Alice in Wonderland High Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    â€œWho’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.
    Weird. At least her house matched her personality.
    I crossed the street as Whitney swung open her front door, revealing another entryway and another door, this one painted yellow. She stepped inside and unearthed a second key from her bag. When she unlocked that one, she stepped into the next entryway and started opening a blue door. Maybe I’d ingested too many pesticide fumes at the Garden Center, because this couldn’t be normal. She certainly had a thing for grand entrances. She fiddled around for the next key and repeated the process through two more doors before finally entering her house. She didn’t bother to close any of them, which I took, rather liberally, as an invitation.
    I strolled to the front door and peered down the long tunnel of entrances. When I tried to step through the first, it slammed in my face. Even opportunity wouldn’t let me knock.
    Turning back around, my knee bumped into a small, three-legged table made of solid glass, stationed on her front porch. Raindrop remnants dotted its surface. A small, golden key, much like the one Chester had handed over in the Garden Center, rested on top of it. Smiling, I snatched it up and tried it in the first door. Locked.
    I jumped down a step at the sound of a car speeding along the street. Had the guy from the warehouse followed me here? I darted behind the largest rabbit