Fit the Eleventh: The Meeting
Alice and Tarrant sat around a table with Pepper, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Thackery, and Ellieita.
"I don't know what to do. Perhaps we should leave the island, and go back to Underland," Pepper suggested.
"Go back empty-handed, with no cure for the Queen? I would sooner eat my hat," countered Tarrant.
"Mag's betrayal is a bit of a setback, but we mustn't give up the hunt," Alice argued.
"But what is there to hunt for?" Tweedledee asked.
"Mag said the Snarks are just made up," Tweedledum chimed in.
"Yes, Mag said that," Alice agreed, "but she also strongly implied that she wasn't the one who poisoned Mirana, and wasn't planning on trapping me and leaving me for dead, so I think we should perhaps take anything she said with a pinch of salt."
"But we can't ignore that we've been hunting for days and there has been no trace nor hint, not hair nor feather of a Snark," said Pepper.
Alice frowned for a moment. "That's not quite true. When I was trapped in the pit during the rainstorm I heard a large creature coming near. Don't ask me how I know, but I'm certain it was a Snark. They're here; we just need to keep looking."
"Yes, but that does still leave us with the question of where to keep looking," said Hatter.
At these words, his top hat unexpectedly floated off his head and drifted down to the table, where the Cheshire Cat appeared beneath it.
"It seems to me," Chessur said, looking down at the crudely-sketched map of the island spread out on the table, "that the best way to find where something is...is to mark off all the places where it is not."
"We know it's not nowhere on the island. We've looked everywhere," Tweedledum said.
"Yep, sir, every nook an' cranny," agreed Tweedledee.
"I searched the west shore forest myself," said Pepper, "I and Mag."
"And I and the March Hair searched up and down the tallest mountain peak," said Ellieita. "And you and I have looked in every cave and crag on the rocky south shore."
"And I have searched and searched erudite good pudding!" declared Thackery
"I and he went back and forth across the north-side swamp," Tweedledum said.
"Which is to say," said Tweedledee, "it was searched by me and him."
"And Tarrant searched the east beach sand dunes with Mag," said Pepper.
The Hatter looked up at him. "No...I don't recall that having happened."
"Really? Mag told me you did, day before yesterday."
"Mag told me you and she searched it," Ellieita said to Pepper.
"Hm. Interesting," Alice remarked. "This reminds me of a Chinese story. A man named Zhang stole three hundred taels of silver, and buried it beneath the wall. He was afraid someone might dig up the silver, so he put up a sign saying 'There are not three hundred taels of silver buried here'..."
"What a great idea!" the March Hare declared.
The others at the tabled nodded in agreement. "Yes, a very sensible precaution," Tarrant agreed.
Alice glanced at him dubiously. "Yes, well...so his neighbor who had seen him bury the silver dug it up to keep it for himself, but he didn't want Zhang to suspect him, so he put up a sign that said, 'Your neighbor Wang Er did not steal them'."
"A very diverting story, but how does it help us?" Pepper asked.
"I believe what Miss Alice is trying to say," Chessur said, "is that Mag knows where to find a Snark, and since she told all of you it could not be found among the sand dunes, that is most certainly where you will find it."
"Precisely," said Alice.