The sixth chapter.

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For a minute or two, Yuki stood, staring at the house, and wondering what exactly to do next, when suddenly a Footman in livery came running out of the woods- (He supposed it was a Footman because he was in livery, and things rarely made sense. If this was a place where things were to make sense, Yuki would have said he was a fish) –and rapped loudly on the door.

It was opened by another Footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog. They both had powdered wigs on their heads, Yuki noticed. He was rather curious to see what was going to happen, and crept closer to listen.

The Fish-Footman produced a large letter from his coat-pocket (How exactly, Yuki was not sure, for the letter was almost the same height as the Footman himself) and handed it to the other, saying in a most serious tone, "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet."

The Frog-Footman Footman nodded, and repeated in the same solemn tone, changing the words slightly "From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet."

They both bowed low, so to the effect that their wigs got entangled together.

Yuki put his hand to his mouth in a lame attempt to stop himself from laughing, so his laughter ended up sounding like someone being smothered.

Unfortunately, Yuki's conscience did not see a reason to be quiet, and for such a small creature, he really did laugh rather loudly. Yuki had to take his conscience by the wings and duck behind a bush, trying to keep it quiet, lest the footmen heard them.

When Yuki popped back up from the bushes again, the Fish-Footman had left, and the other was sitting on the lawn, staring stupidly up at the sky.

Yuki, now even more curious, went up to the door, and timidly knocked.

"There's no point in knocking," said the Footman "and that is for two reasons. Firstly, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are, and secondly, because they're making so much noise in there, no one could possibly hear you."

And certainly there was a most terrible din going on within- a constant howling and sneezing and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces.

"Then how am I going to get in?" Yuki asked the Footman, wishing terribly that things did not have to be quite so difficult around these places.

"There might have been some sense in your knocking" went on the Footman, completely ignoring poor Yuki-chan "For if you were inside and you knocked, I could have let you out, you know." He was looking up at the sky the whole time he was saying this, which Yuki found rather rude, and very stupid.

"I suppose he can't help it" thought Yuki "Because his eyes are so close to the top of his head."

"I think I will sit here," the Footman remarked "until the next day."

At this point, the door flew open, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head: it only grazed his nose, however, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.

"-Or the next day, perhaps." the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened.

"How am I going to get in!" asked Yuki again, in a louder tone, getting irritable.

"The question is really," the Footman stated "Is: are you to get in at all?"

It did have some sense, but Yuki did not really need to know this. "WHY must all of these creatures disagree with me!" Yuki muttered to himself (To which his conscience replied with something a little rude) "It's enough to drive anyone mad!"

The Footman decided that it would be good for him to repeat his phrase, and remarked "I shall sit here, on and off, for days and days…"

"But what am I going to do?" said Yuki, glaring.

"Anything you like." said the Footman, and began whistling.

"Oh, there's no use talking to him" sighed Yuki "he's perfectly idiotic!" And he opened the door himself and walked in.

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The door lead into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to another: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby, and the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.

It struck Yuki as very odd.

The Duchess, for one thing, reminded him greatly of someone back home. She had long, glossy brown hair, tied back with ribbons around the back of her head, and had large blue eyes, which implied she was just a little empty-headed. Yuki could have sworn that this girl, dressed in a rather important-looking dress, was Tohru. The only difference was that she seemed very cross indeed.

The baby the Duchess was holding had her eyes screwed up, but it was no mistaking that swirl of darker brown hair on her head. He only wondered if his guess was correct. The cook, to Yuki was no other than Rin, though she looked rather cross, and had most of her lovely black hair tied back, to keep it out of the soup.

"There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!" Yuki said to himself, as well as he could without sneezing.

There certainly was too much of it in the air. Even Duchess Tohru sneezed occasionally, and the baby was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause. The only things in the kitchen that didn't sneeze, was the cook, and a large orange Cat that was sitting on the hearth, and grinning smugly to itself.

"Could you tell me, please," Yuki asked, looking a little embarrassed, and glaring at the Cat, which he did not like in the least "why your Cat is grinning like that?"

"It's a Cheshire Cat," said the Duchess, with the same voice as dear Tohru, but not near as much kindness "and that's why. Pig!"

She said the last word so suddenly and angrily that Yuki jumped; but then he saw that she was talking to the baby, and not to him, so he took the courage, and went on again.

"I didn't know that Cheshire Cats always grinned; In fact, I didn't know that there was such a thing as a Cheshire Cat."

"Then you don't know much" snapped the Duchess "And that's a fact."

Yuki did not really like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be better to change the conversation to a different subject.

While he was trying to think of one, the Cook took the cauldron of soup off of the fire, and at once began throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby- the fire irons came first, then a shower of saucepans, plates and dishes.

"I like that girl's attitude." Yuki's conscience mused, once again sitting upon Yuki's shoulder. Yuki had become used to ignoring it, so he went on looking in horror, and hoping that Duchess Tohru and her odd little child did not come to harm.

However, the Duchess took no notice whatsoever, and the baby was howling so much that it was hard to tell weather it had come to harm or not.

"Oh, please be careful!" exclaimed Yuki, jumping up and down in agony of terror. "Oh, there goes the baby's precious nose," as an unusually large saucepan flew close by, and very nearly carried it off.

"If everybody minded their own business" Duchess Tohru said in a low growl "the world would go round much faster than it does!"

"Which wouldn't be a good thing," said Yuki quickly "the world goes around much too quickly anyway. Why, there's only 24 hours in a day, and that's much too fast for me!"

"Oh, d-don't tell me!" said the Duchess "I could never abide figures!" And she began nursing her child again, and singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving her a violent shake at the end of each line:

"…Speak roughly to your little child,

And beat it when it sneezes!

It only does it to drive you wild,

Because it knows teases…"

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CHORUS

(In which the Cook and the Baby joined in)

"Wow! Wow! Wow!"

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"I speak severely to my child,

I beat her when she sneezes;

For her to enjoy, she must be mild,

And take pepper when she pleases!"

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CHORUS

"Wow! Wow! Wow!"

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"Here, you can look after her, if you want!" Duchess Tohru said to Yuki suddenly, throwing her child to him so quickly that Yuki stumbled to catch her.

"Now, I have to go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen- I wouldn't want to be late!" and she hurried out of the room.

Rin threw a frying pan after her as she went out, but it only just missed her.

The poor little baby was snorting like a steam-engine, and kept doubling herself up and straightening itself out again, so that for about a minute, all that Yuki could do was hold her.

As soon as he figured out how to nurse it (He found that holding her by one of her ears, and one of her feet, so that she couldn't straighten out again, proved most effective), he took her outside.

"If I don't take her away with me," thought Yuki to himself "They're sure to kill her in a day or two: It would be murder to leave her behind!"

He said the last words out loud, and the little child grunted in reply (It had stopped sneezing by now). "Don't grunt," said Yuki "It's not a proper way of expressing yourself. You'll turn out like that baka Neko if you don't be careful."

The baby grunted again, and Yuki looked anxiously down to see what was the matter with it. Now that he could see the baby up close, he was most sure that she did not look very comfortable at all, and did seem to have a very turned up nose, when he thought about it.

Then, just as Yuki was thinking about what he would do with the baby, there was a little puff of smoke (Accompanied by a little 'Piyu!' sound), and the little baby looked much more like a little wild boar than anything else.

Yuki felt a little stupid, so he set the creature down, and was quite happy to see it trot off quietly into the wood.

"I suppose it was a strange version of Kagura after all," he mused "She must have been very stressed, due to all of that pepper."

"Or the fact that she was around someone like you…" commented his conscience, fluttering beside Yuki.

"I've had enough of you! Be quiet!" Yuki ordered, glaring at his conscience. Oddly enough, even though his conscience was opening and closing its mouth, no sound seemed to come out. It did not like this one little bit, but as there was nothing to do about it, he resumed sitting back down on Yuki's shoulder.

Yuki was feeling a little pleased about this, and was quite startled when he saw the Cheshire Cat sitting on the bough of a tree a few yards off.

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The Cat stopped grinning as it saw Yuki nearing it, and merely glared, flexing its claws. Yuki saw that it wasn't very pleased, so he supposed that even though he disliked it (The reason of which Yuki had no idea), he should try to treat it with respect.

"Little Neko," Yuki began, wondering what exactly its name was "Where should I go from here?"

The Cheshire Cat swished its tail once, and in a puff of smoke (With yet another 'Piyu!' noise), there was an orange-haired boy, roughly around Yuki's age, sitting on the branch of the tree (Of course, as this world seemed to make no sense according to the usual rules, he was wearing clothes) instead of the Cat. The only relation to the Cheshire Cat that this boy resembled, was the orange hair, and two pointy orange cat ears that seemed to sprout from his head.

"That depends on where you have to go, baka Nezumi." replied the boy, not sounding very friendly at all.

"Excuse me," Yuki said, trying to refrain from wanting to hit the boy "But please do not call me that. I don't care where I go-"

"Then it doesn't matter where you go!" said the boy quickly.

"-So long as I get somewhere!" snapped Yuki, wishing desperately that the creatures were not quite so irritable around these parts.

"Well, of course you're going to get somewhere- as long as you walk far enough, damn Rat!" retorted the boy, making a fist at the poor maligned Nezumi.

Yuki bit down his frustration for the thousandth time, and asked, with forced pleasantness "What sort of people live about here?" For there was a fork in the road, just under the Cheshire Cat-boy's tree.

"Well, in that direction" said the boy, dulling a bit, and waving his hand towards the right path "Lives a Hatter; and in that direction," he said, waving the other hand "lives a March Hare. Visit either one you like: they're both mad, I swear!"

"I'm not sure I would like to visit any mad people." Yuki remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," smirked the boy, looking down upon the Nezumi "we're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad… especially you."

"How can you know I'm mad!" asked Yuki irritably.

"Well, you damn must be," said the boy "otherwise ya wouldn't be here!"

Yuki did not think that this proved this at all, but he went on "Then how do you know if you're mad?"

"Well, for one thing, you'd agree that a dog isn't mad? They can be stupid, but not mad, yes?" said the boy, folding his arms, and kicking his feet up against the trunk of the tree.

"I… suppose so." Yuki said, thinking that indeed, Shigure was not deemed mad. Yet.

"Well then," continued the boy "You see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now, I growl when I'm happy and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore, I'm mad."

"Isn't it purring, not growling?" Yuki asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Eh, whatever." the boy dismissed, then asked "Hey, are you playing croquet with that damn Queen today?"

"I suppose I wouldn't mind" Yuki said, brightening a little, now that the Cheshire-boy wasn't being so disagreeable "But unfortunately, I haven't been invited yet."

"You'll see me there." said the boy simply, and vanished, without so much as a wisp of smoke, like in a magician's show.

Yuki wasn't very surprised at this: things were always so odd and out of place here that he had become quite used to strange things happening. While he was looking at the place where the boy, which he decided reminded him decidedly of that baka Neko Kyou, had been sitting, the boy in question appeared again.

"Oh yeah, what happened to that kid?" asked the boy, looking a little nervous for some reason "I almost forgot to ask."

"She turned into a Pig." Yuki said, starting to realize why the boy sounded a little nervous.

"I thought she would." replied the boy, and vanished again.

Yuki waited a little while, expecting him to reappear again, but he didn't, so Yuki walked on into the direction that the Kyou boy had pointed towards, where the March Hare was supposed to live.

"I've seen a Hatter before," said Yuki to his conscience, who glared at him "But I haven't seen a March Hare, and as it is July, maybe he won't be raving mad."

As he said this, he looked up, and there was that boy again, sitting on the branch of a tree.

"Oh yeah," said the boy "did ya say pig, or fig?"

"Pig, baka Neko" Yuki snapped, and walked on.

When he looked back, he could see the Neko-boy slowly disappearing, but different parts at once, so that the last thing left was his smug grin.

"How odd." Yuki remarked "I've seen a Cat, or even a boy, without a grin, but a grin without a cat? Never!"

He had not gone much further until he came in sight of the house of the March Hare: he thought it must be the March Hare's house, because it had two large rabbit-ears poking out from the roof. It was such a large house, that Yuki didn't go near until he had nibbled some of the left mushroom until he was about two feet high.

Even then he walked up towards it, rather timidly, saying to himself "I hope it isn't raving mad after all! I almost wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead!"

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And there's the 6th chapter done! Hope you like it!

Thanks again for all of the nice reviews, I appreciate them!

Now, some pictures! (I'll have Rin's up next time she makes an appearance):

The Cheshire Cat: http :www .deviantart. com/ deviation / 17319651/

The Duchess: http :www .deviantart. com/ deviation / 17212216/

Z-chan.