20. "Well, I'll eat the cake," Alice said. "If I get taller, I can reach the key on the table. And if get Smaller, I can go under the door into the garden. "Then she fished the cake very soon.
"I shall be as tall as a house in a minute," she said. She tried to look down at her feet, and could only just see them.
Just then her head hit the ceiling (天花板) of the room. She was now about three meters tall. Quickly, she took the key from the table and hurried to the garden door. But she was too tall to go through the door. She began to cry. The tears (泪水) ran down her face, and soon there was large pool of salt water all around her on the floor. Suddenly she heard a voice, and she stopped crying to listen.
"Oh, the Duchess (公爵夫人), the Duchess! She'll be very angry! I'm late, and she's waiting for me. Oh dear, oh dear!"
It was the White Rabbit again. He was hurrying down the long room, with a pair of white gloves in one hand and a fan in the other hand.
Alice was afraid, but she needed help. So she said in a low voice, "Oh, please, sir﹣"
Her voice frightened (使惊恐) the Rabbit. He dropped the gloves and the fan, and ran away quickly.
Alice picked up the gloves and the fan. The room was very hot, so she cooled down with the fan. She said, "Oh dear! How strange everything is today! Shall I get smaller during the night?"
She began to feel very unhappy again, but then she looked down at her hand. She was wearing one of the Rabbit's white gloves. "How did I get it on my hand?" she thought. "Oh, I'm getting smaller again! I'm already less than a meter tall and getting smaller every second! How can I stop it?" She saw the fan in her other hand. "It must be the fan!" she thought, and quickly she dropped it.
She was now very, very small, and the key was still lying on the table.
"Things are worse than ever," thought poor Alice. She turned away from the door, and fell into salt water, right up to her neck. At first she thought it was the sea, but then she saw it was the pool of her own tears.
"Oh, why did I cry so much?" said Alice. She swam around and looked for a way out, but the pool was very big. Just then she saw an animal in the water near her. It looked like a large animal to Alice, but it was only a mouse.
"Shall I speak to it?" thought Alice. "Everything is very strange here, so perhaps a mouse can speak.
Then she began, "Oh, Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming.
But the mouse looked at her with its little eyes and said nothing.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English, "thought Alice. "Perhaps it's a French mouse. "So she began again, and said in French, "Where is my cat?" (This was first sentence in her French book. )
The mouse jumped half out of the water and looked at her angrily.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried Alice quickly. "Of course, you don't like cats, do you?"
"No. I don't like cats, " the mouse replied.
(Adapted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland )