“Now, how do you suppose it got out there?” she asked.
“Must have heard me say, ‘Clean cup, move down,’ and just kept moving down until it splashed into the sea thinking it was tea! Silly teapots never act the way you expect. They can spout off at any moment, you know. Steaming-hot attitudes, too. No matter—I have the perfect way for you to sail out and retrieve it.”
“Me?!” said Alice.
The Mad Hatter bristled and put his hand to his chest. “I certainly shouldn’t have to go out there on my unbirthday! And besides, you have read so many nonsensical . . . nautsensical . . . I mean nautical books! You are a much savvier sailor than I.”
“What do you have in mind?” Alice asked, even though she knew the Mad Hatter’s way would be senseless compared to a boat made of wood and sails.
“Not in mind . . . on my mind!” The Mad Hatter lifted his moss-green hat to reveal an upturned bottle with delicate rope latticework around it and a tiny teacup for a crow’s nest atop the little mast. “This is the way to sail! Made it myself. Do you like it?” He lifted the tiny “ship” off his bald head and giggled.
“How am I to ever fit in that?” asked Alice.
But the Mad Hatter had something else up his sleeve. After a few wriggles of his arm, a tiny cake tumbled from his jacket cuff. “Don’t worry, my dear. This will shrink you down to size,” he said as he handed it to her. “Now, of course you’ll need provisions.” He pulled supplies out of his pockets: a tablespoon of butter, two spoons (for rowing if need be), and a smidgen of jam. He laid all this in the bottom of the bottle.
With a bite of the cake, Alice shrank down, down, down. The Mad Hatter helped her into the boat and dropped the craft into an outgoing wave. “Goodbye!” he called. “And don’t talk to any walruses you don’t know.”
The waves were small at first, and Alice enjoyed the gentle swaying up and down. It reminded her of when she wafted down the rabbit hole. However, the farther her little boat drifted away from shore, the more raucous the sea became. Despite being thrown off her feet a time or two, Alice kept a constant weather eye out for her goal.
That is until the teapot was tossed up and over a very large wave. As she felt her little boat riding up the same swell, she thought only of spotting the teapot again on the other side.
Except she didn’t. “Oh dear,” Alice said as she climbed up the ship’s mast to scan the roiling sea. “Where can it have gone?”
