chapter 3

Anna lay restless in bed that night, she felt like a strange force was pulling at her and refusing to let her sleep until she explored the schoolhouse. She put on her dress and allowed herself to go wherever her feet took her. She found herself at the beginning of a long hallway with a door at the end. As she walked down the hallway towards the door it began to shrink until her arms were brushing against the walls on either side and she had to crouch down. By the time she got to the door she was having to crawl on all fours and the door seemed barely bigger than a dog flap.

"How strange," she remarked out loud. "I wonder if I should even fit through it."

Tentatively she opened the door and pushed her head and arms through the doorway. With just a little wriggling she was able to get her narrow waist and finally her legs into the room.

She stood up to her full height, brushing a little dust off her blue dress and white stockings and when she looked back at the door she was surprised to find that it was now big enough that she could simply walk through it without any bending or stooping.

"How curious!"

She looked around the room and realised that it must have been her mother's study. It looked eerily preserved as if Alice had only been called away for a moment and might return any second. There was no dust on the desk or cobwebs in the corners. Stranger still, a fire still crackled in the grate and vase of white roses still bloomed. The only signs of disarray was a pen still dripping ink on the desk, a stack of papers that had fallen to the floor and, of course, the shards of the looking glass glittering on the carpet.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." she whispered as some unseen force compelled her start gathering up the shards and piece them together like a jigsaw in the empty frame.

Finally she had pieced together all the shards except one piece in the centre of the looking glass that was missing. She gazed into the looking glass and gasped in fascinated wonder as her reflection moved independently of her. She thought that she must be seeing some doppelg�nger or second self who inhabited the world on the other side of the looking glass in her place. But then she looked closer and noticed the lines around the tired blue eyes, the blonde hair was dull and lacking in youthful lustre and the face looked pinched and gaunt. Alice? But it couldn't really be, could it?

Anna's eyes met Alice's and suddenly she knew beyond all doubt that she was staring at the face of her mother and that somehow she was trapped on the other side of the looking glass. Alice reached out her hand and touched the looking glass and Anna reached out to touch it but she could feel only cold glass.

She could see Alice's lips moving but she could barely hear and the words she did hear sounded garbled and confused like a record played backwards on a gramophone.

"Frumious bandersnatch... Gyre and gimble... Callooh callay..." Anna repeated the words that she was able to snatch from the air. "What can it all mean? Nothing makes any sense here."

"I'm sorry! I don't understand!" she called desperately to Alice.

She saw Alice utter a little cry, tears of frustration shone in her eyes but then, slowly, she traced her hand down until it disappeared into the void where the missing shard of glass was.

"Of course! The missing shard. That's why you're trapped inside the looking glass."

Alice nodded, daring a hopeful smile at her daughter and Anna knew what she had to do. She began to search the room wildly for the missing shard: throwing open cupboards, upturning drawers and looking under the furniture.

Still the missing shard was no where to be found. She went back to Alice's desk and this time she found a little bottle on it that she was quite certain was not there before. She picked up the bottle and noticed that tied around the neck was a paper label with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed on it in large letters.

"No, I'll look first," she said. "And see whether it's marked 'poison' or not, for if you drink from a bottle marked 'poison' it's almost certain to disagree with you sooner or later."

But the bottle was not marked 'poison' so Anna ventured to taste it and very soon had finished it off. It tasted very nice indeed. She could taste cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee and hot buttered toast.

"Mmmm..." she put a hand to her lips to stifle an involuntary moan of pleasure. She had never cared much for food before but the warm tingling sensation radiating through her whole body was even more delicious than the flavours dancing on her tongue. As the tingling sensation faded she uttered a low groan at the feeling of fullness settling in the pit of her stomach.

"How curious, I feel so heavy and full as if I've just eaten an entire feast."

Her hand trailed down her body and came to rest on her once flat stomach that now bloated outward as if she had just gorged herself on a big meal.

"Oh!" she cried in dismay as her stomach emitted a loud rumbling noise and she realised that it was beginning to swell, pushing at the palm of her hand.

Her whole body felt like it was being coated in softness, tentatively her hands explored her body. Her stomach had become a tubby little tummy, her curvy hips flared outward and her backside blossomed behind her into two round, jiggling cheeks.

Her breasts surged forward and her neck thickened as her face became fuller, underlined by a double chin. Her dress could barely contain her swelling body anymore, it compressed her breasts and the collar cut into her neck. When she raised her arms the flab of her upper arms flopped down and shook wildly she she fumbled to unbutton her dress but her fingers were so thick and pudgy that they had lost all dexterity.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to release one button and then the rest popped off as her body continued to flow outward. The dress hung from her rounded shoulders, her full breasts spilling out of it and it rode up so far that it barely concealed her thick, cellulite dimpled thighs or her ripe and round rear. She heard a loud ripping sound as her plump arms continued to swell and burst out of the sleeves. She tore the tattered dress off, now standing only in her stockings that strained across her thick, meaty legs and her underwear that was hidden by her belly that now sagged down enough to cover her most intimate parts.

She was eager to wriggle free of her underwear that was cutting into her tender flesh but she found removing her stockings a more difficult task. Her massive gut made reaching her feet almost impossible unless she held her breath. As she rubbed the achingly red skin where her clothes had constricted her expanding form her fingers were met only with soft, yielding fat, finding no trace of bone or muscle.

She was already huge but no longer confined by clothes her gain seemed only to accelerate. Alice took a step back from the looking glass and could only helplessly watch Anna's explosive weight gain with horror.

Fatter and fatter still she grew but as she blimped up faster than ever before a drowsy smile spread over her fat face as a wave of contentment swept over her. She felt like she was being stuffed full of sweet and buttery cherry tart, that thick and luscious custard was being poured down her throat creating a rush of endorphins that was euphoric.