[wilwarin538]

Alirin continued her walk, being sure to stay far from the cliff and soon came upon a different type of garden. There was a large castle with a huge lawn in front. There were many trees covered in white roses, but there were gardeners painting them red.

“How odd.” Alirin thought, when suddenly the three gardeners fell flat on their faces. Before the girl could ask why they were behaving in this way she saw a few people coming towards her. One seemed to be a Queen, she was all dressed in red with heart patterns, and she was very stern looking. With her was a Dodo, a Gryphon and a man also dressed in red with hearts.

`Who is this?' The Queen of Hearts said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

`Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alirin, she went on, `What's your name, child?'

`My name is Alirin, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very politely.

`And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree, still face down.

`How should I know?' said Alirin, surprised at her own courage. `It's no business of MINE.'

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head! Off--'

`Nonsense!' said Alirin, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.
`Can you play croquet?' the Queen suddenly asked.

`Yes!' said Alirin.

`Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alirin joined the small group, wondering very much what would happen next.
She looked around and soon spotted that the Dodo had ran off and accidently fell into a large fountain. Seeming to not know how else to dry off he began running around in circles.

“What is he doing?” Alirin asked the Knave, who was walking along side her.

“He’s having a Caucus-race, I think he’s winning.” the Knave explained. This made no sense to Alirin, considering the Dodo was running in circles on his own, and was randomly stopping and starting again, and constantly changing directions. After a few moments he stopped and suddenly came over to her.

“I’ve won the race, I should like a price now!” the Dodo said to her. Alirin reached into her pocket and pulled out a thimble, this seemed to please him.

By this time the Queen had started to play crocket, using a flamingo has her racket and a hitting live hedgehogs, and had randomly called out for someone’s head to be chopped off. Before she could respond the Gryphon had now walked over to her and began to speak.

“What fun!' said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alirin.

`What IS the fun?' said Alirin.

`Why, SHE,' said the Gryphon. `It's all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you know.”

Alirin was quite releaved by this, but was feeling rather bored just standing and watching the Queen play the odd sport.

“Have you ever done the Lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon asked. Alirin responded with no, and was quite curious, she rather liked dancing.

“What kind of dance is it?” she asked him.

`Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form two lines along the sea-shore, seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way -- THAT generally takes some time—you advance twice, each with a lobster as a partner! ' as he was describing the dance he was jumping all about.

“Then you advance twice, change lobsters, and retire in same order” the Gryphon continued, “then you throw the lobsters as far out to sea as you can, swim after them, turn a somersault in the sea, back to land, and that’s all the first figure!” He finished, with sigh, and sat down, since all the mad jumping about had made him quite tired.

Suddenly Alirin could hear the Queen screaming and hollering and pointing angrily at the Knave of Hearts.

“What is going on?” Alirin asked the Dodo.

“Well, the Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer day: the Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, and took them quite away!” the Dodo responded.

“Off with his head!” the Queen was yelling as Alirin, the Dodo and the Gryphon walked closer. The Knave was standing there simply denying it, as some card soldiers walked towards him.

Before anyone could say another word, or before the soldiers could apprehend the Knave, he pulled out a sword and cut off the Queen’s head!

“Off with YOUR head!” he yelled as he ran towards the Dodo and quickly did the same to him. Alirin stood in shock as all of this happened, not quite knowing how to respond.

The Knave walked up to the Gryphon and seemed about to do the same to him (a horn had suddenly appeared on the Gryphon’s forehead), but instead walked away and said, “you can do me no harm now.”

He began to walk towards Alirin holding on to the sword, but she quickly put out her hand and yelled, “enough!”

The Knave and the Gryphon both stopped and looked at her.

“I have spent the whole day being shrunk, and grown, and bossed around by animals!” she said, getting rather frustrated, as her voice grew and she shut her eyes tight to try and calm down. “I’ve been to mad tea parties far more often then I’d like, I’ve heard far too much poetry, and everyone I’ve met has died! I will have no more of it!”

She stood there for a moment clenching her fists and holding her eyes tightly shut. After a moment she realised that everything had gone silent and all she could hear was the babble of a little brook. Slowly the girl opened her eyes and found her sister staring at her with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Alirin was back where she had started that morning.

“I’m never going anywhere with a rabbit, ever again.”