Reginald Judges You
By Erin Perez
            A tinkling bell towards the front of Reginald’s shop heralded the first customer of the day.  Reggie, wearing a frosty blue chemise and disposed of his favorite tangerine coat, emerged from the storage room with a sunny smile on his face and a bounce in his step. Today, he thought, would be marvelous. As marvelous as every previous day had been, for spring was in bloom, Wonderlandians were flocking to him for their Easter hats and he was now living in Alice’s cottage, following their engagement.
            He was hoping that the customer would be interested in the egg-shaped bonnet he had created after morning tea. It was a terribly large thing with delicate ruffles and yellow daffodils made of silk; mint green-coloured gems were studded into patterns of lambs and it was topped off with rose-hued peacock feathers. In short, the perfect Easter hat.
The customer, or rather customers were two girls, one with an air of shyness, the other of a very nervous disposition.  Reginald could see she was shaking. He did not like her ordinary baseball cap, the letter L imprinted on the front. It was vulgar and utterly common. He much appreciated the shy girl’s top hat, a big, green top hat.
The girl in the baseball cap spoke.
“Yoou! Ha, yeaaah. Hi. Hello-morning good I mean. Er, no. Good Morning. You’re the umm-the-the Hatter, right?”
Reginald merely raised his eyebrow at her and nodded. Her trousers were made from a coarse, blue fabric that further distanced him from the girl. Her hair needed cutting.
“What is it you were looking for?” he chose to address the other girl. “An Easter bonnet perhaps?” The nervous girl answered. She had gained some confidence.
“Bonnets? Pfff-those are for girls. I want a pork-pie hat!”
If her appearance hadn’t deterred him; this answer certainly did. In his opinion, pork-pies were the most awful and wicked of hats. Reginald had promised himself to never make them when he first decided to enter the Millinery business.
He gave the girl the harshest and most punishing of looks. He judged her and her high opinion of the evil pork-pies.
“I. Don’t. Like. Pork-Pies.” His eye twitched.
The girl was no longer scared of him, she was silently laughing now. The other girl smiled widely. He sneered at her as well.
“Really? Why not? Pork-pies are awesome! They’re um, slick and small-“
“-That’s precisely why I don’t like them. They’re the most pretentious of hats, they’re terribly small and overall they’re a symbol of their owner’s twatness and horrid taste in fashion. What’s more, Pork-pie owners tend to drink that vile liquid known as coffee.”
At this the two girls burst out laughing. Reginald felt a gnawing urge to throw his glove at them and demand a duel, despite their female person and young age. Instead he decided to take the high-road; he would astonish the girls and quiet their raucous giggles with his dazzling new hat. He went behind the counter and pulled it out.
“Now then, wouldn’t you prefer this to a pork-pie? Look at the plumage on it! All of it is silk! The ruffles are Chinese lace, the gems are all genuine. Just look at it, the daffodils took me a week to make… WHY ARE YOU LAUHGING YOU UNCOUTH BRATS?”
The girls were now rolling on the floor with laughter. They didn’t like his Easter bonnet.
“Get out! This instant! I will not have uncultured hoodlums in here! You know nothing about millinery haute-couture!
“Madame! Please, we adore your bonnet, we swear, tis the most amazing hat in the universe! You could cut a few ruffles out though-” the straight-haired girl answered between snorts of laughter.
“Did you just address me as madame? Rude child.  And it has the perfect amount of ruffles thank-you very much. Now get out!”
“NO! Really! I want to buy it! Pleeeeaaase?” She gave Reginald the warmest and most innocent of smiles. Her eyes were those of a pup’s. He felt his malice and ill-opinion towards the girl melt away as easily as cotton candy when he looked upon her loving visage. How could he deny such a face?
“Of course, let me just wrap it up for you.”
He got out his best hat box and lined it with Japanese-imported Washi paper tissues. The girls had stopped giggling and were now admiring his shop’s abundant supply of bowlers, cloches, boaters, tricornes, bicornes, homburgs, fedoras, flat caps, Gatsby caps, phrygian caps, deerstalkers, chullos and ushankos. He gave them a smile.
“So, will you be wearing this for Easter?”
“Uh, it’ll be a gift.” She seemed to be biting her tongue.
“That’s nice, for whom, may I ask?”
“A good friend of mine…Merlin.”
Reginald stopped packing. His eyes were slits. Judging by their previous behavior, it was no surprise they traveled in the same circle as Merlin.
“Merlin? That cantankerous, old geezer who oversees that out-dated, pathetic excuse of a sword ceremony? He’s your friend? The one who’s going to receive my extraordinary Easter bonnet?!”
“Er, yes. We’re very good friends. You know him I take it?”
“GET OUT OF MY SHOP!” he barked. And with that, the girls scrammed to the door, leaving Reginald to clutch his poor bonnet and fume in his only memory of the famed wizard Merlin. A friend of the odious Merlin, he judged, was no friend of his.