The Trial

 Chapter 10: The Trial
(Secret Love Affair - Alice in Wonderland Parody)

The prosecutors arrived at breakfast time with their ubiquitous blue boxes: tossing bedding and looking under mattresses, emptying out shelves and tipping over vases. When they had left and the lizard had gone to work, the fox went into the piano room and reached into an opening in the back of one of the stereo speakers. From it she took out a long white scarf, a bottle of ointment, a deck of cards, a packet of hairpins, and a toothbrush. Then she pulled out a small object wrapped in cellophane. It was a red USB.

She took it to the prosecutors. They were glad to have her turn state's evidence, but they had cleaned the laptop and were retrieving the data. All the files on the king and queen's chocolate factories and their dealings with the knave: dumping cocoa husks and byproducts in the river, price fixing, value inflating, and smuggling. It was all there.

“You can still read the hard drive?” she asked, amazed. “I bought three computers for nothing? One to drown, one for you to find, and a new one for myself!”

''Ah well,” he said tolerantly, “the general public has only a vague idea of these things.”

The case came up shortly in district court, and being very high profile, three judges were assigned. The king refused to appear, going around in pajamas and pretending to be sick. The queen agreed to testify but didn't help her cause any by repeatedly shouting, “Off with their heads!”

When the judge asked the fox to testify she slowly rose in the dock and adjusted the microphone. “I now intend to focus only on myself. The king and the queen, and the knave, who is leading the counsel, I'm not interested in what punishment they'll receive. Neither do I intent to seek favor saying I'm not the main culprit.”

Back at the college, Kang was finding out that Seon-jae had dropped out of school. “Didn't you hear?” his assistant asked. “I thought you knew everything.”

This dashed all of the lizard's plans for showing off his own protege. “No. You can go.”

In the courtroom, the fox was still speaking, “Every illegal act I've committed was never coerced, but was only by my choice. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”

Kang's assistant was telling him all the worst news, “He returned the scholarship papers, his student ID, and even the remainder of this month's support.”

At that Kang lost his temper and sent everything on his desk crashing to the floor. “Do you want to quit also? GET OUT!”

The fox was just getting into her stride. “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people...”

Just at that moment Seon-jae felt a very curious sensation. He was beginning to grow larger. He thought at first that he should leave the court, but decided to remain as long as there was room. “I wish you wouldn't squeeze so,” said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to him.

“I can't help it,” said Seon-jae, “I'm growing.”

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent...”

“I can hardly breathe.”

“Oh all right,” Seon-jae jumped up to leave but had gotten so large that he accidentally knocked over the jury box, upsetting all of the jury onto the court reporter's table. In his defense it must be admitted that he didn't expect there to be a jury box at all, because they don't have jury trials in Korea. “Oh I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, and began picking them up and stuffing them back into the jury box as fast as he could.

“But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.”

The center judge interrupted the testimony. “This trial can not proceed until all the jury are back in their proper places.”

“All of them,” added the left judge. Seon-jae saw that in his haste he had put the lizard in head downwards, and the poor thing was waving his tail around helplessly. This caused confusion later because the lizard hadn't been thought to be at the trial at all. Seon-jae put him back straight.

The right judge, who had been working on his laptop, called out, “Silence!” and read out, “Rule 42: All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.” Everybody looked at Seon-jae.

“I'm not a mile high,” he said.

“You are,” said the right judge.

“Nearly two miles high,” added the center judge.

“Off with his head,” the queen shouted. Nobody moved.

“Who cares for you?” said Seon-jae. “You're nothing but a pack of cards!” At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down on his head. He tried to beat them off, and found himself lying on the bank next to his brother, who was brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees.

“Wake up,” said @docster6, “what a long sleep you've had!”

“Oh no,” Seon-jae muttered, “I always hate it when it turns out to have been a dream.”

**THE END**

Thank you to Jung Sung-joo for writing Secret Love Affair, Viki.com for the English subtitles, Lewis Carroll for writing Alice in Wonderland, Project Gutenberg for easy access to the book, and Steve Jobs for inventing the iPad.