CHAPTER EIGHT
The Caterpillar
Soon she comes to it, a spot to the side of the path where there is a particular mushroom atop which sits a particular three inch long caterpillar smoking from a hookah.
She awkwardly positions herself to take a tiny bite of the mushroom, as the little caterpillar watches tinily and quietly.
She was required to visit the caterpillar every other day, but that was before her heart got stolen. Biting from the left side of the mushroom always makes her shrink.
And shrink she does. Just as she suspected, everything shrinks at a different rate—her clothes always shrink a bit slower than her body, causing her dress to temporarily be too big for her, and what she was counting on is also true—her arms and wrists shrink faster than the tape wrapped around them, so soon she is easily able to pull her hands free.
She sits now, on the ground, a respectable size for conversing with the atrocious insect. She doesn’t like him at all. He’s immature, literally—he refuses to grow up and become a butterfly. But she’d always been too polite to protest with any more than a level of meekly.
The Caterpillar watches her with detached interest from his differently spectacled eyes—a year ago, he took to wearing a monocle on one eye to appear more distinguished. He lifts the hookah from his insectoid mouth and shoots smoke rings in her direction. “You snuck up on me! Usually I have to put up with your distracting shadow over me before you shrink. Why I say girl! Do you know you’re not casting a shadow?”
Alice looks down to see that it’s true. But she shrugs it off. Weird things happen all the time in Wonderland.
Alice brings out her deck of cards and begins looking through it, quickly finding that the Thirteen of Heartless is still there.
Now the Caterpillar says, “Cards? What’s the meaning, girl? And why did you put tape around your wrists?”
Alice is grateful for the freedom to fold her arms, which she does now. “I didn’t do it. It was the Tweedle twins. They—they were trying to make me cry.” Since she had so recently acquired the skill of deception, she decides to put it to use now, and pretend she’s the same Alice as usual—and she won’t mention the twins’ demise.
The Caterpillar takes a small puff from his hookah, exhales smoke. “Boys will be boys.”
“Brats will be brats. They will get what’s coming to them someday.”
“Perhaps, but not from the likes of you. Why, you are just a weak, little…meek, uninspiring, unimpressive, tiny little little girl.”
“You should be glad I am. That way, I can talk to you.”
“Yes, I’m glad to make you test for me, but I know you. You would goof off if you could. Won’t stay on task. You’re lucky to have me to provide you with guidance.” He tuts and adjusts his monocle with one of his many many thin caterpillar legs.
Alice tries to stifle her anger. Her goal here is not to give in to her anger, despite all the horrible things the Caterpillar has done to her in the past. Her goal is to get to the bottom of where her heart is. I must keep reminding myself of that.
Alice says, “I’m grateful for your tutelage. You’ve taught me so much of the effects of so many varied spices. Why, recount with me—spices that have made my hair turned red, spices that have made all the food I ate taste like strawberries and one that made me feel dizzy as if I’d been spinning in place for minutes at a time. And one that shot me full of so much pleasure I lay still for three days straight. Once you gave me a spice that made rainbows shoot from my mouth each time I spoke. Do you remember?”
He chuckles. “Yes, I remember that one. You are lucky to know someone with such a refined taste and such access to numerous spices as I have. Do you realize how exquisite of a hookah smoker I am?”
Alice fights to keep from rolling her eyes. How can I forget? You mention it every single time. But she thinks perhaps it’s wise to stroke his ego a bit before she tries to tease any information out of him. So she says, “How exquisite?”
“Glad you asked! Why my girl, I am so skilled a hookaher, that no matter the spice, no matter if I have ever smoked it or not, I can inhale precisely and exactly up to the very moment just before an overdose would occur. It is a simply uncanny skill I have and a testament to my skills and abilities. And so I am able to reach the pinnacle of pleasure that each spice offers, for it is right on that line just before you get too much that you get the most you can get without getting too much, you see?”
Alice nods eagerly. Even while, for so long, and right now even, she has wished that the Caterpillar would make a mistake some day and inhale just a little too long and die and be rid of himself. Because frankly, she doesn’t appreciate being the test subject for his tinkering.
Now the Caterpillar adjusts his monocle and launches into his favorite poem, which he recites often, and which so happens to be about himself.
I’m an insect hookaher of distinction and taste,
Who smokes the most exquisite spices!
And I know when to quit with the utmost of haste,
So as not to be killed by my vices!
Since I inhale right up to the point that I die,
I reach the highest point of pleasure,
And since my timing’s so precise, so clever am I,
Why I daresay that I am a treasure!
Alice claps at his recitation. She’s quite convincing, she thinks.
“Very good, my girl. Thank you for your support. I have a new spice for you…”
The Caterpillar likes to test all his newly acquired spices on her. He calls her his “guinea pig”. It has resulted in so much misery and recoveries over the years, she has grown to despise him. Yet she could never refuse him, because he threatened to tell the Queen, who would order guards to have her beaten or whipped if she made trouble.
She says, meekly, “I’d rather not try it. More for you, don’t you think?”
“Oh, no, my little girl. I’m unfamiliar with this particular spice. I need you to test it so I can watch you and know how much to take without overdosing. You know that. Must we go through this again?”
Alice sighs. So many times she’s wished the Caterpillar would overdose so he wouldn’t be able to torment her anymore. She’d fantasized about maybe “helping” him get a little too much over the edge, but she could never before bring herself to do it. But she has more things to worry about than revenge, she reminds herself.
“Okay,” she says smiling. “But before I toke, there’s something I’d like to discuss.”
He adjusts his monocle, blows some smoke. “Yes?”
“See, during my unhappy unbirthday party today…I know you weren’t there, but perhaps you might have heard something. I had something stolen. A very important item. Have you heard anything about it?”
“I’ve heard nothing, and why should I care? What was stolen? Don’t you take care of your possessions, silly girl?”
“Well it’s quite embarrassing. I’ll just say it was a body part. Are you sure you’ve heard nothing? You don’t happen to know where it might be, do you?”
“A body part? What body part?” He looks around theatrically. “Well it’s certainly not around here. Why, depending on which part, it would probably be quite huge compared to me. Have you not forgotten that you’re usually overly large? And your body parts would be overly large?” His tone of speaking suggests he thinks Alice is stupid.
“And you don’t happen to know—”
He waves four arms, dismissively. “No no, no one tells me anything. They consider me too tiny too speak to. When really it is they who are overly large! Now enough of your missing property. You look just fine to me! I’m so anxious to try my new spice. Now get up here girl! You wouldn’t want me to tell the Queen would you?”
Alice believes the Caterpillar knows nothing about her lost heart. If the Tweedle twins hadn’t been lying, the Mad Hatter had taken it, so he’s next on her list to visit.
The Caterpi
llar causes her to startle from her thoughts when he shouts, “Girl! Get up here, get up here now! I’ll tell the Queen if you don’t come this instant! I shall have you whipped, beaten, beheaded! A trivial missing body part will be the least of your worries when you’re missing your head! Now!” His face has grown crimson from rage and his monocle drops carelessly from his eye and swings from the angry jerking motions of his head.
A grin creeps up Alice’s face as she locks eyes with him. “Certainly.” She curtsies.
Come, we shall have some fun now. And perhaps when I toke, the high of the spice will be a jolly good time besides. I always felt such guilt at the pleasure before, but that was the old me.
The Caterpillar says, “I’m glad to see some obedience for a change.” As Alice begins to climb the mushroom, he says, “That’s a good girl.” Now that she’s on top of it, he says, “Come sit in my lap.”
The Caterpillar doesn’t actually have a lap in the human sense, but Alice snuggles in front of the Caterpillar, huggled by dozens of his waving arms.
The Caterpillar begins to put the spice into his hookah. The spice looks like dried green leaves. “Now this spice,” the Caterpillar says, “is supposed to cause imaginations in the mind, colors and tastes to fill your head. It’s quite powerful.” The new spice begins to burn. “Here now.” He holds the mouthpiece part up to her lips. “Just like always, with the two breaths.”
The usual routine is for Alice to take two tokes while the Caterpillar watches. He has an uncanny ability to judge how powerful any spice is just by watching, so that he knows exactly how long to inhale himself, right up to the exact moment before an overdose—that way, he can achieve the highest high possible.
Eagerly, Alice takes the mouthpiece into her mouth, inhales warm rough smoke, fills her lungs, does it again. She coughs up smoke. Now she feels a tingling in her head and a sensation as if her head is expanding.
“Ooh, I can’t wait,” the Caterpillar says. His voice sounds deeper than usual, and slower. He takes the pipe from her hand, lifts it to his mouth, and inhales.
Alice acts as quickly as she can, though she’s a little clumsy from the spice. She grabs the tape from her pocket. The Caterpillar is inhaling deeply, eyes closed, not noticing her.
Alice peels the tape, sticks one end to the back of the Caterpillar’s head then wraps the tape around, taping the hookah in place in the Caterpillar’s mouth.
The Caterpillar still has his eyes closed. Perhaps the spice has numbed his sense of touch.
Alice makes sure to tape over the Caterpillar’s nose holes.
She shouts, “Take that!”
The Caterpillar is slow to react, but his eyes dreamily open. He seems confused as he sees Alice staring deeply into his eyes. He looks around, then his eyes go wide in surprise as he realizes.
“Do you know what body part I lost?” Alice says as the Caterpillar tries to rip the tape off, but his arms are too weak and caterpillary. “My heart.” The whites of the Caterpillar’s eyes show quite a bit more as he glances at her. She glares back, and takes the tube in her hand, because she figures that’s what he’ll try next.
And he does—he tries to pull the tubing from the hookah. Alice slaps his hands away with her free hand. It’s easy to do, because his movements are clumsy and slow.
The Caterpillar yells a muffled scream of rage and terror from behind the tape. Alice figures the Caterpillar had been holding his breath, so screaming would lead to…
The Caterpillar takes a deep breath. He blinks and shakes his head, his eyes go wide, he begins to twitch.
Alice watches.
The Caterpillar begins to shake all over. His eyes roll up into the top of his head. He lurches to the side and drops off the mushroom, and Alice is yanked and falls too, because she is too clumsy from the spice.
The Caterpillar thuds heavily onto the ground on his backside. Alice lands on top of him. She hears the hookah land somewhere to her left.
She feels groggy and dazed and for a few long seconds, they lie that way. She feels the Caterpillar’s chest rise as he takes in another deep breath.
Several long seconds pass. Alice looks around, trying to plan her mode of getting off the bastard. Should she just roll off and trust she’ll land okay?
But now the Caterpillar’s body starts convulsing, causing her to slide off. She sits up and watches.
The Caterpillar’s body is rippling spasmodically, his many dozens of legs twitching while moving, as if he is trying to run somewhere. His eyes are open wide, staring into space, the hose is still taped to his mouth, but the hose part is broken away from the rest of the hookah.
The Caterpillar flails and convulses and shudders, rolls to his right side on top of the hookah and then he is still.
Alice approaches him to see his face. His eyes are still open wide in terror, but the life seems to have left them. She places her hand over the open end of the hose so that he won’t be able to take any more breaths of fresh air, and watches for several minutes.
The Caterpillar doesn’t take any breaths, his eyes remain open the whole time.
Finally, she says to him, “Watch out for the spice. That stuff’ll kill you.”
She searches around a few minutes. The Caterpillar never kept any other possessions than his hookah, and he didn’t wear clothes, so he has no pockets to search. Her heart is not here. So she supposes she’ll go see the Hatter next.