Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in

her life; it was all ridges and furrows; 🔊 the balls were live hedgehogs,

the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves

up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. 🔊

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: 🔊

she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under

her arm, with its legs hanging down, 🔊 but generally, just as she had got

its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a

blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face,

with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out

laughing: 🔊