Oh, yes, Alice did know that she forgot things, but not how badly, or how often. When her mind started to dazzle and to puzzle, frantically trying to lay hold of something stable, then she always at once allowed herself -- as she did now -- to slide back into her childhood, where she dwelt pleasurably on some scene or other that she had smoothed and polished and painted over and over again with fresh colour until it was like walking into a story that began, 'Once upon a time there was a little girl called Alice, with her mother, Dorothy. One morning Alice was in the kitchen with Dorothy, who was making her favourite pudding, apple with cinnamon and brown sugar and sour cream, and little Alice said, 'Mummy, I am a good girl, aren't I?