Alice in Wonderland

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Alice and her big sister were sitting on the grass. Her sister was reading a book, but Alice had nothing to read. She looked at her sister‟s book again. There were no pictures in it. “What good is a book without pictures?” she wondered.

It was a very hot day, and Alice wondered what to do. “I‟m so sleepy,” she said to herself. “Shall I look for some flowers, or is it too hot?”

She saw a leaf falling from a tree, but she was too sleepy to look at it.

Just then, a white rabbit ran by, very near to her. That does not happen every day, but Alice did not wonder very much even when the rabbit said to itself, “Oh! Oh! I will be too late!” But she did wonder when the rabbit took a watch out of its pocket and looked at it. “A rabbit with a pocket?” Alice asked herself. “And a watch in it?”

She jumped up and ran after the White Rabbit. She was just time to see him go down a big rabbit hole.

Alice went into the hole too. She didn‟t stop to wonder how she could get out again.

The rabbit hole went along just under the ground, and then…Alice was falling …down…down…down.

She was not falling quickly. She had time to wonder “What‟s going to happen next?” She looked down, but there was no light there.

Down, down, down. “Will Dinah wonder where I am tonight?” Alice asked herself. (Dinah was Alice‟s cat.) “Will they remember her milk at tea time? Oh, Dinah! Why aren‟t you here with me? There are no mice here, but there may be some bats. Do cats eat bats, I wonder?” Alice was beginning to get sleepy. “Do cats eat bats?” she asked herself. “Do cats eat bats?” And sometimes she asked, “Do bats eat cats?”

THUMP!BUMP! Alice came down on something that was not very hard.

She sat up quickly. She could still see the White Rabbit, far away along the rabbit hole. “Run!” Alice told herself, and she ran very quickly after the White Rabbit.

“Oh, my ears!” she heard him say. “How late it‟s getting!” Then he went quickly through an opening at the side of the rabbit hole.

Alice ran through the opening. She was in a long hall, and she could not see the White Rabbit. There were doors on every side of the hall, but she could not open any of them, and she could not find the opening from the rabbit hole.

“What can I do?” she wondered. Then she saw a little table. It was a glass table, and there was a very small golden key on it. “Will it open one of the doors?” she wondered. She went to all the doors, but the key was much too small to open any of them. “It must open something.”

Then she saw a very little door, hidden near one of the big doors. The little key opened it. Alice put her head down and looked through it into a very beautiful garden. She could see a lot of flowers and grass, and she wanted to go there. But the door was much too small. Sadly she shut it again and took the key back to the table.

“Why can‟t I become smaller?” Alice wondered. “It‟s not like home here—it‟s more magic—so there must be a way to get smaller.” She looked at the glass table. There was a little bottle on it.

(That was not on the table before,” Alice told herself.) She read a note on the bottle. It was in very good, big writing: “Drink me”.

“I will try just a little,” Alice said, “a very little”. She tried it and it was very nice. She drank some more.

“Oh! My feet are much smaller and much nearer,” Alice said, “I must be very small now.”

She was. “Now I can go through the little door,” she told herself. She went to the door, but she could not open it, and the key was on the glass table. She could see it through the glass, but she was now much too small to get it. She tried to get to it up one of the glass legs, but she could not. The poor little girl sat down and cried.

“Alice! Alice!” she said bravely. “It‟s no good crying like that. Stop it at once!” she sometimes spoke to herself like that, but it did not help her this time. She was still crying when she saw a little glass box under the table.

Alice opened the box. There was a very small cake in it. “Eat me”, she read.

“Yes, I will eat it,” Alice said. “if I grow bigger after that, I can get the key. If I grow smaller, I can get under the door into the garden.” So she ate the cake.

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Alice grew bigger. “How quickly I‟m growing!” she said. And then, “Oh!” cried, as her head hit the ceiling.

“I must go into that garden,” she thought. “This hall is too small for me now.”

She took the little golden key and went quickly to the garden door. She was much too big to go through it.

Poor Alice! She sat down and began to cry again. Because she was so big, the tears that fell from her eyes were very big too. They made a big pool.

“Stop crying!” Alice told herself. “You‟re a big girl” (and she was big—very big) “and you mustn‟t cry.” But she couldn‟t stop the big tears, and soon there was a pool of tears all round her. After a time, she heard little feet running towards her, and then she saw the White Rabbit coming back. He had his best clothes on, and he had two very clean white gloves in one hand and a fan in his other hand.

“Oh, the Duchess, the Duchess!” Alice heard him saying. “How angry she‟ll be because I‟m late!”

Alice wanted to ask him for help. She tried to speak in her nicest way as she said, “Please—“ The White Rabbit jumped. The word came from the ceiling, and he was afraid. He ran away as quickly as he could, and the gloves and the fan fell from his hands.

Alice took up the very small gloves and the fan. It was hot in the hall, so she began to fan herself with the fan.

“Am I changed?” she wondered. “I was myself yesterday, but things are not the same today. If I‟m not me, who am I? I don‟t want to be my friend Mabel because she doesn‟t know very much. I know much more than she does.” Alice stopped. “Do I know more?” she wandered. “I‟ll try. I‟ll try to say four times. Four times one is four. Four times two is eight. Four times three is nine. Four times four is … oh!” she began to cry again.

She had put one of the White Rabbit‟s little gloves on.

“How can I have done that?” she thought. “I must be growing small.”

She stood up and walked to the table again. “I‟ll see how big I am,” she said.

The table was a long way up. Alice was very small, and she was quickly becoming smaller. “The fan!” she thought. “The fan‟s making me smaller.” She threw it down.

“I‟m so small that I can go through the door,” she thought, and she ran towards it. She had not run far when—SPLASH—she fell into a lot of water. “I have fallen into the sea,” she thought. It wasn‟t the sea. It was the pool of tears that she had made when she was very big. “Why did I cry so much?” Alice said.

She heard something splashing about in the pool near her. “It must be a very big fish or sea animal,” she thought. But then she remembered that she herself was very small, and she soon saw that it was a mouse that had fallen into the water.

“I wonder if it can speak,” Alice thought. “This place is not the same as home, so I‟ll speak to it. Oh, Mouse!” she said. “Do you know the way out of this pool?”

There was no answer. “Is it a French mouse?” Alice wondered. She tried to remember some French words. The words that began her school French words. The words that began her school French book were the words for: Where is my cat? So she said them in French. There was a great splashing, and the Mouse moved away as quickly as he could.

“Oh!” Alice cried. “Please don‟t be angry! I didn‟t remember that mice don‟t like cats if you were me?”

“No,” Alice said. “No. but I think you would like Dinah. She is a nice, dear thing.” Alice was speaking mostly to herself. “She never makes a noise, and she‟s very good. She catches all the mice—Oh! You‟re angry again! We will not speak about Dinah any more—“

“We!” the Mouse cried. “I never speak about cats! I don‟t want to hear any more about them.” Alice quickly tried to speak about other things. “Perhaps…”she said, “Perhaps you like dogs?” The Mouse did not answer, so Alice began again: “There is a very nice little dog near our house. You would love it. It likes playing with children, but it works too. Its home is on a farm, and the farmer says that it helps him a lot. It kills all them—Oh!”

The Mouse was very angry. He splashed his way to the side of the pool and got out of the water. Alice went after him.

There were a lot of animals and birds which had fallen into the pool: a duck, and a dodo and others with names that Alice did not know. They splashed after Alice and got out of the water.

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Alice was very cold after being in the pool, and the animals and birds were cold and unhappy. Alice did not wonder about it when they began to speak to her.

“The best thing if you are cold,” the Dodo said, “is to have a race—a Caucus race.”

None of the other birds or animals said anything, but the Dodo was waiting for a question, so Alice asked, “What is a Caucus race?”

“I could tell you,” the Dodo said, “but the best thing is to do it.”

The Dodo made marks to show where to run. There was no place to begin running. There was no place to run to. There was no “One, two, three, go!” They began running when they liked, and they stopped when they liked. Only the Dodo knew when the race was over. When everybody was hot again and happy, the Dodo called out: “The race is over.”

Then they all stood round the Dodo and asked, “Who has won?”

The Dodo could not answer at once. He sat for a long time with a finger to his head, and at last

he said: “Everybody has won. Everyone must have a prize.”

“But who is to give the prizes?” the Mouse and a lot of other animals asked. “She is,” the Dodo said, looking at Alice.

“Prizes! Prizes!” all the birds and animals cried, standing round Alice.

Alice was not ready for this, but she put her hand in her pocket. She found a small box of very small sweets in it. (It was a good thing that the water had not got into it.) There was just one sweet for each of the birds and animals.

“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” the Mouse said.

“Yes,” the Dodo answered. He told Alice to find another prize in her pocket. “I only have the box,” Alice said.

“Give it to me.” The Dodo put his hand out, and Alice put the box into it.

They all stood round Alice again, and the Dodo gave her the box, saying: “Please take this very beautiful box with our thanks.”

The next thing was to eat the sweets. There was some noise and crying about this. The sweets were too small for the big birds: they did not last. They were too big for the small birds. “Quick! Pat them on their backs!” Alice cried.

At last the sweets were all gone, and the birds and animals sat round in a ring and waited for something to happen.

“If Dinah were here, I should be very happy,” Alice said. She said it to herself, but her new friends heard the words.

“And who is Dinah, may I ask?” the Dodo said.

Alice was always ready to speak about her friend the cat.

“Dinah‟s our cat. She‟s very nice. And she‟s very quick. You should see her catching mice. She‟s very good at catching birds too—Oh, why have they all gone?”

All the animals and birds had gone. Alice was alone again. “They don‟t like me to speak about Dinah,” she told herself. “Nobody likes Dinah down here, but she‟s the best cat of all. I wonder if I shall ever see her again.”

Alice began to cry again because she was alone, but she heard little feet coming towards her, and she stopped crying. “Perhaps it‟s the Mouse,” she thought.

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It was not the Mouse. It was the White rabbit. He was looking everywhere, and she heard him saying, “The Duchess! She‟ll be so angry! Oh, where are they? Where did they fall?”

Alice knew that he was looking for the fan and the little gloves, and she tried to find them. But everything was changed. The hall with the little glass table and the doors had gone. She was in the country.

The White Rabbit saw her. “What are you doing out here, Mary Ann?” he asked angrily. “Run home at once and bring me some white gloves and a fan. Quick! Now!”

Alice ran towards a little house without trying to tell the White Rabbit that she was not the girl who worked for him. When she came to the door of the house, she saw “W. RABBIT” on it, and she went in. In a small room at the top of the house there was a table. Alice saw a fan and some gloves on it. She took them and went towards the door, but there was a little bottle near it. It was

not like the bottle in the hall. It did not have “DRINK ME” on it, but she tried it.

“When I eat or drink anything here,” she said to herself, “something always happens. Perhaps this will make me grow big again. I don‟t want to be small any more.” She did grow. She grew very quickly. “Have I drunk too much? She wondered.

She sat down. But soon she was too big for that. With her side on the floor it was better, but she was still growing. She put her arm out of the window and her foot inside the fireplace.

“I‟m glad there isn‟t a fire,” she thought. “If I grow any more, I don‟t know what will happen.” She stopped growing, but she could not move.

“Mary Ann! Mary Ann! Where are you? Where are my gloves?” The words came from the garden, outside the window. The rabbit was there, and soon Alice heard his little feet as he came up to the room.

The Rabbit tried to open the door of the room, but he could not move it. Alice‟s back stopped it. Alice heard him say, “Then I‟ll go and get in at the window.”

“Oh, no, you will not!” Alice thought. She waited for the Rabbit to run round the house to the window.

There was a little cry. She heard the Rabbit calling for help, and then she heard little animals speaking.

“It‟s an arm.”

“It‟s too big. It can‟t be an arm.” “It is an arm. Take it away.”

Alice moved her arm. There were more cries and a lot of noise, and then she heard the Rabbit: “We must burn the house down!”

Alice shouted, „If you do, I‟ll ask Dinah to catch you!” her shout made me the little house shake.

There was no answer from the little animals. She heard nothing at all for some time. Then they began to move about again.

“What will they do next?” Alice wondered.

A lot of little stones were thrown at the window. Some of them hit her arm, and some of them came through the window and hit her face and her body before they fell on the floor. Alice looked at the stones on the floor. They all became little cakes.

“If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it will do something to me. It can‟t make me bigger, so it must make me smaller.” She ate one of the cakes.

At once she began to get smaller. When she was so small that she could go through the door, she ran out of the house.

There were a lot of animals outside, so Alice ran quickly until she got to some trees. It was very hard to run because she was so small. She ran round even the smallest plants and flowers.

“Oh!” Alice said, stopping and using a piece of grass as a fan, “I must grow bigger again. How can I do it? I must eat or drink something, but the question is what?”

That was the question. Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the grass, but she could not see anything with “EAT ME” or “DRINK ME” on it.

There was a big mushroom growing near her. Alice went towards it. She looked under it; she looked beside it; she looked at the back of it. Then she looked to see what was on top of it.

The mushroom was as big as she was, but she could just see over the top. She looked into the eyes of a big blue caterpillar.

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The Caterpillar looked at Alice and said nothing. “Perhaps it doesn‟t speak,” Alice thought.

But at last it did speak. “Who are you?” it asked.

It was a hard question. Alice answered, but not very quickly: “I … I don‟t know. I knew who I was this morning, but I have changed …more than once… I think.” “How?” the Caterpillar asked.

It was another hard question. Alice said, “It‟s just that… changing from one thing to another is very hard.” “No, it isn‟t.”

Alice thought about that. Perhaps it isn‟t hard for you,” she said. She knew that caterpillars change more than once before they become butterflies. “But it is hard for me.” “For you? Who are you?”

The Caterpillar had asked that question before, and Alice was near to becoming angry. She said, “Perhaps you can tell me who you are before I tell you who I am.” “why?”

It was another hard question. Alice could not answer it, so she began to walk away. “Come back!” the Caterpillar called. “I want to say something.” Alice went back to the mushroom.

“You must never be angry,” the Caterpillar said. “Is that all?” Alice asked. She was angry. “No.”

Alice waited. “Perhaps it will say something if I wait,” she thought.

The Caterpillar got down from the mushroom and began to move away. As it went, it said: “One side will make you grow bigger, and the other side will make you grow smaller.”

Alice did not say anything, but she thought, “One side of what? The other side of what?”

Perhaps the Caterpillar heard her thinking, because it said, “Of the mushroom. It was round, like all mushrooms. “How can it have two sides—one side and the other side?” she wondered. At last she put her arms round the top, as far as they would go. She took a bi of the mushroom with each hand.

“And now which bit will make me bigger?” asked herself. She took a very small bite from one. “Oh!” she cried, as her head hit her foot. She just got a small bite from the other side into her mouth before it was too late. That made her bigger.

Then she tried very small bites from one side or the other, and at last she was not too big and not too small.

“Now I must find that beautiful garden,” she said.

Alice began to walk through the trees. She came to a garden, but it was not the garden that she saw before. There was a house in it—a very small house.

“I‟m much too big,” Alice thought. “If I go there like this, the people in the house will be afraid. I‟ll eat some mushroom from the part that makes me small.”