We shrank away into the bushes, waiting for the rabbit to leave. He chatted with Absolem for quite a while, but eventually he left. It was getting darker by the hour. I felt my back stiffening, but I sat silent and still. For a time that seemed to consume all eternity Absolem perched on his mushroom and smoked his hookah. For hours, puffing away on his pipe. I felt my eyelids become heavy, and I struggled to stay awake. I think I must of eventually drifted off, because when I reopened my eyes Absolem was curled around the hookah, snoring softly on his mushroom. I turned to Chess, who nodded to me. We carefully emerged out of the bushes. The Dormouse scrambled up onto my shoulder and we crept around the huge mushroom. I signalled to stop.
"Where's Chesshur?" I mouthed. Queenie pointed up to a nearby tree and he was clinging to a branch. I took this as he wasn't coming, so we set off without him. We cautiosly snuck through the bushes, wincing everytime we brushed against a branch. Slowly, but surely we made our way through the bushes. Emerging from the wood, I felt a cool chilly wind run against my face, tossing my hair to and fro like a child tosses a ball. I breathed in the air, and we set off again. I stopped arubtly.
"Why did you stop?" Chess whispered.
"Does anyone actually know which way we are going?" We were all silent in thought.
"I know where Uilleam resides" The Dormouse whispered.
"Alright Mallympkin!" Queeni whispered. "Lead the way!" The Dormouse scrambled up onto my hat. I winced as she tugged at my hair. She pointed her tiny fingers ahead of us and we followed.
We walked in silence for a while. At one point I got rather bored and began singing quietly to myself.
"There was a barber and his wife,
And she was beautiful,
A foolish barber and his wife,
She was his reason and his life,
And she was beautiful, and she was virtuous,
And he was, naive.
Chess continued.
"There was another man who saw,
that she was beautiful,
A pious vulture of the law,
Who with a gesture of his claw, removed the barber from his plate,
And there was nothing but to wait,
And she would fall! So soft, so young, so lost and oh so beautiful."
"What are you doing now?" The Dormouse cried in a harsh whisper.
"Oh that was many years ago," Queenie answered. "I doubt that anyone would know" We all smiled. The Dormouse sighed and shrugged.
We suddenly came into a small clearing. The trees were curving in a circle and there was an abnormally large fairy ring in the centre (The mushrooms were big enough to sit on). There were small wooden houses dotted around the clearing to make up a small village. All the lights were off, and the town was obviously at rest. The Dormouse wanted to get straight to the point, but I felt like a little girl in a playtown, and I wanted to explore. I was strangely drawn to a tall house, obviously made of oak, with a slanted orange roof. I walked over to it, enchanted. I ran my fingers down the irish green door, stroking the golden doorknob. I peered through the windows. The wallpaper was pink and green diamonds, and the carpet was the same rich green as the door. There was a delicately carved table with elegant chairs with green cushions. There was an ornate teapot with cups left lying out on the table.
"Tarrant's house," the Dormouse muttered.
"It's so - tidy" I murmured.
"He does all his work upstairs."
"I'd like to see it." The next house was a simple pine house with a neat blue roof. The door was a same shade of blue. Gazing through the windows, I saw a navy blue sofa with sky blue cushions neatly arranged on it. There was a tidy square rug and a bookshelf with books arranged in height order.
"Very tidy," I remarked. "I'm guessing this is the rabbit's house."
"You'd guess right," the Dormouse said. The third house we came to was another oak house, but it was quite worn. The roof and door were red. Looking in the house I gasped. It was so
messy. A plain table sat in the centre of the room. Red chairs were overturned and the table was littered with knives, forks and spoons. This was clearly the March Hare's house.
"Thackery never did master spring cleaning" The Dormouse said. The last house was also pine with a purple roof and door. I peered in the windowes and there was a large round purple sofa.
"Here we are," whispered the Dormouse. "Welcome to the Dodo's house."
"What do we do now?" Chess asked. We racked our brains on how to get in. Could we smash the window? No, that was too loud. A spare key maybe? Not likely. Then I thought about the Hatter in the tunnels. How he had released everyone. Aha! That was it. I removed my own hat and turned it round and round until I found what I was looking for. I pulled out a small golden arrow, similar to the one in the Hatter's hat. I found the lock on the door and slowly began picking at the lock. After a few minutes of struggling, a satisfying 'clunk' was heard in the door. The door swung silently open. I stood back to admire my work. Chess patted me on the back.
"Wait!" Queenie whispered as we were about to enter the house. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do?"
"It's too late to go back now," Chess whispered. "Come on!" We crept quietly into the house. The moonlight illuminated everything with a touch of silver lace. We snuck through the hallway and up the stairs. I tensed up on every step, dreading the creak of a floorboard that would wake the Dodo. But we successfully climbed the stairs onto the first floor. There was a indigo rug stretching down the landing. I could hear a faint murmuring coming from the last door on the left. That was obviously the Dodo's bedroom. We slithered along the landing and to the door. I gave the door a gentle push and it silently swung open. The Dodo was nesting at the other end of the room.
"It's in there," Queenie whispered. "I can sense it."
"Right," I whispered cheerfully. "Who wants to go in first?"
No one volunteered. After a small debate we decided Chess would go in undercover. I hugged her.
"Are you ready Chess?" I whispered. She nodded. She was shaking a little. She waved shyly at us before she disappeared. We huddled around the door, waiting. As a mysterious author I mentioned once or twice before said, waiting is one of life's hardships. This is most definetely true. Watching the space where I imagined Chess to be was possibly the most difficult thing I'd had to do. I saw various draws open, boxes open and close. After what seemed like forever, but what turned out to be only a few agonising minutes, Chess discovered the location of the key. It was in an ancient jewellery box stashed inside the wardrobe. Chess reappeared and did a tiny dance of victory on the spot, waving the key in the air. Those vital seconds when Chess let her guard down could possibly have cost us everything. Before we knew it, Chess' foot was over a misplaced sock bundle (why a bird had socks in its room I will never know), and her happy face twisted into something mixed between shock and suprise. Snicket once said, suprise is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark suprise as you try to readjust the way you thought of things. Chess crashed to the ground, and the Dodo sat upright in sickly suprise. Our eyes widened. We'd been caught in the act.
