The November Hare

The November Hare

“I’m dying,” I said.
He didn’t even bother to look at me. He just sat there, at his desk, bent over, squinting through his magnifying goggles and twiddling away with his tiny, Christmas cracker screwdriver.
He said, “Don’t be a Jabberwocky!” and held his work up to me – a band of metal. He laughed. It made my fur bristle. It wasn’t light like laughter should be…the playful tone, as I remembered from the early days, was fading.
He had only started making up words like ‘jabberwocky’ and ‘frabjous’ and ‘smiverous’ a few months ago but they had finally made it into his regular vocabulary. I suppose Time makes you mad when it is mad at you. In that case I was furious with Time – he was doing everything possible to part me from my friend.
I took the band from him and examined it.
“It’s a strange hat,” I said.
“It’s not finished yet!”
“You’ve been working on it for a while now,” I said as I wandered over to his looking glass. I picked a cap from the wall and modelled it as I spoke, “all that mercury you use can’t be good for you…” I stopped when I leaned in and noticed a clump of grey just behind my ear.
“It is a precise art,” he said, “especially this hat…this hat will be the beginning of something marvellous,” his blue eyes flickered like a butterfly trapped in a jar, “a smiverous thing!”
There was one of those words again. I winced.
“A cup of tea perhaps?”
“Oh!” he said, “Is it elevenses already?”
“Now,” I said as I emptied the old leaves from the pot out of the window, “you know it’s always elevenses.”
“Oh…yes…”
He should remember – it was his entire fault. In fact I should blame him. He’s lucky I like tea then.

I was a mere leveret the day of the councillor’s concert, all full of the joys of March. My fur was brown and thick and gleaming, when I jumped I could travel up to three feet and all the girls called me, ‘Ukulele Casanova’ – my paws were too small to play guitar. My feet had always been big though, and you know what girls say about hares with big feet.
It was my first paid concert but if I had known more about the councillor I would have refused. My other name was ‘Ukulele Casanova’ though and I didn’t know her. ‘Ukulele Casanova’ refuse to play ukulele? To a lady? Never!
The concert was a swanky affair – an INSIDE garden party! The mayor at the time had invested in a retractable lawn and so his office had been decorated with trees and marquees and the guests (the female councillor, her fellow councillors and some unsavoury ‘associates’ of hers made savoury by dressing in tailored suits) walked around holding glasses of Pimm’s No.1 Cup with fruit floating in and eating finger sandwiches.
The mayor said the councillor had been like a daughter to him. He had been so proud when she won a landslide vote (by an unbelievable majority) for the softening of flowerbeds that he just had to throw a concert to celebrate her first victory. He joked that he would have to watch his own job. By the look of her ‘friends’ in suits he had good cause to be wary. They looked like the sort that would walk into a bank with a violin case, the type that, when they gave you ‘the sack’, you literally found yourself in a sack (in a shallow grave).
The mayor had told me that at eleven I would be accompanying an astoundingly amazing singer, so I was not at all surprised when my friend rushed into me for the first time. Truthfully he hasn’t changed much. He still wears the shirt and trousers from one suit, the bowtie and waistcoat from a second and the jacket from a third. He still has tempest blue eyes and blonde hair, wild like white fire. When he smiles his mouth still looks like a bucket of teeth. And his nose – his nose that looks like an accident at a teapot factory – I imagined that it was such an extraordinary nose that made him such a good singer.
Of course that was if my friend had been a singer.
He only knew one song and when all eyes were on him could not even remember the words to that. Something as simple as ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ became ‘Little Gnat’.
They mayor’s face turned red as the heart in his chest.
The councillor squealed, “Off with his head!”
I could hear triggers cock.
And in the back of it all I swear could see Time. He looked at my friend and I swear he mouthed, “How much will you like teatime when it is the hour of your death?” So then I swore that I had read it wrong because right there and then tea had nothing to do with anything.
My friend put his large hand round my small paw and tore us out of there. My career as a heartthrob musician had been short. Too short to be sweet.
We weaved our escape like the path you weave when fleeing a bear or crocodile. Everything blurred into everything else. The grey of the city blurred into the green of the forest. Excitement of an adventure blurred into the fear of where he was leading me. If I jumped I could have travelled five feet! But when the excitement took control everything blurred again – to black. I fainted.
When I woke, I found that I had been draped across a chaise longue – one of those backless sofas that fat women reclined on to eat grapes. I sat up and sniffed the air – it smelt like sponge cake. A grandfather clock in the corner struck eleven. I had been asleep a whole day and a whole night. I looked around. It was a very large room for just one hare. So I left.
I followed the smell of cake to a door ajar.
I peered round the door and asked with a small voice, “Hello?”
The walls dripped with hats-in-progress. My friend sat at a desk, surround by bits of felt and ribbon and straw. A space had been cleared in front of him and in the space sat a Victoria Sponge (raspberry), a plate of cucumber sandwiches (no crusts), a teapot (steaming) and two large teacups (with saucers).
I knocked at the door then hovered there. I felt bad. I felt like a vampire. By fainting I had invited myself into this man’s house. I wanted to be properly invited whilst properly conscious.
“Oh hello!” he chirped, “tea?”
It was nearly an invitation so I entered with caution.
“I thought you were a singer,” I said as I pointed to the hats.
He laughed. “Oh! I’m not a singer,” he said, “and I decided to make hats just today.”
“But the concert!”
He laughed again. He was laughing at me! He invited me in to laugh at ME!
“I heard there would be tea,” he explained as he poured me a cup, “I have a bit of a penchant for tea.”
The fur on my ears ruffled.
“You ruined my glittering career as ‘Ukulele Casanova’ for a cup of tea?!”
“They were serving an Assam-Darjeeling blend. Victoria Sponge?”
He cut me a slice of sponge. I pushed it away. “I prefer carrot cake!”
I didn’t like being in the room with him. So I left.
I went back to my room and re-draped myself over the chaise longue like a forgotten fur of a fat lady after she had eaten all the grapes. I fell asleep and had black, angry dreams.
The clock woke me – it struck eleven – and a smell of cake.
I walked into my ex-friend’s room. I didn’t knock and I didn’t introduce myself.
“Oh!” he said with a start.
A whole carrot cake sat on the table. I blushed – not that he could see through my fur.
He held a cup up to me – the liquid sloshed over its rim and it clattered against the saucer. His hands were shaking. “Tea?”
I hung my head as I walked to the door.
“No,” I said, “I have to go – the Job Centre closes at three…good luck with your hats.”
As I gripped at the door handle something gripped at me. His large hand was round my small paw again. His eyes flickered like broken sapphires.
“Please don’t leave me,” he said. He looked up to the clock and so I looked up to the clock. It still read eleven – the time of the concert – elevenses – the time that Time had sworn to him – teatime.
Even wonderful, wild, whirlwinds of people feel fear.
I let go of the door and sat at my friend’s desk.

“You know you’re right,” my friend said as I poured for him, “If I work on my new hat for a moment longer without a break I will hate the beamish thing! Let’s go to the park where I met that lady – the cousin of the contrary councillor –”
“I don’t think you should get too close to her,” I warned, “after all, that councillor is the mayor now and she is still angry at us. A walk in the park will be nice before I die though.”
“Stop all this frumious talk of death!” he said as he snatched his tea from me.
“But hares don’t live as long as people – look…” I leaned in and pointed to my patch of grey, “and my paws are too sore to play the ukulele and I can’t taste the difference between Earl Grey and Lapsang souchong anymore.”
My friend fell silent. Not even a silly made-up madness word.
I laughed.
My friend’s face suddenly became very serious – I had never seen him serious before – manic or scared but never serious. His eyes frosted over like black ice. He picked up his band of metal and held it up like a crown.
“This will be more than just a hat,” he proclaimed, “when it is done I shall wear it everyday. I have put every smiverous piece of knowledge of my mind into this hat and with this hat I shall control every mimsy person. We will do it together! You have always looked out for me and I will look out for you! Together! I will save you! Oh frabjous friend!”
I began to cry. I didn’t want to die. If only my mad hatter really did know more than how to make hats. I wanted to be saved.
“Let me try. I have been experimenting with circuitry and mechanisms for a while now,” he continued with alarming clarity, “look – I have built into a series of hats contraptions, much similar to this, but instead of controlling minds they will suppress them.” He pointed to a most queer pile of hats that looked like any other except for the little metal prongs that poked out of them. I went to pick one up but he knocked it from me.
“Be careful,” he said so earnestly that I feared him, “those are not for you.”
I had never worn any of my friend’s hats – as a hare it is hard to find one that would fit. I could have commissioned one on numerous occasions but the thought had never passed my mind as he had never pressed me to request one. Now that I showed interest he didn’t want me to.
“You are mad,” I admitted.
I sat and stared at my small gnarly paws. I wanted to cry again but crying would not make me live any longer or understand my friend any better. Meanwhile my friend cleaned out the pot and brewed up tea from a new tin. He poured me cup.
“Have some,” he said, “it’s a special brew. It will make you feel better.”
I couldn’t very well refuse, after all it was eleven.
I drank. He watched. He smiled. His smile made me smile.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Just wonderful,” I said and wondered if I meant it. I must have meant it – it came out before I had time to lie.
“Have another cup.”
“Oh I couldn’t possibly…”
“But I thought you were just wonderful?”
“Oh I am just wonderful!”
Why did I keep saying that? Why did he saying it make me say it? I felt dizzy so then I felt fearful but then I felt just wonderful.
“My friend…” I moaned as my head began to nod.
“My jabberwocky,” he said as he rose. My paw drooped and the cup rolled to his feet.
I could just make out my friend replace the cup on the table. He removed his goggles. He took up his band of metal – he placed it inside a purple top hat that he had tried to sell for 10 and 6 – which he then placed on his head. His hair splayed about the rim like wild jonquils in a mass of irises.
I sighed. I slumped back in my seat. I felt just wonderful.
My friend picked up his felt-hammer and judged the weight in his hands. Our eyes met – my cloudy old eyes and his eyes as determined as steel in the shadows of his brim. I took one last look at my dear friend’s broken pot nose, his row of overeager front teeth.
“I will save you,” he said, “there is no Hatter without Hare.” and disappeared from my sight.
I could have turned in my chair but I felt too wonderful to try.
And then a crack of hammer came across the grey behind my ear.
And then, just like the day I met him, everything blurred into wonderful, smiverous black.