"Work?" The Rabbit asked, seemingly confused. "Oh, Oh! You mean the Tea Party? How does the Tea Party work? Yes, yes. Now I see. I do. I do see now."

"Well, you have to take your seat. Next to The Dormouse. And then we have to wait for Mr. Toad to come."

Sara looked at the Dormouse. It was more of a squirrel than a mouse. It looked like it was stuffed. But not like a stuffed animal. Not exactly. Peter Rabbit looked like a stuffed animal. The Dormouse-squirrel had more of the appearance of a deer's head that was in hunting lodge. The fur was real, but somehow fake.

Sara brushed herself off. "I meant the rings," she explained irritably. She struggled with the phrasing. "How do they know where to take you?"

The squirrel-mouse kept snoring softly as Peter Rabbit responded.

The Rabbit leaned in as if he was trying explain to Sara. "These are the ways that we move from one place to another. Through tunnels and rings. Its important to keep moving from one place to another. If you don't have a place to go, then you don't have a goal. If you don't have goal, then you don't have anything to look forward to! That means there isn't anything fun to think about. And that means no happiness. And that is sad."

"The rings and tunnels and roads and other works: They're all part of the dreaming world. They are things that we make and things that link us from one dream to the next. They're real. But you have to make them."

"But they can take you away from the the real world. They can take you to dream worlds. Those worlds are real too. But just not real the way you think about real."

The Rabbit sighed.

"We all here wish we were real the way you are real."

Almost without noticing, Sara sat down. "Did you make the rings?" she asked. "Or... what's on the other side? Can I make them?" Not that she knew what for, exactly. Just... something.

The Rabbit took one, fake, plush paw and served Sara some tea in her tea cup. Then he served the Dormouse who continued to snore. And finally, he served himself. Before answering Sara he raised the cup and drank. But since he was only a stuffed animal, warm tea tricked out of the cup and touched his felt face, dripping down his chin and onto the table and his chest.

He didn't seem to notice

"I didn't make the rings. The Dormouse made them. He makes the rings so that we can travel to different worlds and avoid the bad things that might come. He's the only one of us that knows how to make them. The problem is, that's all he is good for. If he's not making the rings then he's usually sleeping. Take a look at him now." The Rabbit said, gesturing with his cup towards the Dormouse in the adjacent seat.

The Dormouse kept snoring softly, one paw on the side of its face, smushing it slightly and exposing a weave of tightly threaded fabric that kept the seam of his plush face on the right side together.

The Rabbit sighed in exasperation and with more than just a bit of sadness.

"He's been that way ever since his encounter with The Tattooed Lady. She's a great demon-witch that is covered with Tattoos. She came into one of our worlds and we barely escaped. She marked the poor Dormouse though. She marked him with a terrible tattoo of some kind. We've looked everywhere for it. We really have. But the problem is that we can't seem to find it. And the Dormouse is too sleepy to look for it himself." The Rabbit looked over the Dormouse the way a friend might look at someone in a coma who is the hospital.

"Yes. The Dormouse is the only one who knows how to make the rings and the only one who knows what is on the other side. He told me once that the other side very much depends on what it is a person is looking for. But he didn't explain what that meant.

Mr. Toad thinks we are living on borrowed time. Because if the Dormouse doesn't get better soon, then we won't be able to build any more rings. If we don't have rings, then we won't be able to escape when bad things come. I don't know if you can make rings or not. Only the Dormouse would know that."

Sara tasted the tea thoughtfully, only sort of paying attention to Peter Rabbit's words. She got the gist of it, though, she was pretty sure. "This witch isn't from around here, is she? Where's she now?"

Sara took a sip of the tea. It had a taste of banana, cherry, and strawberry. There also might have been hints of orange, lemon, or cinnamon. Letting the tea settle, the after taste came into focus. The tea was bubble gum flavor.



"Oh no, no." Peter Rabbit corrected. "The Tattooed Lady is not from around here. This is the place were everyone should be happy!" Peter Rabbit said to Sara with a bit of genuine joy to offset the dour tone the conversation had taken from talking about the Witch.

"She's from a place that is chaos. She is from a place that has fallen into greater chaos. She is from an evil place. But there is a greater evil that has destroyed her home. And now she is seeking a new place. That is why we are here! Because this place is safe and happy! Does that answer your question? Oh! And how is the tea?"

"Really strange," she admitted, then took another sip. "Weird. Never tasted tea like that before. Where did you get it?"

It certainly sounded like the Witch was somewhere in this happy fun land now...

"The Tea?" Peter Rabbit repeated the question. "The Tea is bubblegum tea. We made it here from the roots and the sprigs. It takes a while to make. There is a large pot not far from here that we put all of the sprigs and roots in. Then we mix it together with flax seed and cook it." Peter Rabbit expressed with a level of pride.

"Mr. Toad should be here soon. And then we can truly have a complete tea party. But I really am enjoying this wonderful conversation with you. Even if the Dormouse is his sleeping self as usual."

Sara looked at the dormouse again. Was there any tattoo visible to her?

The Dormouse slowly snored, its dreamy, soft buzz. There wasn't any tattoo that was visible on its body. No ink on its fur pelt. Nothing that would indicate that it even had a tattoo.

"We can't find it." Peter Rabbit said after a while, as if answering Sara's unspoken question. "We can't find the Dormouse's tattoo. That's why he's stuck like this. Its such a tragedy! He's unhappy and worse than unhappy, sleepy-unhappy. How can you be unhappy in a place that's supposed to be all about fun and happiness?"

"If you can see it, why do you think it's there?" Sara probed, a tad bewildered.

"Mr. Toad saw it" Peter Rabbit confirmed, and he told a story to Sara about how Mr. Toad was driving along in one of his many cars and how Mr. Toad isn't supposed to drive any cars because he wasn't allowed.

"But its hard to keep Mr. Toad from driving. But that doesn't matter. He came upon the Dormouse who was collapsed in the middle of the road."

"That's when the Dormouse said 'Tattoo' before he fell into a long sleep."

"So he didn't see it either?" Sara asked, after taking another sip of the weird bubblegum tea. "He just heard him say it. So maybe the dormouse just saw a tattoo." If it was magic, who was to say it didn't work like that?

"Well..." Peter Rabbit said, conisdering what Sara said and stammering before giving the whole thing up.
"Oh, poo! It doesn't matter" The Rabbit was both pleased and playful in his response to Sara.


"None of it really does. It's just more fun to have fun that worry about details or take on too much responsibility. Don't you think that's true? " The Rabbit asked, pressing Sara on what she might think was important.

It's not like she ever had to do any of those things. Except maybe at school? But she usually didn't at school either. "Yep," she agreed blandly. She was curious about this new monster, but... she guessed it didn't really have anything to do with her. "So what do you do here, aside from having tea parties?"

Peter Rabbit bounced a little in the chair at the question. "We play games. We eat candy. We drink tea! We stay up all night! And then we do it again and again!" Peter Rabbit rejoiced.

"Hullo! come on, you fellows!" came a voice from the side of the garden. It was a toad. He he cried cheerfully on catching sight of them. "You're just in time to come with me for a jolly—to come for a jolly—for a—er—jolly—"

The toad, arrayed in goggles, cap, gaiters, and enormous overcoat, came swaggering down the small garden steps from the hill above, drawing on his gauntleted gloves.

His hearty accents faltered and fell away as he noticed that Sara was at the table, and his invitation remained unfinished.

Sara stared at the toad. By this point she was largely unsurprised by its (his?) appearance - only some minor details were different from what she had expected. "Joyride?" she attempted to finish.

"Joy ride?" Mr. Toad inquired. "Joy-ride!?" And then with a feverishly loud and intense voice:

"JOYRIDE!"

"Oh no! You ought not to have done that!" Peter Rabbit observed. "Mr. Toad isn't supposed to be driving!" The last sentence was said with a playful warning, as if Sara had broken some kind of rule, but that the Rabbit was also somehow made giddy by the idea.