Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 4

Who Are You?

"Lily. My name is Lily." I furrow my eyebrows, wondering why he wants to know who I am. "We shall see."

"What do you mean? I should know who I am." He takes another puff from his hookah and looks down at me unimpressed, "Yes you should, stupid girl." Then her turns to the white rabbit, "Unroll the Oraculum." I furrow my eyebrows together and watch the rabbit unroll a scroll and lay
it on a nearby toadstool. "A what..?" I ask.

"The Oraculum: Being a Calendrical Compendium of Underland." I look closely at the Oraculum to see its a timeline depicting major events and each day has a title and an illustration. "It's a calendar." I conclude, but Absolem corrects me, "Compendium. It tells of each and every day since the Beginning."

"Today is Gribling day in the time of the Red Queen." The rabbit tells me as he points to the illustration. It shows all of us, including me, peering at the Oraculum, at this exact moment. "Show her the Frabjous day." Absolem demands and the rabbit unrolls the scroll further into the future.

Tweedledee stares at the Oraculum, "Frabjous being the day you slay the Jabberwocky." I'm not sure what to say so I just say the first thing that pops into my head: "Bless you." They all chuckle a little. Then as I'm looking at this scroll thing the illustration for the Frabjous day starts moving. The creature is tall as a dinosaur with reptilian wings and scales, long, sharp claws, a pronged tail and a vest. It lunges at a knight with long hair that goes straight down her back and she's in chain mail armor and she's fighting the thing with a shining sword.

"That being you there with the Vorpal sword." Tweedledum points out to the girl. "No other sword can kill the Jabberwocky. Nohow." Dee tells me. Then Dum again, "If it ain't Vorpal, he ain't dead." The illustration keeps moving and the girl swings at the Jabberwocky beast but we can't see her face. She chips the thing's head clean off in one fale swoop. I start backing away now, panicking slightly. "That's not me. I can't do anything like that. I'm just some nobody." The dormouse throws her arms in the air dramatically, "I know!" The rabbit turns to Absolem, "Resolve this for us, Absolem. Is she the right Lily?" He looks me in the eye, hard and long, finally he says, "Not hardly." Then he blows a huge smoke cloud, obliterating himself from view. I stand there shocked with my mouth hanging wide open. I'm not sure why I'm shocked and is this disappointment ? "I told you!" The dormouse yells. The rabbit looks ashamed, "Oh dear!"

"I said so." Dum claims. "No, I said so." Dee claims. "Countrariwise, you said she might be." Dum argues. Dee shoots back, "No. You said she would be if she was." Even the flowers are angry. "Little imposter! Pretending to be Lily! She should be ashamed!" The rabbit is ragging on me too, "I was so certain of you!" They all glare at me like it's somehow my fault I ended up being the 'wrong Lily'. I start backing away from them, "I... I'm sorry. I don't mean to be the wrong Lily..." Then I realize something: "How can I be the wrong Lily if I'm the only Lily here. And don't I get a say in whether I'm the right or wrong Lily?" They all just look at each other and stare at me. The dormouse is now furious that I'm the wrong Lily but am trying to say I might be the right one. She runs over to me and stabs me in the foot with a hatpin.

I yelp, but instead of a small cry of pain a thunderous roar is heard. A giant furry beast crashes through a high wall. "Bandersnatch!" Dee yells in terror. It has a huge furry body with the head of a rabid bulldog. Drool oozes from his squashed muzzle. His fur is caked with blood and filth. His teeth are shark-like and broken, they too are stained with blood. A foul stench emanates from him. Everyone scatters, but they're intercepted by red, human-sized playing cards with swords and helmets. All of them have a heart in flames in the center of them." They capture the fleeing animals. A pig and a flamingo are caught and thrown into a caged wagon. One of them grabs the white rabbit by his legs, lifting him up. "Unhand me! I do not enjoy being..." He's tossed into the caged wagon with the others.

I run. But that thing - the Bandersnatch? - thunders after me. It can't hurt me because none of this is real but for some reason I feel like it can hurt me and that it will kill me. No it can't hurt me! I stop running and turn around to face the beast. "Can't hurt me... Can't hurt me..." I keep repeating this over and over again to myself. It catches up to me and stops dead in front of me. It opens its large, drooling muzzle to eat me when I hear, "Run, you great lug!" Them the dormouse leaps out of nowhere and onto the Bandersnatch's shoulder. She then pulls out her hatpin sword and drives it right into the beast's eye. It bellows in pain and as the dormouse tries to pull the hatpin out the whole eye comes with it. The Bandersnatch howls and whips around, raking my arm with its long claws.

I run.