Pepper
They were at tea, and things were as normal— at least, as normal as could be managed, considering the circumstances. Perhaps not too very normal at all, Alice amended. Things were as usual, then, until, quite suddenly, they weren't.
The Duchess appeared, hurrying along as though chased by wolves, her full skirts clutched in both hands. She leapt the low gate leading to the garden and descended on the party at the tea table, panting and bedraggled as a wet goosefeather. With some indignation, she marched up to the Hatter and demanded, "What's taken you so long?"
"Mm?" said the Hatter distantly. Alice had recently turned up her nose at a remark he'd passed, and he was pondering the difference between this and something else— "Do you suppose anyone shall ever learn to turn down their nose, the way one turns down a bed or a marriage proposal?"
"I cannot imagine," said the Duchess. "I say, I cannot. But that is beside the point. What on earth has taken you so long to get here?"
The Hatter subsided gently back into his daydream, leaving Alice to venture, "But we've been here all along, Duchess. It's only that you've just arrived."
"Nonsense, child," said the Duchess with a wave of her hand.
Alice, who had been to school and thus knew nonsense when she heard it, was quite sure it wasn't. "But you've only just got here," she objected. "And you've been hurrying so, why, you're still out of breath! We've just been sitting still, you see."
"Aha, you feel as though you've been sitting still," said the Duchess triumphantly. "But the earth turns, does it not?"
"I suppose," said Alice, cautiously. "Very slowly."
"And so all the while you were coming to me. Very, as you say, slowly."
"But you ran all the way here," Alice pointed out with, she thought, considerable logic.
"I ran in place," said the Duchess, again with the air of having scored a major victory. To this Alice only sighed, and sipped her tea.
"Oh, look," said the Hare, ears drooping miserably, "here comes the Cook."
And here the Cook did come indeed, sailing airily through space. She landed in the garden, standing on a chair and muddying it with her footprints. She brushed herself down briskly.
"And how did you manage to come here?" asked Alice, too amazed by this to be polite.
"Simple," said the Cook. "I jumped."
"And allowed for the turn of the earth, I suppose," said Alice, then went on, "Oh, but that's nonsense. You couldn't have jumped just once, and landed here."
"I jumped," said the Cook, quietly, "for a very long time."
"Oh, dear," said Alice. "I think I shall have to retire from this conversation while I still have my wits about me."
"Too late," said the Cook sharply, but the Hare patted the maligned girl on the head and advised,
"Don't listen to her, Alice. Cook thinks everything needs to be seasoned with pepper— even her conversation."
"Perhaps it's a good thing I quit speaking when I did, then," Alice whispered back.
"You should not have even started, really," said the Hare.
The Duchess, meanwhile, was snapping her fingers at the Hatter's daydreaming face. He sat up abruptly, and peevishly cried, "What? What is it that you want? I was in the midst of inventing parsley!"
"But surely parsley has already been invented," said Alice, immediately forgetting her resolve to withdraw from the conversation entirely.
"Not orange-flavored," said the Hatter, and turned to the impatient Duchess. "What is it you wanted?"
"Two high teas, to take with us," ordered the Duchess happily.
The Hatter stood up, very slowly, and with some drama straightened himself to his full, not considerable height. "Madam," he said, "I have told you before. I am not a tea shop. I am not a purveyor of tea, nor a seller of tea, nor a dealer of tea, nor a grower of tea. I do not guard tea, I do not hoard tea, I did not invent tea, and I will not bequeath my vast tea reserves to my inheritors should I die from surfeit of years. I cannot, in short, do you two teas, high or otherwise, to take with you. I am, in short, a Hatter."
"You are, in short, a Hatter," retorted the Cook, looking down on him from her chair. The Hatter ignored her.
"I purvey, sell, deal in, make, guard, hoard, invent, and will bequeath hats."
"Fair enough," said the Duchess, looking down her nose at the little haberdasher. "We'll take two large toppers, then, please."
The Hatter, heaving a sigh, produced the top hats from under the table. One was bottle-green velvet, the other a quite handsome violet with scarlet spots.
"Now, turn them upside down," said the Duchess.
The Hatter complied.
"Now, fill them with tea," said the Duchess, triumphant again.
The Hatter stared at her a moment, then shook his head, chuckling a little, and did so. The Duchess accepted the brimming hats, and said graciously, "Send the bill to my cousin, the Queen."
"I don't know anyone named Bill," said the Hatter, equally graciously, "but I will mark this down in my book."
"I cannot read," retorted the Duchess, and turned up her nose at him. The Hatter stared at her.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "if one could learn to turn down— no, hold on, I've had that thought before—"
The Cook removed a tall wooden pepper mill, like a scepter, from an apron pocket.
"Guess what this needs," she said, dourly, and began to grind. Pepper flew everywhere with the force of her assault; the tea grew black and full of floaty bits. Both Cook and Duchess began to sneeze with such force that they flew backwards out of the garden, becoming Kooc and Ssehcud by default; propelled by the force of their sneezes they soon were out of sight, back the way they'd come.
"So much," sighed the Hare, wiping his streaming eyes with his ear, "for the turn of the earth." He turned his attention to the Hatter, who had given up chuckling in favor of guffaws; he was now almost violently amused by some private joke. "What is so funny?"
"The laugh's on them!" said the Hatter, gasping. "I never tea-proof my hats! They're going to leak!"
The Hare stared him down till he quieted, with a few final "Ahems."
"You are so smug, aren't you?"
"Quite," said the Hatter, and he was.
"What does 'bequeath' mean?" asked Alice, who had been wondering this for several minutes now.
"It means who I leave things to, should I die," said the Hatter, with unexpected kindness and clarity.
"Am I in your will?" asked the Hare, perking up considerably.
"Nonsense," said the Hatter serenely, "I'm going to live forever."
He reached for the pot, and refilled his cup.