Chapter 8: "I Am the Eggman"

"Come on, Cat, let's go back to Gnome Village and get you cleaned up."

"Oh, how low have I sunk. Cats are supposed to be self-cleaning, but there's no way I'm going to lick that goop off. Yuck!"

"I remember a house in Gnome Village that had rubber gloves in a drawer near the sink. I don't want to touch that goop, either."

I led Cheshire to the house, took him around back to the outdoor shower house, and proceeded to hose the poor cat down. He had a look of unspeakable misery on his furry face. After the hose-down, I donned rubber gloves, carved off a piece of laundry soap, and lathered up Cheshire from head to foot at his insistence. I was only going to clean his tail, but Cheshire wanted a complete catwash. He moaned the entire time, but kept perfectly still. All soaped up, I took him back to the shower and hosed him down a second time. Next came the Gnome hooch. Disinfectant, you know. I poured it on his tail and ass. Did he ever howl when I poured it on his poor ass. What a screech! I said a quiet prayer that the old Gnome woman was not infected with anything. Finally I dried him off with a hand towel that I tossed on the floor after using. Cheshire said nothing about me being a slob this time.

"Our route to Pale Realm will require passing through the mining tunnel again, walking all the way from one end of Wonderland Woods to the other, entering a corner of the Land of Fire and Ice known as Caterpillar's Plot, and then going down a bizarre-looking canyon littered with chess squares spilling out from the Pale Ream entrance gate," said Cheshire.

We continued walking through the Gnome village, and Cheshire suddenly dashed up to the entrance of the house on the left and took a long, slow, leisurely leak on the door. Then he disappeared inside and I heard a stream splashing over everything inside. Cheshire did not need to tell me whose house that was. Somehow, I just knew.

"Pity I didn't need to take a number two. I would have left the old lady a souvenir on her dining room table, too."

I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes its just best not to say anything. Really, who could blame him? I thought about what I would have done. Jackbomb. Definitely jackbomb. Blow the house to kingdom come. Yeah, Cheshire was actually quite restrained in his revenge. I would have done worse.

We reached the mining tunnel and I let loose with a long sigh. Another trip through the bugs. I hate bugs. Why did it have to be bugs?

In Wonderland Woods, we stopped at the frog pond for awhile to give Cheshire a chance to hunt for frogs. He caught one frog, but ate mostly the snarks that he had been depending on ever since he fled the Duchess' house. We stopped at the Card Guard compound for me to do some foraging. The compound had nutcrackers and bags I could use for gathering nuts. I spent the next two days there gorging on nuts. Cheshire ate a few nuts, but only enough to keep hunger away. Pity considering that nuts were the most plentiful food in Wonderland. Also the most plentiful type of inhabitant.

At the border of Wonderland Woods and the Land of Fire and Ice, Cheshire gave me a warning that the Humpty-Dumpty of my memory did not exist any more.

"The happy-go-lucky gigolo of old is gone. He has lost his inspiration and his abilility to perform."

I was a bit mystified about that inspiration and ability to perform bit, but I was about to find out. I wish I hadn't. I think I would have been happier if we had given Humpty a wide berth, but he did have one piece of useful information.

Cheshire and I walked into Caterpillar's Plot to find old Humpty sitting in the same place I had seen him on my last trip through Wonderland. He was rocking back and forth as he moaned over and over and over "Oh, woe is me, woe is me, woe is me!"

I walked directly in front of old Humpty and addressed him. "And what, old friend, is the source of your woe?"

Humpty looked me up and down and looked surprised, but was gracious and friendly. "Ah, Alice! You've returned!"

"Yes, I have! Why all the lamentations?"

Humpty sighed. "I couldn't get it up for the Red Queen and now she wants my head. Actually heads. Yes. She wants both of them."

"Why Humpty, what has befallen you? You were famous! You did all the Card royalty!"

"The Red Queen was insulted. She said if I could get it up for the Queen of Spades who looks like Margaret Thatcher, then I should be able to get it up for anybody! Oh, her wrath was unquenchable. So now I hide here in one of Wonderland's backwaters."

"How did you lose your inspiration?"

"You were my inspiration. All I had to do was think of the sight of you walking away, and up came ding-a-ling! You were gone for so long that I forgot what your enabling jiggle looked like. Oh, you were fabulous walking away. Such bounce! Such jiggle! Do forgive me for asking, but what has become of you? There's so much less of you! Nothing to bounce or jiggle now! Poor dear!"

"Ummmm..." I couldn't think of anything to say. I had no idea. No idea at all that I was anybody's inspiration. Or target of lust. Humpty jumped down in front of me and began to serenade me while making obscene thrusting movements with his hips.

I like big butts and I can not lie

The other eggmen can't deny

That when Miss Alice walks in with an itty bitty waist

And a great big round thing in your face

You get sprung, wanna pull out your puff

'Cause you notice that butt was stuffed

Deep in the pinafore she's wearing

I'm hooked and I can't stop staring

Oh Miss Alice, I wanna get with you

And take your picture

My eggmen tried to warn me

But that butt you got makes me so horny

I'm tired of magazines

Sayin' flat butts are the thing

Take the average eggman and ask him that

She gotta pack much back

So, eggmen! (Yeah!) Eggmen! (Yeah!)

Has your girlfriend got the butt? (Hell yeah!)

Tell her to shake it! (Shake it!) Shake it! (Shake it!)

Shake that healthy butt!

Miss Alice got back!

I just stood there with my jaw dropped. I looked over my shoulder at my scrawny backside. There used to be some volume back there. Not anymore. Poor old Humpty. I sure wasn't going to be able to inspire him this time! Humpty noticed me staring.

"Yeah, it's a shame ain't it. Somebody's been starving you!"

At this point Cheshire butted in increasing my embarrassment. "If you think she looks scrawny now, you should have seen her when she arrived. Remember that fairy tale about the corpse bride? She was a walking skeleton. She's been stuffing her face nonstop since she got here, and there is now at least a stone more of her."

I had a handful of nuts that I was shoveling into my mouth and stopped shoveling. I wanted to crawl under a rock. I wanted to pour more Gnome hooch on Cheshire's ass. I wanted to disappear.

"Why must you blokes talk about my body as if I weren't even here?"

"We're males, that's what we do," said Cheshire. Humpty nodded in agreement.

I walked away without saying anything. I was headed toward the canyon with the gateway to Pale Realm. I walked alone for a few minutes, and then Cheshire came bounding up.

"Humpty had one piece of useful information. The Hatter has developed a new weapon."

"Didn't I kill Hatter?" I interrrupted.

"You killed his robot, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. The Red Queen had the real Hatter."

"Anyway, Hatter's new weapon is an auto-injecting syringe in the form of a bullet. He's developed a gun for it, too. A sort of rifle with six chambers in a revolving cylinder."

Cheshire and I looked at each other, both obviously thinking the same thing at the same moment.

"Boob shrooms!" we both said simultaneously. We could distill boob shrooms into liquid form, fill the syringes, and shoot them into the Red Queen. Oh, yeah. Six syringes full of boob juice. The Red Queen would be buried alive in boobage. I couldn't help cackling like one of the wicked witches of Oz. I had a plan.

End of Chapter 8

This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. EA (Electronic Arts) owns the copyrights. "Baby Got Back" is a song written and recorded by Sir Mix-a-Lot. It appears on his album "Mack Daddy."