He reached forward and ripped the burlap bag off of the girl's head.

"Well, hello there, Sir," the girl said. "Why did the rabbits put my head in a teapot?"

"'ead in a teapot, girl?" He asked. "Why, that's the most ridiculous thing I ever 'eard – 'ead in a teapot. Boys!" He shouted. Two of his men stepped forward. "What sort o' loony 'ave you brought me?"

"S-sorry, boss, we thought she was-"

"She was what? Out with it."

"We thought she'd be a good, er, gift. For ya. We thought ya was lonely, so we-"

"A gift?" He asked.

"Er, y-y-yes, Boss."

"I'm a gift? Is it your unbirthday? A very merry unbirthday to you, sir!" The girl piped up. He withheld a groan.

"Why this one?" He demanded.

"Why, I must imagine you're almost as small as I am!" The girl said, as if to answer his question. "Have you grown smaller as well?"

"You," He turned away from his men to look at the girl. "How old are you?"

"Why, time is a rather funny thing, isn't it? You're always older than you say you are since time is always running away. Since we're on the subject of time, would you mind telling it to me? I fear I might be late."

"Girl. How old are you?" He paused and tacked on, "In years."

"Well, in years I must be twenty-five, I suppose."

"What's your name?"

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Well, everybody has two names, at least here."

"Tell me both, girly."

"Well, I'm usually Dormouse, but sometimes I'm Molly."

"Dormouse," All of the funny things she'd said suddenly connected. "You work for Tetch."

"The Hatter? Yes. In fact, I'm late for a very important-"

"Date?" He tacked on snidely.

"Appointment," she corrected. "I haven't had a date in such an amount of time, which is really quite ridiculous a statement, don't you think? Why, such an amount of time could be months, or years, or days, or even minutes."

"You idiots better go find the 'atter, or it'll be your heads," he said to his men. He could feel a headache coming on from being around this girl.

"Their heads? Are you taking them to the Queen of Hearts? She'll off them!"

"That's the point."

"Oh."


A/N: So, this is another short first chapter, but I like it and I felt that that was a pretty good spot to end it on.

On another note, I seriously just...

I'm starting to ship The Penguin and The Dormouse.

And I'm not ashamed of it.