Read Alice in Zombieland for Free Online Page B

any good reason, and as the ugly Wurm seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
          ‘Come back!’ the Wurm called after her, bits of half chewed ear flesh dangling from its small mouth. ‘I’ve something important to say!’
          This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.
          ‘Keep your temper,’ said the Wurm.
          ‘Is that all?’ said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.
          ‘No,’ said the Wurm.
          Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it munched away on its grotesque dead meal without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the rotting ear out of its mouth again, and said, ‘So you think you’re changed, do you?’
          ‘I’m afraid I am, sir,’ said Alice; ‘I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together! And I’m so cold! And starving for warm flesh! I have changed! I know it!’ And it was true. Looking at her hands and arms now, she saw they both had a slight blue tinge to them. And her long beautiful hair, which so many people made comments upon, was beginning to come out in stringy handfuls. She would hate to see her reflection now. There was no telling what terrible apparition would look back at her.
          ‘Can’t remember what things?’ said the Wurm.
          ‘Well, I’ve tried to say “ How doth the little busy bee ,” but it all came different!’ Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
          ‘Repeat, “ You are old, Father William ,”’ said the Wurm.
          Alice folded her hands, and began:
    -
      ‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,
      ‘And your hair has become very white;
      And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
      Do you think, at your age, it is right?’
    -
      ‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,
      ‘I feared it might injure the brain;
      But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
      Why, I do it again and again.’
    -
      ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,
      And have grown most uncommonly fat;
      Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
      Pray, what is the reason of that?’
    -
      ‘In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
      ‘I kept all my limbs very supple
      By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
      Allow me to sell you a couple?’
    -
      ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak
      For anything tougher than suet;
      Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
      Pray how did you manage to do it?’
    -
      ‘In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law,
      And argued each case with my wife;
      And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
      Has lasted the rest of my life.’
    -
      ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose
      That your eye was as steady as ever;
      Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
      What made you so awfully clever?’
    -
      ‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’
      Said his father; ‘don’t give yourself airs!
      Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
      Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’
    -
          ‘That is not said right,’ said the Wurm.
          ‘Not quite right, I’m afraid,’ said Alice, timidly; ‘some of the words have got altered.’
          ‘It is wrong from beginning to end,’ said the Wurm decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
          The Wurm was the first to speak, as it had almost finished its gory meal of graveyard ear. ‘What size do you want to be?’ it asked.
          ‘Oh, I’m not particular as to size,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘only one doesn’t like changing so often, you