The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

This story tells about Alice, a young English girl. One day when she is bored she follows a talking white rabbit down a hole. There she finds a magical world of interesting characters. Alice has trouble staying her normal size. She often become very large or very small. As this passage begins, Alice is very small.

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It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; Alice heard it muttering to itself, “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid-gloves and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called to her, in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!”

“He took me for his housemaid!” said Alice, as she ran off. How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am!” As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, n the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name “W. RABBIT” engraved upon it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves.

By this time, Alice had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her lips, saying to herself, “I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for, really, I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!”

Before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, remarking, “That’s quite enough—I hope I sha’n’t grow any more.”

Alas! It was too late to wish that! She went on growing and growing and very soon she had to kneel down on the floor. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself,“Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?”