Read Alice for Free Online Page B

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    WONDERBANDER: Sign here please.
    ALICE: Why?
    WONDERBANDER: To say you received the song.
    ALICE signs the clipboard. The other band members start to move away .
    ALICE: Hang on, you’re not – Aren’t you going to explain to me what it means?
    WONDERBANDER: Not our job, love. We’re just paid to sing it. Need a poetic licence if you want it explained.
    ALICE looks at the piece of paper in her hand .
    ALICE: But what’s the point if you won’t say who it’s from and you won’t tell me what it means?
    WONDERBANDER: We don’t write it, yeah, we just play it. Ask the Union.
    The WONDERBAND leave .
    ALICE: Is this supposed to distract me? Throw me off the path.
    No, I was on a path, wasn’t I – I was – I was going to the Hatter and the Hare, following the signposts to the –
    ALICE looks around .
    Following the signposts which have gone.
    Maybe that means I’m here already – you don’t have a sign pointing to Sheffield when you’re in Sheffield, do you?
    Oh.
    ALICE sees the tea party and approaches quietly, not wanting them to see her yet .
    HATTER is standing on a chair, regaling the HARE and the sleeping DORMOUSE with a story .
    HATTER: So there am I, standing on a chair in front of the queen, no less –
    HARE: No less, no more.
    HATTER: The queen! Demanding I sing her a song.
    HARE: Dear me, whatever did you do?
    HATTER: I opened my mouth – and out came this, the most dreadful thing:
    (Sings)
    Twinkle twinkle little bat!
    How I wonder what you’re at!
    Up above the world you fly,
    Like a tea tray in the sky –
    ALICE moves closer, staying out of sight .
    HARE: A dreadful thing!
    DORMOUSE: Twinkle twinkle...
    HATTER: A very dreadful thing – I mixed the head voice and the chest voice. Unforgivable! And how was I to know the queen can’t abide
vibrato?
    Stamped on my pocket watch in disgust, she did. I’m lucky to have escaped with my head.
    DORMOUSE: Twinkle twinkle –
    The HATTER holds up his watch to show the others .
    HATTER: Six o’clock, always six o’clock and nothing to be done about it.
    The HATTER looks at his watch .
    Look at that – time for tea.
    He climbs down off his chair. ALICE tries to duck out of sight, but it’s too late – he sees her .
    Wait – who’s there –
    HARE: Who is it, who’s there?
    HATTER: A spy –
    The HARE quickly takes a pot of jam from the table top and hides it underneath .
    HARE: A spy – good gracious!
    ALICE: I’m not a spy – I promise, I’m just looking for –
    Are you the Hatter and the Hare?
    HATTER: She’s an emissary from the queen.
    ALICE: I’m not, I promise.
    HARE: Prove it.
    ALICE: I’m just looking for the middle, the centre. Of, um, Wonderland. Is there, like a door here somewhere?
    HARE: A door? A door?
    HATTER: When is a door not a door?
    ALICE: Um, when it’s ajar. That’s really old.
    DORMOUSE: A jar of jam.
    HARE: No jam! No jam!
    HATTER: Are you sure you’re not the queen’s spy? You do look awfully like her.
    HARE: She does look awfully like her.
    HATTER: Two arms, two legs, nose right in the middle of your face like that.
    ALICE: I’ve never met the bloody queen!
    HARE: Nasty, vicious temper she’s got.
    HATTER: Don’t they teach you manners? At spy school ?
    The HATTER and HARE advance on ALICE and back her into a chair. The HARE arranges a lamp so that it’s shining directly into ALICE ’s face .
    ALICE: School’s not supposed to teach you manners, that’s for your parents – school’s for maths and stuff.
    HATTER: Maths, you say – let’s see, shall we?
    HARE: Can you do Addition?
    HATTER: What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?
    ALICE: I don’t know, I lost count.
    HARE: She can’t do Addition.
    HATTER: Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.
    ALICE: Minus one!
    HATTER: Yours is one what?
    HARE: She can’t do Substraction.
    HATTER: Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife – what’s the answer to that ?
    ALICE: Um,
    HATTER: