Beware the Little White Rabbit Read online

  Almost every seat was occupied by red rabbits, looking nearly identical, although some wore hats, or sported armor, all sitting around the table wildly waving teacups. At the head of the table sat a queen. Her metallic scarlet exoskeleton, like her crown and gown, sparkled with brilliant ruby crystals. A matching visor blocked her face, so Alice couldn’t see if she was machine, organism, or hybrid.

  “For interrupting my tea party, off with your head!” the red queen screamed, pointing a scepter at Alice.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice stuttered, holding up her hands. She didn’t want her highness or the sentries who rushed to the queen’s side to mistake her intentions. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but that rabbit” – and she looked around, unsure which one was the actual thief, so she waved her hand in the general air in front of her face to include them all – “stole my canister of tea and I want it back.”

  The queen’s head swiveled around as she seemed to take in each guest. “Which one of them? I’ll have his head on my platter!”

  “Well, that’s the problem,” Alice mumbled.

  Behind her, a laugh rose up. She spun around, and perched in the tree sat a cat-like creature. It possessed large eyes, a malicious grin, and stripes like a common Earth tabby cat she’d seen pictures of. The reason she questioned it was a cat was because of the webbed paws and small feather cluster on its head.

  A hybrid cloning experiment gone comically wrong.

  She’d seen a lot of that on many worlds.

  “Don’t know which one, do you?” it purred.

  Alice glared. “Give me time, cat, or whatever you are. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Call me Cheshire.” Its grin became even more malicious, showing sharp shiny teeth. “And that I’d like to see.”

  Alice turned away from the creature. She scrutinized each rabbit at the table. Some she could automatically rule out, like the one with a cyborg arm. And the one with a darker streak down its back. A few more could be eliminated for various reasons, but even with them removed from the suspect list, that left about twenty others that were identical. Trying to figure out which one of them was her miscreant rodent was going to take some sleuthing.

  “While we’re waiting for her to make up her mind and Cheshire to make a fool of her,” one of them said, “let’s have tea.”

  They all clapped and cheered, and banged the long table with their paws until the queen stomped her foot. They quieted instantly.

  “Serve the tea!” she ordered.

  And there stood Pak’s canister on the table.

  “Wait!” Alice cried. “That’s my tea! I want it back!”

  The queen stood. “You said first that you wanted the rabbit. The tea was second, and therefore, you didn’t want it as much.” She pointed to the canister. “It’s on the table, so now it belongs to all. And we want tea. Take any rabbit you choose. There are too many here, and they are a noisy lot.” The rabbits’ noses twitched nervously, each looking fearfully at their neighbors.

  Alice moved closer. “I changed my mind. I paid for the tea, so you can keep the rabbit. I’ll just take the canister and be on my way.”

  “Too late!” the queen cried. “You can’t change your mind now. That would be rude!”

  Alice’s hand froze in midair.

  “Is it worth losing your hat holder?” Cheshire winked at her.

  When Alice inhaled to argue, the queen waved her scepter wildly in the air, causing the sentry on her right to duck. “Not another word, unless you wish to lose your head, too!”

  The sentinels raised their lances with menacing intent. There was nothing Alice could do. Her heart fell as she watched a sentinel open the canister and spoon it into a very large, shiny vermillion teapot. The sentinel was using too much, wasn’t letting it steep properly, and worse, was carelessly spilling the precious leaves on the tablecloth. After she’d saved so long for it.

  Alice gritted her teeth.

  “Stop! You’re doing it all wrong!” Much as she hated the thought of having to share her treasure, the pain of watching it desecrated was more than she could stand. She shoved her way over to the sentinel’s side. “Let me do it, you mechanized dishwasher!” She took tea and spoon away from him and started over. First, she set more water to boil on the little burner on the table. It was strange to use red water, but maybe it wouldn’t affect the taste. When it boiled, she spooned the correct amount of purplish red tea leaves into the pot and put on the lid to let it steep.

  “Hurry it up!” the queen demanded.

  I could just shoot them all, take my tea, and run…

  It sounded like a good idea, but she wasn’t sure if the queen’s bodyguards had other weapons besides their lances. She couldn’t see under their tunics. And being robotic or cybernetic, any number of weapons could be built into them, ready to fire in a nanosecond.

  “Good tea takes time,” she countered, feeling a bit cross.

  “Maybe more time than you have,” Cheshire snickered.

  “I’m just as good with a knife as I am with a blaster,” she responded crisply over her shoulder at the creature. It continued to grin but didn’t offer any more comments.

  There was still a good half of her tea left in the canister. She’d hang around long enough to find her thief. Maybe if she created a distraction, she could swipe the container.

  “We want tea! We want tea!” chanted one rabbit, banging on the table with spoon in hand. The rest soon followed, creating a loud din.

  They are all mad. Maybe they have space psychosis.

  Whatever the reason for their boorish behavior, thankfully the tea was ready. Soon, this place would be only an annoying memory.

  “Quiet, or all your heads will hang in the wind!” the queen shouted.

  Alice was tiring of hearing that threat.

  “Tea’s ready. I’ll pour.” She gave a nasty look to the sentinel who’d moved forward to grab the teapot and snatched it first. “I said I’ll do it!” The sentinel wheeled back.

  Etiquette demanded the queen be served first. Since she had a cup and saucer placed in front of her, she had to be part organic life-form, but who knew what breathed underneath that manufactured exoskeleton? Alice filled the teacup but left enough room for milk or lemon or whatever else these creatures put in their tea.

  “Don’t forget me!” shouted Cheshire.

  Alice ignored him. Even if he was part living creature, he was sitting in a tree and didn’t have a cup. She certainly wasn’t going to bring him one.

  Next, she started down the long line of guests. As she filled the cups, she scrutinized each guest. One was too fat to be her rabbit. One was too skinny. Another was too short. Down the table she continued. When she’d finished, there were only five viable suspects.

  “Have you narrowed it down to ten or less?” Cheshire chided. He still hadn’t moved from his spot on the overhanging branch. Could he move at all?

  Turning back to the party, she debated once again about stunning them all, grabbing the tea, and getting out.

  ’Til she saw the look on the sentinels’ faces. They watched her intently, their eyes and movements following her. Maybe she’d better hold off for now.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Cheshire sang.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “Not all of it.” Right now she was thinking if she tranqed that thing, she could sell it to a zoo somewhere and make enough money to replace the wasted tea if this plan failed. Pak had connections.

  Cheshire laughed and promptly changed from striped to zigzag lines.

  If he could do that, he’d be worth two canisters of tea.

  The rabbits got raucous. They sloshed their tea, wore the crumbs of scones on their chests, and stomped their feet as they sang loudly – and off key. It was a nightmare.

  “Make your choice!” ordered the queen.

  Alice had to figure out a way to find her rabbit. How? She sat in a chair, observing them. All eighty eyes stared back. There was no expression on any one that might l
ead her to think it was her guilty stew pot suspect. They were a cool, conniving bunch.

  Alice slowly rose and smiled. She bowed to the queen. “Your Highness, I will know which rabbit is the guilty one if I can see him dance. If you would command them, please? Once I find him, I will be off.”

  “Have a plan, do you? What is it? Tell us!” giggled Cheshire.

  “No,” Alice said, not bothering to look at Cheshire. She couldn’t reveal how she was going to catch the white rabbit.

  The queen leaned back, turning her head aside, uninterested. “And why should I order them to dance? I don’t care who stole your tea.”

  “For your amusement, Your Highness.” Alice smiled coyly. “Wouldn’t you like to see how I catch my thief?”

  The queen thought about it for a moment, then said, “Fine. I’ll order them to dance, but if you’re wrong, your head will roll in his place.”

  Now Alice knew she really had to get the right rabbit.

  “Line up!” ordered the queen. “Anything specific they should dance?”

  “Just a little jig would be fine. But have them dance on the table, please. I need to watch them closely.”

  “But we’ll ruin the scones and teacups!” said one rabbit with a lazy ear. He wasn’t a suspect and Alice would have ignored him, but she got a brilliant idea.

  “Quite right. Here” – Alice got up – “I’ll clear the table for you.” She stacked the teacups, pushed the scones out of the way, and rolled back the tablecloth. “I don’t want anyone to slip,” she offered. She moved around the table, and for a brief moment, her back was to the queen and her bodyguards; just enough time to roll the canister into the cloth without anyone seeing. While the rabbits lined up, she pushed the cloth to the opposite end of the table and, as she walked, stuck her hand under and pulled out the canister. With a deft sleight of hand, she pushed it into a pocket on her flight suit.

  Even if the rascal got away, she had her tea.

  Except if he got away, she’d lose her head.

  But her plan was a good one.

  Alice sat down. “Your Highness, we’re ready.”

  The queen pointed to the first rabbit. “You! Dance!”

  With a nervous twitch of its whiskers, it hopped onto the table. With its big feet, it shuffled a bit, its head swiveling to see the queen’s reaction.

  “Pssst!” Alice hissed. “Better kick it up a notch if you want to keep your noggin.” She looked emphatically at its feet.

  With that, the rabbit high-stepped.

  Nope, that wasn’t the one.

  “You’re done, next!” Alice shouted.

  The first rabbit whispered something to the next as it ran by, happy to get off the table. The new dancer kicked high and after only several moves, Alice stopped him.

  “Done. Next!”

  And it went on like that until she got to the thirty-seventh one, the fourth of her five suspects. He hopped on stage and only kicked twice when Alice stopped him.

  “Take off your gravity boots, please. They make too much noise.”

  He hesitated, glancing around. “Um, I need them. Yes, this planet has a much heavier gravity than I’m used to and I need them to walk.” His head bobbed nervously up and down several quick times.

  Alice jumped up, knocking him flat on his back and pinned him down.

  “This is the thief!”

  Everyone hushed up.

  The queen stood and strutted down the length of the table. “How can you be sure?”

  “A white rabbit stole my tea, and I chased him here.”

  “But everyone is required to be presentable in red. And his fur is red.”

  “Yep, except he was in such a rush, knowing I was right behind him, that he didn’t have time to take off his gravity boots, so…” She leaned back, unbuckled a boot and pulled it off, revealing a snowy white foot.

  He squealed with fright. Alice smiled.

  “Off with his head!” the queen shouted.

  Back in her ship, Alice pulled the canister of tea out of her tunic and tucked it in a side compartment of the ship.

  With a wicked smile, she hung the rabbit’s foot on a control switch. Who wanted a red fur coat anyway?

  For the first Alice

  whose adventures entertained me

  for hours when I was a little girl.

  They call me Alice, but that’s not my real name. It’s a convenient one, one that my Kansas parents can easily say. Sing Yanyu is what my mother called me. For a while after she was gone, I dreamed the melody of her voice, but I can’t hear those sounds anymore. My ears have lost all their music.

  “Alice?”

  That’s Betsy. She and her husband, Mark, brought me here from my true home a few months ago. They’re very nice. I live in a big house with clean water and a soft bed.

  No.

  I don’t live here.

  Sixteen-year-old Alice does.

  Each day I grow more confused about who I really am.

  “Alice, are you ready? It’s time.”

  Betsy’s enrolling me in a new high school. I failed badly in the first one, and as I hurry to meet her at the front door, I see worry etched across her forehead. She doesn’t want me to fail again.

  “Where’s your backpack?” she asks.

  Already, I’ve forgotten something she told me to do. Her English words slip easily from inside my head, so if I don’t translate what she tells me, I don’t remember. That was my problem in school, too.

  I return to my room, find the new backpack, and make sure I have the notebook and pen Betsy bought for me.

  When we drive into the parking lot, the school is very much like the other one, so I feel a dejected curve creep up my spine, the curve that shows I have no hope inside me for success. I wish I didn’t have to go here and that I could return with Betsy and help her in the kitchen. I know chopping and stirring and steaming of rice from some lessons I had years ago in another kitchen thousands of miles away. And when I close my eyes at Betsy’s stove, the rising steam floats me across those miles, and I’m in the place I belong. I’m clear about who I am.

  For a time.

  Betsy’s waiting outside the car, holding my door open. She expects me to follow her down the sidewalk and up the steps to this new school, so I do. She enters, and I wait one moment to look over my shoulder. Like all the other days since I came to America, I sense a presence, but when I try to find what is there, I see nothing. Today is the same, and that curve in my spine deepens as a terrible longing wraps me in its arms. What is it that hovers just out of sight? Why does it tantalize and disappoint me?

  The day falls into chunks of time teachers tell me are periods. And that puzzles me because I’ve learned that period means menstruation or a mark at the end of an English sentence. Now it has another meaning? This language does not come easily to my Chinese mind.

  I sit within a cloak of foreignness at the back of each class. But because Betsy’s eyes pleaded “please try” when she left me this morning, I do. I try to make notes about the homework. I complete the writing assignments the best I can, forcing my hand to move from left to right, drawing the characters so they look like the English marks I’m learning and so they flow across the lined page.

  When I must read in one of the books, I squint at the straight up and down block letters that don’t easily reveal their meaning to me, and try to untangle the ideas inside them.

  At the last bell, I would like to push my way through the jostling students and be quickly outside where Betsy will be waiting. Instead, I steal along the side of the hall, more ghost than girl. More Chinese than Kansan.

  I wait at the curb. Betsy’s not usually late, so when I don’t see her car, a serpent of fear coils inside me. What if she doesn’t return as my mother didn’t? Then there’s that feeling of being watched that grows stronger as students leave and I become more alone.

  I fold my arms across my stomach, and again search for whatever I feel at my back that is never there. Then
under a parked car, I spy a stuffed rabbit, a child’s toy. How sad it looks. Abandoned. But when I kneel to rescue it, the white, furry creature hops farther into the shadows. It’s not a toy, and in shock I fall back, staring. The rabbit is the size of my two palms held open. Its nose wriggles and sniffs, but its eyes are steady on me.

  In the language of my heart, I ask this rabbit, “You follow me. Why?”

  In the language of my heart, he says, “I have been sent.”

  Before I can ask him what that means, a horn blasts behind me, and I leap up.

  “Alice! What’s the matter?” Betsy is halfway out of her car, urgency spiraling from her.

  “Nothing. I…I dropped something.” That’s my first lie to her, and it comes to me that it won’t be my last. When I look down near the wheel of the car, the rabbit isn’t there.

  “Yanyu, you are a crazy girl,” I say to myself. “You must have left your good sense in China.”

  And I know that’s true. I left everything in China.

  Betsy prepares many meals she knows I like, so this night there is white rice with pork and tender green onions. She and Mark have improved in their use of chopsticks, but they still ask if I can adjust their fingers. I think they want to show me how much they appreciate my help. This makes me sad because I want to let them know how their help touches me also, but I don’t.

  Our talk is about Mark’s job, Betsy’s day at the cultural center where she volunteers, and then it turns to my first day at the new school.

  My second lie comes quickly to my lips. “I talked to two girls in my class. They were very kind to help me find my way.”

  Betsy and Mark sip their tea and hum with satisfaction. I don’t feel so bad about that lie as long as it brings a peaceful look to Betsy’s face. Mark smiles at me over his teacup, and I return his smile before I look down and pretend to inhale the jasmine scent with great pleasure. I may be the only Chinese girl who dislikes the smell of jasmine tea, but I don’t tell them this.

  When I’ve finished my tea, I gather the dishes and push away from the table.