Olivia meets the Cheshire Parrot

In a huge forest, there were colored trees that had various grey signs posted on them, which were pointing in many directions like the arrows on a compass. There were two more signs of the same color posted on patches of grass as Olivia was walking on a pink-colored dirt path.

"Now let's see. Where was I?" she said as she looked at the signs that were written "UP", "YONDER", "GO BACK", “"THIS WAY", "THAT WAY", and whatever else that had to do with the directions anyone wanted to go in big black letters. She had to make a big decision, and she hoped that the path she would pick may lead her to Archimedes. That is, if she would be able to choose the right one. "Hmmm, I wonder which way I ought to go..."

Voice: '*Twas brillig, and the slithy toves*
*Did gyre and gimble in the wabe*
*All mimsy were the borogoves, and the momeraths outgrabe*

Then Olivia took a peek from behind the tree. Her hands were placed on the roots of an olive-colored tree, and she bent over to look right behind it as she asked herself, "Now, where in the world do you suppose that..."

"Lose something?" the same voice asked the Scottish-British girl mouse, startling her and thus interrupting her brief search. The female looked up to see a white big smile in the shape of an upside-down crescent moon hovering above a branch on the purple tree, and she let out a nervous chuckle.

"Oh! Hehe, Oh uhhh...hehe...I- I was...no, no, I- I- I- I mean, I uhh...I was just wondering..." she answered him.

"Oh, that's...quite alright," the voice said to her with a chuckle. "Oh, one moment, please."

A pair of yellow eyes then appeared above the mouth, and a silver harmonica materialized in front of it. A high note was played, even though the voice knew that it was the wrong one. He then played a few low notes before his parrot body came into view, and the harmonica faded away.

The parrot was a pudgy red one with small claws, a white face, a purple tail and blue feather tips, a golden beak and orange bird feet. His name was Iago.

Olivia knew that the new person she had met looked exactly like the parrot she was going to talk to.

"Oh, second chorus," Iago said, and he started to sing the same line Olivia heard earlier as he was sitting on the branch with one leg crossed over the other.

Iago: '*Twas brilllig, and the slithy toves*
*Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...*

The parrot's appearance was a major surprise to Olivia, as her eyes widened slightly and her mouth formed into a small "O."

"Why...Why, you're a parrot!" she said to him, her surprised face shifting into a smile of amazement.

"A Cheshire Parrot." the parrot said to her as he waved his wing to greet her. Then Iago then resumed his song by singing the next line.

Iago: *All the mimsy were the borogoves*

As Iago was singing the next line of his song, his tail waved in front of him, and he had disappeared in a flash. Olivia thought that he was about to leave her, though she had just met him.

"Oh, wait!" Olivia called out to him, "Don't go, please!"

Iago then reappeared behind his tail, peeking through it to see Olivia as he was in the same position as he was earlier.

"There you are," he said to her playfully, before his body completely came into view again when his tail was out of the way. "Third chorus."

"Oh, no, no, no," Olivia said to him. "Thank you, but-but I just wanted to ask you which way I ought to go."

"Well," Iago crooned with a smile still on his face as he then placed his elbows on the branch and lifted the lower half of his body in a vertical motion. His pupils rolled around in a 360-degree motion, and his tail lowered down partially. "That depends on where you want to get to."

Olivia started to say something to Iago, "Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as I g..."

"Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go! Ah-hmm!" Iago interrupted her. With that said, the parrot did a back-flip and he faded once again, and his clawed feet appeared in a straight line on the path and around a flabbergasted Olivia. His giggles ricocheted throughout the forest as he sang the same last two lines of his song.

Iago: *All mimsy were the borogroves*
*And the momeraths outgrabe*

His feet then stopped right in front of her, before Iago reappeared on the sage green tree. Olivia then approached him, still bewildered by his magic act and his playful voice.

"Oh, by the way," he said to her, placing his wing on the tree and crossing his right leg over his left. "If you'd really like to know, he went that way."

Iago's left wing pointed in the western direction as his pupils moved to the right, then to the same direction as his wing.

"Who did?" Olivia asked him, feeling curious about who he was talking about as she raised an eyebrow.

Iago was now sitting on the branch with his elbows on his tail as he answered Olivia, "The brown pygmy owl."

A smile of delight formed on Olivia's face, and she held her hands together in front of her as she then asked him, "He did?"

"He did what?"

"He went that way!"

"Who did?"

"The brown pygmy owl!"

"What pygmy owl?"

"But didn’t you just say...I mean...Oh, dear."

With a frustrated sigh, Olivia turned away from Iago, folding her arms crossly as she shook her head in dismay. She was in for another baffling conversation with every person she had met in the odd world she had followed Archimedes into the whole time.

Iago took off his head and placed it on the branch, before his body stood on it as if his head were a ball. "Can you stand on your head?" he asked her with a wink.

Olivia turned to him again and scoffed, her hands at her sides as they were held into fists. Iago's body then hopped off his head and placed it back onto him, looking left and right and pointing his left thumb to the right as he added, "However, if I were looking for a brown pygmy owl, I'd ask the Bear Hatter."

"The Bear Hatter?" Olivia repeated, as she then saw a pink sign with the Bear Hatter's name written in red marker posted nearby them. It was pointing in the eastern direction.

Then she glanced back at Iago and then waved her hands in front of her, as she was having second guesses about whether or not she would take his advice.

"Uh...no, no, I don't- I don't..."

"Or there's the March Fox in that direction," Iago added, pointing his left wing in the western direction again as he was laying against the tree branch.

"Oh, thank you," Olivia answered him, giving him a quick curtsey. "I think I shall visit him."

"Of course...he’s mad, too." Iago reminded her, much to Olivia's disgust when that grabbed her attention as she was about to leave. He was now laying on the tree branch with his tail wagging back and forth again.

"But I don't want to go among mad people!" she said to him, placing her fists on her hips.

"Oh, you can't help that. Almost everyone is mad here," Iago said with a chuckle, before bursting out into an insane laugh and sticking his tongue out of his beak. "You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself."

The parrot continued to laugh as his body faded away into the darkness, along with his eyes and mouth. He sang out the ending of his song's last line once again, his voice reverberating throughout the woods.

Iago: *And the momeraths outgrabe*

Olivia was astounded by Iago's insanity, him always smiling at her, and even his disappearing acts as she was still standing by the tree.

"Goodness!" she said as she started walking away from the tree, "If the people here are like that, I-I must try not to upset them."

Even though Iago was gone for now, Olivia knew she had to take his advice and see the Bear Hatter and/or the March Fox, depending on where they would be.