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The White Rabbit

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange world. She encounters a bottle labeled 'Drink Me' that makes her shrink, and later eats a cake that makes her grow very tall. Unable to leave through the small door, she cries a pool of tears and meets an angry mouse in the pool.

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106 views6 pages

The White Rabbit

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange world. She encounters a bottle labeled 'Drink Me' that makes her shrink, and later eats a cake that makes her grow very tall. Unable to leave through the small door, she cries a pool of tears and meets an angry mouse in the pool.

Uploaded by

wgngjzp7j6
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The White Rabbit

one sunny afternoon Alice and her sister were sitting by the river. Alice’s
sister was reading a book but Alice didn’t have anything to do. She looked at
her sister’s book but there weren’t any pictures in it.
‘A book without pictures is boring,’ thought Alice. It was a hot summer day and
Alice was beginning to feel a bit sleepy.
Suddenly a white rabbit with pink eyes appeared and ran past her saying, ‘Oh
dear! Oh dear! I’m going to be late!’
When the rabbit took a watch out of his pocket and looked at it, Alice jumped
up and followed it across the field. As soon as she saw it jump down into a big
rabbit hole, she decided to jump down, too. The rabbit hole was like a long
tunnel.
‘Either this tunnel is very long or I’m falling very slowly,’ thought Alice. She
started looking around and thinking. On the sides of the tunnel she saw
pictures, maps, cupboards and many other interesting things.
Down, down, down. ‘Perhaps I’m near the centre of the earth,’ Alice thought.
‘That’s about…four thousand miles down, I think.’ Alice learned this at school.
‘Hmm…perhaps I’ll fall through the earth,’ she thought. ‘And on the other side
of the earth I’ll see people walking with their heads pointing down! Then I’ll
ask them the name of the country: “Excuse me, is this Australia or New
Zealand?” Oh no, I can’t ask because they’ll think I don’t know anything.
Perhaps I’ll see the name of the country on a sign.’
Down, down, down. Soon Alice began talking. ‘Poor Dinah! She’ll miss me
tonight!’ (Dinah was her cat). ‘Dinah, my dear! Why aren’t you here with me?
There are no mice, but there are bats.'
Alice became very sleepy and continued saying, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat
bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats? Now, Dinah, tell me the truth. Have
you ever eaten a bat?’
Thump! Suddenly Alice stopped falling and was sitting on some dry leaves.
She was not hurt and started looking around. Above her it was dark and in
front of her was another long tunnel. She saw the white rabbit again and it was
running down the tunnel. It suddenly disappeared. Alice ran after it and soon
she was in a long, low room. There were lamps hanging from the roof and
doors all around the room. Alice tried to open the doors but she couldn’t open
any of them because they were locked.
‘Oh dear,’ Alice thought, ‘how can I get out of here?’
Then she saw a little glass table with a little gold key on it. She took the key and
tried to open all the doors with it, but the key was either too big or too small.
She suddenly noticed a low curtain and behind it there was a little door about
fifteen inches high. The gold key opened the door!
Alice looked inside and saw a long, low tunnel; at the end of the tunnel there
was a beautiful garden with lovely flowers.
‘I want to go to that garden,’ Alice thought, ‘but the tunnel is too small. What
can I do?’
She turned around and looked at the glass table again, and now there was a
little bottle on it.
‘This little bottle wasn’t there before,’ said Alice, looking at the bottle. ‘There’s
a label on it that says Drink me.’
However, Alice didn’t drink it immediately. First she looked to see if the word
‘poison’ was on the bottle. She knew that some very bad things can happen to
children when they don’t remember simple rules. For example: Do not drink
from a bottle marked ‘poison’ because it will probably hurt you.
The word ‘poison’ was not on this bottle, so Alice drank a little from it.
‘It tastes very good,’ she thought, ‘like cherry tart, pineapple, roast turkey and
toast with butter.’ She drank all of it.
‘How strange!’ she said. She started getting smaller and smaller. Soon she was
only ten inches tall.
‘Now I can go through the door and into the beautiful garden,’ she said
happily. But she waited a moment and thought, ‘Perhaps I’ll become smaller
again.’
After a few minutes nothing happened and so Alice decided to go into the
garden. When she got to the door she didn’t have the gold key. She went to
the glass table to get it, but now she was too small. She couldn’t reach the key!
Alice was sad, and sat down and cried.
‘Oh, stop crying!’ Alice said to herself. ‘Stop it right now!’ Alice usually gave
herself good advice but she didn’t always follow it.
She looked at the table and saw a glass box under it. Inside the box there was a
cake with the words, ‘Eat me’ on it.
‘Well, I’ll eat it!’ said Alice. ‘Maybe I’ll grow bigger and then I can reach the key
on the table. Or perhaps I’ll grow smaller and then I can go under the door.’
Alice ate a little bit of cake and said to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’ She
was surprised because she didn’t change size. Of course, nothing usually
happens when you eat cake.
‘This is boring and stupid,’ said Alice, who was disappointed. ‘Nothing
extraordinary is happening.’
So she began to eat the cake again and soon she finished it.

The Pool of Tears


oh dear, now I’m getting taller and taller!’ cried Alice. ‘I’m taller than my big
sister! Goodbye, feet!’
She looked down at her feet and they were very far away now; she couldn’t
see them clearly. ‘My poor little feet,’ she said. ‘Who will put on your shoes
and socks now? I certainly won’t be able to. You’re too far away. You’ll have to
do things without me.’
Then she thought, ‘I must be kind to my feet or maybe they won’t go in the
right direction! I know! I’ll give them a new pair of shoes every Christmas.’
Suddenly Alice’s head hit the top part of the room. She was now more than
nine feet tall. She took the little gold key and went to the garden door.
Poor Alice! Now she was much too big to go through the little door. She sat
down and cried.
‘Don’t cry! You’re a big girl,’ said Alice. This was true of course, but she
continued to cry and cry, and soon there was a large pool all around her.
Alice suddenly heard a noise and saw the rabbit again. It was elegantly dressed
and had a pair of white gloves in its hand. ‘Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess!
She’s waiting for me and I’m late. She’ll be very angry!’ it said.
Alice wanted to help the rabbit and said, ‘Excuse me, sir,’ but the rabbit
jumped with fear and ran away. He dropped his white gloves on the floor.
‘Oh dear!’ said Alice to herself. Why is everything so strange today? Yesterday
things were normal. Did I change during the night? Was I the same this
morning? Perhaps I changed and I’m different. So the next question is, Who
am I? ’
Just then she looked down at her hand and saw that she was wearing one of
the rabbit’s white gloves. She was surprised and thought, ‘How did I do that?
I’m probably growing small again.’
Alice hurried back to the glass table and the key was still there. But she
couldn’t reach it because she was small again, and the door to the beautiful
garden was closed.
‘Oh dear, things are really bad now!’ she exclaimed.
Suddenly there was a big splash and Alice fell into a pool of salt water. At first
she thought she was in the sea, but she soon understood that she was in the
pool of her own tears. She cried these tears when she was nine feet tall!
‘Oh, why did I cry so much,’ said Alice sadly, as she swam.
Just then she heard a splashing noise in the pool. ‘What could that be?’ she
thought. She swam nearer to it. At first she thought it was a walrus or a
hippopotamus, but then she remembered that she was very small. Soon she
saw that it was only a mouse.
‘I’d like to talk to this mouse,’ thought Alice. ‘Perhaps it can talk. After all,
everything is very strange today. I’ll try and talk to it.’
‘Mouse, how can I leave this pool?’ asked Alice. ‘I’m tired of swimming.’
The mouse looked at her but it said nothing.
While Alice was swimming she thought, ‘Maybe the mouse doesn’t understand
English. It could be a French mouse.’
So she began again, ‘Où est ma chatte?’ This was the first sentence in her
French book. The poor mouse was so frightened that it jumped out of the
water.
‘I’m so sorry, mouse!’ cried Alice. ‘I forgot that you don’t like cats. Please
excuse me.’
‘I don’t like cats!’ cried the mouse. ‘How can a mouse like cats?’
‘Well, no,’ said Alice gently, ‘but please don’t be angry. My cat Dinah is
different. She’s a dear, quiet animal,’ said Alice as she swam around the pool.
‘She’s so soft and she’s very good at catching mice – oh dear, I’m very sorry!’
cried Alice. Now she knew that the mouse was really angry.
‘We won’t talk about Dinah anymore,’ said Alice, looking at the mouse.
The poor mouse’s body shook with fear. ‘Of course I’ll never talk about cats,’
cried the mouse angrily. ‘Our family has always hated cats: they’re terrible
things! Don’t talk about them again!’
‘Alright, I won’t,’ said Alice. She quickly changed the subject of conversation.
‘Do you like dogs?’ she asked. But the mouse did not answer and so Alice
decided to continue the conversation.
‘You know, there’s a very nice little dog near our house. It has long brown hair
and it can do all kinds of wonderful things. It belongs to a farmer and he says
that it’s very useful because it kills all the rats and – oh dear!’ cried Alice.
‘Please excuse me!’ The mouse swam away very quickly.
Alice called him softly, ‘Dear mouse! Please come back. I won’t talk about cats
or dogs!’
The mouse heard this and turned around. It swam slowly back to Alice. Then it
asked, ‘Have I told you my story yet? Let’s swim to the side of the pool and I’ll
tell you. Then you’ll understand why I hate cats and dogs.’
It was time to leave the pool because it was now full of birds and other
animals. There was a duck, a parrot, a baby eagle, a magpie, a yellow canary, a
crab, a dodo and some other strange animals. Alice swam to the side of the
pool and all the other animals followed her. She was suddenly surrounded by a
large group of wet animals.

Finished reading

Finished reading

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