Alice in Wonderland High (3 page)

The other students laughed while Di tapped her pen against her notebook and Dru perfected her scowl. Whitney studied her pocket watch, as enraptured with it as I was with her chutzpah.

“Hang on.” Mr. Hargreaves held up a palm to Whitney when she took a step toward her desk. “You'll get mud on—”

“You won't find any mud out there.” Whitney dropped into the only open seat left. Directly behind me.

I glanced out the window at the faded, brown grass and barren dirt trench from the dried-up creek outlining it. Not exactly picturesque. I imagined the jerky motion of a time lapse–photography sequence capturing rosebuds popping out of the earth, like zombies breaking free of their graves.

“That may be true,” Mr. Hargreaves said. “But next time I'm going to lock the windows.”

I spun in my seat, wincing at my creaky chair. I'd been used to rebelling in silence. “I have a crowbar I can lend you,” I whispered so only Whitney could hear.

She hesitated a moment, studying me. The corners of her lips turned up in an almost-smile. “Don't worry, time is the easiest thing to steal.”

What the hell?
When I turned back around, Di was staring at me with squinty eyes. Add superhearing to her list of talents that were a total waste for saving Planet Earth but excellent for spreading gossip. At least Dru seemed preoccupied with a note she was writing.

“What was that?” Di asked, eyes darting between my desk and Whitney's.

“Is something wrong, Dinah?” our teacher asked. Dru's head snapped up. Some people had selective hearing for their own name, but it seemed Di and Dru had radar set up for the other's name as well.

“Yeah, uh . . . ” Di's face turned a shade closer to the white scarves every other girl seemed to don lately. “I don't understand why it's okay for her to climb through windows.”

“That's not fair to the rest of us who actually come in on time,” Dru finished. “No how.” She twirled in her seat to meet Quinn's eyes.

Di, however, stared at me, probably waiting for my support. I sank lower in my seat and activated my invisibility shield, hoping Whitney wouldn't remember I used to be a tattletale like my friends.

“I have to agree with Whitney on this one,” Mr. Hargreaves said. “She found a creative solution to her predicament.”

Creative solution
. My idea for recycling was predictable and therefore forgettable. No one could ignore what Whitney had done.

She shot Di a triumphant smile, and I felt caught in an imaginary game of tug-o-war: Di and Dru each clutching one of my hands while Whitney yanked on my feet. Through the rest of class, Di and Dru took notes, becoming student robots instead of the kind of student Mr. Hargreaves wanted. I defied expectations by plotting something more important than how to get an A on next week's test. When the bell rang, instead of waiting for my friends like normal, I headed Whitney off at the door.

That thing holding me upright was my spine.

“What?” She tried to move around me.

“I was wondering—” I stopped talking when she lifted her watch to her face. Only soon as I did, she spun on her heels. “Wait! Did you—”

“I'm late.” She pushed past me and out the door before I could say another word.

Di and Dru swooped in on me. “What happened in there?” Di asked.

“Why were you talking to
her
?” Dru added. We weaved through the crowded hallway, grunting in annoyance at the slow walkers rubbernecking at the white-covered lockers. How had Whitney managed to accomplish this overnight by herself?

“No reason.” I shrugged it off as if it meant nothing instead of everything.

After dinner, I headed to the Garden Center, a place I'd avoided since my parents died. It always reminded me too much of them, but today after the decoupaged environmental message, that was what I wanted. I hoped it might strengthen my resolve.

I marched up and down the aisles as conflicting scents of roses and pine warred in my nostrils. I sniffed a couple of flowers in a desperate attempt to forget the B.O. of the kid who'd sat next to me last period.

“You have to be kidding me,” a girl's voice yelled.

I spun around, thinking someone from school had seen me here. Only the dateless hung out with plants instead of friends. Whitney Lapin stood at the end of the aisle, huddled with a boy, his back to me. The green strings tied around his waist and looped around his neck resembled those of the aprons the Garden Center employees wore.

I jerked in surprise, knocking a bag of seeds off the shelf with my elbow. It tumbled to the floor with a loud
plop
, and Whitney and Garden Center Boy turned in my direction. Whitney's icy-blue eyes pierced mine. She pushed the boy backward until the shadow of a column hid them both.

I heaved the seed bag off the floor and placed it on the shelf, pretending to be a good little shopper rather than Whitney's super-nosy classmate and inventor of the stalkerLite brand of loser. Once I was sure they'd forgotten about me, I inched down the aisle to where they were hidden. Their movements projected jittery shadow puppets on the wall that grew larger and larger, signaling their approach. I ducked behind a large potted plant until fern fronds camouflaged me. There were some advantages to your body's being candy-sized.

“Whitney, come on. I don't feel right about this,” the boy said.

“Oh, but you're fine and dandy with the”—she lowered her voice to subliminal-message volume, and I had to hold my breath to make out the word—“ecotage?”

Ecotage?
My parents had often used that word. Sabotage as a means to save the environment.

Bingo. My lips curled into a smile. All along I'd been trying to get my friends to help when I should have been searching for other environ
mental
ists like me out there.

The boy shoved his fingers into his pockets. His dark hair flopped into his eyes, a few tufts curling behind his ears as if he hadn't bothered to get a haircut in a while. “I've already given you—”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Okay then.” She put her hands on her hips and waited.

He stepped forward, glancing around the store, his brow sweaty. I recognized him, but mostly because the gossip swirling at the beginning of the school year had kept the students buzzing for weeks. Chester Katz. He used to go to district schools but had spent the last three years at a posh boarding school somewhere in the northeast. Rumors about why he got kicked out stretched from the obvious—cheating—to the extravagant: student-teacher affair, drugs, hazing gone wrong, bomb threats. It didn't matter which one was true because they all said the same thing: he was not the kind of guy you'd parade in front of your mother. Or sister/guardian, in my case.

He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into Whitney's open palm. A flash of gold glinted in the light. A key.

She closed her fingers around it. “Thanks. But really you should be saying that to me.” Her heels clicked as she sashayed toward the back of the store, the hood of her sweatshirt bouncing.

Chester raked his hands through his hair, then disappeared into the opposite room. I had a choice: follow one of them. My feet and brain were in sync as they carried me in Whitney's direction. I had to talk to her about what had happened yesterday, and from her quick escape after class I figured it was the kind of conversation that needed to take place away from the peerparazzi at school. When I reached the next room, I squashed myself into the shadow of a tree as she approached a staff door. She looked both ways again before inserting the key and slipping inside. A few moments later, she came back out, zipping her backpack.

What did she take?

And how could I get in on it?

I expected Whitney to head my way and give Chester back his key, but instead she exited through a back door into the night air. I hurried after her in time to see her ducking through a small hole in the forest surrounding the Garden Center.

Curiouser and curiouser. Without another thought, I charged for the same opening between the trees.

Branches scraped against my shoulders. I battled against them, freeing first one arm, then the other. I shimmied through until my butt cleared the hole. Brushing my hands to remove dirt, I bent under the next branch. A few steps later, my toe snagged on something that sent me stumbling. I glanced back to see a hardcover book propped open on the ground, with a cup and saucer lying next to it. Okay, that was weird. Either someone was really embarrassed about his reading habits or I had to add “litter problem” to Wonderland's growing list of environmental violations.

When I pushed through the next set of maple trees, I paused in a small clearing, surrounded by large oak trees draped with Spanish moss. I tried to stop panting so I could hear Whitney's footsteps. Silence. I sagged, staring down at the scratches along my arms.

A branch snapped and I whipped my head to the left. The footsteps started up again. “Wait!” I yelled, abandoning stealth. A cool breeze blew my hair all over my face as I rushed in the direction of the sound.

I burst through a set of trees and emerged onto a deserted street. A dilapidated building took shape on the opposite side of the road, so old it probably didn't even remember its better days. Whitney crossed the yellow line to walk in front of it. I shivered, realizing we were in the part of town girls like me usually detoured around.

Usually.

A spark of color came into view, standing out among the dreary blackness of night. Exotic flowers spilled over the exterior of an abandoned warehouse. Tiger lilies poked out of the broken windows. A cluster of impatiens covered a backdrop of graffiti. Leafy potted plants guarded the broken doorway, as if a garden had sprung up in the middle of the projects to bring them back to life. Growing in a place where everything else died.

I hung back, my mouth parted in awe. Ecotage?

“Hey, K!” Whitney said, pausing in front of a beat-up truck and knocking on its window. She glanced back in my direction, squinting into the distance. The trees swayed in the background like her backup dancers. A figure covered in mud emerged from the jungle of flowers closer to the warehouse. The person shifted an empty pot from arm to arm.

“Did you get it?” he yelled. He was dressed in head-to-toe black. Naturally. Though unnaturally, he wore a black beanie secured over his raised hoodie. I guess this guy was taking the extra effort to make sure hats—or head coverings in general—came back in style. The shadows concealed his face so I couldn't identify him.

“Change of plans.” Whitney threw her backpack at him. “I'm. Late.” She enunciated each word. Like it was a secret code.

The guy glanced around. “Anything I need to take care of?” He cracked his knuckles on his free hand. I didn't move a muscle.

“Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.”

I swallowed hard. She wanted this mysterious guy to take care of . . .
me?
Great. Somehow I'd evolved from pathetic to psychotic stalker in a single day. Even Rome couldn't beat that. I shifted into the shadows, preparing to run at the slightest hint this guy had the mind to go from ecotaging a rundown building to sabotaging something crucial. Like my ability to breathe.

Whitney spun on her heels and pushed through a set of willow trees, disappearing around the back of the building. The guy dropped the potted plant and strode in my direction, eyes searching along the perimeter. If I ran now, no doubt he'd see me and catch me before I could make it ten feet. I crouched low to the ground and backed up at a tortoise pace that would earn me a victory against a hare. An empty jar of orange marmalade rested at my feet, so I gripped it in my shaking hands, brandishing it like a weapon. Too bad people never discarded working stun guns.

He stepped closer, only a few feet away now. His eyes roamed to the spot right above where I crouched. My beating heart—usually such a good idea when its only purpose was to keep me alive—now seemed like a hazard, as though it had switched allegiances, making every effort to get me caught as it thundered in my chest.

I braced myself, deciding the best I could do was aim for his sacred boy parts with my new weapon. Hopefully my track record of throwing like a girl ended today.

Before his eyes dropped to my position, a low, humming vibration startled us both. The guy lifted a cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Crap,” he muttered as he pressed it to his ear. “What? I don't have time for . . . ” He listened for a moment. “Hold on, you're cutting out.” He turned his back to me and headed toward the warehouse at a fast clip. Breath seeped from my mouth. I set the marmalade jar back on the ground.

The guy stood on the front steps of the warehouse, one finger jammed into his open ear. I didn't know how long his conversation would last before he returned. I knew the smart thing to do: go back in the direction I'd come from and return my death wish to the genie. I generally gave myself good advice—though I rarely followed it. Now I felt stupid. Whitney was scared of me—
me!
—and I didn't want her to think I was a threat. I had to put a stop to that nonsense and explain. Before the guy could finish his phone call, I darted across the road toward the tree line. The trees rattled when I brushed past them.

“Who's there?” the guy called behind me.

I kept going, wiping the sweat from my face. I steadied my sprint, following a trail of footsteps through another dense copse of trees. The woods spilled out onto a chipper street with perky houses lining the road. I paused, my heart still raving to its own techno beat. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Whitney sauntering up a driveway into the only house that broke from the cookie-cutter model, to put it mildly. Her house was decorated in swirls of tie-dyed paint, as if someone had turned the exterior into a canvas because he ran out of easels. Ceramic bunnies lined the lawn in descending-size order.