Chapter Text
Dallas wasn't hurt at all, and hopped onto his feet instantly: he glanced up, but it was pitch black overhead: ahead of him was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, racing down it. There wasn't a moment to lose: away went Dallas like the wind, and he arrived just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh #%! how late it's getting!" He was close behind it when he turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer in sight: he found himself in a long, low hall, which was lit by a row of chandeliers hanging down from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but all of which were locked; and when Dallas had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, he walked down the hall pissed off (albeit a little depressed), wondering how the heck he was going to get out of this joint.
It was then that he came upon a little three-legged table, made of diamond: there was nothing on it but an itsy bitsy teeny weeny golden key, and Dallas' first idea was that this could actually go to one of the doors in the hall; but, damn! Either the locks were too freakin big, or the key was too freakin small, but the point is, it would not open any of them. However, on the second try, he saw a low curtain he'd not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about a foot high: he tried the little golden key in the lock, and the darn thing actually fit!
Dallas opened the door and realized that it led into a small passage, not much bigger than a rat-hole: he knelt down and looked down the passage into the loveliest collection of food and drink you ever saw. Pie, Smores, Turkey, Dressing, Pie, Beer, Coca Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Pie, Pie, Pie. He longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those patches of bright donuts and those cool bottles of soda, but he couldn't even get his head out of the doorway; "Even if I got my head through," thought poor Dallas, "the rest of me would still be stuck. Crap, I guess smaller is better! Karma is a bitch." For, you see, so long ago, before he ended up down here, Dallas and Ponyboy once had a conversation that went on like so:
"Bigger is not always better."
"Yeah it is. I can drive wherever I want, drink whatever I want, go wherever I want, and everyone thinks I'm grown."
There seemed to be no point in waiting by the mini door, so he went back to the table, half hoping he could find another key on it, or maybe a book Getting the Hell Out of Here For Dummies: this time he found a little bottle on it ("I did not see that before," said Dallas), and tied round the neck of the bottle was a little label, with the words "DRINK ME" printed in bold lettering.
It was all very nice to say "Drink me," but Dallas had no intention of doing that yet. " Hell no, I'll look first," he said, "For all I know it could be poison or more bleach"; he was already lost, trapped probably and worse, all because he got hungry and his sweet tooth got the better of him.
But, this bottle didn't look like it had poison in it. It didn't smell like poison. His hand didn't disintegrate when he dipped his finder into the bottle. And that was good enough for Dallas so chose to taste it, and, what do you know it didn't taste so bad (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of chocolate cake, ice cream, apple pie, fried chicken, caramel, and cinnamon rolls), he finished it pretty fast.
"Huh… I feel all tingly now." said Dallas. "Sugar Rush!"
Sugar rush it was not: he was now only ten inches height, though he didn't mine because his first thought was Ha ha! Time to go score me some donuts! First, however, he waited for a few minutes to see if he would get any smaller: he got a little anxious; "that would suck if I stayed like this," said Dallas to himself, "or got so small I disappeared or something." He tried to imagine that and it wasn't a very comforting idea.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, Dallas said "Screw this." He decided on going into the buffet at once; but, alas for poor Dallas! When he got to the door, he accidentally forgot the little golden key, and when he went back to the table for it, he was unable to reach it: he could see multiple images of it quite plainly through the diamond, and he tried his best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slick; and when he had got tired of trying, the poor little thing sat down and started cussing up a storm.
"WHAT THE FUCK! Are you kidding me I left the damn key on the table. How the hell did that even happen? Better yet, how the hell did I end up in this shit-hole! I mean I want to fucking punch babies right now. Is this your idea of fun?" he screamed to the heavens or whomever could hear him "cause I'm not having fun. SODAPOP CURTIS if I make it out of this I am going to shank you in the your sleep. YA HEAR ME? DAMN IT!" He took a deep breath before counting to ten.
"Whoo! Almost lost my cool there" said Dallas to himself rather sharply. "I just gotta stay calm. Stay calm, and I'll be out of here in no time. Patience is vice..er virtue..whatever." He was generally given very good advice (though he usually blew it off or misinterpreted it). Soon his eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: he opened it, and found in it a very small cookie, on which the words "BITE ME" were beautifully marked in currants. " Ain't that the truth. Well, I'll eat it," said Dallas, "maybe I'll grow or something, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I'll crawl under the freakin door: so either way I'm getting my donuts, and I don't care which happens!"
He ate a little bit, and said anxiously to himself "Well? Did it work?", pressing his hand on the top of his head to feel which way it was growing; and he was real surprised to find that he remained the same size. To be sure, this is what usually happens when one eats cake; but Dallas had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but crazy things to happen, that it seemed quite boring and lame for life to go on in the common way.
So he set to work, and very soon finished off the cookie.