Read Death of the Mad Hatter for Free Online

charred eyebrows and dragged his hand through his singed hair as he inspected the ruins of the discarded seating contraption that had been strapped to Omar, an oversized, flying egret. However, the seat had been intact before the bird had antagonized Lowery, a penguin splashing in a nearby cold spring.
    The flying adventure was promptly cut short after the argument as to which bird was more suitable for flight—an egret or penguin. The ratchet straps broke promptly after Omar nosedived to duel the lowly penguin. When the seat came loose, it sent M.H. and I spiraling out of control. We collided into a cluster of hot rocks, where the dragon lizards socialized.
    “You madman!” A purple lizard screamed as it raced toward us.
    Other lizards came out of hiding when rocks were no longer shooting through the air. They went to work collecting the rocks and putting them into piles. Apparently there was a dispute to which location would be the best since M.H.’s flying apparatus was burning in their original place.
    “Calm down, Liz,” M.H. said to the infuriated purple lizard. He took off his broken goggles and tossed them into the fire.
    “Calm down? Don’t you see what you’ve done?” Liz yelled. “You’ve caused anarchy in our village. Get that flying contraption off the rocks now!”
    “But it’s on fire,” I said.
    “Do you think I’m blind, stupid girl?” Liz yelled. “I don’t care if your pants are on fire. I want that pile of junk off my property!”
    “In due time,” M.H. said, glancing at his pocket watch.
    “In due time, he says,” Liz mimicked, as she eyed M.H.’s backside.
    It was in that moment that I realized these lizards were actually fire breathing amphibians. Liz set M.H.’s pants on fire. He took off running like a rocket ship, patting his butt as he ran. His top hat fell off as he hopped over the sizzling rocks. Since I didn’t particularly want to keep the rampant lizards company, I chased after him, grabbing his hat along the way.
    “Stop, you stupid girl! You and the madman must stop!” Liz shook her fist at me as I raced across the hot rocks after M.H.
    I giggled, recalling the absurdly tall M.H. running away from the wreckage, slapping a fire from his buttocks. Fortunately, he wore suspenders to keep his trousers from falling to his ankles, since the fire had eaten away much of the material around the waistline. The hole revealed his bright blue underwear with his initials sewn on with green thread.
    “Well, I suppose a visit to Miss Genevine is of the utmost importance,” M.H. said, inspecting his backside.
    “Who’s Genevine?” I asked, handing him his hat that had fallen when he was distracted by his fiery pants.
    He dusted off the hat, which had no dirt on it, but paid no attention to the charred edges. After shoving it on his head, he bent down to my level. “Genevine is a nasty old lady with the long est ear hair you’d ever imagine. But, such thin hair is essential for what she does, especially since her spiders are on strike. Oh! Never mention her oversized anklet.”
    “That makes positively no sense.”
    “It will, my dear girl. One day our ways will be of the complete absolution, and your ways will become positively senseless.” He gently took my hand. “The Jack of Diamonds wrote to me before my existence ever came into being.”
    “Who is the Jack of Diamonds?”
    “Once he was a very rich man but that was before Hearts demoted him to a glorified butler,” M.H. said scornfully. “And his great-great-grandson, the Joker, is a poor substitution as a forecaster… Jack had made mistakes in his predictions before, but not as often as the Joker. Conversely, the old man was known to be missing a few cards in his deck, which is probably because the Joker constantly steals his playing cards to practice his demented magic.”
    “So the Jack was a rich prophet before he became butler?” I asked, thinking of the only logical way a man could write another before