Alice had met many curious creatures in Wonderland, but none quite so official as Nibber Snapwell, Junior Assistant Mechanic of Metaphorical Vehicles, who insisted that even impossible cars must be inspected for whimsy, wobble, wonder, and excessive adventure pressure.

***

Alice bent down slightly, for Nibber Snapwell was standing on an upturned flowerpot and appeared to be taking his height very seriously.

“Are you a mechanic?” she asked.

Nibber straightened his thimble hat.

“I am a Junior Assistant Mechanic of Metaphorical Vehicles,” he replied. “There is an important difference.”

“What is a metaphorical vehicle?”

“A vehicle that may be going somewhere, meaning something, or doing both at once.”

Alice considered this carefully.

“That sounds rather difficult to repair.”

“It is,” said Nibber proudly. “Ordinary mechanics tighten bolts. I tighten possibilities.”

He held up his brass dipstick.

“This measures oil, imagination, road confidence, excessive wobble, and whether a car has begun to think too much about its own purpose.”

Alice looked around the little workshop. There were maps pinned to the walls, lanterns hanging from hooks, jars filled with spare question marks, and a sign that read:

GLOVE COMPARTMENT BETWEEN HERE AND THERE

“Have you repaired many impossible cars?” she asked.

Nibber glanced at his clipboard.

“Seven cars, two flying carts, a nervous omnibus, one wheelbarrow with ambitions, and a teapot that insisted it was a ferry.”

“And was it?”

“Only on Thursdays.”

Alice smiled.

“And what is wrong with the Crazymad Writer’s Fiat?”

Nibber lowered his voice.

“It is not broken.”

“Then why does it need a mechanic?”

“Because,” said Nibber, tapping his clipboard gravely, “it has started wondering whether being a car is enough.”

Alice looked thoughtful.

“In Wonderland,” she said, “things are often more than they first appear.”

“Exactly,” said Nibber. “But the trick is not to become so many things at once that one forgets what one was to begin with.”

Alice nodded.

“So the Fiat does not need to change into something else.”

“No,” said Nibber. “It needs to remember that a car can be magical and still be a car.”

At that moment, somewhere behind the workshop wall, a horn gave a small uncertain beep.

Nibber sighed.

“There. Do you hear that?”

Alice listened.

“It sounds worried.”

“It is,” said Nibber. “Come along. We had better reassure it before it turns the boot into a ballroom.”

Alice followed him towards the glowing doorway marked THIS WAY TO BALLYKILLDUFF, while Nibber marched ahead with his brass dipstick raised like a sword.

“And Alice,” he added over his shoulder, “whatever you do, do not compliment the glove compartment.”

“Why not?”

“Because it will open up.”

The door swung wide.

Beyond it, Alice saw the Crazymad Writer’s garden, the giant gunnera leaves, and a cream-coloured Fiat 600 sitting very quietly indeed.

Too quietly.

Alice smiled.

“I think,” she said, “this is going to be one of those days.”