1.1 Alice

Alice falls into Wonderland when she follows a white rabbit down a hole, and spends the rest of the story arguing — politely, persistently — with a succession of inhabitants who operate by rules she can never quite pin down. Each encounter yields an answer that isn’t quite useful: the Caterpillar tells her how to control her size but not when to; the Mad Hatter teaches her that time is personal; the Queen of Hearts teaches her that authority needs no logic to be real. By the time she escapes — by telling the cards they are nothing but paper — she has learned something more durable than any of the answers she was given.