Chester Cheshire grinwild's Arc

Chapter 13 of 15

Chester swept the broken cups aside with his boot and grinned at the wet table. Tigr's tea still dripped between the cobbles. Rapunzel was wringing out her sleeves. Harrietta was counting shards and writing the number down. "Not enough noise," Chester said. "One laugh, one bounce, one mess. A real party needs a pack." He pulled a gold-stamped book from his coat. A small lion cub was pressed into its cover. "This one," he said, "is full of teeth that giggle." He opened the book on the table and reached in past the wrist. Fur slid under his fingers. He pulled, and a spotted hyena tumbled out onto the cloth, laughing before its paws had landed. He pulled again. And again. Six hyenas in all, gray and black, knocking into each other and snorting. They smelled the spilled tea and laughed harder. Rapunzel stepped behind her chair. Harrietta tapped her watch and said this was exactly what she had been afraid of. Chester clapped once and the cobbles rearranged. Six new seats rose around the long table, each a small pile of bones with a stitched pillow on top. The pillows were bright with little castles and tiny skulls along the trim. "Bone for the seat," Chester said, "cushion for the manners." The hyenas climbed up at once, snouts already grinning. "Riddle," Chester said. "What walks on four legs, laughs on two, and pays for tea with a femur?" The hyenas howled. One fell off its pillow and climbed back up. He kept going. "What's striped, soaked, and sorry?" Tigr raised a paw. The hyenas shrieked. "What has a spout, no tea, and a temper?" One hyena hit the table so hard a saucer jumped. By the fifth riddle they were wheezing, leaning on each other, tails thumping. The smallest one, gray with a black mask across its eyes, slid down from its pillow and stood up on its hind legs. "My turn," it said. "I need a place to stand. Build me a stage, cat, and I'll keep them laughing till the moon falls in the cup." Chester's mismatched eyes brightened. He pictured an upturned teacup, wide as a wagon, set on a purple-draped round with little candles burning around the rim. The shape pressed itself out of the air beside the table and settled on the stones. The small hyena leapt up onto the cup's bowl and bowed. The others banged the table for applause. Chester laughed until his tail curled twice. He had wanted noise. Now he had a jester. "You'll need a den," he said. He looked past the square into the empty dark and imagined a hollow of pale stone shaped like a great elephant skull, archways through its sockets, bones scattered down the slope. The shelter rose at the edge of Wonderland, waiting. The hyenas saw it and yipped. Harrietta closed her notebook hard. "Six more mouths," she said. "Six more rooms to feed." Chester poured fresh tea. The table was loud again, and the chairs were not empty, and somewhere past the cobbles a skull-house stood ready for guests who would not stay quiet for long.