Alice was swimming hard. The pool of piss and tears just got deeper and deeper and when her feet had finally lost contact with the ground she knew trouble was ahead. Tweedledee and Tweedledum had been washed away some time ago like two bobbing corks and poor Imogen just sank like a stone from the combined weight of the metal that decorated her mouth and pierced her entire torso. Alice was on her back, stroking slowly with her arms and moving her legs in a reverse frog kick. Different objects and creatures floated past at intervals and she wondered just how far the waters had expanded. In the very far distance she could here the yells of the coxswain as the race progressed.
"In...Out...In...Out."
"And shake it all about."
Sometimes a little wit can even make drowning seem less permanent. The current seemed to be getting faster and she noticed her progression was becoming more circular than straight. Faster and faster she revolved until the very movement of her body started a whirlpool sucking her down into its murky depths. Oddly Alice realized she was turning in an anticlockwise direction.
"I must be in Australia."
As if to prove the point three panic stricken kangaroos doggy paddled past closely followed by a hungry and evil looking Tasmanian devil. The banking of the vortex became almost vertical and Alice had that same oh so familiar feeling of plummeting downwards.
"Here we go again."
Her exclamation echoed upwards to Wonderland and sank to destinations unknown.
"Oh fuck, I needed that!"
The words boomed in her ears like the salvo from a battery as she shot out of the tunnel entrance. Carried downwards, enclosed by an arcing spiral stream of warm liquid Alice swan dived perfectly into the shallow end of the largest white swimming pool she had ever seen. Surfacing quickly and spitting out a mouthful of salty water she peered upwards to see how far she had fallen just in time to receive another hard soaking from the gaping chasm above.
"God that's good!"
Even submerged the volume seemed to rattle every bone in Alice's body. To make matters worse a peel of thunder reverberated down the deep sides of the swimming pool and started a small tsunami across the surface. Looking upwards Alice was pleased to see that the flow had stopped at least momentarily and the reddish hued folds of rock were disappearing behind a covering of dark wispy foliage. Alice looked away momentarily and suddenly found herself covered, well almost smothered by a large wad of white absorbent paper streaked in red.
"Oh no, it's starting!"
The paper shroud served ably to kill some of the voices volume this time and Alice managed to tear her way out of her damp cocoon fairly quickly. Looking up she noticed a string dangling from the caverns entrance and with a great deal of effort managed to reach the near end just in time to be lifted upwards to hang suspended under what she could only imagine was a huge tent. Alice grasped the string with both hands as it began so sway back and forth as the tent moved in a northerly direction.
"This is very strange." The words hardly left her mouth when another clap of thunder set her eyeballs rattling in their sockets. Worse, far worse was the cloud of toxic gas that descended around her causing severe breathing issues. Thankfully it cleared quite quickly and apart from smarting eyes and dry throat seemed to have no long lasting effects. The tent stopped moving and then tilted violently to one side and seemed to collapse onto the ground. Alice found herself laying half pinned under one of the tents massive gnarled support poles and was very lucky to be able to escape total crushing when it moved sufficiently to one side to allow her escape.
Alice lay panting for several minutes gathering her wind and trying to get some perspective on her position. She had a pretty shrewd idea that to venture upwards to where the tent poles seemed to dramatically narrow was probably not a good idea so decided to crawl on her hands and knees in the opposite direction. Moments later her wisdom was rewarded by avoidance of another cloud of poison gas she felt moisten the air behind her.
"No thunder this time. Totally silent but equally deadly."
Her voice echoed as she spoke and the reverberations made her feel far less alone. The crawl to the tents hem took several minutes and the last few meters seemed to be the worst of all.
"Smells like a cheese factory and a pretty stinky one at that."
At last she was free of the heavy cotton tent and stood in an effort to get her bearings. The ground below her feet seemed to give as she moved her weight and just out of curiosity she tried a little jump. The first landing was soft enough but the extra pressure on the surface caused a deeper depression and an equally opposite reaction.
"OHHH FUCK."
Alice had loved to trampoline when she was younger. To be frank her only real interest was that when participating she could allow her skirt to rise above her head without undue criticism. On such occasions she always went sans panties and her aerial splits were always received with a warm round of applause from the entire gymnasium.
Third bounce found Alice hovering on the very edge of the surface area, so near a precipice that her toes would have dangled entirely into thin air but for the lavatory heeled court shoes she was wearing. Fourth bounce was more a flop, landing after a short fall, her only saving the deeply piled surface and the forward tuck roll she performed with some expertise. With her usual panache she of course regained her feet immediately and posed with mock Olympic panache.
"Good form."
Alice bowed magnanimously and turned to face her audience.
"You're quite the limber gymnast but you smell appalling."
Woody Planner was a little shorter than Alice and probably quite old enough to be her grandfather. Dressed as he was in a long white apron, covering his body from chest to ankle, he looked almost to be a waiter but Alice noticed the long oblong pencil stuck behind his left ear and the handsaw firmly grasped under his right arm.
"Well you're obviously a carpenter, but what are you?"
