Chapter I

Through the Stage Door

Until those strange people1 arrived to take the seats of the front row, Alice’s view of the stage, from her position in the second, had been almost perfect. Having come with her sister Edith to see a traditional pantomime on New Year’s Eve, she had hoped that the matinée would be less than crowded. Indeed, for the most part the theatre was empty. The only people there were Alice herself, her sister, and the folk in front.

    A most peculiar group they were, too, the girl thought to herself. They laughed loudly, they sang songs, they told each other jokes (although for some reason which Alice could not fathom, it was never these jokes at which they laughed), and they incessantly practised the things they would later have to say, ready for the pantomime. It was all very strange indeed. “It is almost as if,” Alice said to her sister, “they are a group of school children, rather than responsible adults. Surely, they should have grown out of such behaviour by now.”

    “Although, of course,” she chided herself, “one should not really be so selfish as to wish such a thing. After all, they may be very happy in their own special way, and there are too many adults as it is.” (Alice was a very fair minded sort of girl who would often take herself to task for some misdemeanour or another.)

    She kicked her legs, which did not quite reach the ground, against the back of the chair in front, as a way of passing the time before the performance began. “This is quite definitely the most tiresome part of a pantomime,” she said to Edith, “when there are no dames or cows or ‘behind you’s to entertain one. Oh, I do wish they would start, don’t you?”

    Alice looked to her sister, to catch her answer; but the younger girl was curled up, fast asleep. Obviously, the long wait and the heavy luncheon had been too much for her, for she was snoring. Alice had to raise a hand to her mouth, to hide her giggles at the sight from anyone around who might find such a thing impolite.

    “You know,” she thought, “it does look rather as though Edith is a cushion, laying on the seat ready to be sat upon.” And, just to try the idea out (since there cannot be a better reason for having a younger sister, other than to use her as a piece of experimental apparatus) Alice leant over to rest her head on her sister’s shoulder. It was surprisingly comfortable, and the girl almost came to think that a quick nap before the show might not be so bad an idea. However, at that moment something happened to make her immediately wake up, and almost jump out of her seat.

    “Why, I declare!” she said out loud. “If that is not the White Rabbit2 running up onto the stage! I wonder what it can be doing there?”

    And indeed it was the White Rabbit, although it was not wearing a waistcoat, nor a coat of arms, as it had been when Alice had seen it before. (Instead, it now wore a simple rain-coat which was tied loosely about its stomach with a belt, as though there had been neither time nor ability to use the buckle correctly.) However, exactly as the first time Alice had seen the creature, it was in a state of extreme agitation, running this way and that, hither and thither, and all the while managing to get nowhere very quickly indeed.

    “Oh, my, oh my,” Alice heard it say as it ran down the aisle past her. “What shall I do? What shall I do?” It continued to whimper as it struggled up onto the stage, and just as it pushed through the plush, velvet curtain its voice wafted back: “Whatever can have become of the thing?”

    “I wonder what the matter is?” Alice enquired of no-one in particular. She jumped up and ran to the aisle, determined to find for herself what all the bother was about, and quite forgetting the trouble her curiosity had caused on past occasions. “Mr Rabbit, wait!” she called after its vanishing form; but of course the Rabbit had by that time disappeared behind the heavy curtain, and did not answer.

    Without further ado Alice ran to the stage, and pulled herself up onto the wooden boards just as her quarry had done only a few moments before. “After all,” she surmised, “what other choice does one have? One does not have the chance to renew old acquaintances every day of the week.” She looked at the rest of the audience, to ensure that nobody was about to call her back and reprimand her. No-one seemed to have noticed the commotion, however; least of all the strange folk in the front row (who were now busily exchanging hats and trying to decide the best way of singing the Pantomime Song without confusing the actors). So, with a final wave to Edith, Alice pushed herself through the curtains after the Rabbit.

“Mr Rabbit! Mr Rabbit!” Alice called, eager to catch the creature. “Please, Mr Rabbit, wait up. I do so want to talk to you!” But it did not answer any of the girl’s calls, and she could not follow where it had gone, since the stage was far too dark to see anything at all, let alone the flight of a nervous rabbit. In fact, the stage was so gloomy, and Alice could see so little, that she was becoming somewhat fearful; so she decided to sit down before making any further moves.

    “Oh, this is so bothersome,” she said out loud (having come to the conclusion that a conversation, if only with herself, would be the best thing for the nerves). “What a horrid, dingy place this is. And that Rabbit! Why, one would think that it would have waited. After all, it is just common courtesy to say ‘how d’ye do’ when somebody calls your name.” She sat with her head in her hands, and put on a monstrous frown so that anyone who might bump into her would know that she had just been snubbed by a large White Rabbit, and would thus treat her with the respect she deserved. However, a number of minutes went without anyone passing at all, so she stood up again.

    “Oh! And it is so dark!” she cried. “There really ought to be some lights on a stage, that there should.” And just as she said this the gloom of the stage lifted, and beautiful, warm rays of sunshine fell onto her face.

    To Alice’s surprise, she found herself not in a village green (as she had expected there might be behind the curtain at a pantomime), nor a treasure cave, nor a deep, dark wood. Rather, she was in a large clover field, which seemed to stretch for miles in all directions; indeed, it was such a large field that the hedgerows that bordered it were too far away for the girl to see. It was as if it covered the surface of the entire world.

    Turning around, Alice found that the stage curtain was still behind her. “How curious it is,” she exclaimed, “standing there, all upright and proud like a soldier. I wonder what it can be doing all alone in a field?” However, looking around she realised that it was not alone, for all across the field were doorways and windows and pictures and mirrors, each and every one standing as tall as you please in its frame, with nothing behind it to see, and nowhere behind it to go.

    “Come now, Alice,” the girl admonished herself. “This can’t be what one finds behind the curtain of a theatre. How can there be enough room for it all?” But, try as she might to make them, the doors and windows and the field simply refused to go away. “Why, girl, you are dreaming, that’s all,” she continued. “You have such a vivid imagination these days; it must be a stage you’re going through!”

    However, it was obviously not a stage at all, and soon Alice had given up all thought of trying to make the field turn back into one. The sun was beautifully warm, and since the Rabbit had disappeared from view, the girl decided to take a gentle stroll through the clover to see what she might find.

    After a few paces she came to a large mirror in a wooden frame. “Come,” Alice said to herself. “I wonder what it will show me?” You see, the field was such a strange place that Alice was sure that the mirror would not reflect it at all, and she was quite correct. Behind her own image in the glass was a cozy little parlour with a blazing fire, and a shelf above it piled high with books. “How delightful,” the girl exclaimed. “I wonder what else there might be?” And she ran over to a window a little way across the clover, to see what it would reveal.

    “Why, look!” said Alice when she saw the view. “There’s a pier stretching out into the sea!” It was a majestic, iron construction that seemed to stretch so far out that the girl was not entirely sure it was actually attached to the land. “And there,” she continued, running to another window and pulling its curtains apart. “What a strange little house! All curved roofs and minarets and pennants.

    “And there, too,” she said, looking through what appeared to be a porthole hanging in the air. “There’s a ruin, on a cliff top, overlooking the sea.” She clapped her hands together, and laughed. “Oh, how I wish I could go there! I would so like to see the pier, and the ruin, and that queer little house.” But, of course, when she walked around there was nothing at all to be found on the other side of the porthole.

    “Well,” Alice said to herself. “This is all very pretty, but I appear to have lost the White Rabbit completely. And I shan’t be able to visit all those other delightful places unless I climb out through one of the windows - which I am sure is very bad manners.” And she had just about decided to give up, and go back through the stage curtains to take her seat once more, when she heard the sound of an orchestra tuning up.

    The sound seemed to be coming from a small, shallow hole which had been dug in the ground a few yards away. “I declare!” said Alice. “I am on a stage, after all. That must be the orchestra pit!” And she ran straight up to the pit, and peered in.

    “Just whom does she think she is staring at, I should like to know?” cried a strange, vibrant voice from the pit, startling Alice somewhat. At first she could not find who had said such a thing; but then a young viola3 flipped itself up onto its point and wavered angrily in her direction.

    “Is she staring at me, do you suppose?” it asked, and Alice could only assume that the question was directed at one of the other instruments. “She could be staring at you,” it continued to an ancient cornet, “but it is much more likely that she is looking at me. I am so much more capable than you of any interesting work.”

    “How pompous it sounds,” Alice thought to herself. “It talks as if no other instrument plays any part in the orchestra.” But she said none of this out loud, for fear of enraging the instrument even more.

    “Don’t you be worrying about ’im, deary,” said a voice by her elbow, and Alice looked around to find herself face to face with a small clarinet. “They’s all alike, them strings,” it continued. “They’s all that haughty they could curdle milk,” and it laughed at this so loudly that Alice though the other would hear and become even more offended. However, the viola continued to ignore them, and soon the clarinet’s laughter had spread to the whole wind section. It was all so infectious - the piccolos tittering, the bassoons guffawing, and the clarinets and oboes chortling the middle eighth - that soon Alice could not help herself but giggle a little too.

    “That viola,” the clarinet said when the laughter had died down somewhat, “that viola’s a right one, I can tell you. When we try to play a piece, why, if’n we don’t look out it’s overtaken us an’ gone off on its own.” Alice giggled again at the thought of the instrument deciding its own meter. “When it does that, o’ course,” the clarinet went on, “we has to quicken oursel’s too, in order to catch it! Sometimes it’s so far ahead we has to miss breakfast so as to catch up at all!” And at this the lilting laughter again rang out. “I declare,” thought Alice to herself. “They do seem to find so many things awfully amusing today!” But once again the laughter was contagious, and Alice soon found herself joining in.

    “Please,” asked Alice when the laughter had died down a second time. “I’m looking for the White Rabbit. Could you tell me if it has passed by?”

    “Well, as to the White Rabbit,” said a kettle-drum, “I think p’raps it’s been by, but I couldn’t tell you when.”

    “But if’n it had passed by,” a trombone added, pushing its slide in and out as it spoke, “it would have gone through the Stage Door, no doubt.” And the instruments all clustered around Alice to point it out to her. The clarinet twisted its reed right around, the kettle-drum rested its sticks in the appropriate direction, and the trombone extended itself to its full length, to fall to the correct side. Even the violins pointed, by vigorously drawing their bows back and forth across their strings until they, too had turned right round.

    “Thank you kindly,” Alice said. The little portal was only a few feet away, with the words ‘Stage Door’ painted on it in large white lettering. In fact, it was so close by that it hardly warranted all the frantic motion, but the instruments seemed pleased to help. Now they deluged Alice, each of them scurrying up to her to say “you’re welcome,” and to shake her hand with a stick or bow or brush, or whatever part of them was appropriate. Only the viola was left out; it sat on the other side of the stage pretending that it was above such behaviour, looking for all the world like an umbrella-stand without any umbrellas.

    At last Alice managed to take her leave of the creatures. (She was not sure that ‘creatures’ was quite the word she wanted, but she could think of no other that would fit better.) Waving goodbye to the clarinet, which tooted a merry goodbye in return, she walked across to the stage door. It was a low, wooden affair, without any keyhole or letter box, and no window through which to look; and when she tried the handle, Alice found that it was locked tight. No amount of pulling and pushing would move it.

    “Now, how am I to pass through?” Alice asked herself, and she spent a good few minutes pondering this before coming to the conclusion that the only way would be to squash herself as flat as a pancake and slip underneath. “Oh, bother it!” she continued, crossly. “If only there were some magic words to open it, as in a real pantomime.”

    As luck would have it, just as she said this she noticed a small plaque directly above the white lettering. It was enscribed with the following words:

“Goodness!” said Alice. “I wonder what that can mean? And I wonder if it’s safe to say out loud?” (For it is always dangerous to say things one doesn’t understand, of course.)

    “They may not be magic words at all,” the girl continued. “Probably, they are just common or garden words. They could just mean ‘Mind Your Head,’ or they may simply have something to do with apples.” But, since there seemed to be no other choice (“And since they did look somewhat magical,” Alice later explained), she decided to read them out very slowly and carefully; and she did so three times over, before giving the handle a second turn.

    And, of course, this time the door opened wide, which when Alice thought about it, was only to be expected. For, as I’m sure you are aware also, any words spoken in that particular language are extremely magical indeed.

Chapter II - Mackintosh and Mystery Chapter II - Mackintosh and Mystery