Once upon a time on a hot summer day, a girl named Alice sat by a stream on a hill with her sister. Feeling bored and sleepy, she was startled by a white rabbit with pink eyes that ran past her. She had never seen a rabbit wearing a waistcoat and having a pocket watch.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! I am late!” the rabbit mumbled as he ran promptly towards an old Banyan tree.
Alice was amazed to see a talking rabbit. She was curious and followed him. The rabbit disappeared into a big dark hole. As Alice leaned over to peep inside, she accidentally fell in. She fell and fell and fell…until she landed in a room with many doors. Suddenly, she spotted a key on a table. She tried the key in one of the doors and to her great delight it fitted! But the door was too small for Alice to pass through. Soon, she found a bottle with a label ‘Drink Me!’ The moment she drank from it, she grew smaller and smaller!
Alice was now small enough to pass through the tiny door. As soon as she stepped outside, she fell into a pool of water. She swam to the shore and went through the woods where she ran into the white rabbit again. The rabbit mistook her to be his maid and asked her to get his fan and gloves.
Alice reached the rabbit’s house and made her way into a tidy little room. She saw a little bottle on the table, labelled ‘Drink Me’, and drank from it. Suddenly, her body began to grow. The rabbit was shocked to see Alice’s arm sticking out of the window. Terrified, the rabbit ran into the garden. “Get out of there, at once!” shouted the rabbit. Alice finally found a little cake and as soon as she ate it, her body shrank. She left the house hurriedly.
Alice ran as fast as she could. Soon, she met a caterpillar sitting on a colourful mushroom, smoking a very strange-looking pipe. The caterpillar gave Alice a piece of the mushroom and said, “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”
‘But which part will turn me to the normal size?’ Alice wondered. She was in a fix.
Alice ate one part of the mushroom and grew bigger. Thereafter, she ate from the other side and came back to what she was and continued her walk through the dense woods.
Alice wandered until she came across the house of the Duchess. She entered and saw the Duchess nursing a squealing baby, a grinning Cheshire Cat and a Cook who tossed the massive amounts of pepper into a cauldron of soup. The Duchess behaved rudely with Alice and departed. As she left, she handed Alice the baby, which Alice discovered to be a pig. Alice let the pig go and re-entered the forest. She came across Cheshire Cat again.
“Dear Cheshire Cat, where am I? How do I get out of here?” stated Alice.
“Go to Mad Hatter and March Hare!” advised the Cat, “They will help you find the way out of this Wonderland! I am speaking the truth.”
Alice took directions from the Cat and went towards the house of March Hare. When Alice reached there, she saw March Hare and Mad Hatter sitting around a table with a rat sleeping between them. Mad Hatter asked Alice if she would like to join them. She did and sat down to have tea. Soon, she realized that they had wronged Time and were trapped in perpetual teatime. Alice left and walked through the woods again.
Alice walked on until she reached a beautiful garden with beautiful white roses. There, she met three gardeners whose bodies were shaped like playing cards and they were painting the roses red. Alice was told that the Queen would have the three gardeners beheaded if she found out that they had planted white roses. At that very moment, the Queen arrived and ordered their execution but Alice saved them.
The Queen invited Alice to play croquet with her, where hedgehog was used as a ball and flamingo as a mallet. Amidst this madness, Alice bumped into Cheshire Cat again, who asked her how she was doing. The King of Hearts interrupted their conversation and tried to bully Cheshire Cat, who impudently dismissed the King. The King ordered for Cheshire Cat’s execution.
The Queen of Hearts now sent Alice with Gryphon as her escort to meet Mock Turtle. Gryphon and Mock Turtle told Alice bizarre stories about their school under the sea. Mock Turtle sang a melancholy song about the turtle soup. Suddenly, an announcement was made that the trial of the Knave of Hearts was about to begin, and so Gryphon took Alice back to the croquet ground.
The Knave of Hearts had been accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts. The King of Hearts led the proceedings, and various witnesses including Mad Hatter and the white rabbit approached the stand to give evidence. Alice was appalled by the ridiculous proceedings and protested against the King’s interpretation. The Queen became furious with Alice and ordered for her beheading, but suddenly, Alice grew to a huge size and knocked over the Queen’s army of playing cards.
All of a sudden, Alice found herself awake on her sister’s lap, back at the riverbank. Her adventures in Wonderland were all a fantastic dream!
