The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait

walls were damp and the air smelt of the river. When he opened the door to his rooms, it was darker still, cluttered with piles of books and other objects Mary could not make out.
    ‘Mr Dodgson! Will you forget me while we are gone?’ said Alice, pushing forward.
    ‘Yes, Alice, I am afraid I might, for you will grow so much over these next two months, and I have been taking lessons in forgetting, at half a crown a lesson.’
    ‘Rather expensive lessons,’ said Ina.
    ‘Yes, but well worth the price. After three lessons I forgot my own name, and I forgot to go to the next lesson. The Professor said I was getting on very well, but he hoped I wouldn’t forget to pay him. I said that depended on how good he was.’
    ‘How good was he?’ asked Alice.
    ‘The last lesson was so good that I forgot everything! I forgot who I was, I forgot to eat my dinner, and so far I’ve forgotten to pay the man.’
    ‘But you won’t forget me,’ said Alice. She shook her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Even though it is the vacation.’
    ‘I won’t forget any of you.’
    Mary found she was clutching her bonnet to her chest. Mr Dodgson gently shook it from her fingers and put it on a pile of books, smiling his lopsided smile. The cheek that turned towards her was very smooth.
    ‘Are you looking at the mousetrap, Ina?’
    ‘Oh, is that what it is?’
    ‘It is a live trap, it is my own invention. You see, he enters here,’ said Mr Dodgson, pointing at a wooden flap, ‘and arrives at the bottom, where he has his final meal of cheese. I slide this wire compartment shut – of course there is no mouse in it at present – so that when I take it and plunge it into the water there is no chance of the mouse struggling on the surface and pro­longing its death. Animal cruelty, as I said,’ he turned to Mary, ‘is horrible to me.’
    ‘But Dinah might like to play with the mouse,’ said Alice.
    ‘He would not like to play with Dinah, I am sure. I quite believe that the time will come, in England at any rate, when the death of animals, when it must occur, will be quite painless.’
    Mary thought of the sheep’s head. And of Mr Dodgson’s steering her away from the swan. ‘Do you think so?’
    ‘Not yet, I am afraid. There is something,’ he dropped his voice so that the children could not hear, ‘that I abhor.
    Vivisection on live animals, in the name of scientific progress. It must stop. I am writing pamphlets to that effect.’
    Mary had seen a baboon once that had been tied on to a pony’s back in the name of sport. Half human, half monster, but full of recognizable desperation. And the laughter of the men who stood around, taking bets.
    Mr Dodgson’s face was clear and clean, unencumbered by hair. Vivisection must be stopped, Mary found herself thinking, for the first time. Rabbits cut open when they were alive, writhing and pinned.
    ‘Look at me!’ said Alice. She was staring at her reflection in the looking glass. Her head was squashed up like the round end of a hammer and her arms dangled down from somewhere above her ears. Her shins were so elongated that her knees were up where her hips ought to be.
    ‘How do you find yourself, Alice?’ said Mr Dodgson.
    She moved her chin down and now her face was one hideous roar. ‘I can’t find myself!’
    ‘And isn’t that a most interesting place to be!’
    Mary went to the sofa; she did not want to commit to sitting in the seat of it and chose the arm, but only one foot could comfortably reach the ground, while the other swung into the air like a child’s. So she sat down on the seat, which turned out to be even lower than she thought. She fell back and back, her haunches sunk into its recesses while her knees were brought up against her breasts.
    And there was Mr Dodgson, with a slice of Victoria sponge cake, which he held out.
    Mary struggled forward, on to the edge of the sofa, its forward rib against her thigh bone. ‘Cake?’
    ‘Yes, today’s. I had my scout