Alice was feeling very bored as she sat next to her sister by the river. She looked at her sister’s book but saw that it had no pictures or conversations. “What’s the use of a book without pictures or talking?” she thought.
Just then, a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close to her. That wasn’t too strange, but when the Rabbit took a watch out of its pocket and looked at it, Alice was very surprised. She had never seen a rabbit with a pocket or a watch before.
Curious, she ran after the Rabbit. It jumped down a big rabbit hole under a hedge. Without thinking, Alice jumped in after it.
The rabbit hole was like a tunnel that went on for a while, then it went straight down. Alice found herself falling very slowly down a deep well. She had time to look around. The sides of the well were filled with cupboards and bookshelves. She took a jar from one of the shelves labeled “ORANGE MARMALADE,” but it was empty. She carefully put it back.
As she fell, Alice talked to herself. She wondered if she would fall right through the earth! She thought about her cat, Dinah. “I hope they’ll remember to give Dinah her milk tonight,” she said.
Suddenly, she landed on a pile of sticks and dry leaves. She was not hurt. She quickly got up and saw the White Rabbit hurrying down a passage. She ran after it but lost sight of it as it turned a corner.
She found herself in a long hall with doors all around, but they were all locked. She saw a little glass table with a tiny golden key on it. She tried the key on all the doors, but it didn’t fit any of them. Then she noticed a little door behind a curtain. The key fit this door!
Through the small door, she saw a beautiful garden. She wanted to go there, but she was too big to fit through the door. “Oh, how I wish I could become smaller!” she said.
She went back to the table and found a little bottle on it labeled “DRINK ME.” Alice was careful. “I need to see if it’s marked ‘poison’ first,” she thought. It wasn’t, so she tasted it. It was delicious, and she drank it all.
Suddenly, she began to shrink until she was only ten inches tall. She was happy because she could go through the little door. But when she tried to go, she realized she had left the key on the table, and now she was too small to reach it.
She sat down and began to cry. Then she saw a little cake in a glass box under the table. On it were the words “EAT ME.” She ate the cake, hoping it would make her grow tall enough to get the key or small enough to go under the door. She waited to see what would happen next.