Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams Page B

anyway, wasn’t it all over now?
    Mom gave her a long, suspicious look.
    â€œDid you wear the appliance?” she said.

nine
    T WENTY MINUTES LATER , Mom had gone out for Sunday bagels and lox and Ingrid was in her own blessed bed, Mister Happy tucked in beside her. Seconds after that she was asleep. Stormy seas rose all around her, but she was snug in her sturdy boat—dry, warm, safe.
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    â€œHey.”
    Ingrid opened her eyes, the lids almost glued together with eye crust. Ty was at her door.
    â€œPhone,” he said, and tossed it to her.
    She missed. The phone bounced on the bed, hit the wall. She grabbed it.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œIngrid? Jill Monteiro.” Ingrid sat up; Jill Monteiro was director of the Prescott Players. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
    â€œOh, no,” said Ingrid. “Not me.”
    â€œWe’ll be auditioning for Alice in Wonderland Tuesday at five,” Jill said. “Hope you can make it. There’re all kinds of good parts.”
    â€œLike Alice?” Ingrid said, unable to stop herself.
    Jill laughed. She had a great laugh, surprisingly deep and wicked; she’d used it once in a real Hollywood movie called Tongue and Groove , all about home-renovating hijinks with Will Smith and Eugene Levy. Straight to video, but JILL MONTEIRO was on the box, tiny but there.
    Alice: a plum role. Ingrid had a copy of the book on her shelf. She took it into the bathroom, poured a huge hot bubble bath, got in, and started leafing through the pages. The trick was going to be keeping Alice from sounding like a geek. Ingrid practiced saying “he’s perfectly idiotic,” “the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life,” “mustard isn’t a bird,” and “you’re nothing but a pack of cards,” trying to inject at least a bit of cool. Acting was all about cool; she’d learned that at the movies.
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    When Ingrid went downstairs, she found everyone in the TV room, Dad and Ty watching football, Mom going through some listing sheets.
    â€œI found your cleats,” Mom said.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œDon’t you want to know where?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œIn the laundry room.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œTry to keep track of your things, Ingrid. I put the cleats over there by the—” Mom paused, looked out the slider. “There’s a strange dog in the yard,” she said.
    They all looked. A strange dog—with floppy ears and droopy eyes, coat a kind of tweedy brown—but not strange to Ingrid. He stood right outside the slider, peering in, tail wagging as if he’d spotted someone, although the only thing in his line of sight was the StairMaster.
    Dad and Ty turned back to the TV.
    â€œDid you see that hit?” Dad said.
    Mom got up, went to the slider.
    â€œGo on, go home,” Mom said. The dog wagged his tail, still looking off in the wrong direction.“He’s not wearing a collar. Anyone seen this dog before?”
    No one answered, Dad and Ty probably too into the game to have even heard, Ingrid because, well, because where would she start?
    Mom took her cell phone out of her pocket, called the shelter, described the dog. That was Mom, organized, quick, on task. No such dogs reported missing in Echo Falls, and the shelter didn’t do pickups on weekends.
    â€œHe’s kind of cute,” Mom said. Ingrid saw where this might be going, tried to head it off.
    â€œHe’s the dumbest dog on the planet,” she said.
    Mom looked surprised. “What makes you say that?”
    Uh-oh. Those feelers of Mom’s: almost impossible to outthink them. “Just look at him,” she said. It was true. He was the kind of dog that in a cartoon would harrumph a lot and play second fiddle.
    â€œI think he’s cute,” Mom said. She opened the slider.
    The dog came right in as if totally familiar with the place, trotted past Mom, and stood in front of