Free Alice in Zombieland by Lewis & Cook Carroll Page A

whiles.’
          ‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.
          ‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’
          ‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.
          ‘Suppose we change the subject,’ the Dead Hare interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.’
          ‘I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
          ‘Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up, Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on both sides at once, popping off two small dead chunks of its ribcage, which the Dormouse grabbed hurriedly, all the while watching Alice as it pulled them back to its body.
          The Dormouse slowly looked around at them. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I heard every word you fellows were saying.’
          ‘Tell us a story!’ said the Dead Hare.
          ‘Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.
          ‘And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.’
          ‘Once upon a time there was a young queen who decided that all dead things should obey her every whim,’ the Dormouse started slowly, eyes already falling back down in preparation for slumber.
          ‘Wake up!’ shouted the Dead Hare. ‘Keep going! This is my favorite story.’
          The Dormouse jumped in its seat, startled by the Dead Hare’s loud voice. ‘Yes, yes, quite a story it is.’ And it began to doze again.
          ‘Oh this will never do,’ said the Hatter. He reached across the table and pinched the little mouse until its whiskers flew up in pain and surprise.
    ‘What did you do that for?’ the Dormouse whined.
          ‘The story,’ they all three said at once.
          ‘Oh, yes . . . where was I?’
          Alice offered helpfully, ‘The Queen?’
          The Dormouse suddenly leaped from its seat and looked around in terror. ‘Where is she? Don’t let her find me!’
          The Hatter was able to get the Dormouse settled once again. ‘She isn’t here. She is, in fact, nowhere to be seen. Now get back to the story.’
          But the Dormouse was too disturbed to sit still for a moment. It found a half-full tea cup and drained it with shaking paws. When it finished, it smacked its lips and sat back, seemingly calm now. ‘Once upon a time there was a queen . . .’
          ‘Yes, you’ve already said that,’ Alice said.
          The Dormouse gave her a chilly stare and sniffed, turning away. ‘You really should learn some manners.’
          ‘The story!’ demanded the Dead Hare, shaking the little Dormouse until his whiskers began to fall off.
          ‘All right, yes, okay,’ the Dormouse shoved the Dead Hare away. ‘The Queen built a box to control them all. The end.’
          Alice looked around at the Hatter and the Dead Hare to see if they were satisfied with such an abrupt telling, but neither of them seemed to be listening to the little Dormouse any longer; they were busy gathering up its fallen whiskers, tossing them into their tea cups.
          ‘That’s it?’ Alice said.
          The Dormouse smiled happily and finally allowed itself to look at her. ‘You liked it? Maybe another one?’
          ‘Yes, yes,’ said the Hatter and the Dead Hare at the same time before Alice could ask the Dormouse to finish the first one to her satisfaction.
          ‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—’
          ‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
          ‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a