Two small houses, one a Vermont fishing shack, the other a New York brownstone with a sign shaped like a top hat hanging on a pole next to it, stood on either side of a small clearing. In between was the untidiest tea party Brett ever saw. Mismatched chairs surrounded a long table with a slightly stained embroidered cloth. Tea pots, cups, and saucers, some china, some sprinkled with flowers, some in bright tropical greens and corals, others glowing in pearly metallics, were scattered across the table.
“Dad, look!” Gary jumped off his steed first. “Food, and lots of it!” He pointed at the plates and towers piled high with cakes, sugared fruits, and tiny tea sandwiches. “Do you think they'd be willing to share?”
“I don't know, son.” Richard got off next. “Seems deserted to me.”
“Well, I don't care.” Brett slid off Dickie's white horse, pulling away from his sweaty manliness as quickly as she could. “I'm hungry, and I want tea. Where's the service around here?” She smacked her palm on a silver bell and plopped in the largest and softest of the chairs, a towering Victorian confection covered in garish pea green and magenta velvet.
“No room!” Maybe it was a trick of light dancing around the late afternoon shadows, but Brett swore a tall rabbit with light brown fur, fuzzy ears, and a sharp square chin sporting a slouchy beige striped shirt and worn jeans waved his paws at Dickie. “No room at the table!”
“Sir,” Richard protested, “there's plenty of room! It's not nice to turn away guests.”
“Well, it isn't nice of you to sit down without being invited!”
That came from Charles Nelson Reilly. At least, it looked like him. Same mousy hair, enormous round glasses that dominated his little face with the pale blue eyes and dimpled chin, same nasal Bronx accent, same figure that somehow managed to be tall and pudgy at the same time. “On the other hand, it is nice to see guests. We don't often get people all the way out here.” He even wore a bright green, blue, and red patchwork suit with a paisley silk scarf that wasn't far removed from his usual attire on the show. The green and red silk top hat with the blue "Tea Shop" sign in the band looked like something he'd wear, too.
That was when she looked down at the table and saw his bare legs under a pair of threadbare boots. “Good gravy Marie!” she groaned. “Even here, you're STILL not wearing socks!”
“What have you got against that, lady? It's far more comfortable on my feet, with all the running between houses and kingdoms we do all day.” He sighed and sipped his tea. “Why don't you have some wine?”
“I don't see any.”
The March Hare snorted. “There isn't any. Hatter,” he swiped at Charles, “finished it a half-hour ago.”
Richard glared at him as the others joined them. “It wasn't nice of you to offer it to the lady.”
“It wasn't nice of you,” Orson twitched, “to sit down when you weren't invited!”
“Calm down!” Brett snapped. “We didn't know. The table's set for a heck of a lot more than you two and us!”
Charles leaned into the huge teapot in the center of the table. “You three. Doormouse, wake up! We have visitors!”
“Huh?” Gary Burghoff with mouse ears and a furry brown argyle vest popped his head sleepily out of the teapot. “Oh. People. Five more minutes, Major Blake...”
“Doormouse!” Orson grabbed his collar, and with Charles help, dragged him across the table and into the nearest chair. “Why don't you go get our other visitors? The younger ones?”
“Oh...yeah. Sure. Them.” The mouse yawned and rolled out of the chair. “Yeah, I'll go...” He managed to fall asleep standing on his paws, snoring lightly as his head dropped onto his furry chest.
“Doormouse!” Charles shook him this time. “Go get the kids!”
“Yeah!” His head shot up, and he blinked his round blue eyes. “I'll go get the kids. They were getting more cookies...”
The Doormouse came out two minutes later with Adam and David in tow, Adam with a butter cookie in his mouth. “Mom!” Adam yelled through his cookie. “You're here! We found you!”
“Boys!” Brett threw her arms around both of them before they settled down on either side of her at the table. “Where have you been? Why did you run off? Adam, honey, swallow that before you talk. You'll choke!”
“Where have you been?” David asked worriedly. “We've been looking all over for you, ever since we went through the door into the woods back at the hall and got lost.”
“I got lost, too.” Brett hugged both of them hard. “Oh, you don't know how worried I was!”
“Mom,” Adam asked, “can we have dinner before we go home? These guys are really weird, but they've been nice to us.”
“Yeah,” David added. “Let us have tea and look at their upside-down tea pot collection and everything.”
“It's really cool,” Adam added, tugging at his mother. “You've got to see it!”
“These are your boys?” Charles lifted his tea cup. “I think we ought to celebrate reuniting you. I knew taking them in was the right thing to do!”
Orson smirked. “You liked that they tried to solve your riddles.”
“Tell her the one about the raven and the writing desk!” Adam added as he reached for one of the chicken salad tea sandwiches.
Brett lightly smacked his hand. “First of all, ask someone if you want that. Second, what raven and writing desk?”
“I'll do it.” Charles passed around tea cakes and sandwiches, then cleared his throat and turned to Brett. “Why, dear lady, is a raven like a writing desk?”
Orson grinned. “Well, do you think you guys can answer it?”
“I think we can,” Brett admitted. She rubbed her head, trying to stop the pulsing in her temple. “Do you boys have anything stronger than tea laying around?”
“We have blackberry cordial.” Charles poured a dark brew from a small bottle into a pale pink porcelain cup covered in purple pansies. “Should get your brain moving, Susan.”
“Dad,” asked Gary as Richard gave his sons sandwiches, “can we have some?”
“No, son.” Richard made a face. “That's a grown-up drink. You boys and I will stick to tea. Our brains move fine without liquor.”
Brett glared at him. “You always were a stick in the mud, Dickie.” She downed the dark brew in one swallow. “Hey,” she purred as the fruity liquid slid down her throat, “this stuff isn't bad. You ever think of selling it?” She grabbed David’s hand before he could reach for the bottle. “And don't you get ideas. You're not quite old enough yet, either.”
“Aw, Mom,” he grumbled, “I'm almost 19. I'm practically a grown man. When are you going to stop treating me like a kid?”
“When you aren't one.”
Orson picked this point to clear his throat. “Hatter, what day of the month is it?”
“It's August 9th, 1976.” David raised an eyebrow as Charles opened a gold pocket watch the size of his head. “What's with the watch, dude?”
Charles sighed. “It's still two days slow. Been two days slow ever since you told me to put the butter in the works, Hare. I knew I shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.”
“Aw, come on Hatter!” Orson shrugged. “It was the best butter! Can I help it if crumbs got in there, too? We eat a lot of toast around here.”
Adam peered over the Hatter's shoulder. “Hey, man, you got a wild watch there.”
“What's so strange about it?” Mark asked between bites of cucumber sandwich as he and his older brother strained to look around their father.
“Mom, look!” He pointed at the numbers. “It tells you the date and the day, but not what time it is!”
“All watches in the under-worlds are like that.” Charles closed the watch and shoved it back in his jacket. “Don't the watches where you come from tell you the date?”
“No,” Brett explained as she kicked back another glass of cordial, “because it's the same month for a lot longer than it is an hour.”
“Hey Mom,” Adam asked as he licked crumbs off his fingers, “have you figured out the answer to the raven riddle yet?”
Brett sighed and popped a tea cake in her mouth. “No, kiddo,” she coughed before remembering what she told him about swallowing and talking earlier. “I haven't. What's the answer?”
“Gotcha, Mom!” David nearly fell off his chair laughing. “There's no answer, right guys?”
“Nope,” Charles honked. “None at all.” He shrugged and tossed his empty cup over his shoulder. “Ok, clean cup time! Everyone move down!”
“Clean cups!” Orson pushed at the Card Guard. “You boys all start moving to your right! We'll all have to move down.”
“Oh good.” David smirked as he found himself between Richard and the Clubs card. “I can reach for the bread and butter now. If all the butter didn't end up in that guy's watch.”
Adam waved an empty cup. “Hey, can I have more?”
“How much, son?” Charles lifted the nearest tea pot.
“Oh, half a cup will be ok, Mr. Hatter.”
Charles actually sliced the cup in half and filled it without the tea spilling out. “Wow!” Adam sipped it. “You're a magician, Mr. Hatter! And it tastes good, too!”
“Thank you, sonny.” Charles flipped his scarf around, preening as he always did when someone complimented him. “It's a talent I've always had.”
“You know, Hatter” Brett complained as she reached for another chicken salad sandwich, “you boys could find better things to do with your time besides making up riddles that have no answer.”
Charles burped slightly and patted his lips with the tablecloth. “Susan, your hair wants cutting.”
“And you,” Brett added sharply, “don't have enough to cut. Personal remarks aren't necessary, Victor.”
“You know,” Charles went on, ignoring the comment on his lack of hair, “if you knew Time like we do, you wouldn't talk about him like an it. He is a he.”
Richard frowned. “How did you boys get to know Time?”
“Oh, we used to be very good friends with Time,” The Doormouse explained with a yawn. “Until Mr. Hatter got into some kind of a fight with him over music.”
“You sing, Mr. Hatter?” Adam asked. “Can you give us a concert?”
Brett smirked and gulped another snifter of blackberry cordial. “I'm not sure you boys would want that.”
“Why don't we all have a concert? Right here and now.” Orson pulled out a harmonica. “Show them what you sang at the Queen of Hearts' palace last month that got Time so mad, Hatter!” The Doormouse stifled a yawn long enough to pick up two spoons and bang them on the bottom of the bread bowl like a drum.
“Yes, but it was a duet I sang with the Queen,” Charles explained as he climbed on top of the table. “I'd need two to sing it.”
“Hey Mom,” David grinned, “why don't you do it? You sing with Dad and Mr. Reilly at parties.”
“Sure!” Brett shrugged. “Why the hell not?”
Charles helped her onto the table, leading her nimbly around the breakable china and plates with food. “Do you know 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat' Susan?”
“No, but if you hum a few bars, I can figure something out.”
He looked down at the others. The Three of Clubs whipped a harmonica out from between his cards. The March Hare hopped in his shack and returned with a guitar. “Is the band ready?”
The Three of Clubs gave him that sweet little smile again. “Ready and willing, Mr. Hatter, boy...I mean, sir!”
The Hatter bowed low for the crowd around the table. “And now, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat,' in the key of G. Susan, follow along.”
“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you're at...”
“Oh!” Brett cackled. “I know this one! We have a song like this at home.” She sang along with him, more-or-less making up her own lyrics that didn't match his. They always did sing well together, his gentle tenor and her foghorn contralto somehow melding together in perfect harmony. He even swung her around for a couple of two-steps around the table.
Soon, everyone got into it. Brett knew Dickie was a good singer, adding his own smooth English baritone to their goofy tune and clapping along. The Cards all sounded surprisingly good as well. They made enough noise to shake the tree-tops. Maybe they weren't ready for a concert hall, but Brett thought it was good noise, all the same. She laughed when the boys danced around the table with each other, and the Five of Spades tried to swing the Doormouse around, to his squeaked surprise.
“Susan,” Charles chuckled, “I think we have a hit.”
“Mom, you were great!” Adam yelled over his brother's sharp but appreciative whistle. “You were better than Sonny and Cher!”
“Well, we weren't half-bad.” He grinned at her. “Maybe we ought to have an act, Susan. Time might not get so angry if I had someone to keep track of him with me. The Queen said I murdered the time on that number, and ever since, he's always made it tea time, never dinner.”
Orson grinned. “What does the Queen know, anyway? We ought to go on the road.”
“Not if...” the Doormouse yawned, “I can't get my beauty sleep.”
“Doormouse!” Charles tapped him on the back. “Why don't you tell us a story? That'll keep you awake.”
He rolled over and opened one sleepy eye. “Oh, all right.” Charles helped Brett to another seat as the others moved down. After they were all settled, he continued. “Once upon a time, there were three little sisters, and they lived at the bottom of a well...”
“What kind of a well?” David asked as he finished his half-cup of tea.
“Oh,” yawned the Doormouse, “it was a treacle well.”
Adam made a face. “What's treacle?”
“I think you call it molasses.” Richard tapped the Doormouse on the shoulder. “Please continue. The boys won't interrupt you again.”
“Well, yes,” the Doormouse went on, “they lived on treacle...molasses...”
“Wouldn't they get sick from drinking that?” Mark asked. “I don't feel well when I have too much sugar.”
“Oh yes,” Gary murmured, his eyes drooping, “very sick all the time.”
“That doesn't make any sense,” David snorted. “Why would they live at the bottom of the well if they're sick all the time?”
The Doormouse shrugged and laid his furry round-eared head on the table. Charles coughed. “Would anyone like more tea? Brett?”
She made a face. “I haven't had any tea, so I can't have more.”
“Ahh,” Charles scolded, “you mean you can't have less. You can always have more of something.”
“Nobody asked your opinion, Charles.”
“Who's making personal remarks now?”
Richard calmly sipped his tea. “Before we all kill each other, I need to ask you gentlemen to join my cause.”
“Cause?” Charles looked up from his blackberry cordial. “Cause of what?”
“He wants you to help us stop the Red King,” the Three of Clubs explained quickly.
“Oh, he wouldn't come here.” Orson chuckled. “We don't care about him.”
Charles shrugged. “Let him have his own tea party.”
“We could always stuff him,” Orson waved at the Doormouse, who nodded off, “in the teapot. He's sleeping again.”
Richard's younger son Mark heard it first, the tell-tale rumble.“Dad, what's that?”
“Damn it.” Brett broke away from Charles, rubbing at the pounding in her head. “It's them. The Red King and his ass...jerks. I heard that same noise when they broke up the Caucus Race.”
“Maybe we ought to get out of here,” David added as he jumped up from the table, “before they ride all over us.”
“We're knights!” Mark brandished his short sword and tried to look tough. “Knights never run, right Dad? We stay and fight the enemy!”
Richard raised his chin defiantly and pulled out his own weapon. “Let them try to ride over us! We'll get them this time.”
“You boys stay and fight.” Brett gulped the nearest cup of tea in the hope it would make the throbbing in her temple subside. “My sons and I are leaving. We don't have weapons. We don't even live here!”
“We did drink their tea, Mom.” Adam frowned. “Shouldn't we stay and help them?”
The Red King and his men rode right up to the tea party table looking like nothing more than a wave of dark red blood flowing closer and closer. “All right, men.” Richard slid his heavy silver sword out of its leather scabbard, holding it out as the Card Guards readied their lances and closed around the table. “The second they attack, hold them back. Remember the children and civilians here.”
David made a face. “Mom, tell Mr. Knight I'm not a kid!”
“What about Dad?” Adam gulped. “Isn't he with them?”
Charles and Orson continued to sip their tea as if nothing happened. “Charles!” Brett shook his shoulder. “I think you three ought to get out of here, or at least go inside. This place is going to make Night of the Living Dead look like a kindergarten in five minutes. Blood will take forever to wash out of that silk hat.”
“Give us a minute!” Charles shouted over the din. “We're not finished with our tea yet!”
The blood tide stopped suddenly before their table. The Red King, his snow-white hair standing out against the gushing waterfall of crimson silk banners, trotted up to Richard. “White Knight, are you here to help us arrest these miscreants?”
The Doormouse yawned and stretched his furry little arms. “What's a miscreant?”
“Don't even think about it.” Richard pushed the others behind him. “This is Wonderland. They don't subscribe to your rules.”
“Oh, but they will soon.” The king's sinister chuckle made Brett shiver. “As soon as I have...a little chat...with your King and Queen of Hearts. Right now, I'm bringing them a few troublemakers who aren't playing the game properly.”
“Hey, Your King-ness...” David began as he raised his hand.
Adam gulped and nudged his brother. “Dave, I think he's a highness.”
“Yeah, Your Highness,” his brother went on, “what's 'the game?'”
The King glared down at him. “You, child, are far too young to understand. I'm only helping everyone. The rules must be obeyed. My rules are the only ones that will keep order in this topsy-turvy world. If everyone follows my rules, we'll have winners, not losers.”
Brett threw down her tea cup so hard, the crack could be heard over the din. “Someone has to lose sometime! That's how things work! And YOU,” she added, waving a finger at Jack, “I'm disgusted with you! How could you turn on these people? You traitor!”
“Mooom,” David hissed, “that's not a nice thing to say to Dad. He has a pointy sword that could really hurt you, and you don't.”
“I don't care!” She shoved the sword away when he tried poking her. “Point that toothpick somewhere else. I don't like it in my face.”
“It's going to be a lot more than in your face in five seconds, lady!” He yanked her arm so hard, she was sure he left bruises. “You and the kids are my prisoners. They're too young to work for the boss, but we'll keep them under wraps until they're old enough.” She did not like the way he looked at her. “You, on the other hand...”
She managed to yank her arm away, her flashing eyes boring holes into his grimy scarlet armor. “First of all, I'm no one's prisoner, pal. Second, what in the hell are you doing? They're just kids, a rabbit, a mouse, cards, and...whatever Charles is!”
“Sorry, lady.” He smirked, pushing his dusty sword at her throat, “but I gotta take you all in. Nothin' personal. My boss has a real interest in you. You ain't from around here, are you?”
“You might say that.” She had to keep him talking. Richard tried to get the Red King off his horse, but he swung his scepter at him. Lights from the scepter bounced around the clearing. They upended the tea table, sending cutlery, cups, and pots flying.“Hey,” she snapped, “tell your boss to watch where he aims that thing! It could have hit the kids!”
“Fellas, I think the party's over,” Orson yelped as he scrambled away. “Besides, we have an invitation to the Queen's big croquet shindig. We need to get the rest of the messages about the Red King out.”
“And besides,” Charles added, his nasal Bronx accent thickening with every word, “I need to iron my dog.”
“Uh, yeah,” the Doormouse added drowsily. “I left my car running in my other pants.”
Brett never saw a tea table empty so fast. Orson hopped in the direction of the woods, dragging the Doormouse with him. Charles grabbed a cup of tea and two scones and followed them. The Red King's horse-helmeted knights ran into the woods after them.
Richard shoved in front of Jack, sword at the ready. “Leave the maiden alone, Red Knight! She's no prisoner of yours.”
“No,” Brett snapped, “she isn't! You tell 'em, Dickie! Give me a sword! A knife! A spoon! A toothpick! Jack, this goes against our divorce agreement!”
“Fair maiden,” Richard insisted, “you're better off fleeing with your children. I'll take care of the Red Knight, like I always do.”
“Humph!” Jack rolled his eyes. “I wipe the floor with ya every time, shorty.”
“Mom,” David started as their swords clanged, “shouldn't we do something? That's Dad there! Or it looks like Dad, anyway.”
“And what about those other boys' dad?” Adam frowned as he reached for a last sandwich. “He might get hurt.”
Even as Adam spoke, Dickie swung his sword right at Jack's head, sending him flying back into a tree with a clang. “Mr. Dawson can take care of himself, boys,” Brett managed to yell over the cheers from his Dickie's sons. “However, we don't have that giant toothpick.” She gently shoved her kids down the path. “I think we'd better get out of here.”
“Where, Mom?” David yelled and waved his hands at the trees. “We're in the middle of nowhere! Face it, we're lost! Again!”
Adam pointed into the branches. “How about we ask Catwoman?”
Brett did not like the light in David’'s eyes as the Cheshire Catwoman faded into view, in all her clingy leather and spandex glory. “Hey babe,” he drawled knowingly, “can I have your autograph?”
“Sorry, honey,” the Catwoman told him as she licked her hand, “you're too kittenish for me. However, I can help you find your way out.” She leaned over and pulled down a branch, revealing a door in the tree. “This should get you back where you need to be. After that is up to you.”
