Alice in Wonderland

After the work of Lewis Carroll. Short version by Contesdefees.com. Illustrations by John Tenniel (1820-1914).

On a hot summer afternoon, Alice sat by the river and daydreamed. She was about to doze off when suddenly she saw a white rabbit walk past her wearing an elegant velvet jacket and looking very hurriedly at his watch all the time.

– I’m late! – Said the rabbit suddenly looking at his watch.

Intrigued, Alice followed him for a while until he disappeared into a burrow. Without thinking, she entered after him and suddenly fell down a long shaft that eventually led to a room that had many tiny, closed doors. The rabbit was no longer there.

In the center of the room there was a glass table and on this table was a golden key. Alice took the key and tried to open all the doors until one of them finally opened.

On the other side she saw a beautiful garden but the door was too small for her to pass through. She closed the door and put the key back on the table.

She then looked back at the table and saw a bottle with “Drink me” written on it. She drank a few drops, and suddenly began to shrink. She became so small that she could now walk through the garden gate. But then she realized that she had forgotten the key on the table and that she couldn’t reach it now that she was tiny.

Now she could see under the table, and she discovered a small box containing a cake and on which was written: “Eat me”. Alice bit into a piece of the cake and began to grow and grow until she was about three meters tall and banged her head on the ceiling. But of course, now she couldn’t go to the garden and that made her cry. Giant tears were running down her cheeks.

Just then, the white rabbit reappeared in the room with a pair of white gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.

“The duchess will be angry if I make her wait! – he said.

– Mr. Rabbit! Please wait a moment – shouted Alice.

But the rabbit ran away at full speed. So much so that he dropped his white gloves and fan.

Since it was so hot in the rabbit hole, Alice picked up the rabbit fan and began to fan herself with it. Realizing she was getting small again, she quickly released it before it was too late. She tried again to retrieve the key from the table, but she slipped and suddenly found herself up to her chin in salt water.

But this was not salt water. It was the pool of tears she had produced earlier while crying! Soon the pond was filled with all kinds of animals: a mouse, birds, a duck and even a dodo…

They began to swim together and reached the edge of the pond. Since they were all soaked and wanted to dry off, the dodo suggested a fun game: everyone had to run in circles and stop when they wanted to. Alice thought it was a bit of a strange game, but since they all won, it was fun.

Then the white rabbit came again. He was very nervous and looking everywhere for something.

– I have to find them! I have to find them without a scratch or else the duchess… Alice, hearing the rabbit, knew at once that he was looking for his white gloves and his fan.

– Mary Ann will go to your house at once and bring me a pair of gloves and a fan!

Surprised that she was mistaken for someone else, Alice obeyed the Rabbit without flinching, too curious to know more about the story.

In the house next door, there was a table with a fan and two or three pairs of small white gloves. Next to it was a glass bottle with no label.

She decided to try it and all of a sudden it grew so big that she was stuck inside the house without being able to get out.

The rabbit and the other animals tried to help her out, pushed her, pulled her and even thought about burning the house down, but suddenly it started raining rocks! Of course these were not ordinary pebbles, and Alice discovered that they turned into tea cookies when they fell to the ground.

She ate one and …. What do you think happened? Alice became small again and ran out of the house. She entered the nearby forest and decided that the first thing she had to do was to get back to her size, and the second thing she had to do was to finally visit the beautiful garden behind the little burrow door.

Once this was decided, she spotted a giant caterpillar lounging on a giant mushroom, quietly smoking on its large hookah and throwing mysterious clouds of smoke.

– Who are you? – asked the caterpillar

– I’m not sure anymore. I’ve changed sizes so many times I’m a little confused – said Alice.

– How big would you like to be?

– I would like to be a little bit bigger…

– Here’s my advice: One side will make you bigger and the other side will make you smaller. – Answered the caterpillar.

Then it descended from the mushroom and went into the grass.

– One side of what? Alice thought.

– The mushroom! shouted the Caterpillar in the distance as if he had read Alice’s mind.

So Alice bit into the right side of the mushroom. She shrank so fast that her chin hit her feet.

Then she bit on the left side of the mushroom. But her neck began to grow so high that her hands could not reach her head. A bird even mistook her for a snake.

She bit again on one side and the other several times until she was back to her normal size.

She walked back through the forest and came to a clearing in the center of which was a tiny house about three feet high. She ate another piece of mushroom to get the right size and entered the house.

In the kitchen, there was a cook making a soup that smelled like pepper. Next to her there was a cat that kept smiling and in the center there was the Duchess. She was sitting on a stool and cradling a baby in her arms. It was certainly a very curious place.

– Excuse me, could you tell me why the cat is smiling from ear to ear?

– Because it’s a Cheshire cat – said the Duchess.

Then she said:

– By the way, I have to go play croquet with the queen. Take this! You can rock it if you want. Catch it!

And the Duchess tossed the baby to Alice.

Alice went out and back into the forest with the baby, who after a while looked less and less like a child. When she put him down on the ground, he had turned into a cute little pig and trotted happily away.

Alice was beginning to feel lost when she encountered the Cheshire Cat again.

– Cheshire Cat, could you tell me which direction I should go?

– It depends on where you want to go… If you go that way you’ll meet the Hatter and if you go that way it will be the March Hare. But it doesn’t matter, because they are both equally crazy.

Alice decided to visit the March Hare, because she already knew a hatter and was more curious to know a hare.

In the garden of the Hare’s house, he and the Hatter were having tea. Alice decided to sit with them, even though they had not invited her.

– How does a raven look like a desk? – The Hatter asked Alice, widening his eyes.

After a few moments of reflection, Alice finally gave up.

– I don’t know, she said.

– I don’t know either. I have no idea! – said the Hatter.

Suddenly, the Hare said:

– By the way, it’s six o’clock. It’s always six o’clock here. So it’s time for tea.

They began to have tea and talk about absurd things. Alice could hardly understand what they were saying, so she decided to leave.

She went back to the forest and found a tree with a door. She entered and finally found herself back in the burrow room with the glass table in the center and the small doors around it.

This time Alice made sure to take the golden key from the table first, then she opened the door that led to the garden. She took the caterpillar mushroom and ate small pieces of it until it was about fifty centimeters high. Finally she walked through the door and into the beautiful garden.

As soon as she entered the garden, Alice heard a loud noise and saw soldiers, courtiers and notables coming towards her, all dressed like playing cards. At the front of this procession sounded the drums and trumpets of the card soldiers. And at the end of all this court she recognized the white rabbit in his velvet jacket, who accompanied the King and Queen of Hearts.

– Who is this? – the queen asked, pointing to Alice

– I am Alice, Your Majesty.

– Can you play croquet?

– Yes – answered Alice

– Then come!

She had never seen croquet played like this before. The balls were hedgehogs, the mallets were flamingos, and the soldiers were bending to form the hoops.

Plus, they were all playing at the same time and arguing all the time, and every time the queen got angry, she yelled:

– Cut off his head!

But there were no more players, because all of them had already been sentenced to death by the queen, the croquet game was over.

After that, Alice left and continued her adventures in Wonderland, meeting the Mock Turtle and the Griffin, a fantastic animal that is half eagle, half lion.

Then she had to come back to the realm of cards because a big trial had started and she was called to testify.

All the inhabitants of Wonderland were gathered in the courtroom.

The white rabbit blew his trumpet three times and announced the charges:

– The queen of hearts made tarts on a summer day and the knave of hearts stole and hid them.

A great commotion broke out in the room. The witnesses began to testify.

The first to speak was the Hatter, followed by the Duchess’s cook, then came Alice’s turn.

But since she didn’t realize that she had grown up again, as she stood up all at once, she knocked over the whole bench and with it all the animals that were sitting on it.

Once calm was restored, Alice declared that she knew nothing about the pie case.

The trial continued, and as the defendant, the Jack of Hearts, was about to be sentenced, Alice stepped in to help him.

She declared that it was absurd to condemn a poor valet de coeur to death for a simple matter of pie.

But at that moment, the queen went into a rage.

-Cut off his head! – she shouted at the top of her voice, pointing at Alice

Then the whole deck of cards went up in the air and fell on Alice. But…

– Alice, wake up! You’ve been asleep for a long time – her sister kept shaking her gently.

– What’s up? Oh yes… If you only knew all the things I dreamed about… And the little girl began to tell her sister, remembering all the strange adventures she had lived in Wonderland.

When she finished, Alice got up and left and her sister fell asleep dreaming about Alice’s adventures. And guess who arrived at that moment looking at her watch…

Other illustrations by Arthur Rackham