Alice was born in Westminster on May 4th of 1852. She had led a rather ordinary childhood, had grown to be a proper lady, and had caught the eye of Prince Leopold.
She giggled at the scandalous thought, or perhaps Queen Victoria would approve. But was this what Alice wanted? A part of her wanted to throw herself at this grand man—even for a night like none she had ever encountered… yet another part did not want a fling or a husband or a man at all.
I am but a child, Alice implored Alice. In thirteen moons from this day, my teens will come to an end. I will be twenty! Twenty! Has there ever been a less fortunate number?
The Alice that yearned for marriage agreed that giving herself to this prince would be a wonderful night, followed by a lifelong regret.
Alice Pleasance Liddell would under no circumstance become Leopold’s princess. Alice knew her stature.
But what she did not know at the time—couldn’t have known, really—was that Alice Pleasance Liddell was one body, but two souls. And so when the body bade the prince goodmorrow, a part of her would postpone romantic pursuits ’til the end of the decade. She would find happiness in the arms of one Reginald Hargreaves, bear his children, become the first president of the Emery Down Women’s Institute and live to a ripe old age. A happily ever after, indeed, if there ever was one!
But what of the small part of her that wanted to stay small? Yes, she too got her wish. It all happened on that very day of April 4th, 1871.
Alice, the whole of her—two souls and all that; do keep up—had, as previously stated, began her exit from Prince Leopold’s garden party. “I’ll not be needing an escort, thank you much,” she said to the prince, and a guard, and the groundskeeper.
Only the groundskeeper elaborated in his reply, “Well if ye mean to step off the beaten path, beware the rabbits!”
What a thing to say. Was Alice such a waif of a girl, she need worry about being pounced upon by such gentle creatures? As one Alice joked to the other of the exaggerated danger, the left foot stepped into a rabbit hole!
Down, down, down Alice plummeted! “OUCH!” boomed a voice from above—her own voice, Alice was sure!—but she had no time to contemplate how her voice could be up, up, up… and the ground so far down, down, down!
It was several seconds into the fall that Alice realized she wore not a stitch. And falling above her was the stiletto pen her sister Edith had given her for self-defense.
It might well be the Sword of Damocles—the pen is taller than I! Alice said to Alice. But the other part of her gave no reply.
Alice landed—tucked and rolled—a narrow evasion of the stiletto pen which thunked into the earth!
Upright and partly burrowed into the dirt, the pen was still a head taller than Alice. This it dawned upon her: her wish to be small had been fulfilled. And if the pen had remained the same size, she would indeed need to beware the rabbits in a body dwarfed by a pen.
There were no rabbits at present however. Just a nip with a label what read DRINK ME.
Alice used the blade of her pen to make the DRINK ME label into a tunic of sorts. A hole for the head and a string for the belt would do the trick.
And for my next trick, I shall find where this rabbit hole leads.
The rabbit hole was pitch black, but with little effort, Alice found she could make her skin glow brightly as candleflame.
“Curiouser and curiouser!”
