“You will—are—are you going to the hospital?”

“I don’t know yet, dear. But I’ll need your help. Now here’s some money for the candy. Medium toothbrushes—remember.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. Shall I go now?”

“Yes, and kind of creep out, will you? Don’t let the other girls know what I told you.”

“I’ll go out the back way.” She hurried toward the door.

Kate said, “I nearly forgot. Will you drop this in a mailbox?”

“Sure I will, ma’am. Sure I will. Anything else?”

“That’s all, dear.”

When the girl was gone Kate rested her arms and hands on the desk so that each crooked finger was supported. Here it was. Maybe she had always known. She must have—but there was no need to think of that now. She would come back to that. They would put Joe away, but there’d be someone else, and there was always Ethel. Sooner or later, sooner or later—but no need to think about that now. She tiptoed her mind around the whole subject and back to an elusive thing that peeped out and then withdrew. It was when she had been thinking of her yellow-haired son that the fragment had first come to her mind. His face—hurt, bewildered, despairing—had brought it. Then she remembered.

She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son’s face—a very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else. But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her, and she had no place to run and no place to hide. And she would cry in panic because there was no escape and no sanctuary. Then one day she was reading a book. She could read when she was five years old. She remembered the book—brown, with a silver title, and the cloth was broken and the boards thick. It was Alice in Wonderland.

Kate moved her hands slowly and lifted her weight a little from her arms. And she could see the drawings—Alice with long straight hair. But it was the bottle which said, “Drink me” that had changed her life. Alice had taught her that.

When the forest of her enemies surrounded her she was prepared. In her pocket she had a bottle of sugar water and on its red-framed label she had written, “Drink me.” She would take a sip from the bottle and she would grow smaller and smaller. Let her enemies look for her then! Cathy would be under a leaf or looking out of an anthole, laughing. They couldn’t find her then. No door could close her out and no door could close her in. She could walk upright under a door.

And always there was Alice to play with, Alice to love her and trust her. Alice was her friend, always waiting to welcome her to tinyness.