Death of the Mad Hatter (19 page)

“
You speak like it’s a different world, not just a place on planet Earth. Can you explain?”

“
Do you have any paper?” she asked, placing the rabbit next to me. While I dug in my backpack, she whispered to Mr. Ruth. “Keep your good eye on him. The more he knows the bigger the flight risk he becomes.”

I wonder if she purposely said that loud enough for me to hear or not.
Of course she’d say that, just to mess with me.

I
pulled out my notebook. The corner was torn off, looking suspiciously like an animal bite mark. Alice Mae didn’t seem to notice or care about it. She just took my notebook and flipped it open to the middle. I cringed when she opened it to the note that I never gave Courtney. The one where I told her I was sorry and explained why she suddenly got sick. I tore it from the spiral, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it in my backpack.

“
We can use that, unless you still planned on giving it to Courtney,” she said. A glimmer of hope resided in her beautiful blue gems.

I
retrieved the balled-up note and handed it to her. I could tell that she wanted to smooth out the paper and read it.

“
I used to like her,” I said.

“
You speak in past tense, but that’s all wrong. What you should have said was
I like her
,” she said, squeezing the ball tight. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“
She’s pretty to look at,” I admitted, and then immediately wanted to smack myself. I couldn’t believe how dense I was acting. “But looks aren’t everything. If they were, I might as well date a mannequin because the conversations would be just as dull and boring.
You
are not boring to talk to, infuriating maybe, but not boring.”

“
So you do think I’m ugly, but at least I’m interesting so you won’t succumb to boredom?”

“I’d like to be around you even when I’m not bored, if you wanted to hang out with me.”

“Is that your way of asking me out?”

This wasn
’t a conversation I was prepared to have. “Can we please get to our theoretical conversation about Wonderland?”

“
Do you believe in aliens?”

That caught me off guard.
“Do I think they are living amongst us? No. The possibility of life on another planet is possible. There are countless galaxies and the universe is infinite.”

“
That was a politically correct answer, which tells me little about your actual opinion. But, I’ll play along and pretend that answer satisfied me intellectually.”

She
reached for the clay and rolled it into a cylindrical object. Then, she tugged on a loose string from her dress and pressed it on top of the clay. After placing it on the floor, she pulled out a card from her sleeve. The Joker. She flicked it in the air so quickly my eyes could barely keep up. A flame flickered from the corner. She used it to set the string on fire. It quickly burned until reaching the clay and then the fire slowed. She’d created a candle.

She tor
e another paper from my notebook and held it over the flame. It soon burned the paper, creating a hole in the middle. After it took off, she blew out the flames. In the center was a hole a few inches wide.

“
This represents Earth’s ground,” she said, holding up the paper with the hole in it. She spoke about how Earth had specific laws of gravity. The physics was logical and straightforward here. “Everything on Earth is orderly. Every action creates a reaction. Up is up, down is down. The circle of life keeps the world in perfect balance. Even time is linear.”

Holding up the crumble
d note, she informed me that it was Wonderland—a much smaller, more secretive place. “The physical laws there used to be orderly, like Earth. But then as the world changed, so did the logic. It’s a very illogical place, and our laws became unconventional. Up may be up, but only for a little bit. Down can seem endless. People live and die, but don’t always stay dead. And time… well, there will come a time when a second will carry on for infinity. It is my greatest hope that I will be in Wonderland to witness the stopping of time.”

“
What’s with the hole in the Earth’s ground?” I asked.

“
A rabbit hole. Think of it as a vortex,” she said, and scraped the burnt particulars off the side of the hole.

S
he wiggled Wonderland through the hole. It got stuck partway through. “Earth’s gravity sucks up Wonderland. They are like sister-realms. Thus, creatures from either side can go back and forth.”

“
You honestly believe this?” I asked.

“
Why is it that when I willingly give you answers, you insist that I’m making them up?” she said, and tossed the papers into the air.
Earth
shriveled up like it was still on fire whereas
Wonderland
floated in the air like a hot air balloon. Standing up, I poked it with my finger. It popped. Pieces rained down on me like confetti. When they touched the floor, they disappeared.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Magic,” she stated and waved her hand over her face. Her perfect, porcelain face changed so that she looked like the waitress at Little Italy. She waved her hand over her face again and she once again looked like her usual self.

My mouth hung open. “Impossible.”

“I told you the essence, the magic, of Wonderland is sticky. And it would behoove you to remember that nothing is impossible in Wonderland.” She walked over to the small window and rested her elbows on the ruined dresser. “You believe in the possibility of aliens, yet the theory of different realms is too farfetched to consider? For being someone who claims to be a genius, you are quite simple minded.”

Try this for being simple minded, I thought.
“Did Hearts have anything to do with my Uncle Edward’s death?”

“
Did your dear old daddy tell you that?”

“
It’s a suspicion,” I said. “I understand that my dad and Hearts don’t play nice together. Your aunts and the queen are BFF’s. If I can believe you, then he and this M.H. character used to be friends. I just don’t know where you stand.”

“
I didn’t hear a question there.”

“
I didn’t ask one,” I said, approaching her with unwilling feet but with a willing heart. I knew she was trouble. I shouldn’t get involved, but tell that to my heart. It raced faster than it ever had during a baseball game. I swear my ribs would crack from the break-dance my heart was doing. Why was it that this girl twisted my logic? She distracted me, making a mess of my thoughts. What had she done to me? “Take me to Wonderland.”

“
Not even if you beg me,” she said, impudently. “Besides, you can barely manage yourself when you have a taste of my candy. How would you survive a visit to a place that has no logic?”

“
I’m not getting down on my knees to beg,” I said.

S
he turned around and rested her arms on the dresser. Without any makeup to hide behind, there was no denying her fierceness. Residing within the blue gems of her eyes, there was a sense of craftiness and brilliance that couldn’t be measured.

“
Would you rather date me or a mannequin?”

My mind went blank.
We were back to the dating question? My mouth opened but nothing came out. I rubbed my eyes, hoping to buy time for my brain to start working again. She had bitten the bottom of her lip. I settled on a headshake since I couldn’t convince my voice box to work.

She
grinned. I wished that I had a directory of what each one of her smiles meant.

“
I’m not saying I’d say yes if you asked me out. I’m merely curious to what you’d say.”

“
You wouldn’t say yes?”

“You’re quite full of yourself, aren’t you?” she said, teasingly. “And
no, I don’t know what I would say.”

“
What if I did?”

“
Ryley, you are quite a horrific date-asker-outer.” She pushed off the dresser and walked past me. She picked up Mr. Ruth and kissed the top of his head. I swear I could feel the faint pressure of her lips on my cheek when she kissed her bunny. When she pulled the rabbit away from her lips, it felt like she was pulling gum off my cheek. “Magic is very sticky.”

I rubbed my jaw. The moment my fingertips touched my skin, the sticky sensation of a would-be kiss was gone.

She
handed Mr. Ruth to me. “Keep him safe.”

I don’t know if she was telling t
he rabbit to keep me safe or vice versa, but it didn’t matter. I’d take that rabbit everywhere because it was what she wanted.

I was done for.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
F
OUR

(
Ryley: Present Time)

A gang of misfits—
Irwin, Mick and Dax—were waiting by the school’s front doors when I arrived. They were my friends, and I couldn’t ask for better ones. Still, I didn’t exactly love the expressions they had. They were up to something—something fishy. Speaking of pesky things, Chez was perched on the trash can beside the school. A swoon of girls petted him. I could hear his purring. I had half-a-mind to back-hand the little devil. His yellow eyes turned golden as he watched me.

“
You’re on my radar too, cat,” I said, under my breath.

Chez
eyeballed Mr. Ruth who had hitched a ride in my jeans pocket. If cat’s lips could curl, his did.

“We were just reminiscing about the good-old-days,” Dax said when I reached them. “Actually, I was and have been epically disappointed with our final year at Rockingham. See, I have had a lot more time now that you are distracted by Alice Mae. Mick is busy chasing off all the freshmen girls—” 

“
A-and I’ve b-been busy s-s-s-studying for my SATs,” Irwin interrupted and pushed up the glasses that were sliding down his nose.

“
Remember when the class above us got that hundred pound pig and a few chickens through Blanche’s window last homecoming? Why hadn’t we planned something out there? It’s our senior year and it’s already halfway through the first semester. We have to do something,” Dax said, like it was our God-given right to terrorize the school.

“So Irwin had this ingenious idea to follow the animalistic trait and use critters again,” Mick said. “So we were thinking that we’d go down in school history if we got a boatload of frogs and let them loose in the school.”

“
Going down in the record books for being suspended because I unleashed frogs in the school isn’t something I want to be remembered for,” I said.

“
Then we won’t tell a soul that we were the ones behind it,” Mick said. “Think of it as thankless pranking. Besides, we have the perfect plan! Mr. Wang’s chemistry room window is on the first floor. Irwin will simply leave it open one night and—”

“And the school will know that it was a senior who did the prank. It was the very same strategy the previous class did,” I pointed out. But, it was an excellent idea, leaving the window opened to break into the school. Most people wanted to get out of the building as fast as humanly possible. A category I usually fell into, but there was something intriguing about the idea. I put it in my mental file of good ideas.

“
T-then what’s-s your-r p-plan?” Irwin said, looking over his shoulder like we were conducting a secret covert operation. “You ow-we me, for c-checking out that c-c-candy. I
have
to do s-something s-s-scandalous at least once in my l-life.”

“
Do it during the day,” I said, and then told them my idea involving the frog unleashing extravaganza. “We won’t use Mr. Wang’s window to get them in, but he’ll be a benefactor. He won’t have to purchase frogs for the big dissection project at the end of the year.”

“
The women folk are gathering,” Mick said, nodding to a group of girls that were petting Chez. “We’ll talk later.”

The cat walked
up next to Becky, rubbing up against her legs. Courtney had arrived. She was talking fervently and using her hands.

Courtney handed Becky a piece of paper. My blood pressure shot up. I hoped it wasn
’t more documentation about some family member I didn’t know existed. Courtney pointed to the school door and shook her head. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that she didn’t want to be anywhere near me—even walking into the school was too much. She waited, armed with a bunch of girls, while Becky walked away from the group and approached us. Chez wasn’t far behind.

“So Alice Mae has you carrying around her stuffed animals?”
Becky said, glancing at Mr. Ruth who was still in my jeans pocket. “Can someone say
whipped?”

“What do you want Becky?” I asked.

“Nothing much. What are you boys up to?” she asked.

“
Nothing,” Irwin said, quickly—too quickly.

Becky picked up on the not-so-subtle response as well. Her eyebrow raised
, but she said nothing. Instead, she showed me a paper.

“
Can you give these questions to Alice Mae? She needs to fill them out and give it back to
me
. Courtney would rather not have anything to do with your new squeeze, but doesn’t want that dumb, blonde girlfriend of yours to ruin her GPA in lit class,” Becky said.

“
Tell her yourself,” Dax said and pointed to the girl in question. “She’s right there.”

Alice Mae
unwrapped her scarf and shooed the cat off the school property. “Scat, Chez! I thought we’d been over this. You are
not
to spy on me at school!”

The cat meowed.

“
I don’t care if you are bored!” Alice Mae yelled, whipping her scarf at the critter.

Chez
hissed.

“
Well, tell Hearts my plan is still in place and working better than expected. She doesn’t need you to check up on me,” Alice Mae said and tied her scarf back around her neck. “Find someone else to pester.”

“
Your girlfriend will do anything for attention,” Becky said.

The bell rang.
We walked into the school, but as soon as enough students filled the halls, Becky stepped in front of me. She shoved Courtney’s questionnaire into my hands. At the top was an envelope addressed to me. I expected a note. Instead, there was a picture of Alice Mae climbing out of the police station’s window.

“
Lookie what I saw when I was on my way to visit my uncle,” Becky said. “Tell that little tramp that I have copies, and if she wants to keep her academic life squeaky clean, a.k.a. not being expelled, then she better make nice.”

I asked,
“Make nice, how?”

“
Option one: Dump you.”

“
Why would you care if I date Alice Mae?”

“
I don’t, but Courtney does, and she’s my best friend,” Becky said.

“Last time I checked, she and John Luke were
lockin’ lips.”

“
Just because she’s dating the football captain doesn’t mean she wants you to be happy,” Becky said. “Option two: Tell me why you and your mom skip town so much, and we’ll both back off.”

“
Again, why do you care so much?”

“
Because you messed with my friend, so it’s my duty as BFF to get justice for her, one way or another,” Becky said. “The latest theory is that Lauren had a sex change. She’s actually your dad.”

“
If you start a rumor about my mom, you will pay.”

“
I’m shaking,” Becky mocked and pointed to the incriminating picture. “She will pay.”

As soon as Becky left, I shot a text to Alice Mae.
Meet me in the janitor closet before lit.

Alice Mae:
I’ll be late for class.

Me:
You’ll be expelled if you don’t.