Read Online Alice in Zombieland by Lewis & Cook Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

Alice angrily.
          ‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the Dead Hare.
          ‘I didn’t know it was your table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’
          ‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. His eyes were hollow and dark; several of his teeth were missing, giving him a smile not unlike a snarl. His hands were digging into the table like claws as he leaned closer to Alice. She could smell a cold decay waft from his mouth.
          ‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’
          The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’
          ‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. —I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.
          ‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the Dead Hare.
          ‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.
          ‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the Dead Hare went on.
          ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’
          ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter, snarling at her again. A blue tongue snaked inside the dark of his mouth. It made her shiver. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’
          ‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dead Hare, ‘that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!’
          ‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’
          ‘It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. Just then a murder of crows burst from the tree overhead, shaking down dead leaves, and the noisome birds exploded into the cloudy air, flying off into the distance. She wondered if the Raven she’d encountered a little while before was part of the disappearing birds as they wheeled into the dark clouds above.
          The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
          Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’
          ‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you blood wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the Dead Hare.
          ‘It was the best blood,’ the Dead Hare meekly replied.
          ‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’
          The Dead Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the best blood, you know.’
          Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’
          ‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your watch tell you what year it is?’
          ‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’
          ‘Which is just the case with mine ,’ said the Hatter.
          Alice felt