“Watching him from a distance for ten years doesn’t make you an expert, you know!”“Sleeping with him for two months doesn’t make you one, either,” she said, cool as a cucumber.Churchill recoiled with a wide-eyed “oh no she DIDN’T” expression that might have been funny under different circumstances.”

“Don’t sulk,” he told her. “It doesn’t become someone of your age.” She rolled her eyes even as, he was delighted to note, she kissed him back. “Oh, the age thing? You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

“What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tellwhat o’clock it is!’‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does YOUR watch tell you what year it is?’‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’‘Which is just the case with MINE,’ said the Hatter.”

“What happened to your face?' he asked. 'When I was little, my grandmother was making candles and she had a big vat of hot beeswax in the backyard,' she said. 'I walked into the vat.' Usually that ended the conversation. 'I don't remember it,' she added. 'How old were you?' he asked. She tilted her face slightly, watching him. 'Ten months.' 'You were walking at ten months?' he asked. 'Not very well, apparently,' she said dryly.”

“She scolded him with fire in her eyes, feeling where he was going, feeling as if she was stabbed in the heart. “I wasn’t saying it was bad. Different doesn’t mean bad. In fact, I think you are so . . . beautiful! What you say . . . it makes sense to me in ways I can’t even understand.”

“She looks sad. She looks angry. She looks different from everyone else I know—she cannot put on that happy face others wear when they know they are being watched. She doesn’t put on a face for me, which makes me trust her somehow.”