The Unkempt Uncle and the Uninvited Queen

Bartholomew “Barty” Bumble, the Unkempt Uncle, wasn’t a man who sought drama. His sole motivation that particular non-Tuesday was the desperate pursuit of a vanished argyle sock. The trail—a baffling scent of lemon, static electricity, and sheer wrongness—led him through a transforming hedge maze and straight to the Hatter’s infamous table. He’d barely settled in the end seat, still clutching the lonely half of his pair, when the first round of chaos was interrupted.

The air, already thick with riddles and steam, suddenly turned sharp and metallic. A hush fell, save for the frantic sound of the March Hare attempting to hide a very large cake under a very small saucer.

A shrill voice, which could curdle milk from fifty paces, sliced through the air: “WHO HAS DARKENED MY DOMAIN WITH IMPROPER FOOTWEAR?!”

The Queen of Hearts stomped into the clearing. She hadn’t been invited, of course. She never was. The Hatter and the Hare deliberately held their party at the one spot on the lawn where the acoustics made it impossible for her to hear the clatter of teacups. But the sheer gravitational pull of their collective madness was sometimes enough to yank her in anyway. She arrived, not as a guest, but as an angry, unexpected event.

Her gaze, hot and focused, swept past the Hatter’s manic grin, dismissed Alice as merely tolerable, and landed squarely on the newly seated, thoroughly bewildered Barty. Specifically, on the lonely argyle sock clutched in his hand.

“You!” she shrieked, pointing a furious, white-gloved finger. “You are an imperfection! A missing half! An UNFINISHED THOUGHT! And you’re sitting in my sightline!”

Barty, a man accustomed to nothing more threatening than a lukewarm cup of tea, instinctively held the argyle sock out like a peace offering.

“Oh, madam,” he stammered, his spectacles slipping down his nose. “I assure you, I am merely looking for its partner. I—I didn’t mean to sit in your… sightline. Is this yours? It’s quite a distinctive pattern.”

The Queen stopped short. Her face, usually a canvas of pure rage, momentarily froze in confusion. No one ever talked back to her; they usually just started running. And no one had ever offered her a sock.

“A sock?” she bellowed, though a single, momentary twitch in her lip suggested she might have almost giggled at the sheer absurdity. “I wear slippers lined with the crushed velvet of conquered kings! Off with his head! And his sock! And the other sock, too! Though I see you don’t possess the other sock, which is itself a capital offense!”

As the royal guards hesitated, Barty quickly looked around the table, noticing the array of strange, silent attendees who had appeared in his wake.

“Ah, but Your Majesty,” Barty said, emboldened by the sheer illogical nature of his surroundings, “if you cut off my head, who will tell the Hatter the riddle answer? He’s been asking it for ages. A raven and a writing desk, you see.”

The Hatter immediately leaned in. “Do you truly know the answer?”

The Queen, momentarily distracted by the greatest mystery in Wonderland, crossed her arms. “Silence! The riddle is NOT the point! The point is the seating arrangement, which is an insult to the realm! No one sits in a chair uninvited!”

Barty peered over his shoulder. “Actually, I think the gentleman just behind me has been here for three weeks and hasn’t had a single sip of tea. If anyone’s the offense, it’s him.”

The Queen swiveled, her attention diverted to a brand new, and entirely legitimate, target of fury. She had forgotten all about the sock.

Barty winked at the Hatter, who gave him a thumbs-up. The March Hare nervously handed Barty the grandfather clock cake. The Unkempt Uncle, the only man to survive a direct, uninvited encounter with the Queen, took a bite of the cake. It tasted exactly like six o’clock. He was still confused, still sock-less, but no longer quite so uninvited. He was now, simply, a permanent part of the chaos.