Down the Rabbit Hole

    Down the Rabbit Hole
Alice and her big sister were sitting on the grass. Her sister was reading¹ 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. " Shall² 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 about it. She did not wonder very much even when the rabbit said to itself, "Oh! Oh! I shall 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 in 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. "Oh!" she said, "it's a long way. I shall never be afraid of falling again. I wonder where the hole will come out.
    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 bats³. 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?"Thump⁴! Bump⁵! 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 opening⁶ 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 golden⁷ 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," she told herself.
    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. Sadly⁸ 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 shall 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 herselfShe 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 spoke⁹ 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 shall 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.

1 reading   

n.阅读，知识，读物，表演，对法律条文的解释；adj.阅读的

参考例句：

• Children learn reading and writing at school.孩子们在学校学习阅读和写作。
• He finds pleasure in reading.他从阅读中得到乐趣。

2 shall   

v.aux.（主要用于第一人称）将

参考例句：

• I shall always love you.我将永远爱你。
• Which club shall we join?我们要参加哪个社团？

3 bats   

神经不正常的，怪异的

参考例句：

• Bats are crepuscular creatures. 蝙蝠是在黎明或黄昏时分活动的动物。
• Dogs, cats and bats can all carry rabies. 狗、猫和蝙蝠都可能携带狂犬病病毒。

4 thump   

v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声

参考例句：

• The thief hit him a thump on the head.贼在他的头上重击一下。
• The excitement made her heart thump.她兴奋得心怦怦地跳。

5 bump   

v.（against,into）碰，颠簸；n.碰撞，隆起物

参考例句：

• I heard a bump in the next room.我听到隔壁房间传来“砰”的一声。
• He got a bad bump on his forehead.他碰得前额隆起一个大包。

6 opening   

n.开始，口，穴，揭幕；adj.开始的

参考例句：

• Instead of opening the gate,we climbed over it.我们没有开门，而是从门顶上爬过去的。
• There was an opening in the wall.墙上有个洞。

7 golden   

adj.金的，含金的，可贵的，金色的，贵重的，繁盛的

参考例句：

• My teacher is an Englishman with golden hair.我的老师是一个金黄色头发的英国人。
• It's a balmy evening,the golden time for lovers.这是一个暖和的夜晚，是恋人们的黄金时光。

8 sadly   

adv.悲痛地，悲惨地，悲伤地

参考例句：

• She looked at him sadly.她难过地看着他。
• Sadly the good times aren't returning any time soon.遗憾的是，好时光不会很快就回来。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。