Alice, wonderland, and the scaredy cat....

Alice taunts me from across the hole in the back garden.“Scaredy cat, scaredy cat.”

“I’m not going down there Al.” I say firmly. “And neither are you.”

“But the rabbit said-”

“And how do you know the rabbit can be trusted? You wouldn’t follow a strange man, would you?” She doesn’t look convinced – my little sister would follow a goblin if it had cake – but she backs off from the curious opening in the ground, just a little.

“Mark, what if there is a party?”

“Welll….” I’d only caught a glimpse of the ‘rabbit’ but it had looked like one hell of a costume… still, it's a dark hole, and someone has to be sensible. “We’ll tell mum about the hole first. It’s in her geraniums and she'll be mad about that.” I say. Alice nods, apparently accepting.

Still, this is Alice. So I phone Mum, even though she’s only in the front room, without taking my eye off my sister…

*

It's two hours later. Policemen are dragging a man in a crumpled top hat out of the hole. “Geraniums! Geraniums! Wobblies are peeking through the cloooooouds!” He shrieks.

The hole is cordoned off, and firemen who’ve gone down are saying things like ‘bloody hell’ over the radio. 

Mum looks disapproving.

Alice clings possessively to the Cheshire cat. “Please can we keep him Mum. He does tricks!” With a cats unerring instinct for survival it fades away to a grin, and back again.

Mum frowned. “ Hmmm….”

“Go on Mum,” I urge her, conscious that Alice never got her cake.

Mum sighs .“Ok. But he’s to stay outdoors until he’s house trained.”

“Yes Mum.”

“And he’ll have to be neutered.”

The grin vanishes, leaving behind only a cat.