ALICE IN WONDERLAND
One bright and sunny afternoon,
Alice sat under the shade of a tree together with her sister. Alice’s
sister was reading a story out loud from a book, but Alice wasn’t really paying attention. She
much preferred to sit and daydream. Today she was imagining a magical world with talking animals.
All of a sudden a little white rabbit went rushing past Alice.
He was puffing and panting. “Uff,” he exclaimed, “I’m late, I’m late!”
A rabbit wearing a suit? And carrying a pocket watch? Alice could hardly believe her eyes.
“Excuse me!” she cried after the rabbit, “Wait!”
But the rabbit, clearly in a hurry, kept on running. Alice decided to follow him.
She followed the rabbit to a large rabbit hole into which he promptly disappeared. Alice looked
at the rabbit hole and, feeling curious, decided to go down it. She came to a long,
dark tunnel. Alice crawled along, using her elbows to move herself forward. She couldn’t see anything
in the dark and the tunnel soon dipped downwards, sending Alice sliding downwards along a long chute
and landing with a bump at the bottom. She was just in time to see the white rabbit disappearing.
The rabbit had gone through a little door in the side of the wall. It was much too tiny for
Alice to get through. Yet there was no way she could climb back up the chute. How was
she to get out? Alice felt trapped. Suddenly, to her amazement, the doorknob began to speak.
“A talking doorknob!” thought Alice to herself, “how very strange indeed!”
“If you want to get through the door,” continued the doorknob,
“then you must drink the potion on the table over there.”
Alice looked around the room and saw that there was a little table
with a medicine bottle standing on it. The bottle had a label on it that read “Drink me.” Curiously
she took hold of the bottle and opened it. She took a deep breath and then tipped the contents
of the bottle into her mouth, swallowing them down. Alice began to feel strange. She glanced
around her and realised that the room looked different. Then it hit Alice! She was tiny. The
table leg was as big as a mountain, and the door which had previously appeared so tiny,
now seemed a normal size. The bottle must have contained a magic shrinking potion!
Alice went over to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked.
WIth dismay she realised that the key was up on the table. She tried to climb up the table
leg but it was no use, it was too slippery. “Oh dear,” cried Alice out loud, “what am I to do?”
Alice began to panic. She didn’t want to be trapped down here forever.
But just as she was about to cry, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
Next to one of the table legs was a little glass box. Alice wandered over to it and peered inside.
There she could see a little biscuit, with the words “Eat Me” marked on it.
Alice picked up the biscuit and took a tiny bite. She began to shoot up slowly. Then
she nibbled some more, and some more. Soon Alice had grown so tall that her head hit the ceiling.
She grabbed the key from the table. But then Alice realised that she was once again too big to fit
through the door. She might have the key now, but it was no use if she was too big to get through!
Tears fell from Alice’s eyes. Huge tears began to fill the room with water.
Then Alice noticed the potion bottle. There were still a few drops left in the bottom!
Hurriedly she drank from the bottle and noticed how she began to shrink again.
To save herself from drowning in her own tears she climbed into the glass bottle.
Floating, she managed to sail through the keyhole and land on the other side of the door.
Alice ambled along until she came across the white rabbit once again.
He was standing at the door to a house and mistook Alice for his maid!
“Come,” he said to Alice, “Come inside now and fetch my gloves for me.”
Alice took advantage of the white rabbit’s confusion to have a good look around the home.
She couldn’t find the gloves that he was talking about but instead she found some cakes.
Unable to resist, Alice took one of the cakes, then another and another! In no time at all she
had transformed into a giant. Her head came through the roof and her arms and legs broke
through the walls of the house! It seemed that in this strange land, food changed people’s size.
Alice pulled a carrot up out of the garden and nibbled it.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she realised that she was returning to her usual size.
She followed the white rabbit who was rushing away once more. She was led into a forest where
she was met by a cat with an enormous grin. He told Alice that he was called the Cheshire Cat.
He was sitting in a tree and there were wooden signs around him
pointing in all different directions. “Please,” said Alice, “could you tell me the way home?”
The Cheshire Cat pointed towards a secret path.
Alice followed the path, but instead of taking her home, it took her to a house with a big long table
set out in the garden. Sitting around the table drinking tea was the March Hare and a man in a
big tall hat. Alice called him the “Hatter”. Also at the table was a little dormouse, fast asleep.
“No room, no room!” they cried, when Alice came towards the table.
“There’s plenty of room,” said Alice, and pulled out a chair to sit down.
“Have some wine,” offered the Hatter. “I can’t see any wine,” replied Alice,
looking round the table. All she could see were teapots and teacups.
“There isn’t any!” exclaimed the Hatter. “Well, what on earth did you offer it for then?”
said Alice, “It’s not polite to offer something when you know full well that you don’t have it.”
“Nor is it polite to sit down without being invited!” retorted the Hatter.
The Hatter and the March Hare continued to talk absolute nonsense, leaving Alice extremely
confused. She decided that from now on the Hatter should be referred to as the “Mad Hatter”, for he
really was quite wacky. She listened to their silly tales for a little while longer, before
deciding that enough really was enough and she got up from the table and walked into the wood.
Alice saw a castle in the distance and headed in that direction. It was not long before she
found herself at the entrance to the castle grounds. There she could see some playing-cards.
She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. Yes, they really were playing-cards, with arms and legs and hands
and feet! They appeared to be very busy, painting rose bushes with tins of bright red paint.
“Why are you painting those roses red?” asked Alice, curiously.
“We planted white rose bushes by mistake,” answered one of the playing-cards. “We’re
painting them red to cover up the error. The Queen will have our heads chopped off if she finds out!”
The sound of a trumpet blowing disturbed Alice and when she looked in the direction
of the sound she saw that it was the white rabbit who was carrying the instrument. Behind
him was the Queen of Hearts. Upon seeing the girl, the Queen came over and spoke to Alice.
“What is your name, my girl?” she asked.
“My name is Alice, your Majesty,” replied Alice whilst curtseying.
“Very well, Alice,” boomed the Queen, “come and play croquet.”
Alice followed the Queen of Hearts to an area in the garden set up for a croquet game. It
was the strangest game of croquet that Alice had ever seen. She was quickly beginning to realise
that nothing in this world was quite as you would expect. The mallets for hitting the ball
were actually flamingos, and the balls themselves were little hedgehogs, all curled up. Playing-card
soldiers standing on all-fours created the arches under which the hedgehog-balls were to be hit.
Alice found it very hard to play the game because her flamingo-mallet had a life of its own
and would not stay still. The Queen began to lose patience with Alice.
Eventually she shouted the order “Off with her head!”
Alice panicked and began to run, a trail of playing-card soldiers chasing after her.
Alice tried to be brave. “I’m not afraid of you!” she shouted, “you’re nothing but a pack of cards!”
Immediately the whole pack of playing-card soldiers rose up in the air and came scattering
down on top of her. Alice screamed and tried to swipe them away with her hands.
Suddenly, she noted the brush of her sister’s hand on her face.
She was brushing away some leaves that must have fallen down onto Alice’s face from the tree above.
“Alice, Alice, wake up,” she whispered, “you’ve been asleep for ages!”
Alice looked around her, confused. “What a strange dream I’ve had,” she muttered. Alice
knew there and then that she would never forget her strange and magical visit to Wonderland.