"Things are getting stranger by the minute," Alice said as she kept growing. When she looked down, her feet were almost out of sight.
"Good-bye, feet!" Alice said. "I wonder who will put on your shoes and socks. I will be much too far away to help you."
Then she began to worry. What if her feet wouldn't walk where she wanted to go? "I must be nice to them. I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas. But it will seem strange to send presents to my own feet. Oh dear, I am talking nonsense."
Just then her head hit the hall ceiling. Alice kept growing. She was more than nine feet tall, but she wasn't upset. Now she was big enough to reach the gold key on the glass table.
Alice picked up the key and hurried to the garden door. Poor Alice! She was so big. If she lay on her side, she could look into the garden with one eye. As for getting into the garden, that was harder than ever. Alice started to cry again.
She tried scolding herself, but that only made her cry harder. Alice cried buckets of tears. A large pool formed around her, four inches deep and spreading halfway down the hall.
After a while Alice heard footsteps in the distance. She quickly wiped her eyes so she could see who was coming. It was the White Rabbit, wearing a jacket and carrying white gloves and a fan.
He trotted through the dark hall, muttering to himself. "The Duchess! The Duchess! She'll be very angry if I've kept her waiting!"
Alice was feeling very desperate by now. She was willing to ask for help from anyone—even a talking rabbit.
She waited until the White Rabbit was nearby before speaking in a quiet, timid voice. "Please, sir—"
Startled, the White Rabbit dropped his gloves and fan. He ran as fast as he could into the darkness. Alice picked up the rabbit's things. She began to fan herself because the hall was very hot.
"How strange everything is today," Alice said. "Yesterday everything was normal. I wonder if I somehow changed overnight. I almost think I did feel a little different this morning."
Alice continued to fan herself. "Maybe I've been changed into another person." She thought about all her friends. She hadn't been changed into any of them.
Alice burst into tears again. "I wish Charlotte would look down this rabbit hole and call my name. I'm so tired of being here all alone!"
As she said this, she looked down. She saw that she'd put on one of the White Rabbit's gloves. "How can his glove fit me? I must be shrinking again!"
Alice ran back to the table and stood next to it for comparison. She decided that she was about two feet high. And she was continuing to shrink!
"It must be the fan," Alice said. She dropped it to save herself from completely disappearing. "That was a narrow escape! And now for the garden!"
Alice ran back to the garden door. But it was locked again, and she didn't have the key. She searched the hall and found the key on the glass table.
"How did the key get here?" Alice looked up at it in despair. "Things are worse than ever because I've never been this small before!"
Just as she said this, her foot slipped. Alice fell up to her chin in salt water.