Beatrice and Mad Hat walked through the dusty fairgrounds.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Starving!” Beatrice admitted quicker than she had intended, making him laugh.

They stopped at a food stand, but Beatrice hesitated.

“I don’t have any money unless you take USD here. I think I’ll have to be content licking the glass.”

“Here, try this,” Mad Hat offered.

Beatrice bit a point off of a flaky, crescent-shaped pastry, stuffed with something savory yet sweet.

“Do you want to go for a ride?”

“What kind of ride?” she asked warily.

“This one.” He pointed towards a tunnel.

“Tickets.” The ride coordinator held out a hand. Mad Hat pulled two out of his pocket and Beatrice followed him into a cart.

After they were seated, they began to move slowly along a curved track.

“You’re still looking for a way back home?” Mad Hat observed his companion who was observing the passing scenery.

“Yeah. There’s no place like it, right?” She sighed. “I might not have much to go back to, but I’m hoping I can change that.”

“How?”

“I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.”

“My world’s too peculiar for you to stay though, right?”

“It’s… just not right for me.”

“What is right for you?”

“Stability. Spontaneity is fun and all, but I don’t like uncertainly. I’m a planner.”

“I think you’re an over-thinker. Do you ever just let things happen?” he asked.

“Not if I don’t see any potential.”

“What if there’s potential, it’s just a little hidden? Are you that afraid of failure?”

“No, but I fear rejection.”

“Doesn’t everyone? You just have to take a chance sometime.”

“Is that how you ended up where you are?” she asked.

“Sitting here with you? Definitely.”

“No, I mean with your club and your tarts.”

“Yeah… After the girls graduated they needed a place to work.”

“They went to school to become tarts?”

“They went to school,” he nodded.

“Do you make a lot from them?”

“Make a lot of what?”

“Money.”

“Ah, we don’t exchange currency here.”

“Then what do you exchange?”

“Favors, mostly. Goods, services… I don’t take anything from the girls, only from the guests at the club. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to keep going, I guess,” he shrugged.

“What do you find so boring about hanging out at a club all the time surrounded by a bunch of beautiful women?”

“It gets redundant after a while.”

“A different girl every night gets redundant?”

“Is that really what you think of me?” he frowned.

“I don’t know what I think of you.”

“Do you trust me yet?”

“No,” she affirmed, “but, Annette told me a could trust you.”

“You met with Annette? Where were they?”

“Right where you left me. They went searching for you after.”

A noise from somewhere behind them made Mad Hat put a finger to his lips calling for silence. He took Beatrice’s hand and led her out of their moving cart. They climbed carefully onto the display that lined the tunnel and crouched low behind the decorations.

“What is it?” Beatrice whispered, trying to peak around the edge of a wooden cutout.

Mad Hat didn’t have time to answer before a small troop of uniformed guards appeared on the tracks.

“Down here!” one of them called, and they headed off after the abandoned vehicle.

“How did they find us?” Beatrice asked with noticeable concern in her voice.

“It’s a small world, remember?”

“How do we get out of here?”

They looked around until they caught sight of a small door carved into the wall behind the scenery. They quickly crawled through it and back outside.

“In here,” Mad Hat instructed, pulling Beatrice into another attraction.

“How are we going to get through this?” Beatrice found herself in another labyrinth, but this time, one made of glass.

“As quickly as possible.” Mad Hat answered.

“They can’t see that you’re with me, though. You’ll blow your cover.”

He considered this. “I have an idea.” He turned back around. “Just keep moving!” he instructed before he disappeared.

“Great,” Beatrice grunted as she fumbled her way through the maze. It was very disorienting. Every time she tried to move forwards, she ran into solid instead of air, making her progress very slow.

“There!” Two guards appeared behind her in the maze and Beatrice desperately tried to move faster. Fortunately, the guards seemed to have just as much trouble maneuvering as she did.

“Ha!” A guard was suddenly before Beatrice and she froze. “Got you!” He reached out to grab her, but his hands met abruptly with glass. Beatrice slipped sideways and finally made her way out of the maze.

Before Beatrice could celebrate her escape, she was yanked into another tent. She saw the flash of a uniformed jacket and struck hard with her elbow. She whirled around and shoved her attacker, causing his fuzzy uniformed hat to fly off.

“It’s me!” Mat Hat whispered harshly. Beatrice slapped a hand to her mouth in embarrassment.

“Sorry!” she muffled through her hand.

Mad Hat recovered, dusting off his stolen jacket and shaking off his fallen hat. The two fugitives crept along the canvas to the other side of the tent. They waited, listening carefully for the guards. Hearing nothing, they poked their heads carefully outside. Seeing nothing, they stepped back out into open air.