THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

On the first day of Christmas, Snow White sent me a partridge in a pear tree, which took me by surprise and made no sense at all. It came with a card signed by Snow White. Warm Greetings. 

The partridge was made of wrought iron, with sharp claws stuck to a branch, the tail extending behind in long copper and tin feathers. The pear tree was hideous and crooked, as if handcrafted in an outburst of madness by an artisan who recently graduated from a lunatic arts academy.

“Go figure,” I thought. “Is this a kind of game she is playing?”

“Maybe it IS art after all—one never knows with contemporary artists. They said the same things about Picasso and that crazy painter with the waxed mustache, Deli, Dali, or something like that.”

The gift arrived after dark, so there wasn’t much I could do with it. I deposited it in one corner of Tulgey Woods, next to the magic mushroom that used to be Caterpillar’s home but was now empty and abandoned. The grub sprang up bright blue wings one day and flew off to the neighboring Outlands.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to hear from Snow White again after she’d left the cottage in a huff. There was a bit of bad blood between us since she got hold of her stepmother’s magic mirror and, seeking validation, stared into it the whole time.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” She’d ask over and over, and the obsequious thing would declare, “You, Snow White. With your black hair and snow-white skin, you are the fairest of them all.”

On the other hand, I thought she was ugly inside and out. To me, she looked like the Bride of Frankenstein but not as sweet.

Call it prejudice or whatever, there was something not quite right about Snow White; besides, fairytale princesses are meant to be plump and blond. Her being stick-thin and dark-haired did not cut it for me. But I kept mum because things like that were not PC in Wonderland. 

Then, on the second day of Christmas, two turtle doves arrived. Plus, there was that metal partridge in the pear tree from the night before that I’d nearly forgotten. The whole thing was getting “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice, my dear friend, would say.

What was she plotting? I didn’t trust her. After all, there were specific rules and regulations that all Wonderland inhabitants had to abide by, and she heeded neither rules nor regulations when sending those things. In fact, her actions went against rule 10 and two quarters, paragraph b, third line: "(…) henceforth, thou shalt grant the right to live and proposer unto thy fellow denizens of Wonderland, and thou shalt refrain from causing any disturbance."

Despite all the legalese, it was pretty straightforward. To me, but apparently not to Snow White. But then, she was a dumb broad.

On the third day of Christmas, I got up early and made a beeline for the door, thinking I’d find three French hens and...I did. Three feathery creatures in a large wicker cage, merrily clucking and depositing their shite right under their feet. The smell was awful. I’m pretty obsessive with cleanliness, and, to tell you the truth, one of the reasons that we fell out was her slovenly habits.

I picked up the cage, contemplating whether to bring it in or leave it by the magic mushroom next to the partridge and the pear tree. Ultimately, I felt sorry for the poor birds who’d done nothing wrong and brought them into the kitchen. They stunk up the place so much that not even half a pound of wildflower potpourri could dispel the reek.

On the fourth day of Christmas... Yes, you guessed it: four calling birds. They called me a slave driver, a misogynous gnome, and a dozen other nasty names I did not deserve. Let’s be honest: nobody tied her to a bedpost, forced her to stay, and MADE her clean and cook for us. It was not misogyny but commonsense practicality. While we went about lumberjacking and hi-hoing, she was supposed to prepare lunch. It was just a fair exchange. She was supposed to reciprocate our old-fashioned hospitality. Anyway, she was a lousy cook and never went beyond stewed roadkill with roast potatoes and apple pie for dessert.

Besides, it was she who trespassed on private property. She slept in a bed that was not hers (the sheets had just been changed!). She could clearly see from the moment she came in that the house belonged to dwarves—seven of them. So, by the look of it, she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer if she decided to stay in a place where things were too small for her.

“Ohhhh, I feel so cramped here,” she moaned all day long.

“Ahhhh, I’m so used to the spacious palace rooms!”

“I miss my maid, who used to comb my hair!” on and on and on, like a broken record. She should have gone back to the damn palace if she felt so out of place.

The rings didn’t arrive until after midday on the fifth day. By then, I thought, “She’s finally got bored.”

No such luck. There they were, in a little box wrapped in tissue paper. Golden, mind you, not gold. Not even silver, just some cheap crap that the Knave of Hearts had probably won for her in the local amusement park. I was angry now but also quite curious. What message was she sending? I raked my brains, trying to remember if there’d ever been something similar in Wonderland history. I even considered going to Wonderland Castle to browse in the library, but finally decided to wait and see.

When the six geese a-laying arrived, I felt that my world was beginning to crumble. I felt broken. Alice came to mind again.

“‘Have I gone mad?’ I felt like asking, sure she’d answer, "I am afraid so. You are entirely bonkers. But I will tell you a secret: all the best people are.”

Yet I felt like the worst one. Until a few days before (to be exact, six), I’d been one happy dwarf. Yes, yes, in my particular way after the other had left for new pastures (apart from Bashful, who had died of apoplexy). I’d potter around Tulgey Woods, collecting berries, nuts, and honey. I’d sneak into the Mad Hatter’s house to see if any crumpets were left over from his Tea Party. Occasionally, I’d find a dead dormouse that had not gone off too much to put in my stews. But now, I could only think of Snow White and her darn gifts. If gifts, indeed, they were. The truth was, all I wanted was to go back to the kind of life I’d had before she appeared on the horizon.

I glanced around the kitchen and suddenly remembered the story of the Trojan Horse.

“And what if..."

I quickly took out the cage with the hens and shooed out the turtle doves and the geese a-laying, but not before one of them dropped a giant egg on the floor. The spitting image of Humpty Dumpty, only mute and without any clothes on!

“I’ll scramble it for breakfast tomorrow. With fungi," I thought.

Tomorrow? My mind screamed with concern as I dropped the egg. Tomorrow, I should expect the swans a-swimming! 

I spent a sleepless night. I considered myself an average dwarf, at least in comparison with the freaks one would find elsewhere in our world. Just think of the odd thirteen in Middle Earth and their peculiar physiognomies and names: Dwalin, Balin, and so on. On the other hand, I was moderately handsome and had a nice-sounding and easy-to-remember name: Grumpy. It went well with my character. But now my life was a shambles, and I always felt like looking over my shoulder.

When I opened the door at 10 a.m., I couldn't see seven swans swimming. In fact, not even one swan swam around. My thoughts sounded sibilantly silent, like the silly tongue twister I had learned at school: “Swan swam over the sea. Swim, swan, swim!”

I was nervous and decided to look around until I found them—a-swimming all right on the Boling Sea that slashed the green canvas of the forest like a silver-encrusted knife. I congratulated myself on my poetic, even if only mental, description of the place, then went back to the house. Let them a-swim to their hearts’ content, although how they managed to a-swim in that hot water was beyond comprehension.

I simply ignored them and ignored HER and whatever message she was trying to send.

The mooing woke me before dawn.

“Eight maids a-milking means eight cows a-mooing!” I thought desperately.

This time, I barricaded the door and didn’t go out until dark, and I was desperate for a pee. And I did pee—directly on the metal partridge and the weird-looking pear tree. I peed long and with a vengeance, thinking of how the bird would soon get rusty and eventually its metal feathers would fall off. I went back in to think about what to do. Nothing came to mind.

Day nine greeted me with music. It wasn’t the kind of music I liked, but something I’d never heard before—cacophonous and foreign. It was so entirely out of character for Tulgey Woods, where all one could hear was grasshoppers buzzing and the swallows’ tweeting. And it was that raucous noise that the nine ladies were dancing to. All starkers! I closed my eyes tight, slammed the door, and ran to my bed, covering my head with a pillow, trying to shut off the noise and the unsightly spectacle. The au naturel ladies were old and wrinkled. It was probably the ugliest performance I’d ever seen in my life. Well, maybe apart from watching Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Sleepy take a shower when we used to live together.

By day ten, I was so exhausted that I could hardly remember my name. My hands shook when I poured water from the kettle into the tea mug. I had no desire to open the door and face what I thought would be another hideous show—ten lords a-leaping. I was unprepared to see elderly males prancing around the cottage with their wobbly bits hanging. I stayed in all day and peed into the stew pot instead.

It rained throughout the night, and I stayed awake again. I was hopeful, thinking that maybe, just maybe, nothing would happen the next day, when I heard them: the eleven pipers piping! Off-key, and all at the same time.

I had always been convinced that music, laughter, tears, rain, and certain childhood aromas could bring relief to broken souls and, if played correctly, even mend them completely. I remembered my grandfather, Sean the Leprechaun, who initially came to Tulgey Woods from Galway, taking out his custom-made fiddle and tin whistle. Tapping his heels, he would flood the room with “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat” or “Tis’ the Voice of the Lobster.” But the racket outside was not music! It was driving me up the wall. I took the poker from the fireplace and ran out to lash out at the discordant band. They just laughed and kept playing faster and louder, leaving me no choice but to go back in. In my rage, I forgot to empty the stew pot and had to use a beer tumbler to relieve myself. At such a rate, I would quickly run out of kitchen utensils to pee into.

Although I knew what to expect on the twelfth day of Christmas, I was unprepared when it happened. The noise came from right outside the window, shaking the walls as if it were an earthquake. I knew from school that loud noise could lead to permanent tinnitus and could create physical and psychological stress. Was I prepared for more pressure? Was I ready to end up dead as a Dodo? The hell I was not!

I quickly threw a few things into my old carpet bag—not much more than a toothbrush and some clothes. I knew the Mock Turtle would be glad to see me. We used to be really close in the old days. I left the cottage, not bothering to lock up, and hurried to catch the 11.05 a.m. Rabbit Hole Express. I didn’t look back. There was simply no return!

***

“Check-mate! Game over!” The Dutchess’s broad smile rivaled the Cheshire Cat’s.

“And it’s thanks to you, my love, for thinking this up,” she said, affectionately digging her square chin into Alice’s shoulder.

“Luckily, the last one was Grumpy. He’d always been highly strung, gullible, and easy to manipulate, and he thought you were his friend." The Dutchess blew a lock of hair from her vast forehead.

“I’ve known him long enough to know he’d not move an inch of his free will. So, the only thing we could do was help him along. And his dislike of Snow White helped a lot,” Alice laughed.

A message pinged on her phone. She reached into the pocket of her smock and read it.

“It’s Tweedledum,” she said, kissing the Dutchess fondly on her enormous chin. 

“The bulldozers will be here in half an hour to pull down this ugly cottage and clear the space of all the trees. Then Cook will bring the plans, and we can start to subdivide. I just hope she’s not been dunking them in pepper," Alice grimaced with distaste. 

“All above board and fully legal. A true Recycle, Reduce, Reuse project. There will be eleven or twelve plots, each with a pool with a filtering system, strictly copper, no PVC. There is also a barbecue area in Boro Grove for the outdoorsy types, like Bill the Lizard. Plus, if we manage to cool it a bit, we’ll put one large plot by the Boling Sea. It should sell for double the price. I’ve already gotten an inquiry from Peter Pan. Thank God he’s matured and is willing to invest in prime property. He and Wendy are planning to have a busload of kids.”

“And the Mad Hatter is thinking of building his tearoom here. Just imagine cotton tablecloths and nice porcelain serving oolong and scones with strawberry jam. Skimmed milk, of course. He will finance it with the inheritance from the White Rabbit." Alice’s gaze roamed over the woods and stopped on the magic mushroom and the partridge in the pear tree.

“I’m thinking of naming this development The Twelve Days of Christmas,” she said, laughing long and hard.