"And what is Friction, pray?"

"I write in the language called Frictional. I'm a writer of Wrongs."

"Whatever's a Wrong?"

"A Wrong is a book that the Crickets don't consider to be right, preferring their stories to be told in Simpleton rather than Frictional. They rub their dry wings together, these Crickets, making a terrible respond to my work in the noisepapers."

"But what's so terrible about your Wrongs?" asked Alice.

"Well, I've written two Wrongs up to now: the first was called Shurt, and the second was called Solumn. And the Crickets hated both of them. This is why I'm so sad upon my birthday."

"Do you always spell your book titles with too many 'U's in them?"

"I can't help it, I'm afraid. I can't help going wrong. Shall I read you a little passage from one of my books?"

"If you wish," replied Alice.

Zenith then reached into his velvety bag, to pull out a copy of the book called Shurt. It had a bright azure cover, decorated with an illuminated pair of yellow shirts. Zenith shuffled through the pages of his book until he found the passage he was looking for. "This is a love poem called 'Nothing Rhymes With Orange'. Are you ready for it, Alice?"

"I hope so: except that nothing doesn't rhyme at all with orange."

"Excellent! Then I'll begin..."

And this is the poem that Zenith began:

"What do you think of it so far, Alice?" Zenith asked.

"Well," Alice answered hesitantly, "you told me it was going to be a love poem, but I can't find any trace of love in the words."

"But that was only the first verse."

"How many verses are there, all together?"

"Only two."

"Oh joy!" Alice said (quietly to herself).

And this is the poem that Zenith continued:

Having finished his poem, Zenith looked at Alice with an expectant gaze. The crowd of Prince Albert's Square was closing in on Alice and she was feeling very uncomfortable, with the crush and the request for yet another of her honest opinions. "Well," she began, "I'm afraid I still can't see why you call it a love poem."

"But I'm in love with language! Can't you see that?"

"Does this love allow you to make up words like sporrange and ignorrange, just so you can make orange rhyme with something rather than nothing?"

Zenith looked rather upset at this outburst of Cricketing, and Alice was beginning to regret having spoken her mind. "But those words are my own creation!" spluttered Zenith. "They are Frictional words; I conceived them; I gave birth to them! I nurtured those words so they'd grow up to be big and strong and powerful; so that one day they could find themselves being accepted into a Simpleton dictionary! That's my desire, you see, Alice: I make play with old words, twice nightly -- why, sometimes even thrice nightly! -- just so they can breed new words. But you -- especially you, Alice -- you must understand my desire, having been such a close friend of Charles Dodgson?"

"You know about Mister Dodgson?" exclaimed Alice.

"I know all about you, Alice," replied Zenith. "I've seen pictures of your likeness in the books called Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Charles Dodgson wrote them both about you."

"I know this already!" Alice explained, impatiently.

"But when Charles Dodgson wrote about you, he called himself Lewis Carroll; having decided, like myself, to hide behind a nom de plume, which means a feather name."

"So you're not really called Zenith O'Clock?"

"Of course not! What a silly name that would be!"

"So what is your real name?"

"You want to know my nom de real, Alice? Now that would be telling. But what are you doing here in Manchester, Alice, and in 1998 of all ages?"

"I fell through a grandfather clock's workings," Alice replied. "And I need to get home in time for my two o'clock writing lesson."

"Maybe you should look up your history in the Central Library."

"But why should my history be in the library?" Alice demanded.

"Because you're famous in this age, Alice. The history of your life is contained in a book called Reality and Realicey."

"Whatever does realicey mean?"

"Realicey is a special kind of reality: the world of the imagination, and it's so much more powerful than everyday existence! Witness your ability to discourse with me, Alice, all these many years after your real life! Maybe I should write my third book about you. I would call it Through the Clock's Workings and What Alice Found There."

"But that's a silly title, Mister O'Clock! Because I've found hardly anything at all in my travels through the clock. I still have another five jigsaw pieces to find, and my parrot called Whippoorwill, and my doll called Celia, who's a kind of Automated Alice."

"Automated Alice... erm... that gives me a new idea... I will write a trequel!"

Alice wasn't sure how anybody could write with treacle; wouldn't the words come out all sticky? "If you really are such a clever writer, Mister O'Clock," she asked, "could you please tell me what an ellipsis is?"

"An ellipsis is the three dots that a writer uses to imply an omittance of words, a certain lingering doubt at the end of an unfinished sentence..."

"Oh thank you! I have found at least one of my lost objects!" And then Alice found another lost object, because a feather came floating down from the Square's air into her fingers. "This is a Whippoorwill feather!" Alice squealed.

"Whippoorwill?" said Zenith. "What a wonderful nom de plume. In my trequel, I will turn this feather into a tickling ticket for you."

"Why should I need a tickling ticket?" asked Alice.

"That's the only help I can give you, Alice; do you hear me? Or else the Coincidence Bureau will surely arrest me. Oh but I've just realized; perhaps I'm already writing the book called Automated Alice, and we two are merely characters within it?"

Alice wanted to ask what he meant, but just then, the Town Hall clock reached the twelfth of its slowed-down ding-dongs, and the writer's hand came down to stroke once again at Alice's pinafored shoulder. It was noon. It was that very softest of touches, the breath of friendship, amidst strangers... and then he was gone...

How very sad Alice was to have lost hold of Mister O'Clock's normality, amid the pressing concerns of the six-of-this and half-a-dozen-of-the-other crowd, this ever-changing throng that was pushing into her tender flesh from all sides. Pushing and pushing. In fact, pushing and pushing and pushing! Alice felt like she was being squashed flat by strangeness! But at least she knew what an ellipsis was, or at least she thought that she did. "If I can only find my way back home before two o'clock, 1860," she announced out loud to nobody in particular, "I could then finish my homework! But I must still find Whippoorwill and Celia, before I can go home. Wherever can they have got to?" Alice looked all around the Square of Prince Albert, until her eyes were filled with tears. "Oh dear!" she spluttered. "I'm crying so much that the whole Square seems to be filling up with water!"

Indeed, Albert Square was filling up with water, but it was only the tears of Heaven raining down once again. Alice felt rather sheepish when she realized that it was only the rain filling up the Square, and not her tears alone. (Have you ever seen a sheep in the rain? Well, that's exactly how Alice felt.) The crowd of animals, animates, animen, aniwomen and anioldiron was rushing out of the Square to escape the downpour, leaving Alice quite alone once again.