It was a very strange hole. Alice was slowly very slowly, and she had time to think and to look around her. She could see nothing below her because it was so dark. But when she looked at the sides of the hole, she could see cupboards and books and pictures on the walls. She had time to take things out of a cupboard, look at them, and then put them back in a cupboard lower down.
‘Well!’ thought Alice. ‘After a fall like this, I can fall anywhere! I can fall downstairs at home, and I won’t cry or say a word about it!’
Down, down, down. ‘How far have I fallen now?’ Alice said aloud to herself. ? Perhaps I’m near the centre of the earth. Let me think... That’s four thousand miles down.’ (Alice was very good at her school lessons and could remember a lot of things like this.)
Down, down, down. Would she ever stop falling? Alice was very nearly asleep when, suddenly, she was sitting on the ground. Quickly, she jumped to her feet and looked around. She could see the White Rabbit, who was hurrying away and still talking to himself. ‘Oh my ears and whiskers!’ she was saying. ‘How late it’s getting!’
Alice ran after him like the wind. She was getting very near him when he suddenly turned a corner. Alice ran around the corner too, and then stopped. She was now in a long, dark room with doors all around the walls, and she could not see the White Rabbit anywhere.
