Then she opened her mouth and put out her tongue. He was gently lowered onto it and then slid into her mouth, and then felt a wonderful gulp that took him into her throat. He was on his way down to her tummy.

“Well well well,” thought the young Pem, “I wonder what other changes will occur in this timeline.”

The time ripple from the Beanstalk Effect continued to change aspects of the past. A lad named Lyman went walking along a riverside trail until he came to a hole and crawled in. Suddenly he found himself falling through a wide hole in the earth, in slow motion. As he fell, various objects floated around him, including a piece of Wonderland cake.

Unaware of its properties, and keen to pass the time by enjoying some food, he snatched at the cake, before he could fall out of its reach, and ate it. He soon noticed that he was shrinking in size, using other floating objects and the width of the hole in order to measure his size by comparison.

He eventually saw light coming up from below, and looked down to see that, far below him, the hole came out above a table, where four ladies were having a tea party. One was wearing a white dress with red heart card symbols on it. Another was wearing an entirely red dress. Another was wearing an entirely white dress. All three of these ladies were also wearing crowns. The fourth lady was familiar to him. It was Alice! She owned the huge house with its large lawns and gardens and creek next door to his adoptive mother’s place. She had occasionally asked him over and given him picnic lunches.

Now she was wearing a grand dress and sitting at the table with the three queens.

As he floated down closer, still unseen by the four ladies, he could see place markers beside bowls in front of each lady. They were labelled ‘Red Queen’, ‘White Queen’ , ‘Queen of Hearts’ and ‘Alice’.

Then, as unexpectedly and as without explanation as any occurrences in a dream, the tea party was no longer a tea party, but a full meal. He fell down and landed in a large bowl in the centre of the table, and saw that he was surrounded by salad. His head was now smaller than a baby tomato. It gave him the clearest indication of his size. None of the ladies had noticed him descending into their main dish.

Then he saw a large salad spoon and looked up, as the Red Queen spooned a serving of salad into her bowl. He noticed that, apart from the lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion which he had first seen, there were also pieces of cold chicken in the bowl. Then he saw the spoon come in again and scoop up much of the surrounding salad, including himself. Alice served it into her bowl, apparently completely unaware that he was not a piece of chicken.