in these matters which way should I go?" I ask angrily.
"Well sometimes they go that way," said the creature pointing its snout to the left, "And occasionally some go this way," it said pointing to the right, "and very rarely the brave ones go that way," it said nodding its head to gesture behind it, "But your direction depends entirely on where you wish to go."
Alek rolled his eyes as the creature snickered about its 'hilarious' joke.
"It would be my suggestion however," said the creature, pointing to the left, "To go that way. Hatter is home and he ever so loves company. Hare just does not seem to be enough."
"Who exactly are Hatter and Hare?" asked Alek.
"The Mad Hatter of course!" Exclaimed the thing, "And the March Hare!"
"I certainly do not want to associate with mad people!" cried Alek, he knew nothing of this Hatter but if he was mad then Alek wanted nothing to do with him.
"You cannot exactly help that," the creature said, "We are all a bit…dinged… in the attic"
With that, the creature disappeared. Just like that. One second it was there and one second it was not. Alek shrugged. Strange things were happening here and if he wanted to survive he must get over the fact that cats…dogs… or whatever that thing was do disappear at random intervals. After a long battle about what to do in his head, Alek decided to see this Mad Hatter. Perhaps it just meant he was a good time at a party.
As Alek wandered in the direction the thing had shown him, he began to smell the indistinctive smell of liquor. As he went deeper and deeper into the forest, the smell became stronger. Soon he heard the boisterous singing of two drunken men. He followed the sound until he came to a table littered with bottles. Two boys were at the table. One was very tall with sandy blonde hair that was almost covered with an enormous hat. The other had rabbit ears. Or at least they looked like rabbit ears, do boys usually have rabbit ears?
Alek came to the conclusion that the blonde boy was Hatter and the rabbit eared boy was Hare. They were roaring drunk. Taking large gulps of their liquor by the bottle. It was almost sickening.
"Hey, Hattie, who's that?" slurred Hare. Hatter looked up and saw Alek.
"Ah your not allowed in 'ere!" Hatter slurred, "This is an invite-openly…only party"
Hare began to laugh uncontrollably when Hatter messed up the words.
"What kind of party is this?" Alek said disgustedly at the surrounding bottles and smell.
"Its an Unbirthday Party!" Shouted Hare gleefully. Hatter thumped him in the head.
"That's my line bum-rag…" Hatter grumbled.
"What is an Unbirthday Party?" asked Alek, who had never heard of something so ridiculous. Suddenly Hatter snapped out of his drunken trance.
"Well there is only one time your born right?" he aksed, Alek nodded his head, "And on that day it's your birthday" Alek nodded, "So by law of grammar, the other three hundred ad sixty four days are Unbirthdays."
The thought was preposterous to Alek. Who ever heard of celebrating when it isn't the day? That is saying that every day is a special occasion. Despite this knowledge, Alek nodded.
"So you see," Hatter continued, "It is my Unbirthday today."
Alek saw many things wrong with this logic so he decided to play along.
"But that would make it my Unbirthday too." He said.
"IT IS?" Hatter and Hare shouted in unison, "What a small world!"
The two began to sing some sort of 'merry birthday' tune as Alek walked away. Those two really were mad. There must be something else to do around here then celebrate waiting for ones birthday. It was preposterous. Alek sighed. Everything was strange here. At that moment the strange creature decided it would be a good idea to visit Alek again.
"Was it all you ever hoped for and more?" it teased. Alek decided to ignore it. At the moment he just wanted to get back to good old normal work.
"How exactly do I find my way home?" he asked. The creature gasped.
"Don't you know anything?" it said, "There is no your way or my way, by law all ways belong to the Queen!"
"The Queen?" questioned Alek, "You actually have a Queen?" the thing nodded quickly and Alek sighed with relief. Finally, a good and level headed ruler to set things right. He might be able to get some real directions home.
"May I speak to this Queen?" asked Alek.
"I do not see why anyone would want to interact with the Queen!" said the thing, "But I do know a short cut."
The creature reached up and tugged on a vine. At the blink of an eye Alek was in a courtroom. The jury was made up of strange beasts, the witness stand stood empty, the judge was not yet present, and there in the corner was Volger! Alek had almost forgotten! It was that man's fault he was here in the first place. At closer inspection something was different. The man had taken his hat off and he had two fluffy white rabbit ears. The sight made Alek snicker. At least the March Hare had brown ragged ones.
Looking around Alek saw that he stood at the defendant's table. That was funny, what could Alek have possibly done wrong? Soon a woman with a bowler hat and a silk dress with red heart designs stepped to the Judge's bench.
"Order in the court," she said as she banged down her mallet.
Once the room was quiet the Judge, who must have been the Queen, stared directly at Alek.
"The suspect is charged with defiance of an escort citizen, consumption of prototype shrinking and growth products, and entering without permission upon Darwinland." She said in a clear voice.
Alek was taken aback. Defiance of escort? Volger had grabbed his arm and dragged him away. He had no idea the drink and cookie were prototypes, and what on earth was Darwinland?
"First witness!" called Volger. To Alek's immense horror, in burst Hatter and Hare.
"Have you two seen any suspicious behavior on the part of our suspect?" asked the Queen.
"Well M'Lady," said Hatter, "There my mate and I were, having a good ole time and this boy just showed up!" Hatter pointed to Alek accusingly. "He then proceeded to insult our Unbirthday rituals!"
The jury of strange beasts gasped.
"Here in Darwinland we do not tolerate racism." The Queen said. Then she turned to Hatter, "It is my Unbirthday as well you know."
"WHAT A SMALL WORLD" cried the whole courtroom. All except for one lobster-elephant who wore a birthday hat and quite obviously had his real birthday today. The room erupted into a chorus of the odd 'marry birthday' tune. Soon the festivities ended with Volger announcing the next witness.
Alek saw as the odd creature entered the witness stand.
"Tazza!" exclaimed the Queen, "How have you been!"
"Quite well M'Lady," Tazza said politely.
"Have you seen any suspicious behavior?"
"He did not laugh at my jokes." Tazza said dramatically.
Once again the whole courtroom reacted. This was crazy. Alek stood up. He had no more tolerance for this nonsense and wanted a way back home now.
"Where prey tell is the exit to this place?" he asked with whatever politeness he had left.
"Over in the corner dear," said the Queen as she pointed to a swirling portal that had not been there before.
With that, Alek crossed the gossiping room to the portal, and went home at last.
Yeah I know, anti-climactic ending… but hey at least I wrote it. If anyone didn't get it:
Alek was Alice…hahaha
Volger was White Rabbit
Deryn was Mad Hatter
Newkirk was March Hare
Dr Barlow was Queen
Tazza was Cat
R&R