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Alice’s Splashy Voyage​

Alice’s Splashy Voyage​

November 1, 2024 - Author: The Disney Lorcana Narrative Team

“My teapot! My teapot!” shouted the Mad Hatter glimmer from the shores of the Azurite Sea. The Alice glimmer looked in the direction he pointed until she spotted the blue and white teapot bobbing on the distant waves.​

 

Teapot

“Now, how do you suppose it got out there?” she asked.​

“Must have heard me say, ‘Clean cup, move down,’ and just kept moving down until it splashed into the sea thinking it was tea! Silly teapots never act the way you expect. They can spout off at any moment, you know. Steaming-hot attitudes, too. No matter—I have the perfect way for you to sail out and retrieve it.”​

“Me?!” said Alice.​

The Mad Hatter bristled and put his hand to his chest. “I certainly shouldn’t have to go out there on my unbirthday! And besides, you have read so many nonsensical . . . nautsensical . . . I mean nautical books! You are a much savvier sailor than I.”​

“What do you have in mind?” Alice asked, even though she knew the Mad Hatter’s way would be senseless compared to a boat made of wood and sails. ​

“Not in mind . . . on my mind!” The Mad Hatter lifted his moss-green hat to reveal an upturned bottle with delicate rope latticework around it and a tiny teacup for a crow’s nest atop the little mast. “This is the way to sail! Made it myself. Do you like it?” He lifted the tiny “ship” off his bald head and giggled.​

“How am I to ever fit in that?” asked Alice. ​

But the Mad Hatter had something else up his sleeve. After a few wriggles of his arm, a tiny cake tumbled from his jacket cuff. “Don’t worry, my dear. This will shrink you down to size,” he said as he handed it to her. “Now, of course you’ll need provisions.” He pulled supplies out of his pockets: a tablespoon of butter, two spoons (for rowing if need be), and a smidgen of jam. He laid all this in the bottom of the bottle. ​

 

With a bite of the cake, Alice shrank down, down, down. The Mad Hatter helped her into the boat and dropped the craft into an outgoing wave. “Goodbye!” he called. “And don’t talk to any walruses you don’t know.”​

The waves were small at first, and Alice enjoyed the gentle swaying up and down. It reminded her of when she wafted down the rabbit hole. However, the farther her little boat drifted away from shore, the more raucous the sea became. Despite being thrown off her feet a time or two, Alice kept a constant weather eye out for her goal.​

That is until the teapot was tossed up and over a very large wave. As she felt her little boat riding up the same swell, she thought only of spotting the teapot again on the other side. ​

Except she didn’t. “Oh dear,” Alice said as she climbed up the ship’s mast to scan the roiling sea. “Where can it have gone?”​

Alice

Alice searched desperately, but wave after wave, she couldn’t spot the object of her journey. Alice sunk into the hull of the ship. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. At least tears couldn’t cause any damage at this small size! “Lost again,” she said. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be a sail—”​

Something afar off caught her attention: enormous walls that looked like they were somehow flowing. As Alice’s bottle was carried nearer, she saw they were colossal barriers made entirely out of water.​

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice as she glided between two towering walls of seawater. Soon the path turned, and she found herself facing diverging paths. One seaway went to the left, another to the right.​

As the waves moved her down the left corridor, she witnessed the endless cascade that rippled along these watery walls. The current pulled her along and she examined the endless cascade of water that rippled within each wall. ​

After a series of these diverting turns and junctions, Alice gasped, realizing what this twisting enigma was after all. A smile as big as the Cheshire Cat’s bloomed on her face. “Why, it’s a maze!” She’d navigated a maze where the cards were against her once before. She knew she could find her way through this one.​

 

Perilous Maze

A glint a short distance ahead caught her attention. It could have been mistaken for light reflecting off the water's surface, but with its ceramic sheen . . .​

 

“There you are!” Alice shouted. After retrieving one of the spoons, she rowed along the seaway until she was alongside (starboard side) Mad Hatter’s errant teapot. It clinked against her craft as she tied a tow line to the teapot's handle.​

Alice was ready to head back the way she’d come, but something stopped her—maybe it was intuition or perhaps her curiosity. Looking once more at the flowing walls around her, she pondered what secrets this liquified labyrinth held. ​

“I wonder,” she said, and she began rowing toward the maze’s mysterious center.