Also Through the Looking Glass by John Tan

An Alice Extravaganza! by John Tan (end of Chapter 12: Big Dipper and Ursa Major)

‘To Ursa Major –if I may –’ said Mr. Toad with grave simplicity, ‘I saw it and the Big Dipper in our Northern hemisphere tonight.'

'Yes, my dear fellow, you may,’ said the handsome Rat suavely in a gentle tone of voice. ‘I pray too you find whatever you are looking for. But, nonetheless, a penny for your thoughts.’

‘I am looking for a Lassie of my own; a Girl of my dreams, you know; a Beauty who walks in Grace… I have not hold, have never held, in fact, with the majority, the faceless populous responding to the tug-and-pull with the same mercantile spirit when it comes... to… to love... For, I have seen her; and, yes! oh, as beseeming her as the moonlight glow is tucked in her glowing hair; that once looked upon--'

‘Good speed you to her, your beloved, then! No matter where or how long you take: only that she might readily be found! When you do, ask her to away with you won’t you? I will evade any kind of possible quarrel and quash any hard-heartedness on my part at being deprived of my property, and also, therefore, readily approve of the step you are so keen to take.’

'The journey might be a short one or not-too-long, who knows, and I can –can –’

‘Yes, well. Make sure, however, you keep your seat, my dear Toad, won’t you? Have your fill to overflowing and heart's content. Au revoir, sir! Pleasant journey, and goodbye!’

And with those parting words of the Rat's the wind snatched Mr. Toad, who raised his hat in a gesture of farewell, out of the cabin with a fierce rush and carried him on its back into the night sky where he was flung higher and higher up, up, up; that cool and cloudless sky which was peppered and salted with trembling stars upon that warm early August night in the Northern Hemisphere. He was never seen again: so wrote the Reverend Dodgson; for at this precise moment, the Mathematical Professor was still in his scriptorium having stayed there the whole night. And now, it was the morning of a new day. He smiled and then grimaced; looking over the last sentence he had just penned which was, ‘The Picayune Rat was still staring at that salt pole-star and the pale, waning full moon, feeling the hush of the hour when daylight was breaking as viewed over the ship’s bows.'

And realizing that breakfast time must be along soon, he rang his bell merrily for his housekeeper. Realizing he had run himself out of steam he wanted a warm bath and ordered for himself a heavy English fare and gallons of piping-hot cappuccino coffee…

Afterward, a change of freshness came over him and he was later having a cup of the best ale in the house and had fallen asleep when he heard the usual sounds, footsteps, of company, coming; then peeping out through the curtained window and front door of Tom Quad he saw his friends' eager and shining morning faces flushed with equal excitement as they one and all strode up and paused at the top of the stone stairs. He brightened up at once and hailed them cheerily. ‘Hello, dear Tertia, Prima, Secunda and you also Ervina! Come in. What, ho! My dear Robinson, are you come along, also, to see how I'm getting along with my jotting the story down, have you? Would you like to have a little breakfast in the dining room? Eaten have you, my dears? I will soon be among a welter of great sustainable foods; for such my second breakfast is to break my first breakfast; staples for us, Oxford men, including your favorite, Cooper's, my dear Duckworth – but this ale rather takes you with a whiff –doesn't it?'

'No, too early, for me, thank you, Charles! No ale! Thankee, I think, however, I will try a little toast with jam.'

‘We girls have already had had breakfast, my most dear Mr. Dodgson,' said Alice Liddell with an infectious titter. ‘But, oh, sir! How’s your story? Though we have heard it told once before; I believe it will be a treat far beyond our wildest expectations when it is written down...'

'Thankee for your compliment, Tertia! Well, it is written. Finished the last word, in fact, before I dozed off and shall I tell you (might as well, you know?) about the part whereby the Rubicund Toad took a trip to Ursa Major with matrimony in his mind; and he hasn’t come back yet. I don’t think he will be –back again from his elegant revels… He was travellin' down a corridor of enormous spaces studded by distant starlight…’

'A star-gazer died: a space-traveler was being born,’ whispered Ervina, quietly...

‘Why, -- yes, indeed, my dear Ervina!’ said Dodgson smiling very amicably. ‘Expired -- passed on: ha, ha! And, then: voila!’

'Well, well, that is where I might have guessed you would have left him; in outer space!’ said Duckworth; spreading that breakfast item, the famous marmalade Dodgson had earlier averred to, on his toast; 'Now, girls,’ he added; ‘when you grow older, do make sure to the utmost of your power to remain sweet and loving won't you, my darlings? Don't let your innocence, acumen, and acuity sour, like those two bad role-models, the Duchess and the Queen of Hearts. The King, for one, I believe, should’ve given his orders to rescind every one of hers, stoutly countermanded ‘em; such as her “Off with her head!” or “Off with their heads!” But remember what I said in your after-years, won't you?'

'May I proffer you a Turkish delight that is wrapped up so beautifully, dears? Fondant in a porcelain dish, anyone? Too marvelously sweet eh?' intoned Dodgson politely.

‘No –no!’ replied Duckworth, ‘it is wonderful… in fact, I have a sweet tooth... Hmm, but the Queen of Hearts, from the pages of that most famous book… I think I’m talking about her dread majesty...'

'Ho, ho! The Queen of Hearts? She has a way of changing color a few times in a twinkling, back and forth; with displeasure being uppermost as transmogrifying and darkening her naturally florid countenance --'

‘You mean, Mr. Dodgson, sir–?' inquired Ervina. ('Hmm, very tasty, this sweetmeat is...')

'Embittered -- querulous -- cruel -- sour (acidulous) -- cantankerous!' said our Professor, striking the words off his palm: and suddenly, a shade of sadness hovered: then, passed over his brow: 'Promise me, my dear girls, loveliest young ones, that you will never become any o’ these.'

'Or, possessed of these sad and trying attributes,' chipped in Mr. Robinson Duckworth. 'Sweet dear ones, be always persevering... thoroughly persevering!'

‘We promise –we promise –we promise –we promise!’ therefore piped the four young children, especially Lorina and Edith, with their naughty, and arched, Circean smiles, all four altogether; that Saturday morning of so long ago in Dodgson's rooms at Oxford University, Oxfordshire, England.

‘Very well, then! Good. Try some toasted cheese dip, girls; now then, my brethren of the cloth and I shall CEASE to assail Heaven never, never, never, that it might always be so. Let the hurtful parts between the male and the female human species be quashed and be remembered no more... And if you have a band of gold secured around your fourth finger with a fourteen-carat diamond mounted upon it: well and good... But let your love be the ground of all Good creatures; for that is why the Good Lord took you out of your Mother’s womb, isn’t it so?'

‘But, where are we now, by the way, my dear Mr. Picayune Rat?’ asked the young birds and animals: as curtseying to the two gentlemen (Rat and Toad) when they suddenly remembered something very important.

‘Karachi?’ all at once, the four child-friends had wanted to know: ‘It is Mr. Picayune Rat now, isn’t it, sir?’

'Certainly: Karachi!' the gentleman returned. And, he laughed; very pleasantly as well.

'Hurrah! Hurrah!'

‘We have most certainly arrived and are sightseeing in the splendid harbor in Karachi,' said the Rat stroking his round ears judiciously, the left and the right: hereupon, not omitting to return their bobbings: he doffed off his cap that had been perched in between these: and gave them his grave and majestic bow.

And so Mr. Charles Dodgson closed this last chapter of his new book with great masterful incisiveness, after supplying them so many pleasant entertainments; the product of his notable quirks and his pleasing quiddities, with inimitable grace and aplomb, as per himself: such as, they, having grown accustomed to his unmistakable ways, supposed rightly only he knew how…

THE END OF ALICE BOOK THE SECOND