Lewis Carroll - Alice in Zombieland

Very soon the Rat noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, ‘Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!’ And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.

‘He took me for his housemaid,’ she said to herself as she ran. ‘How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.’

As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a tarnished and barely readable brass plate with the name ‘B. RAT’ engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves.

‘How queer it seems,’ Alice said to herself, ‘to be going messages for a Rat! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!’ And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!” “Coming in a minute, nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.” Only I don’t think,’ Alice went on, ‘that they’d let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!’

By this time she had found her way into a messy little room, filled with odds and bits of gnawed bone and strings of grave hair, rotting flowers and such, with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little dark bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words ‘ Drink me ,’ but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. It smelled of roasting meat and cold gravy. ‘I know something interesting is sure to happen,’ she said to herself, ‘whenever I eat or drink anything; so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!’

It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself ‘That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so much!’

Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Her head was smashed into the rotting, gnawed upon bones; wet smelly grave hair tangled up in her fingers and tickled her nose. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself ‘Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?’

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.

‘It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice, ‘when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rats. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down into that grave looking for adventure—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,’ she added in a sorrowful tone; ‘at least there’s no room to grow up any more here .’

‘But then,’ thought Alice, ‘shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—never to have to watch my hands shrivel up like grandmammy’s and my long hair going dry and gray with age—but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that !’

‘Oh, you foolish Alice!’ she answered herself. ‘How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for you , and no room at all for any lesson-books!’

And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.

‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ said the voice. ‘Fetch me my gloves this moment!’ Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rat coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rat, and had no reason to be afraid of it.

Presently the Black Rat came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself ‘Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.’

‘ That you won’t’ thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rat just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort.

Next came an angry voice—the Rat’s— ‘Pat! Pat! Where are you?’ And then a voice she had never heard before, ‘Sure then I’m here! Digging for fresh bodies, yer honour! Must have something to eat, don’t we, now?’

‘Digging for fresh bodies, indeed!’ said the Rat angrily. ‘And what would the Queen say to that, do you think? You know the rules! Here! Come and help me out of this !’ (Sounds of more broken glass.)

‘Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?’

‘Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!’ (He pronounced it ‘arrum.’) A right tasty looking one, too. Not too dead yet. Should make fur a mighty fin’ meal, yer honour.”

‘An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Good for gnawing or not, it fills the whole window!’

‘Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.’

‘Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!’

There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such as, ‘Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at all!’ ‘Do as I tell you, you coward!’ and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. Eat my arm, indeed, she thought testily. This time there were two little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. ‘What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!’ thought Alice. ‘I wonder what they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could ! I’m sure I don’t want to stay in here any longer!’

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: ‘Where’s the other ladder? —Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!’ (a loud crash)— ‘Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—He don’t look too good, yer honour—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! You do it!—that I won’t, then!—Bill, dead or not, is to go down—Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!’