The Mad Hatter and the March Hare scurried back and forth between the house and the table under the tree in the front yard. The Hatter brought out the good tea service as The Hare fussed over the place settings.
“We must hurry,” said The Hare. “It’s Almost Time!”
“I love Almost Time,” The Hatter replied as he lifted the tea pot onto the edge of the table.
The Hare nodded. “I agree! Nothing has happened to ruin what we’d hoped for!”
The Dormouse drowsed in her seat near the head of the table.
“Almost Time,” she moaned.
Dormouse had almost fallen asleep again when a clatter arose in the dell. The bushes trembled, and the sounds of heavy, frantic breathing, and fleeing feet grew louder. Suddenly, the White Rabbit burst into the clearing, bounded over the table, and disappeared into the garden.
“Run for your lives!” screamed the Rabbit.
“What did he say,” the Hatter asked.
“Fun for your wives,” the Dormouse slurred.
“Whatever could be the matter,” asked the March Hare, puzzled by his cousin’s mad dash.
“Maybe he’s late again,” the Hatter said.
“No,” said the Hare, pointing toward the dell, “I think he said ‘Our guests have arrived!’”
The Hatter could see (and hear) a throng approaching the house. A cloud of chattering magpies swirled and darted above it.
“I think you’re right,” he said.
A magpie was the first to reach them.
“Is this the tea party?” it asked.
“Yes, though I would not have thought that magpies would be interested in tea,” said the Hare.
“This is it!” the bird shouted back to the oncoming crush.
A sleek fox was the first of the strangers to arrive. It wore blinders and scribbled furiously on a scrap of foolscap. It confronted the Hare with its teeth bared.
“Who are you for,” demanded the Fox.
“I beg your pardon,” the Hare said.
“Come! You must answer or I will answer for you! You decide, I report!”
“But--”
“I’ll put you down as a friend of The Worm. Everyone is a friend of The Worm until one gets to know him. No one has as many friends as he does.”
“Th-th-that m-makes no sense,” the March Hare said, edging away from the Fox.
“It does if you meet more people than anyone else.”
The Fox sat down next to the Dormouse.
“How about you, friend? Who are you for?”
The Dormouse snored.
“Another friend for The Worm!” shouted Fox as he scribbled another mark onto his foolscap.
The crowd arrived at the table in a cloud of dust and words. Most prominent among its number was The Worm--an earnest, clammy invertebrate--who had an unusual way of moving. It turned and twisted end-over-end, always heading toward its goal, but never facing one direction for very long.
“I’m willing to have some tea unless no one else wants any,” said Worm as he searched the faces around him for hints of disapproval.
The Hatter and the Hare twirled like tops amid the strangers who streamed in.
Vole--a bubbly, brown blob of fur--stood up and sniffed the front of the Hatter’s trousers.
“Have you been naughty?” Vole asked, its crossed eyes more or less meeting the Hatter’s.
“I beg your pardon!” Hatter said. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the stench coming from the rodent.
“Do you have doggie?”
“I should say not!”
The Vole held up a paw.
“Absence of temptation is no assurance of virtue. I will have you watched when I am elected king!”
“When you are WHAT?” shouted the Hare and the Hatter.
“King!” said the Dingbat as she bounced off the March Hare’s head.
The Dingbat flapped her right-wing furiously when she flew so that she lurched through the air, never quite sure which way was up. She landed at the base of the tree by flying headlong into its trunk.
“As king, I will change things so that they always stay the same,” the Dingbat dizzily declared to the tree trunk.
“Which is precisely wrong,” said the Porcupine. “Things must be left the way they are so that nothing changes! It’s the only way I could keep track of all these quills.”
The Porcupine was venerable and lovable and was always favorably mentioned by the magpies, but could not get a hug to save its life.
The sleeping Dormouse’s nose twitched.
“We don’t all have quills, boy,” drawled the Weasel. “Especially when you can have the most luxuriant fur in the whole damned shootin’ match!”
“I could grow fur if anyone wants me to,” said the Worm.
“You’re a worm,” snarled the Weasel.
“But I don’t have to be,” said the Worm.
A big, white goose had joined the Dingbat at the base of the tree.
“You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be,” honked the Goose. “I can teach anyone to be anything!”
“You don’t teach glory like this,” said the Weasel, who drank in the adulation of the Fox and the magpies. The Vole’s nose was planted firmly into Weasel’s crotch.
“So naughty,” sighed Vole as it stroked the Weasel’s fur.
“Who are these creatures,” Hare whispered to the Mad Hatter.
“I have no idea,” said the Hatter, his hat dripping with magpie poop.
Suddenly, there was a fanfare. A Beadle with a smoldering stick in its mouth strode into the chaos holding a large black cat on a satin pillow. The cat’s black leather collar had a small gold medallion stamped with the letter “K” hanging from it. The Cat was not a Cheshire Cat. It was a Cain Moon Cat: Every time it opened its mouth, it showed its ass.
“The Cain Moon Cat will sing now,” announced the Beadle.
The Cat hopped onto the table and cleared its throat.
I care not for Yoo-Beki-Beki-Beki-Beki-Stan-Stan
I sing for the creatures of Wonderland!
If you want happiness, then understand:
You must pick me! I’m the cat that can!
A woman’s shoe hit the cat squarely in its prominent behind, knocking it from the table and turning the formerly quiet meadow to pandemonium.
“Who threw that?” demanded the Beadle.
Creatures of all shapes and sizes swooped, darted, argued, fought, sniffed, and scuffled until a commanding voice cut through the din.
“STOP IT!” shouted the Dormouse.
She got up onto the table and stared down at the congregation with contempt.
“Mouse?” asked the Hare.
“Shut up!”
The March Hare and the Mad Hatter shrank a bit.
“This is Wonderland,” the Dormouse began. “Things only seem not to make sense here. But when we speak nonsense, we speak with a purpose. We play with language and numbers and the sciences in our riddles. We delight children. We have fun. We teach!
“But all of YOU,” she said, pointing a paw at the interlopers, “you all speak nonsense to hide your lack of heart or principle or brains!”
“She’s right,” said the Worm as he turned yet again. The Dormouse shushed him.
“Courage!” screamed the Dingbat who became airborne with sheer giddiness. Her erratic flight took her through one of the house’s plate glass windows.
“Someone in your number overheard Alice say something about our tea party, and that’s why you’re here,” the Dormouse said.
“We locked Alice in the cellar!” said Weasel.
“She was naughty!” Vole whispered.
“How ‘bout I turn y’all into gold when they king me?!” screamed the Weasel before keeling over onto his luxurious back.
“Silence! You all don't belong here! Go somewhere else!” shouted the Doremouse... “You’re too looney... even for us.”
The White Rabbit poked its nose over the hedge.
“Hear! Hear!”
Silence.
All eyes were on Dormouse. She groomed her whiskers a bit before she spoke again.
“I thank you all for coming to our tea party today. I am sorry that it isn’t what you expected. Maybe we can get together again someday under better circumstances. But for now, could you all please just leave?”
Before they could draw another breath, a crisp drum roll broke the silence. A spotlight caught a slim figure somersaulting toward the tea table. The thing cartwheeled over the teapot, back-flipped past the cat, and landed on one knee--arms spread wide--in front of the Dormouse.
“Yes, we can!” exulted the Otter.
The Fox reported next day that Otter had thrown a shoe at the Cain Moon Cat, had slipped the Weasel a mickey, and may have tried to foment class warfare.