Madame And The Mahatma

*With a predatory look the Caterpillar
made a precatory request: Will you
finally take that wet towel off your
head?

Alice, enjoying the delicious coolness
of a wet towel from the freezer, looked
up and archly replied: No, thank you
very much Sir Caterpillar

But the heat is too much and the towel
helps me to breathe and think, I would
much rather add another cool towel or
two – hearing this

And realizing that Alice had no idea of
elegance, did not care how she looked,
he unhooked the hookah and held up a
mirror for Alice to see

The turban towel she had wound around
her head, she guilelessly said: My, don’t
I look just like a Bedouin? I should find me
a camel and go wandering in

The desert – she set off and came back with
three large pillows which she piled on her
chair and after struggling to ascend her
camel, rode off into the desert

Shouting giddyup and haw-hee, Alice not
being at all sure what the Bedouin said as
they travelled over large sand dunes, her
knowledge of camels limited to

Terry Pratchett’s account of camels amusing
themselves by doing fractions in the desert: At
least, she told herself, with a camel around
I shall never want for help

With doing sums; then Madame la Pompadour
shouted for Alice to come to her desk, demurely
Alice stood in front of that auspicious person and
hung her head

You filled in the register all wrong, Madame scolded
her most wayward pupil, Your name on the wrong line
and the wrong date, as of now, before you do anything
you must touch your ears all around

The great Mahatma said that helps the disciple think
clearly when doing numbers, Alice duly stroked her
ears until Madame let her go; the Caterpillar was
laughing so much, he suffocated in his hookah

While Alice struggled with suffocating from shame,
trying to get back into the game of riding a camel
and learning mathematics from her four-footed
brethren, quite convinced

The great Mahatma must have seen camels
stroking their ears, that is why they were
so clever with sums…
*