Malice in Wonderland Prequel (9 page)

The Knight called out, “I am swinging my sword at you, wretched dragon! Ow, you struck me in the eye! Now I attempt to strike you down, though I know I’ll miss. Yes, that’s right, retreat beneath my superior combat skills. Oh no! Now you are breathing your fire flame breath upon the table, immediately before you retreat back to your lair that I shall track you to. Oh no!”

Alice’s sight suddenly returned—she realized it must have been the magic of her tears. She tried to get her bearings. The Knight had taken his goggles off and now had a black eye. She watched as he set a lit matchstick to the table, causing it to light on fire.

Alice’s eyes bugged wide, but when the Knight possibly suspected and looked her way, she managed to shut her eyes once again and pretend to be still blind.

Alice still had her eyes closed. The Knight called out, “Ah, now the dastardly dragon has flown away, which signals the next stage of the quest. Everyone, I shall rinse your eyes out with water so that you may be able to see again. Ladies first.” He guided her head back and she pretended to still be blind as he rinsed her eyes out with the canteen. She didn’t want to embarrass the Knight by calling him out as a faker—she felt sorry for the old chap.
It must be hard being a knight with a lack of suitable adventures to be had.

“I can see now!” Alice proclaimed. She looked at the Knight to see that now he had a bunch of blood upon his right cheek! Where had that come from if there was no dragon?! “You’re hurt,” she said.

“Pish posh. ’Tis but a scratch,” he said courageously, and he went about reviving the sight of the others.

While he was rinsing out the Hare’s eyes, the Dormouse rose up from the ground and yawned. Blandly, he said, “How did I get on the ground? Why is the table on fire?” He yawned.

Everyone ignored him.

The Hatter was furious. “My good knight, you must seek this dragon out and slay him so that he never visits our village again!”

“Hear hear!” said the Hare.

The Knight said, “Yes yes, that is exactly the next step I was about to undertake. My trusty squire and I must track the foul beast down!” He looked to the ground and knelt. “Look here! There are tracks here in the ground. I can use them to calibrate the dragon compass! Squire! Bring me the compass!”

Alice rummaged through the sack as all the others gathered around to look at the tracks. She noticed the cookie molds now had dirt clinging to them. On a whim she checked the catsup bottle to see that it had been opened. Alice pulled out the compass that looked like a normal compass that always pointed north. It even had the words of all the directions printed upon its face.

She handed the compass to the Knight then looked down at the tracks. They were identical to the cookie mold ones. She was no Sherlock Holmes, but she easily put two and two together.

The Knight put on a show for his audience. “Ah, now this compass is my own invention. All I have to do is calibrate it to the foul beast’s tracks, and voila! It shall lead me and my squire right to the dragon’s lair, where I shall heroically slay it. I’ve even written a poem to sing the praises of the event. Would you all like to hear it?”

They shook their heads. The Hatter said, “Perhaps later. After the actual slaying.”

“Yes that would be the appropriate time,” the March Hare said.

The Knight sniffed and looked disappointed. “Very well then. Squire! Follow me! Tallyho!” He began walking north, with Alice following.

“Is it far?” Alice whined as she lugged the heavy sack.

“Eh? Well no, it’s not far. I know the perfect spot.”

Inwardly, Alice was debating whether to call the Knight out. Because frankly he was lying and since she wore the goody two-shoes, Alice was very much opposed to lying. But she also didn’t want to hurt the Knight’s feelings. Perhaps it was one of those white lies she’d heard of. White lies from a white knight.

Soon they came upon a cave in the side of a hill.

“The compass points to that cave. That is where the ferocious dragon lives. I shall heroically enter the cave and impressively vanquish the beast despite our vastly different sizes. Then I shall recite my poem to you.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Shall I enter the cave as well, then?”

“Oh, no no. It is much too dangerous. You must stay outside, and listen as I wage battle with him.” He was rummaging through the bag and brought out the bottle of catsup.

“Very well. You are so brave.”

“I know.” He raised his sword and called out to the cave. “Dragon! Prepare to be slain, for I, the Light Knight am here!”

He stumbled as he walked and dropped his catsup bottle, but then got up without comment and entered the cave. What ensued was the clanging of a most ferocious battle. Clanks and thuds issued forth. “Ow! You hit me hard that time! But now, look how I strike you! Oh, this battle has grown most feverish! How heroic I am to fight you! Ow! You struck me again! But look, I have struck you now. See how your blood drips upon my blade?”

“Oh for goodness sakes,” Alice muttered to herself. “I have had quite enough of this foolishness.”

Alice crept up to the entrance and peeked in, hiding as much as she could behind the edge.

She saw the Knight punching himself in the face inside a small cave that was filled with pots and pans. “Ow!” shouted the Knight. “You struck me a good blow that time. But you shan’t be victorious!” He clanked his blood-covered sword onto a pot, making a loud clank noise. “There, take that blow!” He then punched himself in the face again. It was a solid blow, too, because he fell over unconscious onto the ground.

“Oh my!” Alice shouted. She rushed over to him. She would have hated for the Knight to have seriously harmed himself while fighting his imaginary dragon.

But she also knew she couldn’t allow this charade to go on any further.

He didn’t seem horribly harmed. After chaining his hands and feet together, she checked the blood on the sword. She tasted it. It was catsup. She roused him by softly slapping his face. “Wake up!”

“What? Where am I?”

“You managed to knock yourself out.”

“Eh? You mean the dragon did.”

“No, not at all. I know you were faking. It’s bad to lie, you know! It’s very unchivalrous.”

“What? I did not! Where is the dragon? Did it flee?” He looked around.

Alice finally lost her temper and screamed in outrage and punched the Knight on the side of his face, but since she was only 8, it wasn’t very forceful.

“Ow! I’m tender there!”

Alice immediately regretted her outburst. “Oh, I’m sorry dear!” She kissed his cheek. She looked at him. “It’s just that it is not nice to lie. I can’t allow you to keep up this charade.”

The Knight looked back and sighed. “I know. It’s just that…I wanted so bad to be a hero. I needed a monster to slay. I can’t slay the Jabberwock, because we’re friends, after all. There’s just not enough monsters around here.”

“What of the Bandersnatch?”

A frightened look came over his face. “You want me to be killed?!”

“No, I’m sorry. Of course not.”

“Will you unchain me?”

“First you have to tell me how you tricked us. What inventions did you use?”

So he told her about the voice-distorting megaphone he’d used to disguise his voice and the blinding dust he’d blown into their eyes that would blind people for about ten minutes.

He tried to get up. “Now will you unchain me, please?”

“Not until you promise to confess to everyone.”

“Confess?! That would be humiliating.”

Alice nodded. She felt sorry for him. Then she had an idea. “Well, how about you give me that blinding dust and megaphone of yours so you can’t use them on others, and we can both agree to never mention this thing with the dragon again.”

“What? But I made a poem and everything!”

“Yes, I’m sorry, but you see, you didn’t actually slay a dragon. You shouldn’t brag about things you didn’t do. Just say you couldn’t find the dragon. It’ll be a white lie.”

“Oh very well then, you goody two-shoes! Can I at least tell you my poem?”

“That sounds pleasant.” She unchained him—as she did so, she apparently wasn’t paying enough attention, since she stumbled—why, her feet almost fell out from beneath her!

Then she had a change of heart as she fixed him with a look with her fist to her side. She was thinking about using the dust and megaphone for a little payback. “Now about the blinding powder…”

“Oh yes yes, you may have it. I have no further use for it.”

“How long does the blindness last? It wouldn’t be permanent would it?”

“No, it lasts ten minutes at the most. Now will you let me go?”

Alice agreed.

Before they left to go back to their respective abodes, the Knight recited the poem he had written about himself, which went thusly:

Oh, hear the tale of this brave knight,

Who smote the dragon in its lair.

The fearsome creature he did fight,

While others would have felt despair!

The dragon was so dangerous,

More fearsome than a bandersnatch,

And vicious and so devious,

But this day it had met its match!

To save the damsel in distress,

The knight faced claws and searing fire!

He is so brave, all must confess,

This lightning rod of girls’ desire!

He smote it with a skillful strike,

He chopped it all to bits of gore,

This handsome knight who all girls like,

Then chopped it more and more.

So no, its head he hasn’t brought,

But please to him, don’t nag.

He’s still the stud all girls have sought,

Although I hate to brag.

After the recitation, they went their separate ways. A few hours later, she discovered that the shoes she now wore weren’t the goody two-shoes. The Knight must have switched them out unbeknownst to her. It seemed he was capable of some cleverness after all. But she hardly missed them, for she was very focused on paying a “special” visit to Humpty Dumpty.

CHAPTER NINE

Humpty Dumpty

When Alice was 8

She snuck up on him carefully, from behind, in the cloak of night. At this time, Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t be expecting her, and she was armed with just the right weapon. A non-fatal one: the blinding dust.

Payback time would soon come.

In one hand she held the voice-altering megaphone, with the other, she reached into a pocket of her ninja outfit for the pouch that contained the blinding dust. She wore goggles to protect herself for its effects. She’d also brought a small bag filled with the quick-rising cupcake mix she’d gotten from the Cook.

She was behind him now, kneeling just at the base of the low wall he liked to sit on top of. It really wasn’t much of a wall, not very tall and not very wide—the Queen of Hearts had taken his other, bigger wall away. He seemed to be talking to himself. He said, “Oh woe is me! Why did I do that to her, when I shall come to love her?! Oh, I hate having to be mean to her!”

Alice listened, with a puzzled expression beneath her mask. Who was he talking about? Surely, he couldn’t be talking about she herself? But then again, he had earlier been mean to her by kicking her after she called him an egghead. He was sensitive about the fact he looked like a large egg with a face on it.

Now Humpty Dumpty moaned and whimpered and rocked back and forth. Alice had never seen this side of him—and she meant it literally, too, because he seemed on the verge of toppling over and landing on her, and then she would see the
in
side of him too!
But no, that’s silly,
she thought.
Humpty is too experienced with sitting atop that wall of his to fall off so clumsily.

With a woeful voice, he called out:

“I’m Humpty Dumpty, here on my wall!

I’m Humpty Dumpty and I cannot fall!

…into love, that is, for it will bring pain,

So I’ll just stay heartless and full of disdain.”

Alice was growing more and more confused. What was he going on about? Humpty Dumpty had never been the whiny lovesick sort. But here he was moaning privately about not wanting to fall in love? Well frankly, who would be the girl he fell in love with, and for that matter, who could possibly love that vicious jerk back?

“Oh I wish my dear Alice could just hurry up and kill me, so that I might love her again…”

This stopped Alice cold. He had just made an unintended confession to her. She almost wanted to call out to him, to ask him what he was going on about, but no, that would be humiliating for him, and she could never be that cruel to him.
Because I am Alice and through-and-through nice, although perhaps
too
nice.

And that is why she could never bring herself to kill him, especially after seeing this sensitive, vulnerable side of Humpty.