the hat fell into the sewers.
the cat and the hat discovered something fascinating (which is a state of mind when you think something is so interesting that you can't stop thinking about it, but preferably it shouldn't be something like dorritos or red crayons). the gardener was telling the cook that in new york, where the angry bearded man who regularly smashed up his old fiat had moved to, huge alligators live in the sewers and have a parallel city under the city.
now neither the cat nor the hat knew what an alligator was but it sounded like they could be some glamorous golden-scaled, rainbow-winged magical creatures. they were actually thinking about a dragon, but they didn't know that since both of them are very ignorant about certain zoological and mythical facts.
the two of them raced excitedly to the spider who was in the middle of a deep conversation with the crow. all the conversations between the spider and the crow tended to be deep. the crow was very intelligent and got very angry if people failed to recognize that. in order to keep his BP down, he devised the strategy of talking on intelligent-sounding things so that no-one would slip up and consequently make him angry. the cat and the hat sometimes thought the crow made no sense, but kept quiet since they didn't want to hurt the spider.
now the crow and the spider were talking about alphabets that sounded complicated like SEBI and SEZ and whatnot. so the hat and the cat grinned and waved and left without saying anything. it was really a pity because if they stopped to talk, they'd hear about urban legends and a lot of the trouble that followed would be spared.
the cat raced straight to the back gate that led to road and took up position on top of the sewers and the hat who didn't like being the second bravest (actually neither of them were very brave but didn't like to admit it) ran right after and peered underneath the iron sewers. that's when the bat came swooping down to see what the fuss was all about and the startled hat fell right in.
the cat and the bat were both stunned. then the bat started laughing and the cat started yelling. it went round and round the sewers, alternately yelling at the bat and screaming down to the hat. now the hat was very scared. it was very dark and smelly down in there and the hat could hear scraping noises, which could be alligators that suddenly didn't seem all that glamorous to encounter in a dank hole with no way out. and when it heard the cat making all that fuss, it became a bit more scared. after a lot of yelling back and forth, they decided that the spider needed to be called. the hat wanted the bat to go fetch the spider and the cat to stay. the cat didn't trust the bat and wanted to go on its own. the bat was a bit hurt, but it was also feeling a bit scared for the hat. so it agreed to what the cat said and stayed back. but that didn't stop it from looking down the sewers and making faces at the poor hat.
the spider came running along. though it did take some time to tick off the cat and the hat and point out that alligators do not live in sewers and nor are they particularly glamorous or magical. (it was wrong of course, but you can't expect a spider to know everything). it quickly spun a web and went down to talk to the hat and calm it down. the hat acquiesced and settled down to wait quietly. it also spent some time thinking how much better the spider was than toby maguire.
then the spider called out to the crow. the crow was smirking nastily all the while. it came dragging it's feet and a thin branch from the lemon tree. it held the branch on its beak and lowered it down the sewer. the spider helped the hat to get hold of one end of it and the cat helped the crow to pull it back up. finally, the hat was rescued and before anyone could turn nasty the bat fled.
anyway tired from all that excitement, the cat and the hat went to the back garden to take a nap and this time they didn't even have to count anything. they just fell asleep as soon as they closed their eyes. but before falling asleep, the hat told the cat that it had seen a pair of beady eyes and it thought that alligators do have a small village, if not a city, down in those sewers. what neither of them knew was that it was not a village, but a small municipal town with its own elected representatives and an 8-station subway system.