Part three
Wolf felt cold and apprehensive.
“I will go and look for my bear friend. He might be named Bearnacle now. I will leave in the morning.”
“Please be careful. It’s very dangerous,” said Wolf’s mother. Just then, a cold wind blew fiercely, and mother and son went into the house.
Wolf fell into a very fitful sleep. He opened his eyes and saw the shadows dancing on the floor. The wind screamed outside and the windows rattled and the curtains bounced, revealing glimmers of light from outside. Wolf rolled over again and again. Back and forth and back and forth, but then, at last, Wolf fell asleep.
Wolf opened his eyes and saw a man standing before him. A handsome bearded man who resembled his grandfather, whom Wolf barely remembered. Perhaps it was his grandfather who had come to share his wisdom with Wolf?
“Am I asleep or am I awake?” Wolf asked. He suddenly realized that he had been thinking out loud when the man in fashionable rags answered him.
“What do you think?” the man asked.
“Are you my grandfather?” Wolf asked.
“What do you think?” the man asked.
Wolf began to wonder if “what do you think?” was the only thing that the man knew how to say.
“What do you think?” the man asked, without actually being asked a question.
“I think that you’re either a figment of my imagination or you are a dream. I wish you were my grandfather. I need to talk to him now.”
“What do you think?” the man asked, this time with no expression in his voice. He slowly started to vanish. Before long, nothing was left but his hat.
“I thought it would be his grin that would remain. Clearly, he’s not a Cheshire cat. I like that hat, and I want it,” Wolf said, feeling greedy. He reached for the hat, but it was an illusion and, before long, it, too, vanished.
“The Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter have become one person,” Wolf said. “Or maybe not. I feel as if I’ve entered a world full of blunders.”
Just as soon as he said those words, Wolf felt very, very wet. In fact, he suddenly realized that he was swimming in a pond, holding up a paddle from a kayak in one hand and a canoe in another.
“Well, curiouser and curiouser,” said Wolf. “Why am I in an Alice in Wonderland world? At least, I haven’t bitten a cookie that made me grow ten feet tall.”
“Not yet,” said a voice of something in the water. Wolf couldn’t see it. Maybe a fish? Maybe something else? It was clearly something that was beneath the surface of the water. Something with gills. Because Wolf could communicate with both animals and humans, he never questioned being able to understand the fish.
Wolf managed to get back into his canoe. He paddled until he reached some sort of grate. It was very fancy, maybe even ornate.
Wolf was fascinated by the detail.
“Tell me about the grate. Who built it? Where am I?” Wolf asked. But the fish never answered. At that moment, the grate looked as if it was starting to lose its structural integrity. Wolf looked around, and he saw the entire scene become fuzzier and fuzzier until it and the canoe and the paddle ceased to exist.
Just then, Wolf discovered that he was sitting at a blackjack table, instead of a canoe. His teenaged nephew had turned into a blackjack dealer, and he began dealing the cards. Wolf looked at his hand. It was an ace of hearts and a king of clubs. Because Wolf was incapable of the famous poker face, he grinned and placed his cards face up on the table.
“Great deal, kid,” Wolf said to his nephew who, oddly enough, didn’t recognize him.
“Nephew? Who the heck are you?”
Once again, the scene swirled, and Wolf found himself in the arctic. He shivered and shook. In the distance, he saw a bear.
“Could it be Bearnacle?”
Wolf walked toward the bear, excited to see the friend that he hadn’t seen in so many years. When he got close to the bear, he yelled “BEARNACLE!”
The polar bear turned around suddenly, and both Wolf and the bear were startled to see each other. The bear began growling and huffing at Wolf. Even though Wolf knew the language of Bears, he did not understand this bear. He tried retreating slowly, to avoid startling the bear further. Once again, the world started spinning and shaking. Wolf felt a great deal of motion sickness. He hoped that this was not real. It had to be a dream, Wolf thought.
At that moment, the scene shifted yet again to the Land of the Humans. A pair of twins was fighting. When Wolf asked them to stop making noise, they both yelled at him simultaneously. Then they went back to fighting. They each made the same moves as they fought so that neither one had the advantage. Wolf wondered if they were going to fight forever and three days.
Wolf realized that he was very close to home so he walked back to his room to go back to sleep. Before he could do so, he saw and heard a tremendous blast, and he flew into space and through time to…
Coming up: There will be one more episode of this story, on October 31st!
