* * *
“Is this your home Peter?” Alice asked once they were on the ground.
“It’s Wendy’s.”
“Is that a sole of a shoe for a knocker?” Alice asked. Peter pushed open the door. The house was empty and dirty. Alice searched the room for something to eat, specifically some cake. Finding no food at all, she turned her attention to Peter who appeared to be searching the great bed for something.
“Well captain Peter I can’t very well stay here. I need to find the caterpillar.”
“The what?” Peter gasped.
“The caterpillar of course. If I find him, I find the mushroom then I can grow big and find a way home.”
“Grow up? No one grows up in The Neverland. It’s against the rules.”
“What foolishness indeed! Not allowed to grow up? What and stay a child forever? Oh not me. I can’t wait to grow up!” Peter watched her as she sorted through a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the house.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“My nightclothes are hardly suitable for wandering around Wonderland also I don’t want to be recognized by anyone here. They are all mad. It’s best we talk to as few creatures as possible.”
“Mad? Creatures?”
“Oh ho. The great captain Peter looks like a scared little boy to me. Now turn around.”
Peter turned away from Alice while she changed into a mismatched outfit consisting of lost boys’ clothes. She tied her hair up in a shirt and then she charged past Peter towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Peter asked.
“I told you, I need to find the caterpillar. I’m going to avoid all other distractions including that pesky white rabbit. You can come along if you want.”
“White Rabbit?”
“He’s of no concern to me. What we should fear most is the Queen of hearts. She’ll want nothing more than to cut off our heads.”
“Why?” Peter asked as he followed Alice out of the house.
“Not sure. The Duchess might be able to tell you but talking to her is a terrible waste of time,” Alice said as she marched into the woods.
* * *
“I wonder what happened to the mermaids, the fairies and the Indians.” Peter thought after they had walked through the woods for some time. At this Alice stopped in her tracks. She turned to face Peter and put her hands on her hips.
“Honestly Peter, mermaids, fairies and Indians?” She shook her head at him and then returned to the path. But their path was blocked. Right in front of them, as if out of thin air, appeared a cat.
“I know the fate of the mermaids, the fairies, Princess Tiger Lily and the redskins,” it said. Peter’s mouth was agape. He’d never seen a talking cat before.
“Get lost you,” Alice shouted at the Cheshire cat.
“No wait! You will tell me what happened them,” Peter demanded trying to sound brave. Alice rolled her eyes at him and sat down on a nearby rock.
The cat grinned at Peter, “Shortly before you arrived, the Queen had all the Indians heads cut off, the princess was the last of them to lose her head.”
Peter was horrified. Alice was visibly bored, sighing and drumming her fingertips loudly on the top of a tree stump.
“Told you,” she said to Peter who had clasped his hands around his neck.
The Cheshire cat continued, “Then she made quick business of cutting off the heads of the mermaids. It was rather an easy task as they could not very well run away. She dined on their tails for dinner. Their blood blackened the lagoon. Then the Queen captured all the fairies trapped them in the Jolly Roger and the weight of their wet wings sunk it.”
“How do we stop this villain?” Peter shouted.
“Have you gone mad?” Alice asked him, “She’s the Queen, and she’s the maddest of them all. You can hardly reason with a mad person Peter, if you try you will surely lose your head. Honestly I need to get out of here at once.”
Alice stood up and returned to the path. Peter looked around for the cat, but he had disappeared.
“Where did it go?” he asked Alice.
“He vanished of course. Cheshire cats are very unreliable creatures.”
Peter Pan’s Last Adventure (In Wonderland) Page 3
