Yusei continued to wonder through the woods, staring at different signs with different labels: "GO THIS WAY" "TRY LEFT" "I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU".
'This isn't any good,' Yusei thought. 'All these signs tell you which you ought to and not ought to go! But which way SHOULD I go?' Then, Yusei saw lights flickering in the trees. They went from blue, to purple, to red, to rose pink. "Where would…?" Yusei asked himself.
"Excuse me!" said a voice. Yusei gasped as he saw a pink duck in the trees grinning at him. "Ugh, sorry to bother you," said Yusei. "But could you please tell me which way I ought to go?"
"Well," the duck grinned back. "That depends where you want to get to?"
"It really doesn't matter," said Yusei. "Just so long as I-"
"Then it doesn't really matter which way you go," said the duck, and disappeared. Yusei looked on the ground as he saw duck prints coming his way then going around him. They went up another tree and the duck reappeared. "Oh! By the bye!" it said. "If you REALLY want to know, you need to go that way!" It pointed left and grinned. Yusei raised his eyebrow.
"For what reason?" he asked.
"For the garden," it replied. Yusei put a smile on his face as he remembered the beautiful garden that he thought Aki was in, back in the long hall. "I SHOULD?"
"You should what?"
"Go that way!"
"For what?"
"For the beautiful garden!"
"What garden?"
"But you just said-" Yusei cut off and folded his arms. A little thought came across his mind thinking that Aki could've been in that wonderful garden-or not. "What sort of people live here?" he asked.
"Well," said the duck, "over there lives a March Hare." It waved its wing in one direction and disappeared again. Yusei looked around trying to find it. It reappeared in another tree, waving its other wing in another direction: "And over there lives the Mad Hatter! Visit either you like! They're both mad!"
"But I don't want to go among MAD people!" Yusei sighed.
"Oh you can't help that," said the duck. "We're all mad here!" The duck laughed and disappeared again. It reappeared in another tree, still grinning. "If you wanna know who is and who isn't, I'll explain: I'm mad, you're mad, babies are mad-"
"How do YOU know that I'M mad?" Yusei asked impatiently.
"Because you're here!" said the duck. "AND EVERYONE HERE IS MAD!"
"Right…" said Yusei. 'I'll pretend I'm interested.' "Hey, how do you know that you're mad?"
"You see," the duck said. "You know a cat purrs when it's happy and hisses when it's angry?"
"Yep."
"Well, I hiss when I'm happy," it continued, "and I purr when I'm angry! Therefore I'm mad!"
"I'd rather call it quacking than purring," said Yusei.
"Call it whatever you like," said the duck. "One more thing: are you going to play croquet with the queen today?" Yusei thought about this: even though he used to play a sort of game of that when he was little, he would sometimes cheat and be told off by Martha. Also, if Aki really is through that door, was she invited to visit the queen?
"I haven't been invited," said Yusei. "But I would like to go, yes." As Yusei looked at the duck once more, it vanished. It reappeared in another tree and asked: "Did you say: 'would' or 'wouldn't'?"
"I said 'would'," Yusei sighed. "And please stop disappearing and appearing so suddenly, you make me very dizzy!"
"I apologize," the duck grinned. "How's this?" The duck gave a large grin and vanished completely this time.
"Well," said Yusei to himself, "I've seen a duck with out a grin, but a grin without a duck? This place must be mad. And, I didn't even know ducks COULD grin!"
Yusei continued through the woods and saw a house with long hare ears and fur as a roof. The fire must've been lit inside, since there was soot coming out of it. Yusei walked to the gate and peered over to see what was there.