“I’m going to help you throw the party only if I don’t hear you complaining about keeping it small later because of theJab-him-nocky.”
“Jabberwocky!” I yelled then my eyes widened. “How have you never seen his shadow?” I hissed under my breath. “When the birds start singing–”
“What birds!” Hare cried out as if I was trying to convince him a dodo was standing on the table in front of him.
“Oh my God, never mind. Let’s throw a party then. And don’t say his name again. Three times and certainly he’d be summoned.”
“I don’t think I ever said his name.”
“That’s true enough,” I responded.
“You know I’m sending the invite to Cheshire, right?”
“Of course,” I offered.
“He’s going to try and kill you,” he said, taking small sips of his tea.
“That’s one of my favourite parts about parties,” I said before I broke off into laughter. He thought he was so clever with his poisons.
“Are you upset he took Alice away?” Hare asked. Oh wasn’t he nosy tonight? I glared at him.
“I have much bigger things to worry about than Alice,” I said.
“Ah yes, your dragon.”
“It isn’tmydragon.”
“Should I invite him too? I bet he’d love to come.” I leapt from the ground and dove over the table, my fingers grabbing Hare’s tweed vest and shaking him.
“I’ll make you into a hat if you do,” I hissed. He squirmed beneath me, using a paw to jab my hands.
“You’ve never made hats,” he snapped. I dropped his vest and noticed my fingers were trembling. I shoved my hands under my arms and climbed off him.
I sat back in my chair and poured the new tea into a cup, taking sips and feeling the warm liquid travel down my throat.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, smiling.
“Oh, I do like it when you have those,” Hare said. I snorted.
“We’ll have a hunting party. It’ll be practically pagan, nude in the woods as we hunt down the beast. The sky will be our ocean and we will be its fisherman, hunting down our catch. We’ll ride the waves of ritual madness and festivity to our prey.”
“I don’t like the woods,” he grumbled.
“You’re a hare,” I said.
“I’m practically an indoor pet,” he offered and we both broke off laughing.
“Wait,” I said, trying to quiet my laughter as I brushed tears from my eyes. “This isn’t one of those situations where I’ve been talking to animals who don’t actually talk back is it?” We both laughed harder.
“I think I may be talking to one of those humans who talk back to animals,” he cried out in delight.
“My god, Hare what have you put in the tea?” I asked. Our laughter wasn’t stopping.
“I don’t know, I grabbed it from the top shelf in your cupboard,” he said, folding over in half as tears fell down his face, dampening his fur.
“Oh,” I squealed, trying to stop the laughter. My stomach hurt so bad already from how hard I was laughing. “March Hare,” I said. He couldn’t respond at all since he was laughing much too hard.
“I’m afraid you’re going to die again,” I wheezed out, clawing at the table as my head spun and laughter squeezed out my lungs.
“Fuck,” he laughed then died…again. Which was just so damn funny right now.
