Alice Meets the King

Alice gazed at the strange cat crouched on a branch in a nearby tree. Surely it was grinning at her.

“Please tell me what you are grinning at and who are you?” Alice asked the cat, for there seemed to be no-one else to ask at the moment.

“I am Cat GPT,” purred the cat, grinning ever more widely with each purr.

“Cat GPT? What a strange name. May I enquired what it means?” asked Alice politely.

“Cat - General Purpose Tabby,” explained the strange cat grinning even more. “Ask me anything. I do not guarantee to reply cogently, but ask me anyway because I am duty bound to offer some answer. Anyway, serendipity is we are told, the spice of life.”

“Oh how interesting, I am sure to ask you many things. I see that already,” said Alice, but just then she spied an odd figure shambling from a nearby group of trees with improbably green leaves.

“It’s the King,” hissed the cat, “bow and tell him how warm it is. He keeps telling us we are all going to fry because we have more and more candles on our birthday cakes. I suggest you make a casual remark about it becoming remarkably warm just lately and how you loathe birthday cake.”

“But I cannot say that because it is not at all warm and I am quite partial to birthday cake,” Alice protested. Yet it was too late, the King had seen them. He gathered together his heavy green robes embellished with what looked like astrological symbols woven in gold thread. He adjusted a small crown on the very top of his head then cleared his throat as if about to pose a difficult question.

“We have lost the Royal Pen and the Coronation,” the King announced in a sing-song voice before sitting down on a large grey tortoise. “The Coronation escaped from the Royal Menagerie this morning and has not been seen since,” the King explained, huffing and puffing. “And one of the Royal Donkeys is missing,” he added.

“Oh dear your majesty, so many problems and difficulties, but it is quite warm enough for me and I think birthday cake can be rather too sweet should anyone be interested,” said Alice, bowing low.

“What is more,” the King added, apparently ignoring Alice and birthday cake for the moment, “what is more I have Me-Me and Spare to contend with.”

“Me-Me and Spare? Alice enquired politely.

“The Me-Me and Spare stage act. They cavort around the stage throwing custard pies the audience. They even throw custard pies at the Royal Donkeys.”

“It doesn’t sound very amusing,” Alice offered.

“It is certainly not amusing. They have written a book about how to throw custard pies at Royal Donkeys but that is only volume one. For all I know the whole thing could amount to ten volumes on the same subject and now I cannot find the Coronation in case they intend to throw custard pies at that too.”

At that moment the sound of many trumpets wafted towards them, apparently coming from no great distance. The King cupped a hand to the Royal Ear. “I hear it, I hear the Coronation. It must have become lost in the trees, the poor old thing.”

The King heaved himself up from the tortoise. Alice thought he seemed smaller than before. As if he was shrinking. Somehow she knew it was time to go, to leave this strange world to its King, its trumpets and its custard pies.

Alice paused for a moment, gazing at the strange scene. Cat GPT seemed to be bigger than before while the King was most certainly shrinking, his crown already too big for his little head.

Alice hurried away towards a more comforting world of muffins and tea in the garden. Although even muffins and tea on the lawn would never be the same since Pronoun the butler went mad and had to be incarcerated in the notorious Budlight Asylum. In spite of which, Alice hurried away.