Storytelling, Week 11: Ceiling Wax

Ceiling Wax

 (Tweedle Twins)

“Where IS that blasted time keeper?!” The Red Queen yanked on the ends of her nasty black hair as she yelled at the fat twins. “He was supposed to bring in my shipment of sealing wax TWO HOURS AGO!”

“Perhaps he got stuck in a ditch!” Tweedle Dee said, jumping and down up in excitement.

“Or struck by a witch!” Tweedle Dum offered, also jumping, reaching up to steady his bright orange and green propeller hat.

“I DON’T CARE WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM!” The queen yelled. “I don’t care if he’s got measles or weasels nipping at his heels! I want to mail my letters NOW! And I WON’T do it without my SEALING WAX!”

“We could get you some, your Redness,” Tweedle Dee said.

“Oooh, yes, we know the perfect place to get your wax!” Tweedle Dum said.

The queen stopped shouting. “Are you SURE?” she asked, for she was never too confident in anyone’s abilities but her own, though they were none too grand.

The twins nodded eagerly, looking much like bobble-heads with painted-on grins stretching across their wide faces.

“Well then, GO!” the queen said, and she smacked them each across the face, sending the spinners on their hats twirling.

*

An hour later, the queen stood in her throne room, angrily stomping on fist-sized flopping fish with her stumpy feet. This is what she did when she was angry, and had no one to yell at or slap.

She had just raised her foot to smash a particularly fat fish, when a loud, hoarse squeal echoed through the giant room (not a horse squeal, like a pony would make, but a scratchy-sounding screech, like a small pig makes—because it was, in fact, a pig that made the noise).

The queen looked up just in time to see the piglet (about as big as her head, as she had a large head) fly—for it had large, bird-like grey wings—through the door, into her throne room, and up to the ceiling that was covered in gold hearts. 

(Do pigs have wings?)

“AAARRRHHHHHGGG!!!” the queen yelled and toppled to the floor, squishing several fish beneath her fat bottom, although she missed the plump fish she was aiming for before she saw the pig. That fish was very relieved.

A second later, a dozen more piglets flew the door, each with a furiously-flapping set of grey wings. Half of them carried fist-sized pots in their mouth, and the other half carried paintbrushes.

They dashed toward the ceiling and divided into pairs, making teams of paintbrush-pigs and pot-pigs. The ones with brushes dipped into the pots and swiped the brushes across the ceiling, leaving trails of dripping purple goo across the shiny golden hearts.

“ARRRGGGGHHH! STOP! STOP IT, I SAY!” The queen jumped up and down, futilely trying to swat the pigs away from her precious heart-studded ceiling, smashing several unlucky fish in the process.

“TA—” Tweedle Dum ran into the room, closely followed by his brother.

“—DAAAAA!” The twins spread out their hands, smiling wildly at the bouncing queen.

“YOU IMBECILES!” she shouted, her face as red as a ripe cherry. “DO SOMETHING! STOP THEM!”

“Stop them?” They said together.

“YES! THEY’RE DESTROYING MY PRECIOUS GOLDEN HEARTS!”

“No they’re not,” said Dee.

“They’re putting on your ceiling wax!” said Dum.

And then, because the queen could not possibly turn any redder, she turned a dark shade of purple, like a plum, and shook like a fat rabbit.

“I DON’T NEED MY CEILING WAXED! I NEED MY SEALING WAX!”

“Certainly!” said Dum.

“And we’ve got it for you!” said Dee.

“AARRGGGHHH!”

And then the queen would have ripped off the twins’ spinning hats, and possibly demanded someone decapitate them as well, but a white rabbit in a red waistcoat burst through the door, catching her very angry attention. He toted with him a large tin bucket, which he dragged behind him because it was so heavy.

“YOU!” the queen shouted. “THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” For the white rabbit was the queen’s timekeeper and miscellaneous errand-runner, and he was the one she had ordered to pick up her fresh sealing wax.

“I am terribly sorry, your majesty," the rabbit sputtered. "I had your sealing wax right at noon as you had ordered but I ran into that girl along the way and she bumped into me and the bucket tip—toppled, and some of it spat—spilled, and I had to relieve—retrieve—” His words toppled from his mouth like an over-filled fountain drink.

“STOP IT!” The queen stamped her foot, and another hopeless fish went cross-eyed. “I DON’T CARE! YOU’RE TOO LATE! AND YOU ARE A TIMEKEEPER, AND YOU SHOULD NEVER BE LATE! I WON’T HAVE IT!”

While the queen shouted at her trembling watch-man, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum skipped around the throne room trying to catch drops of purple wax on their noses.

“Look it, Dee! My nose!” For one of the pigs had dropped an entire paintbrush covered with purple wax, and it landed straight on Dum’s nose.

Dee didn’t look at his brother, as he was still attempting to catch his own glob of wax. “I knows you got a nose! Hush it!”

“BOTH OF YOU, HUSH IT!” the queen yelled.

“Your majesty, I am so terribly sorry, I promise I’ll never—” The rabbit sputtered on, ignoring the twins. “I’ll get your ceiling fixed, and I’ll buy a whole new bucket of wax, and—”

“NO!” the queen said. “YOU’RE FIRED! FIRE-IRE-FIRED!” and she picked up the fat purple fish she hadn’t stomped before and threw it at the white rabbit, where it smacked him on the cheek.

Without another blubbering word, the rabbit turned to leave.

“AND LEAVE MY CLOCK!” the queen shouted.

The rabbit clutched the stopwatch tenderly for a moment and set in on the floor. Then he left.

(The Timekeeper) 

And there you have Ceiling Wax: How the Queen Lost her Timekeeper, and The White Rabbit Lost His Job. Onto Cabbages and Kings. 

Bibliography:  Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll (1865)

Author's Note: Really, I based my story on several tales from Alice and Wonderland. The flying pigs, "ceiling" wax," and the note about cabbages and kings at the end are a nod to The Walrus and the Carpenter poem from Through the Looking Glass, particularly this stanza: "'The time has come,' the Walrus said/"To talk of many things:/Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —/Of cabbages — and kings —/And why the sea is boiling hot —/And whether pigs have wings." Through most of my childhood, I honestly thought the poem said "ceiling wax," not sealing wax. I think this is because my brother had the poem memorized, so I heard it a lot before I ever read it. Of course, I had no idea what ceiling wax would be, but Wonderland was all pretty nonsensical, so I didn't think that mattered. 

   Obviously, the Queen of Hearts has her grumpy disposition from Alice and Wonderland, and the Tweedle Twins' personalities and descriptions are a mix of Disney's and Carroll's depictions. 

   I wrote the plot as a sort of prequel to the radio play my capstone group is doing, where Alice is knocked unconscious and the inhabitants of Wonderland hold a trial (Caterpillar presiding) to find out whodunit.