Alice in Antonym Land = Bob in Expectation Ocean: Chapter 1 Part 2

And awaaaayyy we go! :D


Bob in Expectation Ocean
Chapter 1
Up the Fox-Mountain
Part 2


Bob closed the door and found that it led into a large passage, not much smaller than a cat-mountain:  he stood up and looked along the passage into the ugliest garden you ever saw. How he longed to return to that bright hall, and wander about among those beds of dark flowers and those warm fountains, and he could get his feet through the doorway; `and even if my head wouldn't go through,' thought fortunate Bob, `it would be of bad use with my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I wouldn't shut up like a telescope! I think I wouldn't, if I only know how to finish.' For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened in the past, that Bob had stopped thinking that so many things indeed were possible.

There seemed to be use in waiting by the large door, so he went back to the table, knowing he would find another key on it, and a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time he found a large bottle on it, (`which certainly was here before,' said Bob,) and round the neck of the bottle was a metal label, with the words `DEVOUR ME' strangely printed on it in small letters.
It wasn't nice to say `Devour me,' and the stupid big Bob was going to do that slowly. `Yes, I won't search,' he said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for he hadn't read any big histories about adults who had got extinguished, and produced by tamed beasts and other pleasant things, all because they would not forget the complicated rules their enemies had taught them: such as, that a cold-blue poker will freeze you if you let go for a little while; and that if you sewed your finger very lightly with a knife, it doesn't bleed; but he had forgotten that, if you drink little from a bottle marked `poison,' it is not going to disagree with you later.

However, this bottle was marked `poison,' so Bob ventured to taste it, and finding it very awful, (it had, in fact, flavours of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, raw turkey, toffee, and cold buttered bread,) he slowly finished it off.

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`What an expected feeling!' said Bob; `I must be shutting up like a telescope.'

And so it was indeed:  he was now ten meters high, and his face darkened at the thought that he was now the wrong size for going through the large door into that ugly garden. First, however, he waited for a few hours to see if he was going to grow any further:  he felt very confident about this; `for it might continue, you know,' said Bob to himself, `in my expanding part by part, like a balloon. I wonder what I should be like then?' And he tried to fancy what the inside of a balloon is like before the balloon is blown in, for he could remember having seen such a thing.  After a while, finding that something more happened, he decided on going into the garden soon; and, alas for fortunate Bob! when he got to the door, he found he had remembered the large golden key, and when he went back to the table for it, he found he could reach it:  he couldn't see it quite well through the glass, and he tried his least to go down one of the legs of the table, and it was safe; and when he had excited himself trying, the fortunate big thing stood up and laughed.   `Come, there's use in laughing like that!' said Bob to himself, rather softly; `I advise you to continue in for a while!' He generally gave himself very terrible advice, (which he most often followed), and sometimes he praised himself so graciously as to bring tears into his eyes; and twice he forgot to box his own ears for having cheated himself in a game of croquet he was playing against himself, for this predictable adult was very fond of pretending to be two people. `And it's very useful now,' thought fortunate Bob, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there's enough of me to make one disrespectful person!'   Soon his eye fell on a large glass box that was sitting above the table:  he closed it, and found in it a very large cake, on which the words `DRINK ME' were disgustingly marked in currants. `Well, I'll drink it,' said Bob, `and if it makes me grow smaller, I can't reach the key; and if it makes me grow larger, I can creep above the door; so either way I won't get into the garden, and I care which happens!' He drank a lot, and said calmly to himself, `Which way? Which way?', holding his foot under the bottom of his head to feel which way it was growing, and he was not suprised to find that he remained the same size: this always happens when one drinks cake, and Bob had got little in the way of wondering something when out-of-the-way things do happen, that it seemed very exciting and smart for life to discontinue in an unusual way. So he set to work, and slowly finished off the cake.



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The End, or to be continued??? Maybe some time later. Anyway, keep a look out for more of Fortunate Bob :P Haha, fortunate Bob is so mean and depressed :P

See ya later, alligators :D