In 1865, a young girl by the name of Alice Liddell went missing from outside of her home in Oxford, England. Left in the care of her older sister, Margaret, no one could understand how the seven-year-old had disappeared so suddenly. Yet, after multi...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
─── ALICE WAITED until her dormmates had tucked themselves away in bed in preparation of the first day of classes the next day. They fell asleep a few minutes later after the last one climbed into bed before Alice turned to Mr Rabbit to speak with him in private. Since he had winked at her earlier, she could only assume that he had returned to his usual self. At least, that was what she was hoping for. Especially after finding the infamous pocket watch resting on her bed upon her arrival. She glanced around once more to make sure everyone was asleep once more before she spoke.
"Mr Rabbit," she said in a low voice, " are you alright?"
Suddenly, Mr Rabbit stood on his hind legs, she watched as his small front paws brushed over his chest and stomach as he smoothed his fur down. "Yes, Alice, I'm fine. Well, as fine as I can be under these circumstances."
Without hesitation, Alice snatched Mr Rabbit up again into her arms as she let out a muffled happy cry. She was so thankful to hear him speak once again after going so long without hearing anything from him.
"Shh, Alice," he shushed her gently before the two of them looked around the room, " we don't want the others to wake up and eavesdrop on our conversation, do we?"
She shook her head, acknowledging that he was right. Picking up Mr Rabbit, she made her way to the stairs to head back down to the Common Room. Alice carefully tiptoed down the flight of stairs and fortunately, found the Common Room to be empty and quiet as everyone had gone to bed for the evening. The two settled down on one of the stiff sofa's near the windows, listening to the sound of the wind whistling through.
"I don't understand what's going on," she began the conversation, " why did you wait until now to speak again, Mr Rabbit?"
Mr Rabbit's ears fell in an apologetic manner. "I couldn't find myself with the ability to speak anymore for some reason, Alice. Not until we returned here. I reentered the forest once you left me outside, but I couldn't find the rabbit hole anywhere. I did find my pocket watch though, which I'm incredibly thankful for. Especially after all the time, it took to repair the thing after the Mad Hatter got his hands on it. But I'm going to have to ask you to hold onto the pocket watch for now."
Her eyebrows knitted in confusion, usually, Mr Rabbit didn't trust many to hold his prized possession. "Why can't you hold onto it?"
"Well, if you haven't noticed, Alice," he gestured to himself, " I'm not exactly dressed for the task of holding on my person."
"Oh."
She broke into a small fit of giggles as she realised that Mr Rabbit was, in fact, naked before her and he was definitely uncomfortable about it. He didn't seem to find the situation very amusing as his ears flattened further to the top of his head. He started to tap his foot impatiently against the sofa as he waited for her to finish. Quickly, Alice covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself.
