The White Rabbit's House
It was not the Mouse. It was the White Rabbit. He was looking everywhere, and she heard him saying, "The Duchess! 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 every- thing 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 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. |