Alice was beginning to get very bored. She and her sister were sitting under the trees. Her sister was reading, but Alice had nothing to do. Once or twice she looked into her sister's book, but it had no pictures or conversations in it.

"And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

She tried to think of something to do, but it was a hot day and she felt very sleepy and stupid. She was still sitting and thinking when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran past her.

There was nothing really strange about seeing a rabbit. And Alice was not very surprised when the Rabbit said, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" (Perhaps it was a little strange, Alice thought later, but at the time she was not surprised.)

But then the Rabbit took a watch out of its pocket, looked at it, and hurried on. At once Alice jumped to her feet.

"I've never before seen a rabbit with either a pocket, or a watch to take out of it," she thought. And she ran quickly across the field after the Rabbit. She did not stop to think, and when the Rabbit ran down a large rabbit-hole, Alice followed it immediately.

After a little way the rabbit-hole suddenly went down, deep into the ground. Alice could not stop herself falling, and down she went, too.

It was a very strange hole Alice was falling very slowly, and she had time to think and to look around her. She could see nothing below her because it was so dark. But when she looked at the sides of the hole, she could see cupboards and books and pictures on the walls. She had time to take things out of a cupboard, look at them, and then put them back in a cupboard lower down.

"Well!" thought Alice. "After a fall like this, I can fall anywhere! I can fall downstairs at home, and I won't cry or say a word about it!"

Down, down, down. "How far have I fallen now?" Alice said aloud to herself. "Perhaps I'm near the centre of the earth. Let me think…That's four thousand miles down." (Alice was very good at her school lessons and could remember a lot of things like this.)

Down, down, down. Would she ever stop falling? Alice was very nearly asleep when, suddenly, she was sitting on the ground. Quickly, she jumped to her feet and looked around. She could see the White Rabbit, who was hurrying away and still talking to himself. "Oh my ears and whiskers!" he was saying. "How late it's getting!"

Alice ran after him like the wind. She was getting very near him when he suddenly turned a corner. Alice ran round the corner too, and then stopped. She was now in a long, dark room with doors all round the walls, and she could not see the White Rabbit anywhere.

She tried to open the doors, but they were all locked. "How will I ever get out again?" she thought sadly. Then she saw a little glass table with three legs, and on the top of it was a very small gold key. Alice quickly took the key and tried it in all the doors, but oh dear! Either the locks were too big, or the key was too small, but she could not open any of the doors.

Then she saw another door, a door that was only forty centimetres high. The little gold key unlocked this door easily, but of course Alice could not get through it -- she was much too big. So she lay on the floor and looked through the open door, into a beautiful garden with green trees and bright flowers.

Poor Alice was very unhappy. "What a wonderful garden!" she said to herself. "I'd like to be out there -- not in this dark room. Why can't I get smaller?" It was already a very strange day, and Alice was beginning to think that anything was possible.

After a while she locked the door again, got up and went back to the glass table. She put the key down and then she saw a little bottle on the table ("I'm sure it wasn't here before," said Alice). Round the neck of the bottle was a piece of paper with the words DRINK ME in large letters.

But Alice was a careful girl. "It can be dangerous to drink out of strange bottles," she said. "What will it do to me?" She drank a little bit very slowly. The taste was very nice, like chocolate and oranges and hot sweet coffee, and very soon Alice finished the bottle.

"What a strange feeling!" said Alice. "I think I'm getting smaller and smaller every second."

And she was. A few minutes later she was only twenty-five centimetres high. "And now," she said happily, "I can get through the little door into that beautiful garden."

She ran at once to the door. When she got there, she remembered that the little gold key was back on the glass table. She ran back to the table for it, but of course, she was now much too small! There was the key, high above her, on top of the table. She tried very hard to climb up the table leg, but she could not do it.

At last, tired and unhappy, Alice sat down on the floor and cried. But after a while she spoke to herself angrily.

"Come now," she said. "Stop crying at once. What's the use of crying?" She was a strange child, and often talked to herself like this.

Soon she saw a little glass box near her on the floor. She opened it, and found a very small cake with the words EAT ME on it.

Nothing could surprise Alice now. "Well, I'll eat it," she said. "If I get taller, I can take the key off the table. And if I get smaller, I can get under the door. One way or another, I'll get into the garden. So it doesn't matter what happens!"

She ate a bit of the cake, and then put her hand on top of her head. "Which way? Which way?" she asked herself, a little afraid. Nothing happened. This was not really surprising. People don't usually get taller or shorter when they eat cake. But a lot of strange things were happening to Alice today. "It will be very boring," she said, "if nothing happens."

So she went on eating, and very soon the cake was finished.