“Strong fingers pinched my nose. I kept my mouth closed tight and held my breath. But I couldn't do it for long. My chest was bursting. I opened my mouth to get one big quick breath of air and as I did so, The Grand High Witch poured the entire contents of the little bottle down my throat!
      Oh, the pain and the fire! It felt as though a kettleful of boiling water had been poured into my mouth. My throat was going up in flames! Then very quickly the frightful burning searing scorching feeling started spreading down into my chest and into my tummy and on and on into my arms and legs and all over my body! I screamed and screamed but once again the gloved hand was clapped over my lips. The next thing I felt was my skin beginning to tighten. How else can I describe it? It was quite literally a tightening and a shrinking of the skin all over my body from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers to the ends of my toes! I felt as though I was a balloon and some“somebody was twisting the top of the balloon and twisting and twisting and the balloon was getting smaller and smaller and the skin was getting tighter and tighter and soon it was going to burst.
      Then the squeezing began. This time I was inside a suit of iron and somebody was turning a screw, and with each turn of the screw the iron suit became smaller and smaller so that I was squeezed like an orange into a pulpy mess with the juice running out of my sides.
      After that there came a fierce prickling sensation all over my skin (or what was left of my skin) as though tiny needles were forcing their way out through the surface of the skin from the inside, and this, I realise now, was the growing of the mouse-fur.
      Far away in the distance, I heard the voice of The Grand High Witch yelling, "Five hundred doses! This stinking little carbuncle has had five hundred doses and the alarm-clock has been smashed and“now vee are having instantaneous action!" I heard clapping and cheering and I remember thinking: I am not myself any longer! I have gone clear out of my own skin!
      I noticed that the floor was only an inch from my nose.
      I noticed also a pair of little furry front paws resting on the floor. I was able to move those paws. They were mine!
      At that moment, I realised that I was not a little boy any longer. I was A MOUSE.”

Chapter 12: Metamorphosis