Peter and Alice

Peter and Alice Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Peter and Alice Read Online Free PDF
Author: John Logan
Nor should you, because you’re only a child.
    ALICE : Being made to grow up too soon .
    PETER : Yes. That’s it. We’ve arrived.
    ALICE : Where?
    PETER : At our story… At Peter and Alice.
    ALICE : The love story?
    PETER : Partly… And partly that other book. The endlessly painful one with no happy ending.
    ALICE : Honestly! I gather it’s fashionable among young people to be dreadfully grim and depressive, you wear it as a badge of pride, but it’s rather a bore. Now I’ve had myshare of difficulties, but I’ve always carried on with some hope.
    PETER : “Difficulties” you call it? That’s a comfortable euphemism, like finding another word for cancer.
    ALICE : Loss? Death ? Is that what you want to hear?
    PETER : That’s what it is.
    ALICE : I’m not afraid of the words, but I don’t luxuriate in them.
    PETER : Is that what I do?
    ALICE : I think so.
    PETER : That’s just who I am.
    ALICE : It’s indulgent.
    PETER : Sorry.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Stop arguing, it’s too boring!
    PETER PAN : Or start fighting at least! Who has a sword?
    PETER : (Continuing to ALICE .) All right then, let me ask you: these feelings of loss, do you remember the very first time you felt them? … And were you the same person after?
    ALICE : How can I remember something like that? It’s too vague.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND approaches .
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Now she’s telling stories.
    PETER PAN : I love stories! Are there Indians?
    ALICE : I’m not telling stories.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Of course you are! You remember perfectly.
    PETER PAN : And pirates and monsters and ships and battles and motorcars and balloon trips and undersea creatures and…!
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : The darkroom, silly!
    This stops ALICE .
    CARROLL : Alice, keep still !
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Don’t you remember the darkroom?
    PETER : Tell me.
    ALICE : No.
    CARROLL : You must stay exactly as you are !
    PETER PAN : I love stories more than anything. Wendy told stories. And then she grew up.
    PETER : Tell me a story, Wendy.
    ALICE looks at him. So be it .
    ALICE : My sisters and I had gone to Reverend Dodgson’s studio to be photographed. This was not uncommon; we’d done it many times…
    CARROLL : You must hold still, Alice!
    ALICE poses for a picture. CARROLL is photographing her; a painstaking and elaborate process in 1863 .
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND strikes an identical pose .
    CARROLL goes about the minutiae of his task .
    ALICE : I smell the chemicals still… Bromide and chloride dissolved to make the solution for the negative… Then like magic out comes the polished glass plate, which had to be perfectly clean, I’ve never seen anything cleaner, no dust, no imperfections, like the skin of a baby, fresh like youth, I don’t know like what, like innocence !
    PETER : (Laughs.) Oh God!
    ALICE : Don’t make me laugh, I’m supposed to be standing still… Then he carefully brushed the solution on the glass with a darling little sable brush I always coveted.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : (Re: sable brush.) Oh! It’s ravishing!
    CARROLL : Don’t move! Just a little longer.
    ALICE : Then he whisked the plate into the darkroom to dip it into the silver nitrate and then so gingerly back into the camera, like a surgeon those hands, those soft hands, then a final adjustment to the lens… (To CARROLL .) … I want to move.
    CARROLL : You’ll ruin it all.
    ALICE : Lorina’s making faces!
    CARROLL : She’s a very silly goose and you’re my Queen! Hold still, Queen Alice!
    ALICE : Then the moment! Hold your breath! Lens cap off. Time… stops.
    Everyone holds their breath .
    A few frozen moments .
    ALICE : Lens cap on! Move!
    CARROLL : Come with me, Alice! Double quick!
    CARROLL and ALICE hurry into the darkroom .
    Light almost disappears. They are now lit by the muted glow of the darkroom .
    ALICE : Into the darkroom! Shut the door.
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