Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 2

    Alice was not hurt, so she jumped to her feet in a moment. She looked up, and found the White Rabbit was still in sight. She was close behind it when she turned the comer, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen. She found herself in a long, low hall.

    There were doors all around the hall, but they were all locked.

    Alice walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

    Suddenly, she came upon a little three-legged table. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall.

    But, alas! Either the locks were too large, or the key was too small. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before and behind it was a little door.

    She tried the little golden key in the lock, and she was pleased to find it fitted!

    Today, after 10 days of medical treatment, for the first time, I went out alone to meet a motherly lady who I had met during my stay in a program. She had been unwell recently and I lived alone. Her sons live in foreign countries.

    After I called her and told about my plan to visit her, she started becoming excited and happily planning food at once. Nowadays, she has a lady cook coming by to help her but she does part of the work herself with her bandaged leg.

    I reached her home alone after being guided a couple of times by her before. I carried little things (snacks, books etc.) for her. She had been waiting for some time when I arrived. We talked about different things from health to her life and mine, from past to future, from food to travel etc. During the discussion, her care for me became clear when she made warm suggestions or supported me.

    During the last few months, she had struggled with health and housework. She had got over those difficulties and here she was telling me how all of us must face some problems. She had seen a few people facing worse problems in the hospital and mentioned about their cases and was grateful for her present condition which was manageable.

    She wanted to gift me something—she kept thinking of a dress, watch, footwear etc. whatever was new and great in her home. I kept refusing but finally took the footwear out of politeness.

    She loved the snacks I had brought and wanted to eat them with her tea. I was quite happy to see the child like interest.

    While I was spending time with my motherly friend, the following thought kept coming back to me-probably this is why I have lived through the 10 days in this city. The time I spent with her seemed so much needed. I felt the deep peace it could bring to me and that brought such a big joy!

    Grandfather always tells Jane stories before she goes to bed at night. Soon, her love for reading grows. She starts borrowing books from the school library.

One day, Grandfather told Jane, "Here, my dear, your birthday is coming. This is a very special book and I want you to have it as your birthday present. I am sure that you will enjoy reading it."

    Jane was excited to get the book. She put down all the other books she had and started reading it day and night. The more she read the book, the more she liked it.

    Soon, she finished the book. She thought it was a great book so she asked Grandfather who the writer was.

    "I wrote the book, my dear," Grandfather said with a smile.

    "This is really a great present!" Jane thought. "I will take good care of it and show it to Baby John when he grows up."

    Mr Scott talked about colours all the time. "What a honey—yellow morning it is!" he said to his wife. His wife planted fruit and vegetables in their garden, but Mr Scott was more interested in the leafy plants, the bushes, and even the grass that grew in the garden. "So many kinds of green," he said to her after watering all the plants. "I counted at least twenty shades of green!"

    "Well done, dear," Mrs Scott said. " Now would you please count twenty dollars and go to the supermarket for some ingredients(配料)? I want to make lunch! "

    With a smile on his face, Mr Scott left at once. He enjoyed trips to the supermarket because of all the colourful cans and boxes in it. Fruit and vegetables, too, shone in their bright skins. There was never just one colour: carrots were orange, but also had bits of yellow and brown in them. Bananas were yellow and black; apples hid oranges and purples inside their reds. Mr Scott would walk through the supermarket and enjoy all the colours around him.

    "I wish there was a store full of colours that I could spend all my time in," he sighed.

    He bought everything on his wife's list and came home. When he walked into the house, Mrs Scott noticed the sad look on his face. "What's wrong?" she asked him. "It looks life you had fun at the store. I can see that you picked out the best things."

    "I did have fun in the store. So much that I wish I could have spent more time there. It's so full of colours!" Mr Scott said.

"I see," Mrs Scott said. "Well, cheer up, because I'm going to cook a nice lunch for us!"

    The next day Mr Scott was on his usual morning walk through the neighbourhood, saying hello to everyone, enjoying the colours of the trees and flowers. It was another day of colours!

    "Good morning, Mr Brown," he called out to one of his neighbours. He liked Mr Brown very much, because, well, you guessed it: his name was a colour!

    "Mr Scott! Just the person I wanted to see!" Mr Brown replied. "My wife and I are moving out of this town, and I need someone to take over my shop. You are the perfect person for the job because it's a paint shop! I need someone who knows its colours. Would you be interested?"

    Mr Scott was mad with excitement. "I will take it over right away!"

    Mr Brown was relieved when he left town, because he knew his paint shop was in good hands. Sure enough, Mr Scott kept the paint shop open for twenty more years and got to talk about colours all day, every day.

    If you love reading books, you must know about the book The Little Prince. It's a famous novel written by a French writer. As one of the best-selling books in history, it has been sold as many as 200 million copies in 253 languages and dialects(方言). Now, around seventy years after the birth of the book, an American director has found a way to make it into a 3D animated film(动画片).

    The book tells the story of a pilot, called The Aviator, who crashes(撞击) into the desert and meets a young prince there. However, in the film, the story starts years after the crash when The Aviator is much older. He has got a new neighbor called The Little Girl, whose mother wants her to get ready to enter the grown-up world. Slowly The Aviator shares his story with The Little Girl by writing it down and sending her a page at a time. The pages are complete with the pictures in the book, speaking about his time in the desert and taking The Little Girl to an amazing world where anything is possible.

    China is the first country in the world to see the film in two versions—in Chinese and English. The film shows The Little Girl's life and tells The Little Prince's story at the same time in a beautiful way.

    Huang Lei, who voices the film together with his 9-year-old daughter, says the film is like a childhood dream which is lost by most adults in this stressed-out society.

    "The most touching part is that every one of us was a good-natured kid like the Little Prince, and it's a pity that this good characteristic(品质) goes away as time flies," he says.