Page 16 of Madness

I brace myself for the usual comments, but Al just nods his head like it’s normal.

“Why is your rabbit wearing a waistcoat?” Al asks abruptly, eyeing Thatcher warily.

“Thatcher isnae wearing a waistcoat.”

“Why on earth would I wear a waistcoat?”Thatcher stomps his foot in irritation,“It would be mightily impractical.”

“Mad… I’m utterly mad,” Al whispers under his breath, “Shh, Queenie. Not now.”

“He is most definitely mad. Just like thee Alice was,”Thatcher balances on his hind legs, wobbling slightly, and I furrow my brow in concern.

“But he is not thee, Alice Thatcher. He is Al, and he is mad, just like the rest of us. It’s how heended up here after all,” I admonish the beady, red-eyed rabbit.

Thatcher lowers his head, and Al’s head snaps up, his eyes flicking between my own, “Who is thee Alice that you all speak of?” he asks, but I see the trepidation in his green eyes.

Everyone knows the story of thee Alice who escaped Wonderland.

She seduced the previous Jabberwocky, the warden before the Wocky who guards us now, and convinced him that she was sane even though the others who worked here knew she was not.

She escaped into the night, and rumours circled Wonderland that the warden had killed her for trying to deceive him, but we know that she got away.

Her escape plans were meticulously detailed in a book in the library, left there for the other residents to find and escape, too. However, the book was found, confiscated, and put in the warden’s office in a vault that no one knew the code to other than him.

Red’s been desperate to get her hands on the thing, locked up here by her family for something she never did.

She was sane once, but they took away her muchness, turning her into the Red we know today.

I tell Al the story oftheeAlice, of how she escaped into the night, and no one ever heard from her again.

It is not that we blame her; who in their right mind would want to return to Wonderland?

I laugh at my joke because none of us are in our right mind… are we?

“So that’s it? She escapes, and she becomes a legend?” Al asks.

His hand runs through the blades of grass obsessively, as if he hasn’t been outside in years.

“Every single one of us wants to escape Wonderland, but we can’t. Nurse White makes sure of it,” I tell him.

Thatcher seems to decide that Al isn’t much of a threat and comes to lay down at my side,“Why does the mention of Alice seem to distress him so much?”Thatcher voices my concerns.

“I do not know Thatch.” Al jumps as Doris leaps onto his shoulder, scrambling over his back, “She’s harmless,” I rush to reassure him, not wanting him to hurt her because she’s a rodent.

“I am not a rodent!”Doris exclaims in outrage,“I am a field mouse. Rats are rodents.”She lets out a tiny shudder, and I suppress a laugh.

Doris can be sassy when she doesn’t get her way, and I want to continue my talk with Al. There will be time for Doris to throw a tantrum later.

Ignoring her, I turn back to Al, having missed his question, “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked how Nurse White could have so much influence. She’s merely a nurse.”

“Ah, but she is not…”

Chapter Six

“Finally!” I exclaim, wrapping my arm around my twin brother’s shoulder, “Freedom at last.”

“Will you stop! We do not actually have our freedom. We have traded one prison for another,” he says, somewhat mournfully.

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