Storytelling for Week 11: Down the Rabbit Hole

One lonely summer a day a girl named Alice was sitting under a tree by the river, watching her younger sister Elaine play in the water. This is the same thing that Alice had done for the past month, ever since school let out for the summer. As Alice was sitting there, zoning out as usual, she saw the most peculiar thing. A rabbit that had been standing by a nearby tree all of a sudden got a terrified look on its face. The rabbit pulled a pocket watch out of seemingly nowhere and became even more frantic. Starting to pick up the pace, the rabbit went hopping by Alice extremely quickly and an even stranger thing happened! “I’m late! I’m very very late!” exclaimed the rabbit. Keeping up its frantic pace, the rabbit hopped down a rabbit hole.

Alice could not believe what she had just seen. Without much hesitation, she decided that she could use a little adventure in her life and got up to follow the rabbit. She ran over to the hole it had just hopped down, took a deep breath, and then jumped. Alice was a very strange individual who often talked to herself, but in this instance it may have been justified.

Alice had expected to jump in the hole and immediately land at the bottom and see the rabbit. However, Alice had jumped and was still falling a few seconds later. As she fell, she saw some very strange things. First she went falling past a giant mushroom and thought she had seen a caterpillar that was smoking on top of it. Then she fell past a small house and through the open door of the house she thought she saw a woman holding a baby piglet. A good thirty seconds had gone by since Alice had jumped and she was still falling. The strange sights continued as well, with her falling past a man and a rabbit sitting down together and a beautiful garden with a bunch of playing cards in it.

Alice finally saw the ground and the last thing she passed before she landed was a courtroom. She hit the ground much softer than one would expect after falling for a full minute and the first thing she was the rabbit she had followed. Excited to see that this was not a wasted trip so far, Alice follows the rabbit down a hallway and sees him go through a door. Figuring she was already committed, Alice walked towards the open door and found herself in a very familiar looking area.

The White Rabbit.

Author’s Note:

This was a retelling of the very first story of the Alice in Wonderland unit. I kept the premise of the story the same, except added a few more details in the beginning, such as Alice’s sister’s name and some scenery. In the original story, when Alice is falling down the hole, she passes some shelves and cupboards and other household items. Since I’m only telling a portion of the story here, I decided to have her pass all the different things that she sees later on in the story on her way down the hole.

Bibliography

Down the Rabbit-Hole from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865). 

Image Info: Illustration by John Tenniel from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Web Source: Wikipedia.