The Mouse gave a sudden, violent shudder. “C-cat… nasty, vulgar thing!” it cried, then vanished under the surface, leaving only its meter-long tail above the water like a periscope—swiveling about as though it too might catch the signal of the Cat.
Alice could not help but giggle, though she knew it was not entirely polite.
“What a silly mouse! As if my Dinah would swim all the way here. Why, she makes the most dreadful fuss over a mere puddle!”
Just then there was a splash so sudden it set the water fizzing, and up came Bill the Lizard.
He coughed so violently that Alice feared he might shake himself to pieces.
He coughed and spluttered, until the fit erupted in such a gale of sound and fury, Alice quite expected the Queen to march out of the reeds and order somebody’s head off.
(The Queen, of course, was elsewhere at the time, ordering everybody’s head off, which kept her well occupied.)
Bill seized the Mouse’s tail with one hand, puffed up his narrow chest, and gave Alice such a commanding look that she very nearly believed he was master of the flood.
But as Alice gazed past him at the waters—her own tears made strange—the illusion vanished.
They did not merely reflect; they seemed to answer back, their shimmering surface prickling with the promise of comments and likes.
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