Monday, October 25, 2010

Curiouser and Curiouser

For this week's Sunday Scribblings prompt, "curious":
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“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

The Mad Hatter eyed her, with a moment of stark lucidity. 

“How much curiouser can you be, child?  Unless it is a contest with oneself, it really is rather ludicrous to continue to heap curiosity upon itself.”

With that, he removed his rather large hat from his rather large head.  Alice wondered how his pencil neck supported such weight, and then stopped wondering just as quickly.  Perhaps he was right.  It was not her neck bearing the weight, after all.  What did it matter? 

The Hatter’s head began to shrink.  His hat took on a much more reasonably tophattish nature.  He looked quite like… like the men who worked with Alice’s father at Christ Church. 

As alarming as it had been to see the Hatter the first time, it was twice so somehow to see him transform, each quirk smoothed into the Average Man.

“Very good, child,” he nodded, sipping his ordinary black tea from his ordinary white cup.  “You are growing up.”

10 comments:

Jackee said...

I love this excerpt. It's one of my favorites of all time in children's lit and a great prompt too. :o)

Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Thanks! The first line is (obviously) from the book, the rest is just what popped into my head. It's my all-time favorite book, so it was a natural reaction to this week's prompt! :)

Aoife.Troxel said...

Nice! I liked the ending. :)

LeiffyV said...

Ah, Alice in Wonderland without the drugs, what a different world it would be! Wonderful way to end it too, makes it end normally. Thanks for sharing!

Hannah said...

Tee-hee! Delightful Miss Lindsey. I lurved it. :D

Debbie said...

As I sit sipping my ordinary black tea (with a touch of honey) from my ordinary white cup, I can't speak much for growing up. I can tell you, though, that growing older just gets curiouser and curiouser! (Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite books, too!) Loved your post!

Unknown said...

I loved this!!!! What a great piece!! I haven't read a lot of excerpts in awhile so it was so nice to stop by!

Linda Bob Grifins Korbetis Hall said...

beautiful thoughts.

Talli Roland said...

Wonderful excerpt! Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

First time on your blog, thanks to Three Word Wednesday. I cannot believe that we both used the word "curiouser" in our poems, although my references to Alice were more oblique and much darker...

This was so true to Carroll's style, I had to look twice. Excellent take on the prompt. Thanks!

Amy Barlow Liberatore