Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped at the book she was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it.
Giving into her boredom, Alice put her book down. “What is the use of a book,” she thought, “without pictures or conversation?”
So she was considering in her own mind what to do about her boredom when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so VERY much out of the way until she heard the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ When he peered at his watch, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet after him.
She followed the rabbit down a tunnel before it dipped straight down into a rabbit hole. She fell, and time seemed to slow around her.
Down
Down
Down!
The fall seemed as if it would never end! As she continued to fall, she thought, “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?. I must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I should think!”
When she finally landed, she found that she was not hurt. Brushing herself off, she stood and took in her surroundings. Before her lay a long dirt path, and she could barely see the disappearing shape of the rabbit. Without hesitation, she set off down the path. “I have nothing to lose now,” she said aloud to herself.
Walking along the path, Alice came upon a unusual sight. There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it.The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it.
“No room! No room,” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.
“There’s PLENTY of room,” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the Mad Hatter. “But since you are here have a glass of tea.” Alice watched as he poured her a cup and pushed it across the table.
Alice picked up her cup and took a sip. She was opening her mouth to say thank you but stopped. She was beginning to feel very strange. Very strange indeed! Her distress was written clearly on her face, and the Mad Hatter and the March Hare began to giggle.
However, they began to literally shake from laughter when Alice began to shrink! She grew so tiny that she was engulfed in the chair.
“What have you DONE,” she roared (well as much as a tiny person can roar).
Alas, screaming in rage did nothing to stop their laughter.
“We have made you tiny,” the March Hare replied matter-of-factly.
Alice threw her tiny arms up in exasperation. “Well then undo it!”
The Mad Hatter wiped his eyes; his face beet red from all the giggling. “Can’t have a bit of fun, I suppose,” he said breathlessly, and he broke off a crumb of a cookie. “Here, eat this. Then you shall be right again. Just take this as a lesson. Don’t take a seat at a tea party when you are clearly not invited.”
Alice left the tea party still fuming. “Well, I never,” she thought. “What a terrible thing to do making me so small.”
She continued on not paying any particular attention to her path until she ran smack into a door.
“How strange,” she said aloud. “A door out in the middle of nowhere.” Without a second thought she pushed it open and stumbled into a room. On a glass table there was a bottle that had a tag attached to it.
“Drink me,” Alice read. She took another glance around the room, and then she brought the bottle up to her lips. At first nothing happened but then, again, Alice began to feel the same feeling she had experienced at the tea party.
“Oh, no,” she said as she began to grow bigger and bigger and bigger.
After crying for what felt like hours, Alice eventually began to look around. That was when she spotted a cookie that looked suspiciously like the one the Mad Hatter had given her. She took a bite, and she immediately began to shrink.
Once she was back to her appropriate size, she began to take stock of her situation. Finally, she noticed that one of the doors was cracked open. Pushing her way through it, she came out into a beautiful forest.
She began walking, hoping to find her way back to her sister. After a couple of miles, she found a giant mirror. However, she did not see her reflection but a rose garden with a woman standing in a red dress.
“Maybe she will know a way out,” Alice thought. Without hesitation, Alice went through the looking glass to her next great adventure.
A few snapshots of Alice while she was in Wonderland:
