Alice had had enough. She had tolerated the antics of Wonderland's denizen's long enough, and the Mad Tea Party was the final straw. Having grown tired of the March Hare and the Mad Hatter's uncooperative behavior, she stormed off from the tea party into the wilderness of Wonderland.
"I've had enough nonsense!" Alice said. "I'm going straight home!"
By this point, Alice no longer cared about following the White Rabbit. After all, what business was it of hers to know where he was going? As she walked along the road, she heard a voice from the trees nearby.
"Carrying on well?" the voice asked.
Alice turned to look at the branch of a nearby tree and saw a disembodied grin. Slowly, a feline body materialized around the grin. It was none other than the Cheshire Cat!
"Not in the least!" Alice said, stamping her foot on the ground. "I want to go home, but I'm not sure which way to go."
"Allow me to present you with a shortcut," said the Cheshire Cat.
The Cheshire Cat then pulled down on a branch as if it were a lever. A door appeared on the side of the tree and opened, revealing a long hallway with lights hanging from the ceiling. Alice was ecstatic as she gazed down the hall. She would finally be going home!
"Thank you very mu-!"
But as she looked up at the branch, she saw that the Cheshire Cat had vanished. Alice quickly brushed off the cat's sudden disappearance. The only thing that mattered to her now was getting back home. She made her way down the hall until she came to a large circular room. Where there would normally be a ceiling there was instead a large shaft that stretched for miles and miles. Alice recognized it as the rabbit hole from which she fell down into Wonderland.
"What luck!" she exclaimed. "I'm back where I started. But how do I get back up to my world? There are no stairs or ladders, and I certainly can't fly up the rabbit hole. Oh, what a silly thought! To think that I could actually fly! Although I suppose it wouldn't be too unusual, given what I've been through so far."
As Alice pondered her situation, a table with a bottle appeared out of thin air in front of her. Alice inspected the bottle and saw that it was labelled "Drink me," like the bottle she used to shrink earlier during her encounter with the Door Knob. Alice hesitated at first; she didn't see how drinking a size-changing potion could possibly help her out of her predicament. Even if the potion made her grow, she wouldn't be able to climb out of the hole that she crawled into at the start of her adventure. After about a minute of procrastination, Alice finally relinquished and drank from the bottle.
"I certainly don't have any other options," she said to herself.
Shortly afterwards, Alice began to feel a swelling in her stomach. It wasn't painful, but it did feel most unusual; it was almost as if she was inflating. As Alice's body began to swell, she found that she was beginning to lift slowly off the ground.
"Goodness!" Alice exclaimed. "I do hope that my clothes don't tear!"
But Alice's fears proved to be unfounded, for her clothing didn't tear in the slightest despite her continued inflation. In fact, her clothing seemed to stretch to fit her new proportions. As she looked around the walls of the hole, she saw a large mirror. The sight of her inflated body was a most peculiar one: her head hadn't swelled at all, but her body was almost completely round. Her arms and legs had become slightly swollen at the base, and her pinafore clung tightly to her bloated body. As a result of her swollen body stretching her clothing, her frilly bloomers were peaking out from underneath her dress. Nevertheless, Alice didn't feel embarrassed about her inflated body in the slightest. In fact, she couldn't help but find her bloated appearance hilarious.
"I look just like a balloon!" Alice said with a laugh. "I suppose I should think nothing of tearing these clothes again, although I should take care not to brush up against anything sharp on my way up."
Alice looked up to see if there was any sign of her reaching the top, but all she could see was darkness. As Alice continued to float up the rabbit hole, she saw a shelf loaded with books. She tried to shift her weight towards the bookcase, but as she got closer, she accidentally bumped into a nearby floating rocking chair. The collision caused her body to slowly spin away from the case and rotate all around until her back was facing the top of the hole. As she helplessly floated up the hole, she pondered to herself about how her dear older sister Lorina and her cat Dinah would react to her bloated body. Naturally, she began to talk about it out loud as she tended to do when she was by herself.
"Lorina would surely throw a fit!" she said to herself. "'Oh, Alice! You've swollen up like a balloon! Now what ever shall I do with you? I'll have to tie a string to one of your feet and walk you around wherever I go. No, that wouldn't do! Imagine the fuss everyone would raise! I would have to hide you in the attic at home. What a predicament!' That's what she would say. And Dinah… I can't imagine how she would react. Perhaps she would run away in terror of my bloated body? Or perhaps she'd try to pop me with her claws? Oh, what a gruesome thought! Right then! I'll just have to stay out her reach at all ti-"
Alice's conversation came to an abrupt end when she felt her back bounce off of something. In that moment, she realized that she had reached the top of the rabbit hole. She turned and saw a long tunnel with a faint light at the end. A feeling of excitement overwhelmed Alice; she was almost home! Alice wiggled and stroked her arms and legs as if swimming to get closer to the dip in the tunnel from which she had fallen when she entered the hole at the start of her journey. She eventually managed to fit her head through the hole, but there was one problem: she was much too large to fit her massive body through it.
"Oh, dear!" said Alice. "If only there was a way for me to deflate!"
As Alice struggled to come up with a solution, she unintentionally let out a small fart. In that instant, she felt her body slightly deflate. It was then that she was struck with inspiration, for lack of a better word.
'Now I know how to get rid of all this air!" she exclaimed.
Alice put aside her dignity as a proper Victorian girl and ripped an enormous, loud fart that expelled all of the excess air from her body. Not only did this act return Alice to her original state but it slightly propelled her through the tunnel. After righting herself up, Alice laughed so hard that her face turned red and her tummy ached.
"It sounded just like a foghorn!" she exclaimed. "I do hope that no one outside heard it. I can't imagine how I would explain it!"
Alice made her way out of the hole and shielded her eyes from the blinding sunlight. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she gazed around to see the field she had visited with her sister. Everything was just as she had left it, as if no time had passed since she followed the White Rabbit down the hole. As Alice walked towards the babbling brook where she had dreamed of a world of her own, she heard a mewing sound from nearby. It was none other than Dinah, who seemed very pleased to see her master again. Alice scooped the kitten up in her arms and hugged the creature affectionately.
"Oh, Dinah!" said Alice. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you again! You would never believe what sort of adventures I've had. I would tell you about them, but first I would like to see Lorina again."
Not wanting to waste another minute, Alice hurried back to the tree where she had left Lorina. Sure enough, Lorina was exactly where Alice had left her, reading from that same boring history book. Strangely, Lorina did not seem to have noticed Alice's absence for all this time. Alice slowly approached her older sister.
"Ahem," Alice said clearing her throat. "I don't mean to interrupt, Lorina."
Lorina was taken by surprise; she thought Alice had been sitting on the tree branch like before this whole time. She composed herself and gave Alice a stern look.
"Alice!" she said. "Where have you been all this time? Why haven't you been paying attention to your history lesson?!"
"I'm terribly sorry," said Alice. "I would tell you where I've been, but you would hardly believe me. Rather, you wouldn't believe me at all!"
"Really?" asked Lorina, raising an eyebrow. "Well, no matter. Come along, Alice. It's almost tea time."
Alice happily obliged, as she headed back home with her sister. As they crossed over the bridge leading home, Alice looked back in the direction of the rabbit hole. She could have sworn she saw a grinning cat face looking at her from the entrance to the hole.
"Maybe I'll return to Wonderland another time," Alice said. "I might bring you along with me, Dinah. That way I won't be so lonely next time!"
