Before Alice Fell Down the Rabbit Hole - Chapter Two - The Great Berry Quest

Note: It was decided one day by the tea party guests that the tastiest cakes were made from the tastiest berries in all the land, ramble berries.

And the bestest cakes were dainty cakes!

“Delicious! I wish we had some now!” said the mad hatter to the guests.

“The berries grow in the great woods! We should go! A great quest!” the rabbit said, hopping madly about.

And it was decided then that it was a great idea. And so they hopped, bounced, ran, slid, and made their way to the entrance to the great woods.

“I am the mighty bear who guards the entrance to the great woods,” roared the bear as the party approached, “Who dares approaches my lair?”

“I am the Hatter!” the mad hatter laughed “And these are my friends! We are on a great quest!”

The bear roared, raising his great paws and swiping at them all.

“Be gone! I need no quests around my lair!!”

“Oh dear! We must go! We must go!” the rabbit worriedly said bouncing around “He’ll surely devour us for lunch!”

“What is your name?” the little turtle said, trying to be friendly in such a friendly way.

“Harold!” the bear roared

“What a great name for a mighty bear with such a great roar! My name is turtle.”

“Turtle? Are you joking?”

“No, I dare not joke with such a mighty bear!”

“What of this quest? Hurry, I dare not waste another minute on such a day when the salmon run!” the bear growled less rough.

“We seek the ramble berries here in the great woods for our dainty cakes!” the turtle responded, pulling slightly into his shell.

“Ramble berries? Ramble berries? All this fuss over ramble berries??” the bear paused for a second, lowering his paws. “You may pass! I love the ramble berries dainty cakes!! Shall you share with me when they are done?” the bear smiled as well as a bear can smile.

“We shall! We shall! Thank you oh mighty bear!!” the turtle said, extending out his turtle hand to shake the bear’s mighty paw.

The group kept moving down the path which wound its way through the trees, up the hills, down the mountain, over the river, where grandmother was drowning her laundry.

“Strange indeed!” said the mad hatter to the donkey.

Soon, where the ramble berries should be a group of dodos were burping.

“Where are all the berries?” the mad hatter said. “They should be here! Not these dodo birds!!”

“We eats them! We eats them! We eats them all!” the dodos burped out in unison. “Nots a berry left!!!”

The group pouted, frowned, and shook their head.

“What shall we do now?” the mouse said

“I guess we shall not have ramble berries dainty cakes this day!” the mad hatter cackled.

“What shall we tell the bear? He shall not be happy indeed!” the mouse responded.

“We shall say, ‘The dodos are over there!’ and watch as the mighty bear devours them all.” the hatter laughed and the group wandered back.

BEFORE ALICE FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE – A PREQUEL INTO WONDERLAND

Note: Long before Alice fell down the rabbit hole, Wonderland was there.  A prequel to the prequel, to see what the walrus said.

“To see? Don’t you mean to hear?”

Who is telling this story?

“I’m sorry. Go on!”

“I’m quite sane,” said the hatter to the gathered crowd, “Though I might be mad! Quite mad!” he giggled in delight.

He was, I was assured, possibly the last sane man in the land.

But what did I know though.

I was just a simple turtle, a baker by trade.

“Off with his head!” a little girl with large hair screamed from the crowd.

They may have agreed if not for cooler heads, mostly a walrus and a rabbit.

“He should be exiled!” the rabbit said, hopping madly around.

“Exiled!” said the walrus to the king who agreed by a nod of his head.

“To the swamp!!” the crowd cheered out.

The swamp, an evil place,where madness is quite the normal thing, up is down, in is out, reality isn’t real.

I had been there, my birth place, if I was born.

I do not remember.

I was quite young.

“To the swamp!” the crowd cheered again, grabbing the man and hefting him to their shoulders.

And they went, disappearing over the horizon.

I decided to go back to work, baking a cake, for the princess.

“A mighty birthday cake!” she said, snottily, as her father, the king ordered it. “Off with his head!!”

I cringed.

I tried to make it mighty.

It look mighty where I stood.

“What a tiny puny cake!” the king said as he entered. “What else could we expect from a turtle?”

“Off with his head!” the princess kept saying, waving a flamingo around by its legs and hit me out the door into the gathered crowd.

“Off with his head!!” the crowd parroted. I cringed.

I pulled myself into my shell and felt another whack from the angered princess.

I flew for what felt like a hundred miles.

Or maybe it was ten feet.

I landed with a thud and rolled out of sight, into the mighty hedges, where the hedgehogs stayed.

“Keep quiet! Keep quiet!! She cannot find us!!” a small hedgehog said from under a spire of twigs and leaves.

“Off with his head!!!” the princess was heard screaming. “Where did he go? OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!”

The crowd searched and searched but finally, the sunlight disappearing.

I fell asleep under a trunk of a bush, nuzzled inside my shell.

The next day, the hedgehogs sneaked me out of the land, into the swamp.

“The swamp?” I gulped but they seem not to hear.

They left me there and I felt the eyes of wild beasts. I cringed and shook inside my shell.

I felt something lift me up and a huge crazy eye looked inside.

“Hello! Hello! Welcome to the party!!!” the mad man, the hatter I was told, said to me with a large smile.

“A cup of tea for my friend!!”

The wild beasts; a mouse, a cat and donkey did pour the tea.

“And cake!!! And treats!” said the mouse. And the cat and donkey agreed.

And so began my new life, adventures, in this wonder land…