Death of the Mad Hatter Read Online Free PDF

of a woman. At least that was what my aunts told me, but I had another theory. My folks sent me to live with them in hopes I’d straighten up out of sheer boredom.
    It didn’t work …
    … And so the story went: After I drank what needed to be drunk and ate what needed to be eaten, I had unlocked a mouse door that was guarded by a ceramic toad wearing a suit with a spade and the initials R.E. sewn on it. In its mouth was a bronze key that unlocked a mysterious realm I thought was possible only in my dreams. The colors of the sky and land were all wrong. The blue sky was too dark and was littered with dozens of sun dogs, like it was a dumping ground for rainbows. The ground beneath my feet was dark as mud but wasn’t wet. The leaves growing on the trees were multicolored like flowers, but the flowers were too big. One petal was the size of my head. I felt like an ant that crawled out from the dull dirt and into a spray painted world of wonders. The door I’d squeezed through was covered by bright yellow vines, essentially trapping me in this place.
    A purple caterpillar lay on a branch of a white magnolia tree, munching on a blue leaf. He looked at me, and I swore the little creature raised its eyebrow as if it was unimpressed with me.
    “Where am I?” I asked, talking to myself.
    “Where you are, is a state of being, a place in your head and a location in Wonderland—far, far from your own,” the caterpillar said before taking another bite of the leaf. “But more importantly, where you are standing is on private land. You’re trespassing on my property.”
    My mouth dropped open. “You can talk!”
    He spit out the leaf bits he’d been chewing and stuffed them into the tiniest hookah in the known universe. “Did you think you were the only privileged creature who had the ability to communicate using fancy words, stupid girl?”
    “Ester, stop bugging the discombobulated girl.” A gentleman walked over to me. He was dressed in a new white suit and tipped his top hat. The price tag was still hanging from the hat. His white soul patch matched the color of his hair, though the locks upon his head were more peppered gray. Gold rimmed goggles covered his eyes. A bright orange scarf was tied around his neck. His black-polished fingernails were tinted a slew of different colors. Traces of pink powder the size of sugar dusted his clothing. He smelled like apple pie and gumdrops.
    I wondered if the man had been baking . “Who are you, sir?”
    He took off his goggles, revealing the kindest eyes I’d ever seen—they looked like chocolate chips. There was a little bit of a fanatical look in them as well. The eye shadow was flicked on his eyelids, like he had been trying to recreate donut sprinkles with makeup. “My name is far too complicated to say and gets quite boring to listen to. Simply saying it will give your tongue a workout that is unnecessary. Far too much time will be wasted by constantly addressing me by it. Thus, I go by M.H, my dear girl. What is your name?”
    “Alice Mae,” I said.  
    The caterpillar groaned. “The One-Eyed Hare brought a girl with a girl’s name to Wonderland, not a girl with a boy’s name. Did Rutherford even bother to read the prophecy he found in the Sweets for the Rabbit Hole Voyager recipe book?”
    “There is much still to uncover. The white rabbit has excellent intuition,” M.H. said. “And you know he prefers to go by Mr. Ruth. He’ll get his tail in a twist if he hears you utter his proper name.”
    “ Rumperbabbits are oversensitive about what the other creatures call them. They should be lucky they have names at all, despicable creatures.”
    Having trouble following their sidebar discussion about degraded rabbits, I asked, “What does M.H. stand for? I’ll still call you by the abbreviation, but it has made me curious. Perhaps it would be okay to tie your tongue to say it, just this once?”
    “Marco Hickerns? Marian Hoff? Oh! Perhaps Massive Human?” The