Alice in Wonderland: The Pool of Tears

Alice had eaten the cake to reach the golden key, and it had worked after all, only slowly. She began to grow taller and taller, opening out like the largest telescope in the world. Soon her feet were so far away that she could hardly see them. "Goodbye, feet!" she called.

Her head soon hit the roof of the hall. She was now more than nine feet high, so she took the golden key from the table and hurried to the garden door. But now she had the opposite problem. Lying on her side, she could only look at the garden with one eye. She put the key back on the table, sat down and began to cry.

She cried until there was a large pool around her, about four inches deep. Then the White Rabbit trotted back, dressed more smartly than before, with white gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other. "Oh! The Duchess!" he was muttering. "She'll be furious if I've kept her waiting!" "If you please, sir," Alice began shyly. The Rabbit jumped, dropped the gloves and the fan, and ran off into the darkness.

The hall was very hot, so Alice picked up the fan and kept fanning herself while she talked. "Was I changed in the night? Four times five is twelve... London is the capital of Paris... Oh dear, that's all wrong!"

Then she noticed she was wearing one of the Rabbit's little gloves. She was getting smaller again! The fan was doing it, she realized, and she dropped it just in time, before she disappeared altogether. She ran to the little door, but it was shut again, and the golden key was still lying on the glass table, high above her. "Things are worse than ever!" she said.

Just then her foot slipped, and splash! She was up to her chin in salt water. Then she understood: it was the pool of tears she had cried when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" she said. "Now I'll be punished by drowning in my own tears!"

A mouse was swimming nearby. Alice told it all about her cat, Dinah, who was wonderful at catching mice, and the Mouse swam off in a hurry. "Come back!" Alice called. "We won't talk about cats, I promise!" Slowly the Mouse came back. "Let's get to the shore," it said, "and I'll tell you why I hate cats and dogs."

By now the pool was crowded with creatures that had fallen in: a Duck, a Dodo, a Lory, an Eaglet and other curious animals. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam after her towards the shore.