chicken-crossing-the-road joke. But even this has me worried. For I have no idea what awaits me on the other side . Things could get even worse for me over there in “Normalville.” Or what if, like the other Alice, these magic pills make me shrink so small that I cannot be heard or seen—or, worse yet, I cease to exist at all? Or what if I am so minuscule that someone, say Pastor John, comes along and steps on me and crushes me like a bug beneath his boot? What then?
So whether or not to take these pills is not a simple black-and-white question. Like everything else, it’s just varying shades of gray. Everything’s confusing and frightening, and it seems I have absolutely no control over my life. So I stay in my room, imagining that I might possibly have some control up here.
Being in my little blue bedroom with its fussy eyelet curtains and dust ruffle brought some comfort—at first anyway. I just walked around and around and stared at everything as if seeing it all for the first time, and yet I knew each item, every picture on the wall, my violin case still leaning inside the closet, my stuffed rabbit with theear that flops down over his eye. It was like a déjà vu. Realistic and familiar but not really real.
Yet it wasn’t long before the dimensions of my old room became confining and slightly terrifying. And even now as I sit on my crisp white bed, hands folded neatly in my lap and telling myself just to chill, I still feel that I might totally lose it and that I will scream so loudly the whole neighborhood will step out to the street to see what on earth is going on in the Laxton house. Perhaps the whole town of Warren will be on alert—the KBDX noontime news will warn its citizens to be on the lookout for that crazy girl who went flipping mad on Persimmon Lane.
When I’m not sleeping, I count things—the panes in the windows, the pencils in the cup, the jigsaw puzzles in my closet, even the white flowers on the pale blue wallpaper. Soon my room feels like an itchy wool sweater that shrank three sizes too small. Everything in here is much too tight. The walls press in on me, closer and closer. And those little flowers on the wallpaper are growing to tropical dimensions and suffocating me with their sticky fragrance—just like an old woman’s overbearing perfume in a hot, stuffy elevator.
I must have become the other Alice, when she grew bigger and bigger and finally became trapped in the White Rabbit’s little house. My arms will soon stick out through the windows, my feet will protrude out the door, and my head will pop right out of the roof or maybe the chimney. I am totally confined and claustrophobic. I cannot breathe. I want to knock down these walls and break free and actually scream. Yes, it seems very clear; I must be going mad.
Like the other Alice, I decide I must take these stupid pills that will shrink me back down to size if I want to survive. Size: normal,medium, regular, average, one-size-fits-all. Oh, I don’t really want to become small and shrunken and meaningless again. I would much rather be large and important and special. It frightens me to give in like this. And yet it frightens me not to.
What are my alternatives though? I vaguely wonder if it’s possible to break free from here—to escape my boulder mother and this stuffy little room? I imagine lacing up my old track shoes and sprinting right out the front door. I could run and run and run until there’s only fluid motion, like a horse across an open pasture. But where would I go? Where would I ever fit in? What if all the doors are just this small? What if I am too big to pass through any? What then? Must I always remain on the other side?
I am so lonely. Exceedingly lonely.
chapter EIGHT
Advice from a Caterpillar
I t’s been three days, and I’ve only managed to fool my mom about not taking my pills twice. She’s sharper than I supposed. Sometimes it almost seems like she’s on my side too, although I can’t
So whether or not to take these pills is not a simple black-and-white question. Like everything else, it’s just varying shades of gray. Everything’s confusing and frightening, and it seems I have absolutely no control over my life. So I stay in my room, imagining that I might possibly have some control up here.
Being in my little blue bedroom with its fussy eyelet curtains and dust ruffle brought some comfort—at first anyway. I just walked around and around and stared at everything as if seeing it all for the first time, and yet I knew each item, every picture on the wall, my violin case still leaning inside the closet, my stuffed rabbit with theear that flops down over his eye. It was like a déjà vu. Realistic and familiar but not really real.
Yet it wasn’t long before the dimensions of my old room became confining and slightly terrifying. And even now as I sit on my crisp white bed, hands folded neatly in my lap and telling myself just to chill, I still feel that I might totally lose it and that I will scream so loudly the whole neighborhood will step out to the street to see what on earth is going on in the Laxton house. Perhaps the whole town of Warren will be on alert—the KBDX noontime news will warn its citizens to be on the lookout for that crazy girl who went flipping mad on Persimmon Lane.
When I’m not sleeping, I count things—the panes in the windows, the pencils in the cup, the jigsaw puzzles in my closet, even the white flowers on the pale blue wallpaper. Soon my room feels like an itchy wool sweater that shrank three sizes too small. Everything in here is much too tight. The walls press in on me, closer and closer. And those little flowers on the wallpaper are growing to tropical dimensions and suffocating me with their sticky fragrance—just like an old woman’s overbearing perfume in a hot, stuffy elevator.
I must have become the other Alice, when she grew bigger and bigger and finally became trapped in the White Rabbit’s little house. My arms will soon stick out through the windows, my feet will protrude out the door, and my head will pop right out of the roof or maybe the chimney. I am totally confined and claustrophobic. I cannot breathe. I want to knock down these walls and break free and actually scream. Yes, it seems very clear; I must be going mad.
Like the other Alice, I decide I must take these stupid pills that will shrink me back down to size if I want to survive. Size: normal,medium, regular, average, one-size-fits-all. Oh, I don’t really want to become small and shrunken and meaningless again. I would much rather be large and important and special. It frightens me to give in like this. And yet it frightens me not to.
What are my alternatives though? I vaguely wonder if it’s possible to break free from here—to escape my boulder mother and this stuffy little room? I imagine lacing up my old track shoes and sprinting right out the front door. I could run and run and run until there’s only fluid motion, like a horse across an open pasture. But where would I go? Where would I ever fit in? What if all the doors are just this small? What if I am too big to pass through any? What then? Must I always remain on the other side?
I am so lonely. Exceedingly lonely.
chapter EIGHT
Advice from a Caterpillar
I t’s been three days, and I’ve only managed to fool my mom about not taking my pills twice. She’s sharper than I supposed. Sometimes it almost seems like she’s on my side too, although I can’t
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