by Lotus Rose
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jabberwocky
“Hidy ho”, he says. He smiles a fanginous grin.
I don’t know if you know, but jabberwocks are quite frightening creatures, two times taller than the average thirteen-year-old girl, with veiny wings and sharp dripping fangs and long razor-sharp claws. Plus a barbed tail to boot. Horrible, nightmarish monsters, they are.
Alice curtsies. “Hello.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Alice.”
“Well, um, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So how would you like to die? Vorpal blade?” He wiggles it in his claw. “Claws?” He crinkles his free claw. “Jaws?” He clacks his teeth together twice. “You know, by the way, that’s a very lovely hat.”
“Oh,” she says flirtatiously. “Fancy a game of poker over it?”
“A game of poker? Why you’re just a little girl.”
She puts the tip of her finger to the side of her mouth. “Yes, just a little bitty girly compared to you. Why, you aren’t gonna kill me are you? It hardly seems fair.”
“Awww.” He sets the blade down. “I was just trying to scare you a little. Really, as long as you don’t try to cross the line of the Eighth Square, we can be nice and friendly.”
“But if I try?”
“I’d have to kill you. It’s my job. You know…” He sighs. “Us jabberwocks have really been given a bad rap, always portrayed as rampaging monsters who go around killing for no reason. It all has to do with that silly poem. But we are really a proud and honorable species. We don’t go around killing innocent creatures.” He makes a creepy funny attempt at a smile. “Or innocent little girls. For no good reason, that is.”
Alice grins at him angelically and looks cute. “I’m innocent. Are you?”
His creepy grin falters some. “Pardon?”
“No pardon, that’s the point. You say you’re honorable, but you’ve never confessed to stealing the tarts. But if you confessed, would you do the honorable thing?”
“Of course. I’d perform seppuku with my own vorpal sword.”
“Hari kari?! So let me get this straight. If I can get you to confess today, you will kill yourself? You wouldn’t just kill me?”
“No. Absolutely not. That would be dishonorable.”
“You wouldn’t wait for your day at trial? They never filed charges right?”
“I wouldn’t wait, because we all know what the verdict’d be. My confession would be irrefutable evidence, for jabberwocks are sooo honorable that they are incapable of lying. And the Queen’s court doesn’t allow ‘hari kari’ as you so inaccurately call it—they’d want to behead me by guillotine. And dying that way would be…dishonorable.”
“Well, if jabberwocks are soooo honorable, well, help me understand. Why would one of them commit the crime of stealing the tarts, hypothetically speaking?”
“Well, hypothetically maybe a jabberwock might have debts and didn’t realize taking the tarts was such a serious offense and thought the tarts were free for the taking. But he should have known better than to think that bitch of a queen could be so generous.”
“I see,” Alice says. “So did you steal the tarts?”
The Jabberwock sighs. “I assert my right to remain silent on that matter.”
She decides to use her newfound skill of lying. Despite the fact that the old version of herself always thought he was a secret sweetheart, she says, “Well I must confess, you certainly seem more pleasant than I imagined. I always see you at my unbirthday parties, but I’ve always been intimidated by you and your blade.”
“Oh, I’m not so bad, am I?”
“Well you’re not like the others. You always stand back. Never participate.”
“Oh I like to watch them torment you. They come up with such creative ways!”
“Isn’t that dishonorable?”
“Hey, as long as I’m not the one doing it, what’s the harm?” He shrugs.
Alice shrugs too, now grins. “Okay, one last question before we get down to playing cards. Why do you guard the Eighth Square?”
“Well no one in Wonderland wants you to escape or become a queen. That would ruin all the fun. So I guard it to keep you out.”
“Become a queen?”
“Yes, if you ever were to enter an eighth square, you’d become a queen. Hey, you know, I think I’d really like a game of poker right now.”
Alice nods, reaches into her dress for the pack of cards. “Shall we play?”
“Oh, let’s! I do so love playing cards!”
Alice sits cross-legged in the grass and begins to shuffle. She hopes she is dealt the Thirteen of Heartless, but she doesn’t know how to cheat, so she just shuffles the way she normally would. She remembers the Thirteen of Heartless saying something about how he could show up in a deck anywhere he wanted to.
Let’s hope so.
The Jabberwock sets his blade down and mimics sitting cross-legged in front of her.
She can’t help but giggle and make a mocking wriggle at him. “Why, you look so dainty sitting that way!”
Alice doesn’t know if jabberwocks can blush, but she thinks he almost does. He says, “Well, anything for a bit of a game.”
Something occurs as she shuffles. “You know, I heard that when one commits hari kari, there is someone with a sword who beheads them right after they slice their tummy. Is that true?”
“Yes, they’re called the ‘second’. They do it to relieve the suffering, because the pain can be excruciating.”
“My, that’s a big word! But isn’t it cheating?”
The Jabberwock looks outraged and offended. “It most definitely is not! It is completely honorable. Why, a jabberwock would never cheat! Why cheating is…why it’s a terrible thing to do! I’m offended you should even think that!”
“Okay, okay. Sorry! Let’s play shall we? Put the pot in.” She sets her hat on the ground between them. “What you got?”
The Jabberwock digs in a pouch on a strap at his side. “Three, four, five gold coins? Is that satisfactory?”
Alice nods, then the Jabberwock adds it to the pot.
Alice says, “Now, cut the deck.” She holds the deck out to him. “I’m sorry that the cards are so small compared to your, you know, humongous razor sharp claws.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m quite dexterous. It’s just my eyes that are the problem. You’ll see when you get my age.”
“You use big words.” (She really doesn’t think the words are that big, but she’s practicing her deception skills.)
Amazingly, he manages to use the tips of his claws to cut the deck.
As she deals five cards to each of them, Alice makes small talk. “So, if I crossed the line to the Eighth Square, would you enjoy killing me?”
“Oh, very much so. Little girls have so much red inside of them. You don’t notice until you bring it out of them.”
“Ah, I never really thought about it that way.”
“That’s because you’re a prissy, innocent little girl.” He takes the five cards in his claws. The cards are rather tiny in comparison to his claws. It’s amazing that he can manage to hold them so well. “Hold on a second.” He rummages again in his pouch, brings out a pair of spectacles and puts them on. “It’s the eyes that are the problem, you see.”
Alice nods supportively.
She looks at her own hand. She has four jokers and the Ace of Spades. There isn’t a Thirteen of Heartless, which is what she wants, so she turns in four cards, so she’ll get four back.
The Jabberwock turns in zero cards. She peers at him, but his poker face is inscrutable. Despite the fact it doesn’t help her game, she likes his poker face, because it doesn’t reveal his scary fangs.
Alice looks at the four cards she’s been dealt back. The Thirteen of Heartless is amongst them, the others are two jokers and the Ace of Spades. So it turns out the Thirteen of Heartless is capable of cheating after all, not that she minds.
She shouts, “I have the Thirteen o
f Heartless! That means you have to fold and confess!”
She isn’t sure what’s supposed to happen next, but what does happen is that the Thirteen of Heartless begins to glow.
In a dazed voice, the Jabberwock says, “I fold. I had five jokers. But what’s this about confessing?”
As she gathers the cards up, she says, “Yes, is there something you’d like to tell me?”
A look of exquisite perturbation comes over the Jabberwock’s face. He tries to fight it for several more seconds, but finally he blurts, “Okay, I stole the Queen’s tarts, okay? I confess!”
With a condescending pout, Alice says, “Well, you know what happens now. You must do the honorable thing.”
“Yes,” he says. He bows his head. He scooches his glasses up, now picks up the vorpal blade.
Does he not realize he doesn’t need the glasses anymore? Perhaps I should tell him, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to break his momentum. She slips the deck into her pocket.
The Jabberwock meanwhile kneels in the grass, with the vorpal blade laid out in front of him. Alice stands in front of him, watching the ceremony with a big grin on her face.
The Jabberwock begins to recite his poem.
The Jabberwocky code has made,
Us conduct ourselves with honor.
We live and die by our own blade,
So soon, I shall be a goner.
I kneel today in loathsome shame.
I’m fully confessing my crime.
And for this dishonour to my name,
It’s hari kari time.
The Jabberwocky creed, it is firm,
Every sentence the same, there’s just one:
To wriggle my guts like a worm,
For soon with my blade they’ll be spun!
I stole the tarts, it now is clear,
Beyond any and all disavowal.
So with my vorpal blade, I fear,
It’s time to disembowel!
One two! One two! Now a fatal boo boo,
By my own vorpal blade has been done!
And now with a stir that’s so fast it’s a blur.
Ow, see how my entrails are spun!
I feel so much pain as I’m dying,
I ask of you, behead me please!
I see now that you are not crying,
But I beg of you here on my knees!
Delicately, the Jabberwock transfers the sword by its bloody handle to Alice. It is dripping all over red.
Now Alice decides to make up some poetry, recalling the old Jabberwocky poem and mimicking a stanza.
“And will I slay the Jabberwock?
Death by my hands, a coocoolicious girl!
O frabjuous day! Callooh! Callay!
I chortle as I whirl!”
Alice spins in order to give force to her blow. The Jabberwock is upright, exposing his neck for her. When she whirls completely back around, blade out, there is no one two—there is only one, as the vorpal blade slices cleanly through the Jabberwock’s neck. His head flings off to the side and the neck stump gushes with blood.
Alice is quite satisfied with herself. She is after all, not a skilled swordsman. She watches the body twitch until it is still. She looks to the Jabberwock’s head—its eyes are still open, but staring dead.
She throws the blade to the ground, then inspects her hands, covered in blood.
“Ooh icky!” she proclaims with wrinkled nose.
She does her best to clean her hands, puts the hat back on.
She hears a crunching sound and looks down to see that she has stepped on the Jabberwock’s glasses. “Oopsy! You’ll have to schedule an appointment with the optimist or you shan’t be able to read!”
She looks over at the Jabberwock’s head.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. If you didn’t want them stepped on, you shouldn’t have left them lying about.”
The Jabberwock doesn’t respond.
Alice walks toward the outer edge of the Eight Square. Just before she enters, she tries again, saying, “Shadow? Shadow are you there?” But the shadow doesn’t appear. She shrugs, then steps over.