“I didn’t know that Cheshire-Cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin,” said Alice.
“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess, “and that’s a fact.”
Just then the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them, even when they hit her, and the baby was howling so much already that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.
“Oh, please mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror.
“Here! You may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room.
Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature and held out its arms and legs in all directions. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two. Wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud and the little thing grunted in reply.
“If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!”
Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do with this creature, when I get it home?” when it grunted again so violently that Alice looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it—it was neither more nor less than a pig; so she set the little creature down and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood.
Alice was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw her. “Cheshire-Puss,” began Alice, rather timidly, “would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here?”
“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving the right paw ‘round, “lives a Hatter; and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat; “we’re all mad here. Do you play croquet with the Queen today?”
“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited yet.”
“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare; it was so large a house that she did not like to go near till she had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom.
* * * *
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.
The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once in a minute.
Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, “and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any one left alive!”
She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself, “It’s the Cheshire-Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.”
“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no use speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at least one of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.
“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!”
“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice.
“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, “—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.”
The Queen smiled and passed on.
“Who are you talking to?” said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity.
“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire-Cat,” said Alice: “allow me to introduce it.”
“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.”
“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked.
“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and don’t look at me like that!” He got behind Alice as he spoke.
“A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember where.”
“Well, it must be removed,” said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!”
The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round.
“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the King eagerly, and he hurried off.
Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.
The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.
By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it doesn’t matter much,” thought Alice, “as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.” So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend.
When she got back to the Cheshire-Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going
on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.
The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.
The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at this time of life.
The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.
The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it, in less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)
Alice could think of nothing else to say but, “It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask her about it.”
“She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the executioner: “fetch her here.” And the executioner went off like an arrow.
The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.
ALL IN THE GOLDEN AFTERNOON, by Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen
He had only fallen asleep in the warm sun at the Oxford railroad station for a scant few minutes, but in that time, the manuscript, carefully packaged in brown paper and tightly bound with good string, had been stolen, along with a small brown hamper containing his lunch.
The food and wine were small loss compared to his printer’s copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. He had labored on the book for over a year, since he originally recited it as a series of sketches to the Liddell children as he rowed them along the Thames on an expedition upriver. He had promised Alice, ten years old and dear to his heart, that he would write the tales of the fictional Alice and, now having completed that promise, he was traveling to arrange its publication.
But the manuscript was gone, and he felt a frantic sinking in his heart and took several long breaths, trying to calm himself. Go about this logically, he told himself. You are, after all, a lecturer in mathematics. The bench he had earlier seated himself on, before nodding off, was partially secluded by a tree and some bushes, a short distance from the station house. He studied the platform. The same two young ladies and their parents still milled about, keeping a close watch on their ample luggage and on a boy around Alice’s age, who alternately stared at them sulkily or peered impatiently up the railroad tracks, trying to spot the train. It obliged him, appearing in the distance.
Beyond the waiting family, Charles noticed two new gentlemen, who hadn’t been there prior to his own arrival. Once carried a large portmanteau, which seemed filled to its seams with whatever it held. Still, Charles had no cause to confront them. He wondered what purpose he had now to even board the coming train without the manuscript and watched despondently as it pulled into the station.
A porter emerged first, then the carriage guard collecting the passengers’ tickets. He escorted the family of five into the first carriage, nearly filling it, then waived the two strange gentlemen over to the second. The porter began loading the family’s luggage into the baggage compartment.
Charles approached the station master, struggling to help the porter lift an oversized trunk. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” They looked up, poised to hoist the obviously heavy piece. “I seem to have misplaced a brown-paper parcel and a lunch hamper while dozing. The parcel is extremely important.” He hesitated. How could he accuse the late-arriving gentlemen of theft? Asking to search their belongings would be tantamount to that, wouldn’t it? It was quite possible that someone else, unnoticed by the others, had come to the platform, taken his parcel and hamper, then left.
Yet he had to recover the manuscript or hope, at least, that the thief considered it worthless and discarded it. It might be found by someone kind enough to return it, Charles’s name and address clearly printed on the wrapper, in case of such loss.
The station master answered him reluctantly. “Did you search thoroughly for them, sir?” The porter ignored him, saying “Now!” Both men heaved upward, swinging the trunk into the baggage area. The porter jumped up, pushed it further in, jumped down, pulled the sliding door closed and secured it.
“They were on the bench right beside me. The parcel contains a manuscript I’ve written. I was carrying it to my publisher, Macmillan, in London.”
“Well, I don’t like to say it, sir,” the station master began, only to be interrupted by a loud feminine scream, followed a high-pitched stream of hysterical complaints. “What now?” He rose stiffly.
One of the gentlemen emerged from the train, opening the compartment door and calling to the guard. “There’s a animal running loose in our carriage, sir. A large striped tomcat, from the looks of it.”
“Now, what the devil…,” the train man groused, and boarded the carriage. A commotion sounded within, and the cat, orange with large black stripes, bounded from it and onto the platform, its teeth firmly clamped on the string of a wrapped parcel. It dragged it along as it skittered away toward the bench, tree and bushes and disappeared beneath the shrubbery.
“My manuscript!” Charles raced after it, parting the leafy branches to forage in the undergrowth and triumphantly reclaim Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.
The station master caught up with him, winded with exertion. “Would that be the missing parcel, sir?”
“It is, and I’m delighted to have it back!”
“Can’t say I understand how it got aboard the train, much less the cat.”
“The important thing is that it’s been returned.”
“Do you think the cat dragged it off the bench, sir, and then snuck on board with it?”
“I…I couldn’t really say, now could I? But if you find a small brown hamper under some foliage,” (he drew apart more shrubbery, which revealed only leaves and dirt), “it might support that theory. I doubt that the cat could have dragged both the parcel and hamper onto the train without being seen.”
“Unlikely,” the station master agreed. “In that case, sir, do you think a thief has boarded at my station?”
Charles hesitated. “I couldn’t say that either, sir. I slept through the theft and can’t vouch for whether teeth, claws, or fingers were employed.”
“Then you don’t want an investigation?”
He shook his head. “I’d rather not. The hamper wasn’t valuable. This was.” He held up the manuscript.
“Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Christ Church?” the station master read. “Well, sir, we’ll return the hamper to you, if it’s found. In the meanwhile, I’ll warn the carriage guard to keep an eye out for persons with a pilfering nature on the train. Will you be boarding, sir?”
“Yes, now that my reason for traveling has been restored.”
He handed the guard his ticket and took the remaining seat in the first carriage, introducing himself to the family sharing the compartment. As the train finally pulled out, Charles relaxed by the window, holding the parcel alertly and protectively against him and entertaining the young boy and his sisters with a story or two, while their parents listened, amused.
At the next station, the two men he had seen on the platform at Oxford disembarked. Shortly afterwards, in the compartment they had vacated, new passengers found an empty lunch hamper. They gave it to the carriage guard at the following station stop; he returned it to its rightful owner.
Charles, both manuscript and hamper in hand, dashed madly to the station eatery to purchase some refreshments and quickly back to reboard the train before it started up again. On the platform, the station master of that stop, an elderly man with immense white whiskers and a curious habit of wrinkling his nose, held a large
, opened pocket watch in his hand, haranguing the carriage guard: “You’re four minutes late, sir! Whatever delayed you?”
Charles reentered his compartment swiftly and took his seat, gazing quietly out the window. It was then that he noticed another enormous orange-and-black-striped tomcat, sitting on that platform and preening itself. He pointed it out to the boy beside him. “There was another striped puss, nearly identical to this one, at the Oxford Station.”
“Was there? I hadn’t seen it, sir.”
The tom looked up, turned its head, and stared back at the mystified author.
The train wheels began to creak, and the cat continued to gaze at him, turning its head the other way as Charles, at the window, passed by it.
In the few seconds before the cat disappeared from Charles’s vantage point, it grinned at him.
After a moment of surprise, Charles grinned back.
“No matter,” he told the boy. “Cats like that have a tendency to appear unexpectedly. You might very well see it again someday soon.”
The train headed toward its final destination as the sun began setting, streaking colors across the sky.
FAT CAT, by Robert Reginald [Poem]
That
Cat
Sat
Pat:
Mat
At
Rat
Frat.
“Scat,
Rat!”
Spat
Cat.
Splat!
Flat
Rat.
Fat
Cat.
ALEX, by Mary A. Turzillo
When the time comes round again, She leaves her throne, walks down from heaven, and hearkens to mortal longings.
* * * *
Cara paced in the patch of sunshine on her linoleum floor, cell phone mashed to her ear.
“Tell me you didn’t,” her friend Judith shrilled on the other end. “You met this guy at an Italian-American club dance, and you invite him over. This is smart? This is safe? Cara, do you watch the news?”
The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 2
