Calico Illustrated Classics: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Down down down There was nothing else to do So Alice soon began talking again My poor cat Dinah will miss me terribly tonight I do hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at teatime Alice sighed Oh Dinah I do wish you were here with me There are no mice in the air though Perhaps you’d catch a bat Do cats eat bats I wonder Alice started to get sleepy She continued to talk to herself Do cats eat bats Do bats eat cats She had no answers She was dozing off when suddenly thump Down she came upon a heap of leaves At last the fall was over Alice wasn’t hurt one bit She jumped to her feet It was very very dark Before her there was a long passage The White Rabbit was scurrying down it Alice chased it in a flash She could hear the White Rabbit speaking Oh my ears and whiskers How late it’s getting It’s terribly late Terribly late 8
Then the White Rabbit rounded the corner and was gone Alice was left all alone in a long low hall It was lit only by lamps hanging from the roof There were doors all around the hall Alice walked up and down and tried opening each one but she had no luck They were all locked How would she ever get out again Suddenly Alice came upon a three-legged table It was made of solid glass On top of the table lay a tiny golden key She noticed the locks on the doors were much bigger The key would never work Lucky for her she then saw a curtain about fifteen inches high Behind it was a little door To her delight the key fit into the lock Alice opened the door It led to a small passage no bigger than a rat hole She knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw How Alice longed to get out of that dark hall Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wander 9
among the beds of bright flowers The cool fountains would feel lovely How she wished she could reach it But it would be impossible She couldn’t even fit her head through the doorway Even if I could get my head through what good would it be without my shoulders Alice asked the door There seemed to be no use waiting by the little door So she went back to the table She half hoped she might find another key on it This time she found a little bottle on the table Alice knew it was certainly not there before Tied around the neck of the bottle was a paper label that said DRINK ME The words were beautifully printed in large letters Alice was not going to rush into drinking anything without examining the label a little better I’ll look first to see if it says poison on the bottle She had read far too many stories 10
where children were eaten by beasts or had other bad things happen to them Why All because they didn’t remember the rules of safety they’d been taught After examining the label and seeing no such word Alice drank it What an odd feeling said Alice I must be shutting up like a telescope She was indeed Alice was now only ten inches high She ran toward the garden at once But when she got to the door she realized she had forgotten the key When she went back to get it she couldn’t reach it She was too small now When she looked up she could see it through the glass She tried her best to climb up one of the legs No luck She was too small and it was too slippery Alice sat down and cried Soon her eyes fell on a little glass box under the table She hadn’t noticed it before She 11
