***
Marisa and I hopped off our bikes and did a quick check for money. I had two dollars stuffed in my pocket, and Marisa had some change in hers. Together, we had just enough for a combo meal and a shake. We hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and my stomach was growling. Marisa grabbed the old book from the basket of her bike before we headed inside.
I chose a seat in the front of the restaurant, facing the highway, and started dividing the fries, pushing Marisa’s half across the tray.
“We need to review the clues we’ve gathered so far,” she said.
“Okay.” I ripped our shared hamburger in half and shoved my portion into my mouth. “We know our mystery man is a grim character and that he’s a straw man. But what do those clues mean?”
“Well, grim means harsh and serious,” she replied. “But all he did was laugh when we met him. So maybe grim means something else, too.”
“And he sure wasn’t made of straw,” I added.
“I think it’s safe to say that our mystery man is a fictional character, too, maybe even ... oh, no!” She pointed to the fenced-in playland area outside the window.
One of the tables in playland was set with saucers, teacups and a teapot. Seated at the table was a little man wearing a large, Abe Lincoln style top hat. A life-sized rabbit sat next to him, sipping from a teacup. A third creature was seated between them: a mouse, his head on the table, fast asleep. The other two were resting their elbows on his neck as they talked back and forth.
“Recognize this story?” Marisa asked as she pushed away from the table.
I stuffed the last few fries in my mouth. “Sure, from the Disney cartoon. The first guy’s The Mad Hatter. The other one is The March Hare, and that’s a mouse sleeping between them.”
“A dormouse,” Marisa corrected. “But where’s Alice?”
“Right there!” A young girl wearing a bright blue headband and a matching blue dress had just walked through the door. “I guess our job is to get her to the Tea Party on time!”
Marisa looked unsure as we headed toward Alice. “I guess...but I can’t be sure. Wonderland is a pretty strange place, after all. Who knows what we’ll need to do to get her back into the book!”
Meanwhile, poor Alice was wandering through the restaurant, staring up at the walls and ceiling. To her, a fast-food joint probably seemed as strange as anything else in Wonderland.
“H-hey, Alice,” I stammered. She was cute, and I always have a tough time talking to cute girls.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“You – you just look ... like an Alice,” I offered, lamely.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Alice said. She made a funny little bow, holding her skirt in both hands. Marisa told me later that it was called a curtsey.
“Uh, nice to meet you, too. My name’s Billy, and this is my cousin Marisa.” I stuck out my hand for Alice to shake, just like my dad had taught me. She seemed surprised, but she switched something from her right to her left hand before shaking mine.
“What do you have there?” asked Marisa.
Alice held out the object. “It’s a mushroom,” she said. “It’s ... magic, I suppose. A caterpillar gave it to me, to help me change sizes.”
She saw my look of disbelief. “Oh, I know it’s just impossible!” she said, stuffing the mushroom into her dress pocket. “Everything here is just ... curiouser and curiouser.”
“And it’s going to get curiouser yet,” Marisa said. “Follow me.” She led Alice and me to the play area and held the door open while we went through. “Alice, meet the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of you before,” Alice said. “The Cheshire-Cat told me about you.”
The Mad Hatter stood, hands on his hips. “Oh, he did, did he? And I suppose you trusted the word of that grinning, gaping, guffawing goose, did you?”
“But begging your pardon,” Alice said to him. “He was a cat, not a goose.”
The Mad Hatter considered that for a moment. “Quite so,” he replied. “Sit with us, and have some wine.”
“Yes,” said the March Hare, “it’s good for what ails you. Get it, wine, ails you?” He elbowed the Dormouse, who sat up and looked around, sleepily, then crashed back onto the table.
Alice and I sat across from the Hatter. Marisa sat next to the March Hare, but slid her chair as far away from him as she could.
“I’m afraid I don’t see any wine,” Alice said.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then why offer it?” I asked. “That’s nothing but rude!”
“Rude, rood, mood, food,” said the Hatter. “And speaking of which, have some.” And he offered us a children’s hamburger meal, complete with toy, in a cardboard box. “Wherever here is, they certainly have wonderful food, don’t you think, old chap?” He elbowed the Dormouse, who lifted his head once again.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,” said the Dormouse, his eyes crossing. “How I wonder where you’re at!”
“What’s he saying?” asked Marisa. “It sounds like ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’”
“And so it is, young lady,” said the March Hare. “It’s his favorite song.”
“Then why doesn’t he know the proper words?” asked Alice.
“A very good question, my dear,” said the Hatter. “So good, I have no answer, except this!” With that, he began to drop teacups onto the concrete floor of the play area.
I looked around and for the first time noticed the other customers. They were all staring at us. From behind the counter, the restaurant manager was heading toward our table.
“Uh, Marisa,” I said. “Whatever needs to be done here, we’d better do it fast.”
“I know,” Marisa answered. “In the other plagues we’ve cured, we’ve helped the characters along the way to their goal. But these guys don’t have a goal. They’re just NUTS!”
“Well, I never!” Alice said, her cheeks puffed with anger. She stood and began to stomp away.
“Wait a minute!” I said, chasing after her. “She didn’t mean you. “She’s talking about these guys!” I flicked a thumb back toward the Hatter, the Hare and the Dormouse.
“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” the manager asked as she reached the table. “Look at this mess! You can’t come in here, break things and act this way! Out! Out! OUT! All of you!” She grabbed the March Hare and the Dormouse by their ears. “And take your silly puppets with you!”
Mad or not, the Hatter knew when he wasn’t welcome, and he marched back through the restaurant and out the door, dragging the poor Dormouse under one arm. The March Hare hopped along after him, followed by Alice, Marisa and me.
Outside, The Hatter made an even bigger scene by blocking the drive-thru lane. Cars were honking, and traffic backed up onto State Street. I could see the manager inside, dialing the telephone. Probably calling the police, I thought.
“Here’s what I want to know,” the Hatter said as he lay on his back in front of a pick-up truck. “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
I turned to Marisa. “A riddle!” I said. “I’m great at solving riddles! I bet if I can solve this, these guys will pop back into their story and out of Alliance!”
“You can’t solve that riddle,” Marisa said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t really have an answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Lewis Carroll wrote that riddle back in the nineteenth century, and that people – smart people – have been trying to solve it ever since,” she said. “There isn’t an answer that makes any sense.”
“Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense,” I offered. “Watch!”
I went over to the Hatter and knelt down beside him. “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” I repeated, then answered, “Because each begins with the letter E!”
Marisa and Alice both looked at each other, confused.
“But neither one starts with an E,” Alice said. She was holding the Dormouse, who was asleep in her arms.
“Exactly!” screamed the Hatter, and he jumped up, grabbed the March Hare and began to dance a little jig. “And that’s what they have in common!”
“But ... but I don’t understand,” Alice said. She and the Dormouse were beginning to fade away. The Hatter and the Hare looked ghostly, too.
“Billy, you did it!” Marisa cried. “Look in the book!” She opened it to the blank page that followed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. There, we could read the title, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
And written next to that, our next clue: I’m a golden boy.
The manager was heading toward us. I looked down and realized that Marisa and I were still blocking the drive-thru lane. “Come on,” I said, “we’d better get going.”
We hopped on our bikes and headed off in search of the next Story Plague. We didn’t have far to go before we found it.
To Be Continued
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