Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams Page A

patted its head. It pressed its head against her hand. Simple as that. They were pals.
    â€œWhere’s out?” Ingrid said.
    The dog ran in a little circle, stopped by the nearest tree, and lifted his leg.
    â€œYou’re a big help,” Ingrid said.
    She backtracked to the Y intersection, took the left fork this time, the dog trotting along beside her. The left fork led down a long hill and then came to a three-way split, one path going left, one right, one straight ahead. Where was the rock? The previous left fork must have been a mistake. If so, shouldn’tshe take the right-hand path now, as a correction? Ingrid took the right-hand path, the logical choice, the choice Sherlock Holmes would have made. She tried to think of any similar situations Holmes had been in and remembered none.
    The right-hand path went up a rise, got narrow and almost disappeared, then came out at an opening in the woods. Ingrid found herself on the top of a hill. Down below flowed the river, silvery black. The river? Didn’t that mean she’d gone in the exact wrong direction? The river was on the other side of the woods from her house, miles and miles away, so far she’d never even considered walking to it. And the falls: She could hear them, not too distant, making a sound like people going shhhh. That would mean…yes: Topping a hill on the opposite bank stood Prescott Hall, the old mansion that housed the Prescott Players, all its tall leaded windows dark. Curiouser and curiouser. Prescott Hall was nowhere near 99 Maple Lane. Griddie, deep down the rabbit hole.
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    The sky wasn’t quite so nightlike by the time Ingrid finally found the big rock. She was so cold, so tired by then that she hadn’t noticed the coming of day,and was even slow to recognize the significance of the fact that she could read RED RAIDERS RULE without a flashlight, the only way she could read it now in any case, the battery having gone dead.
    â€œGood boy,” she said, although the dog had done nothing to help, leading her down false trails every time she’d decided to trust his animal instincts. Ingrid took the right-hand path by the rock, this right-hand path the correct one for sure, and headed for home.
    Day was breaking beyond any doubt when Ingrid stepped out of the woods and into her own backyard, a gray dawn with thick clouds covering the whole sky. Ninety-nine Maple Lane was quiet. Ingrid crossed the yard, slid open the door to the basement.
    â€œGo home, boy,” she said, very quietly.
    The dog wagged his tail but didn’t go anywhere.
    â€œGo.”
    Ingrid went inside, closed the door. She hurried into the basement bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror.
    Oh my God. Filthy, scratched, blue lipped; and what was that in her hair? A clump of rice in congealed plum sauce? How had that happened?
    Ingrid cleaned herself up, not well but quickly,and went into the laundry room. Her yellow pajamas with the red strawberries were folded on the drier. She threw all her clothes into the washer, except for the shoes she’d been wearing and the red Pumas, which she left on the floor, and put on the pajamas. As for the red Pumas—she didn’t love them anymore.
    Now to get upstairs and into bed. Ingrid went up, into the mudroom, almost there. Then she heard someone coming down the hall from the master bedroom. Could she reach the stairs to the second floor? Not in time.
    Ingrid slipped into the kitchen instead, sat at the table in the breakfast nook, took a banana from the fruit bowl. Mom came in, wearing her quilted blue housecoat, eyes puffy, hair all over the place. One small part of Ingrid, maybe getting smaller, was telling her to fly across the kitchen, fling her arms around her mother and say, “Oh, Mom.”
    â€œIngrid!” Nothing in Mom’s tone was saying “hug me.” “You’re up early.”
    â€œUh-huh,” said Ingrid noncommittally, peeling the banana. And