Death of the Mad Hatter (9 page)

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

(
Ryley: Present Time)

In literature class, I was behaving, sitting
at my desk, hands clasped on top, and staring at the chalk under the dry erase board. My eyes were glossed over, but at least I was looking forward, which was better than some of my classmates who were half falling asleep. Alice Mae was shuffling a deck of cards absent-mindedly. Every so often, the corner of a card would spark, but it was probably just the light catching it. It couldn’t have actually been a flame. Every time I got the inkling to ask her why she was carrying a deck of playing cards around, I clenched my hands. I didn’t care what that girl did… Ten minutes into class, my hands were white knuckled.

“
—Ryley?” Mr. Blanch asked.

I blinked back up at the board. There was a long list of names of infamous American authors.

“
Don’t you think that would be a grand idea?” he asked.

There was a fifty/fifty chance of answering correctly.
“Sure.”

A unanimous groan echoed throughout the classroom. Alice Mae
’s cards scattered around her desk. She picked them up as fast as possible, like it would be less of a distraction. Mr. Blanch grinned and snatched my cap off of my head.

“
Hey!” I said, reaching for it.

“
Just because you won state last year doesn’t mean you get a free pass to wear hats, Ryley. You know the school’s policy: no headwear on school premise.”

Mr. Blanch instructed all of us to write our names on a piece of paper. Since I still didn
’t know what I’d gotten us into, I didn’t understand why I was writing my name, but I followed the instructions anyway. He asked us to pass the pieces of paper to the front where he collected them there and tossed them into my cap. He walked around the room, letting each student drawn a name.

One by one, names were drawn. I held my breath when Courtney reached into my cap. When
she pulled out a piece of paper, it
had
to have been mine.

“
Alice Mae,” Courtney groaned.

The girl in question looked up, acknowledged that Courtney had spoken her name
, and looked back down at her notebook. I drew Irwin’s name.

“
Ryley Edgar.” Alice Mae read from the paper she drew.

“
Now that everyone knows who they have to interview, you can choose any one of these authors. Read any one of their novels. You can check them out from the library if you don’t have access to a book otherwise,” Mr. Blanch said and tossed me my hat. “You’ll interview your classmate and write a research paper on the author they chose as well as their perspective of the story chosen. You have until the semester break to do the interview and write the essay.”

When the bell rang, a crumbled paper smacked me on the back of my head. I picked it up. Written on the college rule paper
with pink pen was a list of ten generic questions about literature and instructions to return it to Alice Mae Liddell as soon as humanly possible.

“
Don’t you want to know what book I’m going to read before giving me interview questions?” I asked, facing her.

“Does it look like I care?”

She actually looked insulted. “I thought so. The school counselor and a social worker came to my house, asking questions pertaining to these outlandish bruises you said I had.” She pulled up her sleeves, revealing much smaller black and blue marks than she had before. Surely, they couldn’t have healed so quickly. “I didn’t figure you to exaggerate, but it was nice to know that you cared.”

“I would have
done the same for my archenemies, so don’t make it a big deal.”

Crumpling her questionnaire and shoving it into my backpack, I made a solemn vow that it would be there until the end of the semester so that she’d only have a week at most to finish her essay.

She glanced at the name I drew. “Irwin. Isn’t he that physics guru friend of yours?”

“
Why do
you
care?”

“
Don’t mistake my curiosity for caring, Ryley.” She dug out a tube of blue lipstick and then applied it. She smacked her lips together. “If you must know, he’s in my chemistry class.”

“
What’s your point?”

“
Well, he’s been preoccupied lately. Examining what looks like a Tootsie Roll wrapper,” she said. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

She knew. I could tell that she knew
, without a shred of doubt, that it was her candy wrapper that he was examining. I didn’t bother denying it. I was a pretty good liar, but I figured Alice Mae would see right through it.

“
I didn’t think you were smart enough to be in advanced chem.”

“
Do you want to know what happened to the last person who implied that I was stupid?” She looked about as nice as a dog with rabies. “He ended up all alone in a psych ward.”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

(
Ryley: Present Time)

I hated
Alice Mae’s grandma shoes. What was she thinking anyway? Wearing those clunkers was committing fashion suicide—even I knew that, and I wore stained t-shirts. During lit class, she used her lime colored pencil to count invisible insects in the air. I swear she was doing it to antagonize me, like everything else she did. At lunch, she sat alone. Most of the loners chose the far corners of the cafeteria, but not Alice Mae. Nope, she sat smack dab in the center of the football players’ table.

Mick didn
’t look particularly disappointed that she’d joined their table. Though, whatever moves he was busting out, Alice Mae wasn’t going for it. Even John Luke, the guy that had girls in the tri-state area drawing hearts around his name, couldn’t get much of a rise out of her. With a semi-bored expression, she picked off everything except for the pepperonis on her supreme pizza. The girl ate enough candy to sustain an army, but she chowed down on her mutilated slice like she hadn’t eaten in days.

“
Snap out of it, Ryley!” Dax said. He sat across the table from me and had eaten all of his pizza. “It’s not like Alice Mae enrolled in Rockingham High simply to annoy you.”

I
doubted that. “I can’t ever get a straight answer out of her. She’s particularly unfocused when it comes to how
she knows about my old man.”

I needed an excuse to talk to her, no matter how pitiful.
I dug out the crumpled paper with the list of questions for English class on it out from under my books. After smoothing it out, I wrote answers to each one of her questions with short, clipped phrases.

“
You two should hook up already. It’s getting old listening to Mick go on and on about how hot she is,” Dax said.

“
I don’t like
her
.”

“
You don’t like who?”  It was Courtney. She walked up behind me, tray in hand.

“
You,” I teased. “Are we still on for Saturday?”

“
I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “Listen, I know you and Becky don’t get along, but she’s just worried about me. My breakup with John Luke was not good for my mental psyche.”

“
Your relationship with John Luke wasn’t good for my mental psyche either,” I said, and then caught sight of Alice Mae’s notorious blue and orange overcoat. She dumped the pizzeria entrails into the trash and walked toward the exit. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to talk to Alice Mae about something. It’s kind of important and a bit ludicrous.”

W
hen I stood up to follow Alice Mae out of the cafeteria, John Luke made his way over to where Courtney was sitting. Super. Still, it wasn’t like I was going to go up against John Luke. I’d just watched him pummel a receiver during the last football game.

I
slipped on my red Raven baseball cap when I walked outside to the football bleachers. There were only a few people hanging around, but since it was an overcast day, most people opted to eat inside. After sitting on the metal seat, Alice Mae patted her lap like one would for a dog or cat. She then began petting the air.

When it was clear she wasn
’t going to ask why I followed her, I told her that I had finished her list of book questions. She reached for the paper, but I jerked it away, just out of reach

“
What you know about my dad,” I said.

“
Are you really going to detain your lit answers until I tell you what you want to know about your father?”

“
Yes.”

She g
lanced at the paper. “Don’t you think I could make up a few silly responses for a research paper? Obviously you didn’t try very hard. I am pretty sure you wrote less than ten words total. I can make something up. I’m pretty skilled at that.”

“So put ‘skillful liar’ on your resume.”

“You’re not very funny.”

Okay, this paper wasn
’t going to get me anywhere with her. “I’d rather not have the entire school knowing about my dad’s condition.”

“
I’ll keep your secret so it doesn’t ruin your reputation—I suppose that is why they call them dirty little secrets. Rest assured, no one will know,” she said, and then zipped her mouth shut with her fingers.

“
Off with his head!”

It wasn
’t Alice Mae; whoever said that I should be beheaded wasn’t a girl...unless she was also a ventriloquist.

“
Hush, Chez.” Alice Mae brushed her legs, like she was pushing something off her lap.

“
You’re certifiable!” I said.

“
And you are finally beginning to make sense,” she said, leaning forward. She propped her elbows on her knees, which made her look younger than she actually was. Black and white pin-striped gloves covered her hands. The fabric that would have covered her finger had been snipped off. She tapped her chin like she was pondering a deep thought. “No wonder you can’t be my friend. You’re apparently allergic to people you deem deranged!”

“
I thought you were going to leave my dad out of this!”

She leaned back on the bleachers. Her arms spread out like she was trying to tell me she had nothing to hide by using her body language.
“I only brought up insanity in general. You are the one who assumed that I was referring to your dear old daddy. By the way, when was the last time you visited your father?”

“
You’re impossible!”

“
And you’re insufferable,” she said, closing her eyes. “Please leave so I can soak up some sun in peace.”

“
Rain clouds are rolling in, you nut-case!”

She opened one eye and smirked.
“Are you telling me that the sun’s rays aren’t strong enough to wiggle through a cloud?”

“
You’re wearing long sleeves.”

“
And, your zipper is down.”

I
checked. She wasn’t lying.

“
Shall we continue this discussion, Ryley, or have you had enough embarrassment for today?”

A loud
bang stole our attention. We both turned our heads in the direction of the sound. A stray, orange cat had climbed out of the dumpster, causing a ruckus. Its head was stuck in a soup can.

“
For heaven’s sake, Chez!” she said, agitated.

When
I turned back to Alice Mae, she had disappeared. I hadn’t even heard her leave. The only evidence that she’d been on the bleachers was that Mr. Ruth had fallen between the bench seats. I picked up her beloved stuffed bunny. Her vanilla scent lingered in the fabric. I inspected it. One eye missing and the other was loose. The stitching was coming apart at the feet. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that Alice Mae spent little time away from this animal. She loved it. I finally had some leverage.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

(
Ryley: Present Time)

Space time continuum.
Blonde hair. Pin-stripped gloves. Otherworlders? I rubbed my face. I couldn’t get the image of her putting her damn leg straight in the air out of my head. Even cherries no longer made me think about Courtney—the girl I had a date with later tonight.
So why couldn’t I get the ‘other girl’ out of my head
. I stared at Mr. Ruth. I’d stuffed him in the first baseball hat my dad had given me. Years of grit from the dugout had become one with faded blue fabric. The white embroidery appeared more cream than white.

“
When was the last time you visited your father?” I said, mimicking Alice Mae.

I hated
how that girl got under my skin, especially when she was right. My excuse for never visiting him, besides that he always told me never to come back, was that West Harbour Psychiatric Treatment Facility was three towns over, a two hour drive from Rockingham.

I
didn’t know how long I gawked at
her
stupid bunny before I just couldn’t stand the mere thought of Alice Mae. For lack of a better word, I was being a girl (forgive me), and a needy girl at that. I was practically waiting for her to call me and give me all the answers I needed willy-nilly. No, this was a game to Alice Mae, Who’s Who. And since she kept bringing up my dad, dodging every question I ever had about him, and nonchalantly questioning me about seeing him, I figured that she wanted me to go to him. He had to be a significant “Who” in this game.

I couldn
’t let Mom find out I wanted to see Dad because she’d make a big deal about it. That meant that I couldn’t take her car, leaving me with the old beater that had been collecting dust in the third stall of the garage.

I propped
up Mr. Ruth, who was still in my ball cap, and went to the garage. Inside was my pop’s ‘56 Corvette. A high pitch squeal screamed when the engine rolled over. I pulled the key back out and opened the hood. It wasn’t long before my hands were covered in grease. The engine was in serious need of a new belt and an oil change, along with a laundry list of other things. I kicked the tires for good measure when I noticed scratches by the right fender. It looked significantly like the crest Alice Mae had scratched into her toy racecar. It was a crest of a top hat with the initials, “M” and “H.”

After grabbing my mom’s credit card and commandeering her car, I headed off to the service station to order some new parts. The bell chimed when I entered the gas station. Two old ladies were bickering at the checkout lane.

“
Mikado
!
” A bald lady wearing a faded house coat slammed down a brown speckled banana and some change in front of a clerk. She carried the same orange cat who got its head stuck in the soup can like it was a football. The cat looked less than pleased, but hung there nonetheless.

“
That’s entirely too dark, Zola Maude.
Mustard
is a more
suitable color for a perfectly ripe banana,” the other lady said. Her shoes matched Alice Mae’s. I supposed that was the fashion statement of the early 1900’s.

“
What do you think, boy? What is the best color for eating a banana?” the bald one with the burn scars that scourged the top of her head asked. She grabbed my arm like lonely, old people sometimes do. Her eyes widened, which were magnified by the massive glasses she wore. Dropping the cat, she covered her mouth. “Edgar?”

“
Who are you?” I asked, glancing at the cat that slapped the old lady’s leg with his paw. Apparently it didn’t appreciate being dropped.

The other old lady, who smelled
suspiciously like Aqua Net, picked up the cat and held it like a football. “If he
were the original Edgar, then he finally figured out the time-warp continuum. Don’t you think Robby would be a little older? Certainly this is his son—the one Hearts is searching for, Zola Maude.”

“You’re Alice Mae’s aunts?” I asked.

“
And you’re that bratty son of the man who deformed me!” Zola Maude said, gathering up her fruit. She barged out of the shop.

“
Are you going to hold me responsible for something my dad once did, too?” I asked Vida Maude.

“
My gorgeous hair is still intact, isn’t it?”

“
There’s not a hair harmed on your head,” I said. “It’s much like your niece’s hair… speaking of which, Alice Mae is quite a peculiar girl. And, she seems to have quite an interest in my family.”

“
You are
interested
in why she has an
interest
in you?” Vida Maude asked. “That is
interesting
, young Mr. Edgar.”

“
Why all the interest?”

“
It’s been prophesied by the Jack that if the King loses his head then the Queen with a bleeding Heart would rule the Red Court until Time ceased to move forward,” Vida Maude whispered like she were reciting a script. “When a second carried on for infinity, every creature in Wonderland would tip their Hat to the misfit
girl with a Boy’s name (or was it a boy with a Girl’s name?) who’d end the Reign of Terror. However, it all hinged on the One-Eyed Hare being able to convince an uninspirable Heir that the impossible was indeed possible—like stopping time—and that Love was worth a Beheading.”

This whole damn family spoke in riddles.

“What are you talking about? And you didn’t answer my question, which must be a family attribute. Why is Alice Mae interested in me?”

“
This prophecy is every reason why she’s interested in you,” Vida Maude said. “But, I’m sure at least part of the
prophecy
is wrong. Insane Love isn’t worth a Beheading.”

At least we were on the same page about one thing—love wasn
’t worth dying for.

“
Listen lady, I don’t know what prophecy you are quoting, but what does it have to do with me?”

“
Perhaps everything, perhaps nothing,” she said. “Did your father not tell you a thing? You might as well be an authentic Otherworlder.”

She grabbed my arm to hold me still while she leaned in close enough to kiss me. Our noses practically touched. I
pushed away when she plucked out a strand of my hair from my head. She backed away and inspected my hair like it held the secrets of the universe.

“
I suppose your father had his reasons for not telling you,” she said, dropping my hair on the ground.

The cat jumped out of her arms and swatted
the strand as it fell to the floor. Using both his paws, he picked up my hair and sniffed it. I swear the cat actually smiled.

“
I always suspected that your father had snuck you back to your true birthplace, for the sole purpose that you wouldn’t be blindsided when the queen came looking for you. A shame. Games are more fun when everyone knows the stakes,” Vida Maude said. “A word of warning, sonny—don’t tell anyone else about us, not a word you hear. It’s up to the Queen to keep our secrets safe. Beheading is still practiced in our realm, if subject to the Wrongdoing Law.”

“
Your realm?”

The cat meowed. Vida Maude picked it up and scratched behind its ears. When it
began purring, Vida Maude talked to the cat in a baby voice, “Would you allow the boy to know, Chez?”

The cat stret
ched out in her arms. It yawned; our human conversation had completely bored it. Vida Maude’s eyes turned icy blue, just like Alice Mae’s did when she was going full blown irate.

“
We are from Wonderland, young Mr. Edgar,” she whispered pleasantly, but her smile turned to a sneer. Her white dentures transformed into points—surely a circus trick. Her brightly colored clothes transformed to dull colors. She chuckled in the way I imagined every comic book villain would. “We are from the wondrous world of wonders.”