There once was a cat. Even though he was much like all the other cats in that he liked to spend his days in the fields chasing mice and frolicking in the flowers; this was no ordinary cat. The cat loved being in nature. There were some cats that liked being indoors. They would spend a bit of time outside, but were happy to know that they had a meal and a safe, warm place to sleep at the end of each day. This cat was not very similar to those cats. He liked rolling in the grass and getting stickers stuck in his brown, striped fur. His yellow eyes liked seeing the sky directly above him at all hours of the day. He liked his freedom and not knowing what each day would bring him. The other animals were fond of the cat and his carefree ways. He was always cordial to them and did not make too much of a ruckus, even though he was quite mischievous and liked to have his fun.
Now, I mentioned that this was no ordinary cat. In fact, even though the other animals liked him and found him amusing, they often teased him because he was so unlike other, not just cats, but animals in general. He was so much… like a human, and if there was anything animals found humorous, it was another animal that thought it was people. It was a long a time before the cat, even knew what a human was. He was so content in the fields that he never gave the great stone buildings in the local town much thought. It was not until he was particularly bored one day that he finally wandered into the town to see what it was all about.
From the moment the cat discovered what humans were, he was fascinated by them and learned all he could about them through observation. Even though the other animals made fun of him for it, the cat liked being compared to the humans. Humans were one of the most privileged creatures to grace the animal kingdom. They only need two legs upon which to stand. Their brains evolve at exponential rates and they have opposable thumbs, for heaven’s sake. They have complex emotions and the ability to communicate their deepest thoughts, if they so choose, with words or even just a singular look on their face. Humans are amazing. And yet, the cat found that most amazing thing about them is that most did not seem to realize just how amazing they were.
Because of the fact that this particular feline had such a strong admiration and understanding of homo-sapiens, he could read them a lot better than other animals could. He could tell what kind of people it was okay to be around and which others it was not. It was this sense of attraction to nice humans and repulsion from not so nice ones that drew his attention to Annie.
Annie was something special. She was that little girl on your street that would always pick flowers and give them to you when you passed by her. She would draw with chalk on the sidewalks and ask if you liked the colors she used. She would hum in her singsong voice while skipping across the yards and run to your side to pick up something that you may not have realized you dropped. Annie was the sweetest thing the cat had ever seen; and he had babysat ducklings. He had tasted honeysuckle nectar spiked with morning dew and he knew Annie was still sweeter. The cat found himself going into the town more and more often just to see Annie. And the more he watched her, the more he liked her. Her short, blonde hair and true-blue eyes that did not always match the clothes she wore; but they did always match the ribbon in her hair.
The cat nodded to himself as he watched her one day. He knew that she was the greatest treasure he would ever find in his current or other fabled lives. He knew he loved her before he had even approached her. At first, he would only walk by the dear child; brush against her legs and off he would run. He did not want to seem too anxious. Children were a lot more perceptive to the feelings of animals than adults were and he did not want to scare her with a nervous twitch of his whiskers and an unintentional flash of fangs. Once she had become accustomed to seeing the cat, he would actually stick around and let the little girl stroke his back. When he was sure she was just as enamored with him as he was with her, he would start following her about.
“Kitty-Puss,” she would purr to him.
Never had two such simple words rang so dearly in his pointed ears. He would make a game of how many times a day he could get her to say them. Annie would sing to and converse with him as if he provided answers to her silly questions. You would think he had told her that the sound of running water in a brook was his favorite sound or that roses were his favorite smell when she asked. She asked every frivolous question a child could think of, but there was one he waited ever so patiently to hear and he had to wait almost an entire week before he would get to hear it.
“Kitty-Puss,” Annie said one warm, spring afternoon. “Do you have a home?”
He never thought he would ever want to be one of those indoor cats until he met Annie. Once he started spending time with her he knew that he wanted to spend all of his time with her. The cat had never been so happy until she asked the question he had been longing to hear. He looked up at the girl and gave his head the slightest of shakes, hoping that it would not be too obvious that he understood her but obvious enough that the answer was ‘no.’ Thankfully, Annie was still very young and did not completely understand that an animal just answered a question she directly asked it. As she saw his head shake, she shrieked with joy, gathered him in her arms, and ran into her home with him.
It took a while for Annie’s parents to consider keeping the cat. They thought she was still too young to have a pet, but oh how she cried on the animal’s behalf. Through her big tears and hysterical hyperventilation, she promised that she would take good care of the cat and love him forever. Hearing the hiccupped words out of her tiny mouth made the cat so happy. He really did not care if the adults ended up saying no. He would just be content to be with the little girl outside if that was the only way he could be near her. However, Annie’s parents finally consented, and he became the official house pet.
The cat was still a relatively young feline, but he never before had humans or a place he could call home. Living with Annie and being able to spend as much time with her as he desired were the best days of the cat’s life.
“Kitty-Puss, are you hungry?” She would say to him. “Kitty-Puss, are you sleepy?”
The months rolled by and Annie was starting to grow. She began going to school during the day, but she would still rush home every afternoon and snuggle the cat she loved so much.
***
One year passed. Though the cat was the happiest cat in the world, he had a strange sensation in his whiskers. The nerves under them kept twitching which would make the sides of his mouth pinch. It was not a very comfortable feeling at all. He tried to take stock of things and notice if anything was different. For the most part, everything seemed completely normal, so he did not give his whiskers another thought. That was one terrible mistake. What the cat did not know was that he was looking for too obvious of changes in his family’s daily life, not the small, seemingly trivial ones.
Annie’s father had to go into work earlier than usual for the past couple of days. He started pressing his shirt at night so that all he had to do was put it on and be off in the morning. Her father had not realized that her mother had recently purchased a new iron and it did not have an automatic shut-off as the last one did. Instead, it had a power-saver feature and would just put it to ‘sleep’ by lowering in temperature while it was not in use.
Had the cat paid more attention to his clever whiskers, he would have realized that they only twitched when he was around the ironing board. He, unknowingly, could sense the slightly heightened temperature in that one area of the room. It was such a shame that the cat did not put those facts together, for it would have saved him from the heartache that was to follow.
One night, after Annie’s father had finished pressing his shirt, he left it draped over the ironing board and did not properly turn off the iron as he had not been doing for days. What was different about that night was another one of those vague oddities that sometimes just seem to make life a little too interesting. He had taken his shoes off when he started ironing and left them on the floor behind him. When he turned around to join Annie’s mother for bed, he tripped over one of his shoes, nudging the ironing board as he caught his balance before he fell to the ground. He was so preoccupied with not falling that he did not hear the iron fall from its upright position and land plate-down on top of his freshly pressed shirt. As soon as he was steadily back on his feet, he simply picked up his shoes, turned off the light and went to bed.
Having been moved from its previous position, the iron’s heat increased from its power-saving setting and started to burn through the shirt on which it had fallen. Everyone in the house was so tired from the busy day that they did not notice when the shirt caught fire; which caught the ironing board on fire; which then caught the nearby bookshelf on fire. Soon enough, the whole room was ablaze as the cat’s family continued to sleep.
The cat’s twitching whiskers pulled the sides of his mouth up uncomfortably, awakening him to a room filled with smoke. He jumped to his paws and tried to wake Annie as best he could but was unsuccessful. He ran to her parents’ room and upon entering was relieved to see they had just become aware of the situation at hand. Annie’s mother picked up the cat as she and her husband ran out of their room and into Annie’s. Her father quickly snatched the little girl out of bed and they all ran for the front door.
Once outside, they were met with the sirens and flashing lights of the local fire department coming down the street, bringing their neighbors out of their homes. After looking around at the nightmarish scene, the cat realized that both adults were intently focused on their daughter who, even among the oncoming commotion, still did not wake from her slumber. When the paramedics finally made it to the family, they examined the child as they laid her on a bed with wheels. One tried to force air into her polluted lungs and compressed her chest. A silence unlike the cat had ever heard filled his ears when they stopped attempting to bring back rhythm into her tiny heart. His whiskers drooped when he realized that her too young lungs would never again breathe fresh air. His tail stopped swaying when he realized that her tiny fingers would never grasp another rose.
Her mother dropped the cat when her hands flew to her face and she collapsed onto her daughter in tears, cradling her lifeless body. No one noticed the cat hang his head and back away from the weeping family. He slowly walked back into the burning house, not wanting to see a world without her in it. Even through the blackness and heat he found his way back to her bed. He curled under the blankets and only had one wish when he closed his eyes; to never leave the last place she occupied. He wished his hardest to be nothing if he could not remain a part of her. He imagined that it was her arms and warm embrace engulfing him. His twitching whiskers tried to wiggle away from the flames that consumed the only home he had ever known.
***
The cat woke to the sound of humming… or singing… it was too faint to really tell. He opened his eyes and looked around him. There was no one. He was alone in a field of grass with a patch of flowers not too far away. He got to his feet and found that his beautiful, brown, striped coat was gone. All he found was badly burned skin.
“Dear Kitty, what has happen to you?”
The cat looked up to find a very large, not at all attractive woman holding tightly onto a squirming pig. She was looking down at him so there was no question that it was he whom she was addressing. The cat simply stared back at her. She started to become quite inpatient.
“Come now,” she said softly, then all but screamed the last word, “SPEAK!”
The cat was startled by her sudden outburst.
She noticed his anxiety and continued in a softer voice, “Please tell me how you came to be in the state you are. I know you can.”
In an effort to keep the large lady from shouting again, words tumbled out of the cat’s mouth.
“I am not sure,” he said.
The cat was surprised to find that she was right; he could speak. He could not think of how he had gotten to that place, let alone in such a state, and for some absurd reason he assumed he could not speak. He did not have any trouble thinking of words to say in his head and they formed rather easily in his mouth as well.
The ugly lady smiled at him. As true as he knew his words were, he could tell she did not believe him one bit.
“You must be from Cheshire,” she said.
The cat gave her a puzzled look. He could tell that he had not previously had very many conversations and if topics took such turns on a regular basis, he imagined he would not have very many in the future. The woman’s face scrunched at the confused look on the cat’s face, but was able to keep her raising temper at bay.
“Only cats from Cheshire smile the way you do,” she clarified, with an impatient sigh. “What with all that cream to drink from the dairy farms and all those fat mice to chase away from the cheeses.”
“I am not sure where I was before I was here,” the cat said. “But I think I had a mind… and that I was loved.”
He sat on his hind legs and felt his face with his front paws. His lips and cheeks had somehow melted into the rest of his face; fusing into what he was sure was a very disturbing smile around his bared teeth.
“What do you want a mind for?” she asked with an intolerant wave of her fat hand. “They are so easily lost.”
The cat eyed her. There was no doubt in his mind that she knew all too well of what she was speaking.
“We should do something about that bare skin,” she said, changing the subject again.
She walked toward the line of trees just to the side of the open field.
“It gets cold around these parts,” she continued. “If you would like my help, just follow me.”
He sat where he was, unsure that he wanted the help of such a person.
“COME CAT!” she shouted over her shoulder before entering the trees.
He looked around knowing he had no other place to go. So he followed her.
***
They walked down a path that wound through the forest. There were breaks in the trees that made the cat wonder why the path did not stay straight when it could. It actually went out of its way to go around trees. Although the cat could not remember a thing about where he had come, he was certain he had never seen such flora and wildlife as he was seeing on their walk. There was a flock of small, miserable looking, featherless birds and a bug that was shaped like a horse but had its hooves attached to long branches.
“I really shouldn’t be helping you,” the lady said, distracting the cat from wondering not only why he saw a loaf of bread on a nearby tree, but also why he thought it moved. “To give help is against our rules, but you aren’t a very pleasant sight to see. We should do something about that before people stare.”
Right after she said the words the cat promptly turned invisible.
“There, that’s better,” she said, inspecting her work.
“Are you a witch?” the cat asked, watching the ground below him move under his invisible feet.
“Heavens, no,” she said. “I am but a humble Duchess. I just happen to know a few things about magic. We all do.”
Magic… the cat thought. He was sure he had heard the word before. He was able to make a connection between the marvelous thing she had just done and the possibility of her being a witch so he seemed to have a vague idea of what the word meant… The ability to make the impossible possible? He nodded to himself. That seemed to about sum up the whole thing.
The cat came to an abrupt stop when a very large dormouse crossed in front of them as he strolled down an adjoining path. The dormouse stopped as well and looked in the general direction of the invisible cat. His nose twitched in the air most obviously confused by what he could smell but could not see standing next to the Duchess.
“CAT!” he yelled in distress and ran like a shot down the crossing path.
“I hate that rodent,” the Duchess spat and continued walking. “He and his friends are always making such a ruckus. You’re lucky you ran into me and not one of those fools. The March Hare,” she pointed down the side of the path the dormouse had just run down, “and the Hatter,” she jerked her head in the direction he had previously come, “are both absolutely mad.”
“What happened to make them so angry?” the cat asked.
“No, no, no,” the Duchess shook her head in frustration. “Not mad in the sense that they’re irate, mad in that they are both senseless lunatics.”
The cat shook his head; one word that had two completely, unrelated meanings. As it turned out, the English language was quite mad itself. A loud squeal dragged his attention back to the Duchess where he watched her try to keep control of the squirming animal in her arms.
“How do you know they are?” he asked once it seemed the pig had calmed.
The Duchess’ face broke into a smile that made her look even uglier.
“We all are,” she said, “you included.”
Strange, the cat thought. From what he could tell he still had complete stock of his senses.
They came upon a cottage which the Duchess promptly entered. The moment they were inside, a saltshaker flew at them and hit her squarely in the forehead. She turned her attention to a very thin, old looking man standing over a stove while stirring a pot full of soup. He turned his attention back to the stew and paid no more attention to them. The cat looked at the Duchess in confusion as she placed the pig in a small carriage. The cat could not pinpoint exactly why, but it was starting to look very strange.
“Now,” she said, “let’s do something about covering up that skin.”
A nearby drawer opened on its own and spools of soft ribbon floated out of it. The cat watched as the ribbons tinted with hints of light and dark purples began wrapping around his tail. They continued to do so around his body and legs, not stopping until he was covered to the very tip of his nose.
“That’s much better,” the Duchess said. But then she frowned. “I do miss that smile of yours, though.”
The cat had noticed that the ribbons had somehow made him able to move his mouth and no longer had the grotesque smile on his face. As much as the cat liked his new coat of ribbons, he was not very happy so cracked the smallest of grins across his face for her. The Duchess’ frown only deepened.
“That is not a smile,” she said. “There is a very big difference between a smile and a grin.”
The cat could tell that she was very angry. The words she spoke barely escaped as a hiss through her clenched teeth, but he simply could not bring himself to give her a pure smile. Her frustration made her turn quite red in the face.
“Fine, I suppose it’ll have to do,” she said bending towards him.
He recoiled from her grasp, but his new coat of “fur” was very stiff and he was not quite quick enough. The Duchess grabbed and held him tightly to her in one arm. With her free hand, she pinned two very sharp objects into the cat’s cheeks. This surprised the cat so much that he let the muscles in his face relax, but he still felt the grin on his face. The Duchess laughed absurdly at the look of shock on the cat’s face when his grin stayed put. She turned to pick up the pig out of the carriage and he sprinted for the open door. Before he was able to make it outside, the Duchess sprang in front of him and slammed the door shut.
“You’re not going anywhere, Kitty.”
She snarled the sentence in such a way that she almost sounded possessed. A sound that made even the pig tremble with fear and cry in her arms. The cat looked at it, thinking it was strange that a pig could cry. He then realized it had turned into a baby. The baby was almost as ugly as the Duchess.
The cat sat on the other side of the stove, intending to wait for his next chance to escape. The cook became so distracted with the crying baby that he was absent-mindedly over-peppering the soup. So much so that puffs of pepper clouds started drifting around the cottage making the Duchess and baby sneeze. This made the Duchess very mad and she started yelling at the cook from the chair in which she sat with the crying, sneezing baby. The cook threw a ladle at her and hit her on the side of the head. The cat shook his head and wondered how he was going to be able to plan his escape with so much noise.
***
The cat looked at the door again. It felt like he had been staring at it for hours, trying to figure out how to get out of the cottage and away from the Duchess. He knew his new coat was not the most conspicuous thing in the world so that was a problem. He stared intently at his tail, trying to tap into any magic he may have had inside of him. Anything would help, really. Perhaps he could get the fur to change to a more normal color. Instead of changing color, the striped tail disappeared from right in front of his eyes.
The cat was astounded. He was so surprised that his concentration was broken and the tail reappeared again. He looked at the Duchess to make sure she was still preoccupied with either the baby or the cook. When he saw that she was thoroughly distracted by both he turned his attention back to his tail. It took a remarkably little amount of time for him to figure out how to make it disappear again. Once he got the disappearance of this tail down, he focused on his legs and stopped when they were all that could not be seen. He turned his attention to the next section of his body and slowly made his way across its entirety. He worked until he could not see any of himself anymore.
He stopped concentrating and his body became visible once more. He looked at his reflection in a nearby pot and focused on his head only. He made his ears disappear and then his cheeks, followed by his eyes and nose until all that was left was his teeth. He excitedly made his whole body disappear again. The cat was so engrossed with his new ability that he did not notice the Duchess’ yelling had stopped. The silence had become quite noticeable and he glanced in her direction. He jumped and reappeared when he saw that she was watching him intently.
“I can still see you and that horrible skin,” she said, with quite a terrible smile. “Don’t forget who gave you that new coat.”
The baby shrieked again. He could only guess it was because it was just as disturbed by the Duchess’ increasingly grotesque smile. The Duchess walked to the door with the baby in one arm.
“I could just take it away and leave you to fend for yourself out there,” she said, opening the door with her free hand.
The Cook took that moment to grab a plate from the shelf and throw it at her. It sailed inches away from her head and out the door, crashing somewhere in the distance. Unfazed, she closed the door again.
“But that would just be cruel,” she decided. She walked to her stool and sat down with the shrieking child. “PIG, STOP CRYING!” she shouted at it.
The baby sneezed and whimpered a bit more.
“It’s a shame it was I you ran into and not the queen,” the Duchess said. “She’s the only one that can give you what you truly desire. This is her world after all.”
At that moment the door opened and a little girl suddenly appeared. The cat completely forgot what he was about to do the moment he saw her in the doorway. A strange sense of foreboding flooded over him when he looked at her; not at all in a bad way. Looking at her was a bit like he had found something he did not know he had lost. It was somewhat of a comforting feeling.
It was obvious she was not entirely sure she was allowed to just walk into the cottage. The cat would have thought it odd for a stranger to enter someone’s home without being invited, but the Duchess gave a slight wave of the hand as if it was a completely normal occurrence. He was an animal entirely void of what was proper etiquette, so what did he know? He watched the girl look around the room, taking in every small detail. He was pleased when her wandering eyes stopped once they came upon him.
“Please, would you tell me,” the girl said shyly, “why your cat grins like that?”
“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!”
The girl was stunned by the Duchess’ last outburst, but then realized she was not the one being addressed. The Duchess was looking intently at the baby she was holding.
“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned,” the girl said. “In fact I didn’t know that cats could grin.”
“They all can,” said the Duchess, “and most of ‘em do.”
“I don’t know of any that do,” the girl said politely.
“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess, “and that’s a fact.”
The girl pouted her lip at the rude comment and searched her mind for a change of subject. She did not have to wait very long until the Cook started throwing things again. She looked utterly shocked to see various objects fly across the room, hitting the Duchess and the baby.
“Oh, please mind what you’re doing!” she cried. A large pan skimmed the baby and very nearly flew off with it. “Oh, there goes his precious nose!”
The cat watched the girl as she fussed about the Duchess, who looked utterly unamused by the guest. There was something he liked very much about her. Her long, blonde hair and blue eyes that matched perfectly with her blue dress. She reminded him of someone, but he could not quite put his claw on whom. It almost felt like he had met her in a dream… or perhaps another life. His grin broadened when the girl seemed to forget about him and his odd face to instead worry about the wellbeing of poor Pig.
She is kind, he thought. As far as he could tell, kindness was not something one came across often in that peculiar place. He was certain that more people like her were needed and that she would probably like to come across other nice people rather than encountering nothing but rude people. Judging from the only two people he had met, rude people seemed to be all that place contained.
He watched the girl walk out of the cottage with Pig after the Duchess handed him to her so she could dress for a croquet match she had apparently been invited to. It appeared that he was no longer a concern of the Duchess’ so he followed the girl out of the cottage and down the path he had previously walked with the Duchess. The moment he breathed the non-magical air outside, calm flooded over him. He realized how much stress he was feeling while being around the Duchess only when it was suddenly gone. That was not all that was gone, the pins in his cheeks dissolved as well. He moved and stretched his jaw. He was relieved that he could finally relax his mouth, however, every time he looked at the girl the grin would return.
His grin broadened as he followed her, knowing what was going to happen to Pig now that he too was breathing the Duchess-less air. It was not long before he heard the girl give a yell. He assumed Pig had turned back into… well, a pig. He darted ahead to see if he was correct and climbed a tree to make sure he was well out of the way of the whole situation. After her initial shock the girl crouched down to free the animal. Pig ran back into the forest as quickly as his small feet would carry him. She took a breath to calm her nerves and continued walking in the direction the cat was sitting.
“…if only one knew the right way to change them—” she muttered to herself just before she noticed the cat.
He stared at her through his grinning eyes as she cautiously advanced toward him.
“Cheshire Puss…” she addressed him.
An unexpected sense of comfort wrapped around him when the words rang in his ears. He was not sure why, yet he could not help but grin a little wider. That seemed to make her a bit more comfortable and she step closer.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
The cat relinquished his grin a bit. Should he help her? The Duchess had mentioned that it was against the rules, but he was not at all sure whose rules they were against. He thought it over and eyed the child again. She was just so kind that he could barely stand it. And there was still that something he liked very much about her. He wondered if he would be able to find the words to help her without really helping her.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” he said.
The girl looked taken aback that the cat actually answered her, but she very much appreciated what help she could get, “I don’t much care where—” she started.
The cat sighed in relief at what seemed to be an easily dealt with remark, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
“—so long as I get somewhere,” she added.
“Oh you’re sure to do that if only you walk long enough,” the cat said, still trying to avoid direct answers.
She pursed her lips as she seemed to think things over and then asked, “What sort of people live about here?”
The cat grinned again at how smart the girl was. It could not hurt to answer that question. The Duchess had provided him with the information willingly enough.
He picked up his right paw to vaguely refer to a path on that side of him, “In that direction lives a Hatter,” he said with a bit of a wave. He put it down and picked up his left paw to indicate the opposite path. “And in that direction lives a March Hare.” He put his paw down and looked down at the girl, “Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
Her eyes widened at the last remark, “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” she said.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
She stared at him questioningly, “How do you know that I’m mad?”
The cat was surprised by the question, “You must be,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”
She did not look satisfied with the cat’s answer, “How do you know you’re mad?”
The cat thought about the question. All he had to go on where his own madness was concerned was the fact that the Duchess told him he was. He decided it would not be a good idea to go against what he had already said.
“To begin with,” he said, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”
“I suppose so,” she said.
“Well then you see, a dog growls when it’s angry and wags its tail when it’s pleased.”
The girl nodded.
“Now, I growl when I’m pleased and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad,” the cat concluded.
“I call it purring not growling,” the girl said, seeming to get frustrated by the cat’s answers.
“Call it what you like,” the cat said, refusing to back down.
The slightest smile curled the sides of the girl’s mouth. The cat wondered if he was saying too much. It was probably best to change the subject. He watched her smile, her pretty smile and decided that he very much wanted to get her home. If the Duchess was correct in what she had said earlier, then the only way to do that was to get her to the Queen.
“Do you play croquet with the queen today?” he asked.
“I should like it very much, but I haven’t been invited,” she said.
The cat thought it a big enough hint as to where she should go next and thought he had said enough, “You’ll see me there,” he said and made himself disappear.
The girl did not move from her spot. He was a bit alarmed; surely she could pick up such a big hint. He did not want to seem too anxious to get her moving so he reappeared casually.
“Bye-the-by, what became of the baby?”
“It turned into a pig,” she said.
“I thought it would,” he said and disappeared once more.
Again, she did not look impressed. He watched her look at the two paths and think over which way to go. He had to admit that he was not entirely sure either. He wondered if she thought that he would keep reappearing. It seemed somewhat pertinent that she really start moving along.
He reappeared and she looked at him, unscathed. He knew he certainly could not just tell her where to go.
“Did you say pig or fig?” he asked.
“I said pig,” she said. “And I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the cat. He made himself disappear much more slowly, starting from the tip of his tail. His meeting her demands did not seem to amuse her so he thought he ought to be somewhat creepy about it. When he was almost completely gone, he finished by leaving his grin as the only part of him visible.
“Well, I’ve often see a cat without a grin,” she said, “but a grin without a cat… It’s the most curious thing I’ve ever seen in all my life!” She started walking away from the tree, still keeping an eye on the cat-less grin for as long as she could see it.
The cat was glad as the girl finally edged away from him. He made his grin disappear and followed her until she made it to the March Hare’s house. He thought it smart to wait outside. There seemed to be festivities going on and he felt he should stay away in case the dormouse gave him away again. The cat looked around and saw something shining on a nearby tree. He grinned and climbed the tree to wait, hoping the girl was as observant as he prayed she was.
A while later the girl emerged from the house quite irate. The cat could only imagine what had happened to put her in such a mood.
“It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!” she said to herself.
Although she was in such a temperament, she still stopped to take a look around, which pleased the cat. She almost immediately noticed the tree he was sitting on and walked closer to get a better look, which made him even happier. It did not take her long to decide what she wanted to do. He jumped off the tree when she took hold of the knob and he followed her through a door that led right into the trunk of the tree.
***
The girl seemed to know exactly where she was. The door led into a room with a glass table in the middle of it and a small door just on the other side.
“Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself.
She very quickly took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. The cat watched as she took something else out and nibbled on it. He did not know what he was expecting to happen next, but shrinking until she was only a foot high was not it.
She walked through the door on the other side of the room and down a passage, unaware of the travel companion following her. The cat could not guess where the passage was going to lead them, but only had to wonder for a little while longer until they walked through a day-lit hole at the end and into a garden. Not too far away from where they entered the garden were three playing cards painting the white roses of a tree with red paint. The girl walked towards them.
The cat was starting to become very concerned that they were going to miss the croquet game. While she was occupied with the rose-painting cards he darted around the some-red-some-white-rosed hedges looking for any indication that the match was taking place. He ran for what seemed like a very long time, but no matter how quickly he sprinted the rose-lined path was never ending. He stopped to take a breath and look around him. Everything looked the same as where he had started. If he had to guess how far he had gone, he could have easily guessed nowhere at all. Once he had caught his breath, he ran a little more and still did not see a change in the scenery.
It was then that he heard the procession. It certainly was not coming from in front of him so he turned around and started to head back to where he had started. He was going at a much slower pace than before and still in no time at all he rounded a corner and there was the little girl. Though, now there was also a lot more people with her other than the cards he had left with her. The fact that he did, indeed, basically go nowhere would have been more of a concern to him if there was not so much shouting.
“Are their heads off?” a woman in quite an extravagant outfit all but screamed.
“Their heads are gone, if it please your majesty,” someone said.
The cat jolted to a stop. He did not see any unattached heads; a fact that brought the cat great relief.
“That’s right!” the woman shouted again. “Can you play croquet?”
From the quite drastic subject change he now assumed that he was looking upon the famed Queen. Everyone turned their attention to the girl so he looked at her too.
“Yes!” she shouted in answer to the question that must have been directed to her.
“Come on then!” the Queen roared as the procession continued down the rose-tree lined path.
The cat watched the girl join the rest of the Queen’s party wondering how they could be so lucky. From what he could tell everything seemed to be running precisely to the girl’s timing. He cautiously looked around the crowd hoping not to see the Duchess anywhere near them. He knew she was the only threat to his cover. He was surprised and pleased to see that she was nowhere near them. He walked at the back of the parade somehow aware that the girl would have to be the one to lead the way to wherever it was they were going.
They entered a large field after a short march down the path and proceeded to set up and play a most unusual form of croquet. The girl was obviously getting nervous as the Queen sentenced most of the players to a beheading within the first round of the game. She, however, was doing bizarrely well considering the unfairness of it all. It was at that moment that he realized just how wrong the Duchess was. He looked around at his surroundings and noticed how much like a child’s drawing everything looked. It was not the Queen’s world. If his observations were correct, the girl was winning the croquet match. Everyone was paying too much attention to the Queen’s nonsensical demands to notice that small fact. It was the girl that everything seemed to unnoticeably be going according to. He watched her use a strange bird’s head to knock a furry animal through arches made by the queen’s soldiers. It was, undoubtedly, her world. She just had to realize it.
That, now trademark, grin spread over his face again as he made his way toward the girl to have a little talk with her. The girl looked at him when he made his grin visible and she smiled with a sigh of relief.
“How are you getting on?” he asked casually, making more of himself visible. He hoped not to draw too much attention and stopped appearing when only his entire head could be seen.
“I don’t think they play at all fair…” the girl said.
He glanced around trying to figure out what to do next while she chatted. He noticed the Queen walking toward them.
“How do you like the queen?” he said.
“Not at all,” the girl stated in a huff. “She’s so extremely—” she paused when she too noticed her advancing on them.
A voice came from behind them, “Who are you talking to?”
The cat and the girl turned around in surprise to find a very tall man with a mustache addressing them. He had on just as outrageous of clothes as the Queen as well as a crown on his large head so the cat assumed he was the King.
“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” the girl said. “Allow me to introduce it.”
The cat grinned at the King.
“I don’t like the look of it at all,” he said, “however it may kiss my hand if it likes.”
The cat decided to take what it could get and grinned in a more malicious fashion, “I’d rather not,” he said.
“Don’t be impertinent!” said the King. “And don’t look at me like that!” he added, stepping behind the girl.
The cat wondered if the King truly believed such a small child could protect him if there was a reason for it.
The girl smiled at the cat, “A cat may look at a king,” she said, “I’ve read that in a book, but I don’t remember where.”
“Well it must be removed!” said the King. “My dear! I wish you to have this cat removed!” he called to the Queen as she passed by.
“Off with his head!” she cried without so much as glancing at the cat.
“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” the King said before he hurried away.
The girl decided to catch up on the game’s standings before she too was sentenced to death. Quite a few more players were missing for their turn. Just as she had walked away to try and fetch her flamingo-mallet (which was trying very hard to fly up a tree) the King returned with the executioner and a few others. By the time the girl had gotten a hold of her flamingo there were not any arches in her area of the field so she decided to just give up and talk to the cat again.
When she made it over to the cat there was an even bigger crowd around him than there was watching the game. The Queen soon joined the crowd too. As she approached she was immediately brought to appeal as there were several arguments going on. The cat sat patiently as the executioner argued that the cat did not have a body from which to remove his head. The King argued that anything that has a head can be beheaded without question. The Queen simply interjected that if something was not done soon she was going to sentence everyone to a beheading.
All the girl had to add was that the cat belonged to the Duchess so they should ask her what to do about it. The cat disappeared entirely just as the Queen ordered the Duchess be fetched from jail; he did not wish to be in the presence of the Duchess again. He could not forget the way she had cruelly placed pins in his face not too long ago. His cheeks were still sore… though that may have been because he had not stopped grinning in a very long time.
By the time the Duchess had been retrieved the cat had hidden on the other side of the rose bushes to stay away from her. He did not realize how tired he was until he curled into a ball under one of the bushes and closed his eyes to rest for a moment. He did not mean to fall asleep, but what seemed like only a few minutes obviously was not. He awoke to shouts, opening his eyes to find it had grown very dark around him. Though it was dark, there was a strange, luminous glow around everything.
He ran to the courtyard to find out the outcome of the match, but instead found a trial in progress and there was that sweet girl in the middle of it all at quite an astonishing height. Every soldier in the courtyard started to fly up to attack her. The cat started running towards her too wondering how he was going to be able to help just when he heard a voice. It was very faint but the very sound of it seemed to make everything glow a little more. It spoke a few times before it was loud enough for him to understand the words.
“Wake up, Alice dear!”
As soon as he was able to understand the words he knew exactly what he needed to do to get her home. He ran toward her faster. The girl caught sight of him and immediately shrank back to her normal size. The soldiers flew right through the air she was previously occupying and piled into a mound on the ground. It was as if the girl knew it was just about time to go home when she looked at the cat. She stretched her arms out to him. Seeing her do so felt like a knife plunging into his gut; he was not going to throw himself into the girl’s arms and be carried off to wherever it was she came like he wished he could. He could not nuzzle her cheek and purr to calm her frazzled nerves. In fact, he had to do quite the opposite. Just feet away from her he extracted his claws and tightened every muscle in his body, causing the ribbons to tighten and break over his skin.
The girl’s face changed the moment she saw the charcoal-feline, but he did not stop there. He bared his teeth in what was the furthest thing from a grin he could muster and lunged at her with a growl. Her arms flew up; block him from colliding with her face. He did not know what to anticipate, he just trusted his gut to know he was doing the right thing. Instead of colliding with the girl, he passed right through her. She dropped her arms and turned in surprise to see him standing on the other side of her. He looked at his hairless body and saw the very badly burnt cat he vaguely remembered. He was not making himself disappear, but he was starting to fade from view. The light around everything turned from a glow to blindingly bright as everyone and everything in the court bust like fireworks.
He looked at the girl one more time as she faded as well. He grinned the grin she had come to know and she smiled the smile he loved so much. He had not known her for very long and yet it seemed he had loved her all his life. He was very happy to remember how much he loved that smile a moment before he too burst and the world completely faded into light.
***
Alice opened her eyes. They watered slightly from the midday sun shining directly on her. The clouds above had the shape of a cat’s head with a lopsided grin. She smiled at the ridiculous thought; a grinning cat… She stopped smiling when she remembered the strange dream she just had. All of a sudden the silly thought brought her a tiny bit of sadness.
A voice came from the side of her, “Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!”
Alice turned her head to meet the gaze of her sister.
“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” Alice said. She hurriedly tried to recount the waning vision as best she could before it was forgotten.
“It was a curious dream dear, certainly; but now run into your tea; it’s getting late.”
Alice got up and ran off thinking what a magnificent dream it had been.
Her sister shook her head at that silly girl. She watched the clouds drift across the sky as she thought about Alice’s wonderful adventure. Her eyelids drooped as she too started to dream of a strange world. She saw a curious grin unattached to a face just when her head fell forward and her eyes snapped open once again. She smiled to herself and got up to run after Alice, whom she spotted waving her into the house; her face, unsurprisingly, bestowed with that infectious grin.
Some text borrowed from:
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, New York: MacMillan, 1865. Print.