Alistair in Wonderland:
A Genderbending Story
Chapter 3
Alistair, naked as a jaybird but for the sea of his own blue jacket modestly swept around his waist, could see nothing of the events taking place outside the teapot. However, he could piece them together well enough by sound and dialogue alone. Judging by the increasing clamor of armor, for example, he guessed a division of soldiers—more than likely the same ones who had chased him before—was closing in on the tea party.
"Greetings, gentlemen!" the Hattress welcomed cheerily, confirming the Englishman's suspicions.
Then her tone dipped and the brogue flared, just slightly.
"And Lady."
A burst of citrus scent suddenly rushed through the spout, and the teapot tipped gently, nearly pouring Alistair out of the folds of his clothes and exposing him to the porcelain's dimly reflective interior. He clung to his jacket, though, and managed not to shift too much. The Hattress had made a bow to her "guests", he gathered, and rather wished she'd at least given him a bit of warning before doing so.
Then came quite a different voice: hoarse, but sickly sinister. Hair-raising. Alistair thought it even suggested a seductive quality.
"It's nice to see this dunghole hasn't changed."
Or not.
"You're late for tea!" the Hare shouted, nervously clattering his cup against its saucer.
"I do beg your pardon, your ladyship, but we've only just now finished decorating for your arrival. And you discerned the theme expertly, if I do say so myself. 'Dunghole' was just the look we were going for, you see."
Alistair gulped involuntarily. He wasn't entirely sure the Hattress should be so forthrightly insulting as that, and hoped for her sake that this "Lady" merely chalked her cheek up to madness.
"The boy called Alistair is back in Underland," she growled, overlooking the impudence in favor of getting right to the point. "Have any of you lunatics seen him?"
"'Theboy'? What's that? A pox?" the Hare cackled uproariously at some joke Alistair—and everyone else, he suspected—failed to grasp. "A pox! A pox!"
A tea cup crashed on the ground.
"No, you idiot creature!" the throaty voice snapped. "The boy! The Alistair! We're looking for him. Have—you—seen—him?"
A snuffling sound that had been part of the background noise was now growing more and more pronounced as something approached the pot. Alistair then heard (and smelled) the distinct pant of a dog.
"Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid," the Hattress whispered desperately as Thackery carried on with his distraction.
After a pause the dog whimpered, and a moment later the snuffling sound returned, but it harmlessly moved away.
"Can't see a pox if you haven't got it! Can't see what ain't there!"
"Oh, did you just make a rhyme?" the Hattress put in enthusiastically. "I do so love a rhyme. Come, come! Let's all sing a song in honor of his Majesty."
Alistair wasn't sure he liked where this was going.
"Twinkle, twinkle little bat! How I wonder where you're at!" the tea partiers began.
No, he certainly did not like it.
"Up above the world you fly," they sang on with the Hattress conducting them, though quite off-key herself.
"Like a tea tray in the sky—ah!"
The Hattress gave a cry and the teapot suddenly lurched forward, sending the Englishman flying out of the folds of his clothes. He desperately hoped the lid stayed in place, else anyone and everyone on the outside would be able to look in and see him belly-flopped and prone, his bare backside exposed for this entire dreamland to see. As he struggled to right himself, he thought he glimpsed through the spout a solid black eye and an equally black…spade?
The throaty voice came again, much closer now, directly above him and the Hattress.
"I'd thrash that crazy head of yours if I thought it might knock a bit of sense out of you," it hissed. "You're lucky the King hasn't—"
The bloodhound bayed again at the edge of the forest, conveniently interrupting the derogation. The Black Lady groaned reluctantly before pulling away. The Hattress, noticeably, said nothing or made any noise at all, but slowly righted the teapot in her lap.
"Follow the dog!" the Lady barked. "I want to find the boy and have him back to the King by sundown!"
Then, in a not-so-under-her-breath manner muttered, "Bloody mutt."
The clamoring of the armor began again as the soldiers marched off. Alistair had completely forgotten they were even there and chastised himself for focusing too much on the catfight between the two women. This might all be some crazy dream, but even if it were, he still didn't want to pseudo-die at the hands of his own imagination. From here on he would have to be more aware of everything happening around him.
When the coast was presumably clear, all three of the tea partiers heaved a collective sigh or relief.
"I thought we were done for for sure," the Dormouse squeaked.
"Were! Are! Will be!" the Hare quaked, crashing his cup back to its saucer. "We're all doomed now! Doomed!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Mallymkun muttered. "Here, Thackery, what do you call this?"
Thackery's shouting ceased on the spot. "Eye," he whispered, less as a response to the Dormouse, and more as one of his characteristically abrupt non sequiturs.
Jittery as he was, it was fortunate the Hare was so easily distracted, Alistair thought. But then again, the plucked out eye of the Bandersnatch could hardly not distract a person, vile and morbid as it was.
"Hattress, are you all right?" Mallymkun asked, now that the Hare was calm.
"I'm fine," the Hattress assured. "Still, she didn't have to pull my hair. 'Lady', ha! More of a bijlat that anything."
Alistair didn't know what the word bijlat denoted, but from the venom the Hattress injected into it, he was pretty certain he could guess its meaning. A tap on the teapot's lid drew him from his thoughts, reminding him that he was, indeed, still in the teapot and not blindly listening to a play. Not that he'd ever been blind, of course, but sometimes at the theatre with his mother he would close his eyes and pretend he were blind. He rather thought the performance seemed more real when he supplied the images himself, deriving them solely from the orchestra and actors' voices. His mother thought this silly—the habit was socially unbecoming as well as a waste of money if her son wasn't actually seeing the play they had gone to see—but Alistair disputed both her points. For one, he argued that he enjoyed the play much better when he saw it in his own mind. (His mother always rolled her eyes in exasperation at this.) And regarding her first point, the theatre was too dark for anyone in the audience to see whether he had his eyes closed or not anyway. Indeed, he knew from conversations at intermission that most of the other young men slept through the particularly dull plays. And while Alistair sympathized with his peers on these occasions, he also recognized that these particular young men only valued the theatre as a means of socializing. For them the aim of going to a play was not to see the play itself, but to mingle in the lobby with the ladies. Alistair's preferences and priorities were, as ever it seemed, atypical, and his mother attempted to correct them daily. But they both knew it was futile.
The tapping came again.
"Alistair, you are still in there, aren't you? Tell me you haven't shrunk so much that you can't even make yourself heard? I could've sworn I gave you the proper amount of pishsalver…"
Alistair slapped himself twice on the cheek. "Come now, man, you just told yourself you'd be more aware of what was going on around you! Focus now…"
"No. Sorry. Still here," he called.
"Are you covered? I'm going to open the lid now," Tarantella announced.
"Just a moment," Alistair said, swiftly seeing to it that all his unmentionables were covered. "All right."
With the lid gone, the Englishman felt as if he were staring straight into the sun, unprepared as he was for the sudden brightness.
"Look at you, naked as a jaybird," the Hattress tittered. "I'll just take a bit of your jacket and make a new outfit for you, shall I?"
Alistair turned beet red at this and found himself unable to respond. But the young woman needed no response, and simply reached in and pulled out half a sleeve and a corner of his vest, and with two snips of a pair of scissors produced from her pocket, returned the lid.
That was twice now she'd struck him dumb, he realized. He couldn't understand how she made him so nervous. She was just an extension of his imagination like everyone else in this dreamland, wasn't she?
He sat down to wait for her to finish her handiwork, but before he could properly readjust the fabric, the blinding light returned, and the Hattress was peering down at him again, a completed outfit of blue vest and pant with white shirt amazingly in hand.
"Oh!" she peeped at the sight of him and clanged the lid back in place. "So sorry!"
Then, realizing she still had the suit, she raised the lid just enough to stuff the set inside to its owner. Alistair heard Thackery and Mallymkun snickering over their tea, and from the way his cheeks were burning, he thought it impossible for his face to become any redder.
"Oh, and I thought you might like some underthings as well," the Hattress attempted to say in a whisper. But as flustered as she was, it came out louder and at a higher pitch than she intended. The Hare and Dormouse broke into hysterics, abandoning all pretense of ignoring the awkward exchange. In response to all of this, Alistair's face flushed fully, proving the impossible possible.
"Give a knock when you're done, will you?" the Hattress chirped after clearing her throat pointedly at her friends. "We've much to attend to before the Frabjous Day."
Not this again, the young man groaned to himself as he pulled on the pair of underwear with continued humiliation.
"I'm telling you, 'Tella, he's the wrong Alistair," Mallymkun groaned. "Absolem said so himself."
The Hattress hesitated at this, but otherwise did not waver.
"It's him, Mally. I'd know him anywhere."
"Not this again. Hattress—"
Tired of being subjected to arguments concerning who he was or wasn't, Alistair quickly finished dressing and knocked on the teapot, interrupting the two females. Tarantella immediately removed the lid and lifted the Englishman out by the back of his new vest, setting him down on the table. Her turquoise eyes stared at him, considering the ensemble she'd created from scratch. Alistair felt rather self-conscious under her intense gaze, even more so as he realized how perfectly the clothes fit. He desperately hoped this was more by a stroke of luck than because she'd gotten an eyeful of him. After what felt like ages, she cocked her head to the side, smiled, and said, "I like it!" He breathed a sigh of relief when she finally looked away.
"It's a pity I've no cobbling skills, or you might have a pair of shoes, too. But then again, you're so small that you're more likely to be stepped on than to step on anything yourself."
"Oh, Mallymkun," she then said, tripping on to her next line of thought. "Do we have any more upelkuchen?"
"What's oochelpuken?" Alistair asked, pouncing on the unfamiliar word. He'd been hearing the strange language spoken by these Underlandians all day, and it really had been provoking his curios nature.
"Upelkuchen," Tarantella repeated and succinctly explained, "It's a kind of cake that makes you grow."
But she was not to be diverted from her point, and turned back to the Dormouse.
"Do we, Mally?"
"No, sorry," the Dormouse said. "The rest of its in the Room of Doors, but the Door's locked now, and McTwisp had the extra key."
"Well, that makes things a bit more difficult," the Hattress admitted. "Can't help that now, though. And we need to cover as much distance as we can before nightfall."
"Where are we going?" Alistair asked. The Hattress seemed to have a plan, and the others seemed aware of it; but no one had thought to clue him into it, too.
"Absolem told you of the Frabjous Day, didn't he?" the Hattress confirmed.
"Yes. I saw it in the Compendium. That's the day Underland is saved when the Vorpal sword takes down the Jackerwobby."
"Jackerwobby?" the March Hare cackled. "Ha! What's that?"
"He means the Jabberwocky, Thack," Mallymkun said, rolling her eyes at the young man's confusion. (Grotesquely enough, when she crossed her arms at the same time, the movement made the Bandersnatch eye rotate around her middle.)
"The Jabberwocky! Ah!"
The Hare shrieked and chucked a cup down the end of the table.
"Yes, there will be a battle between the Jabberwocky and Vorpal sword," Tarantella continued, oblivious to the two's exchange. "But that smaller conflict only signifies a larger conflict, you see. Each one represents one side to a much greater fight."
"You mean a metaphor," Alistair said.
"Things that begin with 'm'! Yes!" the Hattress exclaimed. "Yes, that's perfectly what I mean! The Jabberwocky metaphors the Black King, and the Vorpal sword the White King! But the Vorpal sword is curious because it cannot wield itself. So there must be a metaphor between the sword and King: a champion! A White Knight! Because it is both the Vorpal sword and the White King's champion that metaphor the White King, so you see, it's not just the Vorpal sword that will save us: it is also the thing that the Vorpal sword represents. Well, not a thing, but a person."
"Right," he interrupted with a heavy sigh. He hadn't bothered following the Hattress's meandering explanation word for word, as he'd quickly got the gist of it with the "champion" bit. He really was tired of that point being brought up again. "The Alistair all of you want me to be."
"No," said the Hattress, much to his surprise. She was shaking her head firmly. "No. You are the right one, Alistair. You absolutely are."
"No, he's not," Mallymkun said exasperatedly, drawing out each word into a shrill whine. "I told you, 'Tella, Absolem says it's not him."
"Look, we've three days till the Frabjous and no time to argue. From here I'm taking Alistair to the White King. He's sure to have upelkuchen on hand and can make more if he doesn't. After that, well, the Black King has the Vorpal sword, so…"
Things seemed to become complicated here, and by the pinched looks on the three tea partiers' faces, Alistair guessed none of them could supply any practical strategies after this point.
As if reading his thoughts, the Hattress quickly brushed the matter aside and said, "We'll sort that out as it comes."
Then she took off her hat and set it on the table beside him. Despite himself and the others' gravity in regards to the Frabjous situation, the corner of Alistair's mouth twitched at her hat hair.
"For now we must be on our way. Your carriage, sir," she pronounced with a playful bow.
Alistair stared incredulously at the accessory. Carriage? Did the hat turn into a coach like the pumpkin in the Cinderella fairytale? Or perhaps wheels would sprout from beneath its lip and one of those fantastically literal horseflies he saw earlier would come and draw it?
"Hat is the best way to travel, you know. All the best people travel by hat. Come now, Alistair, climb aboard," the Hattress coaxed.
Ready for anything (or telling himself he was ready for anything, anyway), Alistair stepped onto the hat's lip.
"Good. Now hold on tightly. There you are."
Now he had a secure grip on the coral ribbon, Tarantella carefully but quickly placed the hat back atop her head. Was this it? He was simply going to ride on her hat? That was rather a disappointment next to the scenarios he'd imagined, especially when the Hattress tried to bill it as the best mode for travel.
But what really bothered him about it—whether it was this scenario or another—was the restriction that came with the impossible becoming possible. Because he'd been shrunk, he could ride atop the hat. But also because he'd been shrunk, he was being "kept" and "managed" like a pet. He would much prefer to be his own size and walking beside Tarantella, rather than being so small he couldn't do as he liked while she was forced to direct the pair of them. But as the Hattress had said, they couldn't do anything about that now; he would simply have to do what he could until they reached the White King. And besides, he reminded himself, it was only a dream anyway. A very vivid, unusual dream—even for him—but a dream nonetheless.
"All right. We're off then," the Hattress announced. "Oh, my scissors! I shouldn't forget those. Right. Now, Thackery, Mallymkun, fairfarren, and I hope we see you soon."
"Be careful, dear," said the Dormouse with not a little worry evident in her expression and voice.
"Fairfairnen," Alistair tried repeating in his way, and nodded at the two animals in turn.
"Don't forget your tea!" were the Hare's parting words as the Hattress turned and began walking away.
Unused as he was to riding aboard a hat, Alistair didn't think he was ready yet to try leaning around the broad side band for a farewell glance at the tea party. But he needn't anyway: as the Hattress suddenly dipped her head and his stomach flipped, he watched as a cup sailed over them and shattered on the lifeless ground. He heard the Dormouse and March Hare break into another fit of laughter behind them. The Hattress tutted from below his feet.
No, he didn't need to look back at all. He could imagine the scene well enough on his own.
To Be Continued…
A/N:
Yay! I finally finished and am posting Chapter Three! I'm so, so sorry for the terrible delay since the last chapter. The last month of the semester was really busy with work, final classes, and what felt like a bajillion writing assignments. Making things even more complicated and stressful (happy tidings though they were), I found out that I got a job teaching English in Japan; and while I'm super excited about that and have been wanting this opportunity for ages, I'm a real homebody, so…coming to terms with leaving is going to be difficult. Fortunately, I have my fanfic writing to distract me, so please look forward to seeing more chapters in the following weeks. And if you could please leave a line or two of feedback, it would absolutely make my day!
Other than that, I hope everyone is off to an excellent summer! : )
Best Wishes,
Niach