The Queen turned to Alice. ‘Can you play croquet?’ she shouted.
‘Yes!’ shouted Alice.
‘Come on, then!’ shouted the Queen. The crowd began to move on, and Alice went with them.
‘Its –it’s a very fine day,’ said a worried voice in her ear. Alice saw that the White Rabbit was by her side.
‘Very fine,’ said Alice. ‘Where’s the Duchess?’
‘Shhh!’ said the Rabbit in a hurried voice. ‘She’s in prison, waiting for execution.’
‘What for?’ said Alice.
But just then the Queen shouted, ‘Get to your places!’, and the game began.
It was the strangest game of croquet in Alice’s life! The balls were hedgehogs, and the mallets were flamingos. And the hoops were made by soldiers, who turned over and stood on their hands and feet. Alice held her flamingo’s body under her arm, but the flamingo turned its long neck first this way and then the other way. At last, Alice was ready to hit the ball with the flamingo’s head. But by then, the hedgehog was tired of waiting and was walking away across the croquet-ground. And when the flamingo and the hedgehog were ready, there was no hoop! The soldiers too were always getting up and walking away.
