Chapter 3: "Let Us Now Praise Enormous Boobs"

Cheshire and I trudged back to Gnome Village with me carrying the hamster cage. Our five furry little heroes were fast asleep, the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign still displayed. Sleeping off their Card Guards, I guess.

"Should we put the hamsters back in the Gnome Elder's house, or take them with us and turn them loose in Wonderland Woods?" I asked Cheshire.

"Well, they were getting by in Gnome Village all on their own, and taking them to Wonderland Woods would probably be a permanent move for them. I think we'll just have to ask them. All things considered, I think they'd rather stay here. Gnome Village is home for them. There does seem to be enough food for them. All they need are seeds. Plenty of those here in Gnome Village."

"Where should we start looking for the Vorpal Blade?"

"A systematic search would probably be best. Let's start with the first house on the road approaching from the Rabbit Hole and go house-by-house. I'll take one side of the street, and you take the other."

I suspected that Cheshire would be a lot quicker in inspecting the little Gnome houses than me as he did not have to crawl on hands and knees like me. I put the hamster cage right in front of the little front door stoop of a house on the right and entered. Cheshire had already darted in and out of three houses on the left side of the road.

I crawled into the house and looked for the kitchen. Quaint. Everything was quaint. The inside was totally lacking in any modern gas appliances. The lights were simple candles down inside clear glass jars. The stove was was an old-fashioned wood-burning type. It looked to be cast iron. There was a pipe to channel the smoke outside. A few simple pots and pans hung on hooks. There was a drawer full of eating utensils and a few knives. That was it. No vorpal blade. Stored food consisted entirely of glass jars with vacuum-sealed lids. I exited the house and picked up the hamster cage. I did not need to enter a second Gnome house.

"I found it!" exclaimed an excited Cheshire. "Follow me!"

Cheshire led me into the seventh house on his side of the road. There in the kitchen my precious Vorpal Blade was being used as a chef's knife to dice up some long-spoiled bacon strips. There was nasty spoilt bacon grease all over my precious Blade. I looked around the kitchen for some dish towels and found some in a drawer under the counter. I wiped my Blade with the dish towel and tossed the towel onto the floor. I wet my knife in the sink and slid a bar of soap over both sides of the blade. A little rubbing, a little rinsing, another wipe with a clean dish towel from the drawer, and I was done. I tossed the second towel on the floor, and Cheshire chided me for being a slob.

I looked around the house for the hip holster for my vorpal blade and found it hanging on a hook in a closet. Cheshire grinned when he saw the holster. I wrapped it around my hip, hooked on the second-to-outermost hole which had been my usual place, and saw the holster slide straight down to my feet.

"Holy crap, Alice. I knew you'd gotten skinnier, but not like this." Cheshire stared in amazement at the holster on the floor.

I put the holster back around my waist and pulled the belt all the way to hook it on the innermost hole, and watched it slide down my hips again.

"Put the holster back on at your old, usual hole and hold it up."

I did, and Cheshire put a paw into the gap and pulled the belt out. He looked horrified at all the empty space. "Before we do anything else, we are going over to the Gnome Bar and look for something to eat. You are going to eat before we go fight any battles. I don't want you fainting from hunger."

Cheshire took the belt from me and grinned. Out came his claws and he methodically punched seven additional holes in the belt of the Vorpal Blade holster. He handed it to me and I strapped it on. I had once used the second-to-the-last hole on the belt. Now I needed the eleventh-to-the-last hole on the belt. The holes were all one inch apart.

Cheshire led me over to the Gnome Bar and disappeared into the chicken coop behind. "Sorry, ladies," I heard him say. "We need the eggs." Cheshire came out with a basket filled with about a dozen eggs hanging from his mouth.

"Wipe them down with a rag, first, Alice? I don't want to eat the shit on the outsides of the eggs."

I wiped down the eggs, gathered some firewood, and started a fire in the old cast-iron stove. Cheshire went off to forage for other weapons while I cooked. Cheshire returned looking triumphant just as I was dishing the eggs into two primitive tin plates.

"I found something that you might be able to use as a weapon, but first we eat."

Cheshire chomped his way through a half-dozen eggs as if he were starving, although I knew he wasn't starving any more than usual. It was just that eggs were something of a delicacy for him as he couldn't cook for himself. When I finished, Cheshire plunged back into the chicken coop and soon emerged with another dozen eggs.

"I'll eat a few this time, but you are going to eat the rest. There's also some goat jerky underneath the counter. I expect you to eat until you're so stuffed you can barely move."

"Do I look that bad?"

"You don't look nearly as good as you used to."

Cheshire finished off three of the eggs and burped. Nine eggs was a feast for him. He pointed out the goat jerky that he expected me to finish off after I had finished my eggs. Cheshire was insistent about wanting me to eat until I could barely move. I had to reposition my Blade holster to the ninth-to-the-last hole on the belt. Cheshire was constantly hounding me to eat, and I don't think I ever fastened the Vorpal Blade holster tighter than that ninth hole again.

After eating, it dawned on me that the chickens themselves might not have eaten for awhile. I went into the chicken coop and was surprised to discover that everything looked in order. The chickens were content. Somebody was feeding them. I went back out and questioned Cheshire.

"Somebody's looking after the chickens, Cheshire. Any idea who?"

"Some gnomes sneak back into the village at night to take care of their animals and gather food for the crowd back in the mine. The Card Guards don't patrol at night."

"Thank Heaven for small favors."

After I finished washing and putting away the pan, utensils, plates, and forks, Cheshire led me down the road to his discovery of a possible weapon. Behind the Mushroom Shop nestled up against the rock wall was a small patch of distinctive-looking orange-colored mushrooms. "Notice that each mushroom stalk has what appear to be two heads: one darker orange, and one lighter orange." Cheshire had me pick one of the two-headed stalks. "I could explain what the mushrooms do, but it might be better to demonstrate. Before you eat half of the darker mushroom head, however, you need to take off your dress and your bra."

I gave Cheshire the nastiest stinkeye I could manage.

"Don't be bashful, you haven't got anything worth seeing, anyway!"

Oh, thanks, Cheshire. Rub it in. I'm a skinny, shapeless stick with a long, narrow face that looks like something in a funhouse mirror. I looked at Cheshire again.

"Are you serious?"

"I don't want you to rip your clothes."

"These won't make me fat or something will they?"

"If they did that, I would have you take off those granny panties, too. One-half of the dark orange mushroom head. No more. Down the hatch."

I hesitated. "I don't know what this will do to me."

"The lighter-colored orange mushroom head undoes what the darker one does. There's no risk. This will make a useful weapon. It will be like having several croquet mallets at once. Down the hatch."

I looked at the mushroom for a few moments and then bit off half of the dark-orange head. It had a pleasant meat broth taste. I chewed for a few moments, hesitated again as I looked at Cheshire, and swallowed.

I felt a bit light-headed and then felt a sudden, heavy pull on my chest. I looked down and both saw and felt that my breasts, my perfectly flat breasts, were filling up and outwards with a heavy, thick liquid. They both dropped down farther and farther on my chest and grew straight outwards until they reached nearly my waist and seemed to float nearly two feet out in front of me. Both nipples turned upward. I had to lean backward to avoid toppling over. My breasts slowly and rythmically wobbled from side to side. If they had been on some other woman, I might have thought that they were the most perfect, sensuous, and sexy looking breasts I had ever seen. I am absolutely certain that I would have been jealous. They were on my chest, however, and the pull was staggering. I could barely stand up. Still part of me was tickled. If there was one thing that attracted men in England, it was big, prominent, perky breasts. These were huge, and yet somehow did not droop.

"Wobble them from side-to-side, Alice, and imagine whopping a card guard with them. Now imagine them twice as big. Twice as big, but still not drooping to the ground, is what you would get if you had swallowed a whole mushroom. Your breasts would hit a Card Guard like a pair of boulders. If you twirled like an ice skater, you could clean an entire compound out of Card Guards before they knew what hit them."

I tried jerking my shoulders and my breasts swung in that direction. They would have knocked over anything in their path.

"Are there any mirrors anywhere?"

"Most Gnome houses have a full-length mirror inside the master bedroom door."

I crawled inside a Gnome house with my breasts squashed against the ground, and crawled inside a bedroom and closed the door to look in the mirror. My breasts were the most magnificent pair I had ever seen, but my shoulders and back ached. I crawled back out and tried walking back and forth. My breasts wobbled constantly. It didn't take me long to conclude that breasts of this size were not a blessing at all to be envied, but rather a curse that interfered sharply with physical mobility. Maybe in the world above, if I were a free woman in London, I thought that they might be worth the trouble, but down here in a war zone? No way. I looked in my hand and bit off half on the lighter-colored mushroom. Both of my breasts deflated like punctured water balloons. In a moment, I had my perfectly flat chest back. I was relieved.

"Now you know why I consider them a weapon only."

"Yes, indeed. The mushrooms could be very useful if I got surrounded by Card Guards. I sure wouldn't want to use them in any other situation, however."

Cheshire handed me a small metal box containing four of the double-headed stalks. "They only last a couple of days after they're picked," said Cheshire. "Four of the mushrooms should be quite sufficient. I doubt if you'll have to use them more than once.

I went back to pick up the hamster cage. They were all awake. "You guys want to go with us to Wonderland Woods? We could drop you off in the Woods before we leave. Or you could just stay here in the Gnome Village and hope for the best."

The hamsters chattered among themselves for a bit and stated that they prefered to stay in Gnome Village. They knew their way around here and knew where to find food and water. That was enough for them. I carried them back to their original place in the Gnome Elder's little house. Cheshire and I said our good-byes to our furry little friends, and then we started off on the long walk to Wonderland Wooods and the Card Guard compound that had the key to the Gnome lockboxes and chastity belts.

End of Chapter 3

This story is based on the characters created by American Mcgee. EA (Electronic Arts) owns the copyrights.