The Caterpillar had said that one side of the mushroom would make Alice grow. The other side would make her shrink. Then he'd disappeared before Alice could ask any questions.
Alice studied the mushroom. "How am I supposed to know which side does which? The mushroom cap is round, so it doesn't have a left side or a right side."
There was only one way to find out. Alice stretched her arms around the mushroom and broke off a piece with each hand.
"But which piece makes me grow?" Alice looked from one hand to the other. She finally decided to try the piece in her right hand. The next moment her chin hit something hard. It was her foot!
Alice was frightened, but she managed to try the mushroom piece in her left hand.
"That's better!" Alice said as her head started to rise. But her delight changed to panic when she couldn't see her shoulders. When she looked down, all she saw were her long neck and some green leaves. She didn't realize those were the tops of trees.
"Where have my hands gone?" Alice asked. She couldn't see them below the leaves, so she bent her neck.
"My neck is so flexible! It's almost like being a serpent. Oh!" Alice exclaimed in surprise as a bird flew at her face.
"Serpent!" the Pigeon screamed.
"I'm not a serpent!" Alice said angrily. "Leave me alone!"
"No matter where I make my nest, serpents bother me!" The Pigeon sounded angry. "Night and day I must be on the lookout for serpents. I haven't slept in three weeks!"
"I'm very sorry that you've been annoyed by serpents," Alice began. "But—"
"I made my nest in the tallest tree, thinking I'd be free of the serpents," the Pigeon said. "But then you came wiggling down from the sky! Go away, Serpent!"
"I'm not a serpent," Alice said. "I'm a . . . I mean, I'm a . . ."
"Well! What are you?" the Pigeon demanded. "What are you trying to say?"
"I . . . I'm a little girl," Alice finally said. She'd undergone so many changes, she wasn't sure what she was anymore.
"I've seen lots of little girls but never one with such a long neck." The Pigeon looked at her skeptically. "No, you're a serpent, and you can't deny it. Next you'll be telling me that you've never eaten an egg."
"I have eaten an egg," Alice admitted for she was a truthful child. "Little girls eat eggs as often as serpents do."
"I don't believe that," the Pigeon said firmly. "And whether you're a girl or a serpent, you're looking for eggs."
"I'm not looking for eggs. But if I were looking for them, I wouldn't want yours." Alice stamped her foot, and the ground shook. "I don't like raw eggs!"
"Then go away!" The Pigeon still sounded angry as she settled into her nest again.
Alice tried to crouch among the trees, but her neck kept getting tangled in branches. "I need to get back to my original size," she said to herself.
Slowly and carefully, Alice nibbled from one piece of mushroom and then the other. At last, she was the correct size.
"That's much better!" Alice said as she began to walk through the woods.
Suddenly she came upon a space surrounding a house about four feet high. "I don't know who lives there," Alice said. "But they're sure to be smaller than I am, and I'll frighten them at this size."
So Alice ate some more from the mushroom until she was only nine inches high.