He looked across at Alice’s towering tummy, and then up at her face. Then he saw an ordinairy silver spoon scoop up a baby tomato and place it into her mouth. He watched her neck gulping. He watched Alice’s face each time she spooned more food out of the bowl and into her mouth, but her eyes never gave any sign of having recognised him nor even of having noticed him.

The three queens also seemed oblivious to his presence. Eventually, Alice’s spoon passed under him, and brought him up in front of her mouth. He quickly glanced at her eyes again, and saw no sign of acknowledgement of anything unusual. Then he saw her mouth open and her tongue come out to receive him, as the spoon despatched him. He slid through Alice’s mouth, and into her throat.

Suddenly he found himself falling in slow motion again, surrounded by Alice’s throat. When he reached the bottom of the dark hole, he could suddenly see the dinner party below him again. Somehow he was back in the hole above the table, falling again. Once more he landed in the salad bowl, and once more he was served into Alice’s bowl and eaten in the same way. This cycle happened several times. There were variations in the movements of her tongue each time. On one occasion, she brought him up towards her mouth, and then licked her lips after the previous mouthful, with her tongue swishing from side to side right in front of him, just before he was spooned inwards. After several rounds of this inexplicable loop of events, he waited for the spoon to lift him upwards again, and then jumped off it and landed on her dress. He saw her hand come down and lift him up and attempt to place him into her mouth without the use of the spoon.

He grabbed hold of her lower lip and tugged on it.

“Alice, it’s Lyman from next door!” he said, “You’ve been eating me very nicely, but I keep falling back into the salad bowl, instead of your tummy.”

“You look just like one of the little folk now,” said Alice, “I thought I’d eaten lots of them. Still, if you don’t stay in my tummy, I suppose there’s no point in trying to swallow you again. Well your Majesties, it’s been a lovely dinner. Now I’d best be taking my little friend home with me.”

“Thank you, Alice, but how will we get home?” asked Lyman.

“Through the Looking-Glass,” said Alice and walked across the room and stepped through a large mirror.

He looked around, to see that Alice had carried him into a room that looked like a reflection of the one that they had been in. She walked through another room and out into what he now recognised as Alice’s lawn.

“You can’t go home at that size,” said Alice, “You can live in my garden, and I shall come out and play with you each day.”

When he never showed up at home, his adoptive mother moved away, and Alice bought the land for herself.

“And the alterations continue,” mused Pem, as time continued to rewrite itself.