 ALICE ON
TOP OF THE WORLD
The continuing adventures
of a girl named Alice
By Gerrard T Wilson
Chapter
One
INTO
THE ABYSS
It
was many years later when Alice had her next adventure, and whilst she
was quite surprised to be having one at
all, after
the passing of so many years, she was even more surprised to see that
she was a child again,
no older than when
she had first entered Wonderland and slipped through that fascinating
Looking
Glass.
“How
curious,” she whispered, trying to recall the child she had once
been.
Suddenly
appearing in front of Alice, the White Rabbit said, “You took
your time getting here!”.
“I
beg your pardon?” she replied, remembering how rude the White
Rabbit could
be, if he felt so inclined.
“I
said you took your time in getting here. You should have been here fourteen years ago,” the Rabbit huffed indignantly,
hopping away
without even bothering to wait for a
reply.
“But,”
said Alice, running after the Rabbit, trying to catch up, to explain
that she had no idea how she had arrived, let
alone why
she was so late.
“We
accept no ifs and buts, here, you should know that by now,” he
grumbled, as he opened a door which had
appeared as mysteriously
as he. Stepping through, he said, “Hurry up, please don’t
dawdle.”
As she followed
closely behind, trying to keep up with the fast-hopping Rabbit, Alice supposed he must have got out
his bed on
the wrong side, this morning, to be so grumpy on so wonderful a day. And it really was a wonderful morning,
with a warm sun shining brightly down.
‘I
wonder where I might possibly be?’ Alice whisperd Alice, admiring
the pink forget-me-nots
skirting the narrow,
winding path.
“Are we in Wonderland?” she asked, just
as another door, the very same as the
first one, appeared.
Giving Alice
a most peculiar look, the Rabbit huffed, “Of course we are not
in Wonderland.”
Then opening the door, he
said, “We
are on the top of the world.” Without waiting for a reply, he
scurried off, hopping down another
winding path,
also bordered by pink forget-me-nots.
“The
top of the world?” Alice cried out quite in surprise. “Why,
that’s impossible!”
The Rabbit
stopped hopping, and turning to face Alice, he asked, “How can you
be here, then, if it’s impossible?”
Flummoxed
by the Rabbit's question, Alice struggled to find a reply, all that
she was able to think of, was, “I
bet you are
mad!”
“That
all depends,” the Rabbit answered quite matter-of-factly.
“It
depends on what?”
“On
whether you mean mad or mad.”
“That’s
silly,” she replied. “They both mean the very same thing.”
“If
you were mad number one,” said the White Rabbit, with full conviction
of his case,
“and someone told you that you
were mad
number two, I should think you might
be very mad indeed, for them making so fundamental a mistake.”
“But
I’m not mad!” she insisted, getting hot under the collar
at so silly a conversation.
“How
do you know that you aren’t mad?” asked the Rabbit, who
appeared to be enjoying
flummoxing Alice, so. “When
you can’t
tell the difference between mad number
one and mad number two, I might ask?”
“I
just know I’m not mad!” she said, stamping a foot, trying
to drum her point
into to the challenging creature.
Then changing
the subject, from her possible madness or claimed sanity, Alice informed
him that another door had
appeared,
and was awaiting his attention.
Turning round,
the Rabbit took hold of the brass handle and attempted to open
it, but despite his best efforts the
door remained
stubbornly shut.
“Might
I try?” Alice asked, feeling very un-mad.
Standing
away from the door, he said nothing, but his pink beady eyes watched
her intently.
The door
opened easily for Alice, and feeling vindicated, she proclaimed, “Could
a mad
person have done that?”
Without waiting
for a reply, she stepped through the doorway and instantly fell into
a gaping hole on the far side.
“No,
they mightn’t have been able,” the Rabbit replied laughing
as she disappeared
into the dark hole. “But
would they
have fallen down there?” Laughing again, he passing through the
doorway and jumped into
the hole,
following Alice…
After a long
fall in near to total darkness, which reminded Alice of the time she
had fallen down the rabbit hole and into
Wonderland,
the speed of her descent began to slow. In fact it slowed so much it
stopped altogether, and she began
rising.
“I
don’t want to go all the way back up there, even if it is to the
top of the world,” Alice
insisted, staring at the small
speck of
light high above her.
Hearing something
passing her by (she had no idea what it could be, for it was far too dark
inside that place to see
properly),
Alice resisted the upward pull by grabbing it. Jumping onto it, holding
on ever so tightly, she rode - whatever
it happened
to be - out from that dark place and into the light.
Squinting
in the bright light, Alice was quite surprised to see that she was on
a baby hippopotamus' back,
whose skin
was as smooth as silk. She wondered how she had been able to stay upon
it for second let alone
enough time
to escape the dreary, dark place. This thought had barely entered her
mind when
she felt herself
beginning
to fall off the slippery creature, landing with a bump on the hard,
dusty ground
“I
don’t like this place, “she moaned as she got up, brushing
the dust from her lovely
clean dress, “I don’t like it at all.”
“You
don’t like it?” said the baby hippopotamus, in a surprisingly
low voice for such an extreme
animal.“How do you
think I
feel? There’s not a drop of water to be seen
– anywhere. And us hippopotamuses need loads of water!”
Taken aback
by the animal speaking, Alice brushed her dress again, removing the
last vestiges of dust, before
saying,
“Mr
Hippopotamus, I would like to thank you for the ride from out of that
cave, or whatever it happens to
be. And I feel
that I must tell you that it was the most comfortable hippopotamus ride
I have ever
had, in my entire life
(Alice omitted
to tell the hippopotamus that it was in fact the
only hippopotamus ride she had ever had). Thank you
again.”
“My
dear child, I hardly noticed you there at all, so light and small a
girl you are,” said
the baby hippopotamus, obviously
chuffed by
Alice’s kind remarks. “And any time
you feel the need to take a ride from out of that space, please feel
free
to jump
on as I pass you by.”
“Thank
you, thank you so much, I will keep that invitation in my invitation
book,” said
Alice in her most grateful tone of
voice, “and
if I don’t find a need for it, I will treasure it always.”
After that
the hippopotamus returned to the darkness, searching for some water. However,
before he had a chance to
begin, Alice
heard another soft landing (though
it has to be said that it was not as soft a one as hers), and before
she
could say
Jack Robinson, the White Rabbit appeared, sitting back to front on top of
the hippopotamus, riding out into
the daylight.
After the
Rabbit had thanked the baby hippopotamus for the ride (Alice felt that
he was nowhere near as grateful
as she had
been), he scolded Alice for having fallen down the hole, before him.
He said, “If there is to be any hole-
falling done
around here," he warned, "we must first have a vote, to decide
who shall fall through it the first. Is that
clear?”
Alice nodded
her agreement, but secretly harboured a suspicion that the White Rabbit
must be mad number one, and
if not that,
then he most certainly must be mad
number two.
Another winding
path suddenly appeared, but this one, although also bordered by flowers,
was in no way as inviting as
the previous
ones. You see, instead of pink forget-me-nots,
giant aspidistras sporting green snapping mouths atop
lofty stems beckoned
them on.
“Come
on, we have to find our way up,” said the White Rabbit as he brushed
past the
giant aspidistras and their
ferociously
snapping mouths. Alice gasped as the first
plant snapped hungrily at his thick fur, tearing out a large wad
from the Rabbit’s
back. “Come on, we must return to the top of the world,”
he shouted again,
seemingly oblivious to the
dangers posed
by the snapping mouths, and the even
greater dangers they posed to a little girl like Alice.
Having no
intention of admitting she was afraid of some silly old flowers that
the Rabbit obviously thought were
harmless
enough, and having even less intention of asking him for his help, Alice
prepared to pass down the
dangerous
path. By now the White Rabbit was so far ahead, Alice doubted she might
ever catch up with him again.
Beginning,
taking a first tentative step, she closed her eyes and began the long
march down the aspidistra-bordered
path, hoping
she might, just might catch up.
Alice, however
had not finished taking her first step, when one of the snapping mouths
tried to remove
a piece from her
left ear.
A second
mouth, sensing an easy target, began pulling crazily at her long hair,
while a third green mouth tried
to bite off her
nose.
“Now
stop that,” she shouted in her bravest voice to the terribly bad-mannered
plants. “Now stop that or else I shall be
forced to
dig you all up, and replant you with rhubarb,”
she warned.
Like a switch
had been turned, all three mouths immediately stopped biting.
Carefully
inspecting her head, Alice made sure that she had every bit of it still
intact. After she was satisfied that
everything
was as it had previously been, she said,
“Thank you. I can’t ever imagine what has got into you,
to behave so
rudely. Don’t
you know that plants are supposed to be nice – not terrible, awful
things?”
As she studied
the giant plants, with their green beaklike mouths high above her, Alice
thought she heard a
someone crying,
so she asked, “Who is that
crying?”
The plants,
their beak mouths on stalks high above them, began swaying.
“Now
stop that,” Alice ordered, “and please tell me who is that
crying?”
Although
still swaying, one of the nearest beak mouths began speaking. It said,
“She is crying, the little offshoot, close
to my wife
– see.” One of its long leaves pointed to the right of it.
“Your
wife?” Alice asked, surprised that a plant might actually be married.
“Yes,”
the aspidistra replied, swaying all the more. “Can you see them?”
“I
might, if you stopped swaying,” she said. “I am beginning
to feel quite sick from it
all.”
“I
can’t,” the plant explained. “None of us can. When
we are upset, we sway. That’s why
we sway so much in the wind –
because we
don’t like it, because it upsets us, so.”
“Oh,
I am so sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?”
“You
can promise that you won’t dig us up,” a small, weak voice
sobbed.
“Of
course I won’t dig you up,” Alice promised. “I only
said that because of how badly
I felt I was being treated.”
The plants
stopped swaying, allowing Alice to see the child aspidistra tucked lovingly
under its mother’s green leaves.
Showing no
fear for her own safety, disappearing
beneath the huge plants (she now trusted them completely), Alice
made her
way in to the baby plant, beneath its doting mother.
“I
am sorry,” she said, “if I upset you so. Will you please
forgive me?”
“Yes,
I will,” said the baby plant trying to hold back a sob. “We
are sorry, also. We only get
like this when we are so very
hungry…
we are usually happy, with smiling beaks
to cheer up the weary travellers.”
Confused,
Alice asked, “Hungry – how can you be hungry when your roots
can find all
the food you need?”
“Fertiliser!
All plants need fertiliser at some time in their lives,” the baby
aspidistra explained.
“None of us have had any
fertilizer
– for ages. I have never had any. I don’t
even know what it looks like!”
“This
is a most terrible state of affairs,” said Alice, scratching her
head, trying to work
out what could be done to
remedy the
situation. Then raising a finger, she asked,
“Can I go fetch you some?”
If beaks
had been able to smile, every beak skirting that path would have been
smiling radiantly after Alice’s last
question.
They were so excited at the prospect of getting
some fertiliser they began talking furiously amongst
themselves.
In fact, the plants’
conversation became so noisy, Alice could hardly hear herself think,
and in the
end she
just had
to ask them to stop. “Stop, stop talking, please,” she said,
“my ears
are hurting from it all.”
It stopped;
all the excited talking stopped – except for one of the plants,
the mother aspidistra,
who said, “Do you know
where you
can find us some fertiliser?”
“I,
I don’t,” Alice was forced to admit.
Smiling,
Alice thought she saw the beak smiling, when it said, “Go to the
fertiliser mine,
there you will find all the
fertiliser
we need.”
“Where
is this mine?” Alice asked, lifting her hands in puzzlement.
“I
am sorry, I don’t know – none of us plants know where it
is located,” the mother aspidistra
confessed. “All that we
know is that
it surely exists…”
Seeing how
sad the mother plant had now become, Alice said, “I will find
you some
fertiliser – I promise.”
Chapter
Two: The Fertiliser Mine
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