Ally's Mad Mystery

  Evie, Evil Queen’s daughter, hurried past Ally, mentioning something about putting the finishing touches on a new dress as she darted out of the banquet hall. Jane and Audrey set off for the carnival grounds to get ready for the banner-painting party scheduled for later that evening, which Audrey was in charge of. And Mal disappeared to the tourney field to finish prepping for the next day’s big concert. She had a secret: as a surprise for Ben, she had gotten his favorite band, Talking Dragons, to play the concert that happened at the end of Spirit Weekend. Mal hadn’t been able to stop talking to her friends about it since she’d booked the band. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when they take the stage,” Mal kept saying. “He’s going to totally flip out.”

  Ally had work to do, too. She had volunteered to cater the reception and there was still much to do to get ready. So she gobbled down a quick sandwich and started off for the tea shop.

  As she walked through Auradon Prep’s beautifully landscaped campus, Ally told herself not to be deterred by what had happened in Fairy Godmother’s office earlier. So she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. So what? It was a small setback. A minor stumbling block. She wasn’t giving up. She would find her mystery to solve, she was sure of it.

  But for some reason, she couldn’t shake what Fairy Godmother had said to her just moments before: You seem to be jumping to a lot of incorrect conclusions recently.

  Ally had to admit the headmistress was just a tad right. Some of the so-called mysteries that Ally had tried to solve in the past few weeks had been a little ridiculous. Like, for example, the mystery of the broken teacup at her mother’s tea shop the previous week. Ally had suspected foul play, that someone had broken in to rob the place, but it turned out Evie had just accidentally dropped it on her last visit. She’d apologized to Ally’s mother and everything. Then there was the mystery of the kidnapped teacher. At least Ally had believed he’d been kidnapped. But Fairy Godmother had revealed a few hours later that he was simply on vacation. And then, of course, who could forget the case of the stolen jacket? She’d seen Lonnie wearing Jordan’s shimmery gold jacket and assumed Lonnie had pilfered it. It turned out, however, that Jordan had just lent the jacket to Lonnie. Which, in hindsight, did seem like the obvious explanation.

  The problem was Ally saw things differently. She always had. Her mother told her it was her biggest strength; lately it just seemed to be getting her in trouble. But Ally had no choice. She had to follow her instincts—it was the only way she knew how to be.

  “Hey!” a deep male voice said, and suddenly there was a hand waving in front of Ally’s face. Ally hadn’t even realized that she’d stopped walking and was just standing in the middle of the path, staring off into space.

  She blinked and focused on the person in front of her. It was Jay, Jafar’s son. He was carrying two cans of blue spray paint, and Ally suddenly remembered something else Fairy Godmother had said: I asked them to decorate my office.

  “Ally?” Jay said, bending down so he could make eye contact with her.

  “Oh, hi, Jay,” Ally said absently.

  Jay snickered. “Are you off in Ally Land again?”

  Ally squinted. “Huh?”

  “You are. I thought so.”

  “What’s Ally Land?”

  Jay looked somewhat sheepish. “Just a little name we came up with to explain what happens when you go all dreamy-eyed like that. We say you’re in Ally Land.” He shrugged. “I imagine it’s kind of like your own little version of Wonderland.”

  Ally Land? Ally thought, her mind immediately trying to pinpoint the best anagram.

  All and Ly

  La La Lynd

  Land, y’all!

  Jay must have mistaken Ally’s pensiveness for offense, because he quickly added, “Don’t worry. It’s not a bad thing. Trust me, there are days that I’d love to visit Ally Land. Based on your expression, it seems like a really awesome place!”

  “Of course it is!” Ally chirped. But she wasn’t really listening to what Jay was saying. She was already back to thinking about the mysteries that weren’t really mysteries: the broken teacup and the teacher and the spray-painted wall. Was it really her fault that they hadn’t actually been crimes?

  Jay chuckled. “Okay, well, I better get this paint to the carnival grounds before Audrey totally loses it. She’s setting up for the banner-making party tonight and she’s all sorts of stressed. If these banners don’t look perfect, I don’t even want to know what she’ll do. See you at the reception later. I’m really looking forward to that carrot cake you baked!” Then he waved and took off down the path.

  Ally sighed and kept walking. When she arrived a few minutes later at Mad for Tea, the tea shop she ran with her mother, she immediately filled a kettle with water and lit the burner. A nice hot cup of tea would make her feel better. It always did. When she was a little girl, her mum used to make tea for her whenever she was having a tough day, and it had always cheered her up.

  As Ally waited for the kettle to boil, she turned and surveyed the empty tea shop. All of the teacups and saucers were in their rightful places on the shelves. The tea leaves were all tucked neatly into their tins. Even the three-tiered carrot cake Ally had baked for the party was still sitting untouched on its shining silver platter on the counter. Everything was peaceful and quiet—just like the rest of Auradon.

  Ally slumped as she considered the possibility that there might be no need for a detective in Auradon. Maybe there were just no real mysteries to be solved.

  Then Ally took a step backward and her foot went straight through the floor.

  Don’t worry. I quickly recovered from the shock of stepping through the floor. It was more exciting than scary, actually.

  Ally’s foot had completely disappeared under the floorboards of the tea shop. All she could see was her knee, which was now exposed due to the rip in her blue-and-white striped tights, revealing a scrape on her skin.

  “Oh, boiling teakettles! What’s this?” Ally carefully pulled her leg out of the foot-sized hole she’d made in the floor and bent down to look into it. Dino, her red-and-white striped cat, slunk over and stared into the gap with her. They exchanged curious glances.

  The wooden board, which had once been attached to the rest of the floor, was lying in two pieces at the bottom of the hole. Ally reached down to pick up one of the pieces and examine it. It was warped and discolored. She showed Dino, as if asking the cat for his assessment.

  Dino meowed.

  Ally nodded. “That was my conclusion, too. This must have been leftover damage from the flood.”

  A few months before, Ally had thrown a party in the tea shop. It was a fund-raiser for her a capella group, the Auradonnas. But the party had been a little too successful, and so many people had shown up that she’d had to move all the furniture into the back storage closet to make room for everyone. What Ally hadn’t known at the time was that the furniture was leaning against a water pipe, which eventually burst and flooded the whole tea shop. Apparently, some of the floorboards had been damaged.

  Ally sighed. She would have to call someone to fix this. But she couldn’t worry about that now. She had lots to do to set up for the Spirit Weekend Reception.

  Ally was about to drop the broken board back into the hole when she noticed something else down there. It was round and kind of a dull gold color. Ally slid her hand into the hole and attempted to reach the item, but her arm wasn’t quite long enough. She maneuvered onto her belly and extended her arm farther. Her hand touched something cool and metallic; it felt like a chain. She hooked her fingertip through it and slowly lifted the object.

  Ally gasped when she saw what was dangling from the end of her finger.

  “Meow!” said Dino excitedly.

  “Yes!” Ally replied. “It’s Mum’s old pocket watch!” The watch swung back and forth on the chain, and both Ally’s and Dino’s eyes flicked from side to side, following it.

  “Meow?” Dino asked.

 
“Mum must have hidden it here,” Ally explained. She remembered the pocket watch from when she was a little girl. Her mother had always told her she wasn’t old enough to touch it yet because she might accidentally break it.

  But she was certainly old enough now!

  With a giddy yip, Ally jumped to her feet. But she must have moved too fast, because the watch slipped from her fingertip and started to plummet back down into the hole.

  “Meow!” Dino cried at the same time Ally cried “No!”

  Ally scrambled to catch the watch, but it bounced off her open palm and for a moment seemed to be flying through the air in slow motion, the long chain drifting behind like it was caught in an invisible breeze. Dino clamored to get out of the way as Ally dove toward it with her hands outstretched, feeling like a tourney player trying to block a goal.

  Unfortunately, she’d never been that good of a tourney player, and the watch tumbled to the ground just out of her reach.

  “Oh, dear!” Ally said, and she scrambled forward to grab it. She immediately brought the pocket watch to her ear, listening anxiously for the faint tick tick tick of the second hand. When she was little she’d thought it was the watch’s heartbeat. And everyone knows what happens when a heartbeat stops.

  Ally listened and waited, her heart in her throat. She pressed the clock harder against her ear. Then, finally, she heard it.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s still alive. Thank goodness. That was a close one. Let’s not tell Mum about that.”

  With a meow, Dino swore himself to secrecy.

  Ally remembered her mother, Alice, telling her stories about her time in Wonderland, where she’d met all sorts of fun and interesting people and animals. Her mum had made friends with a caterpillar who could talk, a cat who could disappear, and even a rabbit who wore a waistcoat and had a pocket watch very similar to this one.

  Ally wondered if this watch had possibly come from Wonderland. Or perhaps it was made in Tweedleton. That was a town on the other side of Auradon where many of her mother’s Wonderland friends had retired. Ally had never been there, but her mum had talked about it a few times. Her mother told Ally she didn’t like going to Tweedleton.

  “It’s a very curious place,” Alice had once explained. “A little too curious for my taste.” Ally had always wanted to visit so she could get a taste of what Wonderland might have been like, but her mother had refused to take her whenever she’d asked. “That silly town does my head in,” Alice said.

  Now Ally cradled the watch to her chest, carefully stood up, and carried it over to the tea shop counter. She set it down, excited to finally be able to examine it for the first time. The pocket watch was lovely. Ally adored the old look and feel of it. Most things in Auradon looked shiny and new, so this seemed extra special. It was made of gold that had long before lost its luster, and the numbers on the clock face were slightly faded. Not that Ally could see them very well, since the glass was all smudged.

  “I think I’ll clean it,” Ally said to herself, turning and marching over to the cupboard where her mum kept the cleaning supplies. Ally had been working at the tea shop since she was a child. Her mother had always let her help with various chores, like baking scones and scrubbing cake tins and sorting tea leaves. Ally enjoyed it. It made her feel closer to her mother.

  She pulled out a cloth and some cleaning spray and spritzed the face of the watch.

  “Mum is going to be so proud of me,” Ally told Dino as she rubbed gently on the glass. “Not only did I find the watch, I’m also cleaning it up for her! And not breaking it.”

  Ally pulled the cloth back and admired her work. “Much better. I can’t wait to show it to Jane!”

  Dino jumped on the counter and tilted his head to examine the watch. “Meow,” he said approvingly.

  “Thank you,” Ally said. “I agree. It still looks old but at least you can see through the glass now.”

  Ally flipped the watch over to study the back, and that was when she noticed something engraved on the gold surface. “Look, Dino, there’s writing here.”

  She squinted to try to read it but there was much too much dirt to be able to make out any of the letters. Ally grabbed the cleaner and gave the back side a spritz. As she wiped away the grime, she started to make out the words.

  MR WEIDEN

  Ally looked to Dino. “Mr. Weiden? Now who do you suppose that could be?”

  “Meow?” Dino guessed.

  Ally smiled and gave him a pat. “You’re so smart. Of course! It must be the watchmaker. They always engrave their names onto the watch, don’t they? I imagine he lives in Tweedleton with some of Mum’s old friends.”

  Just then, the water in the teakettle on the burner came to a boil, letting out a sharp screeching whistle that caused Ally to jump. She’d completely forgotten about her tea! And apparently, so had Dino, because he hissed in surprise and leapt straight into the air, clawing furiously at nothing.

  “Dino!” Ally reprimanded. “Calm down!”

  But it was no use. The cat was freaked out. And just as he dropped past the counter, his paw accidentally snagged the chain of the pocket watch, bringing it crashing to the floor with a horrifying whack.

  It happened so quickly. And I was being so careful. I felt like I might cry—the kind of crying that fills a room with tears.

  “Oh, you clumsy, clumsy kitty! Now look what you’ve done!”

  Ally bent down to pick up the fallen watch. It was definitely broken now. The glass face was shattered. Ally held the remnants of the heirloom up to her ear again, waiting anxiously for the tick tick tick of the second hand.

  This time, however, there was nothing but silence.

  She shook the watch and listened again.

  But the only heartbeat she could hear was her own, thudding wildly in her chest. What was she going to do? How would she tell her mother? Her mother would be so disappointed with her!

  “Please,” she implored the clock. “Please, don’t be dead.”

  But the watch didn’t move. The hands were frozen at 1:30 p.m.

  It was already 1:30 p.m.?

  Ally jolted to attention. She had completely lost track of time. The Spirit Weekend kickoff party started in a half hour and she still had to bring the cake to the royal hall and set up the rest of the food table.

  “Mad hatters!” she cried. “I’m late!”

  She shoved the broken watch into the pocket of her dress, vowing to figure out how to fix it later. There had to be a watchmaker nearby who could revive the watch’s heart. Maybe she would have a look for that Mr. Weiden fellow.

  But she would deal with that another time. For now, she had a cake to contend with. Ally carefully picked up the giant three-tiered carrot cake she’d baked the night before and began to make her way toward the royal hall. But it was frustrating how slowly she had to walk to make sure the cake didn’t topple over.

  Ally was not used to doing anything slowly. She was always eager to race into everything she did. Like how she’d volunteered to cater the Spirit Weekend Reception. As soon as Fairy Godmother had announced it was happening, Ally’s hand shot straight into the air. “Mad for Tea can supply the food!” she’d offered before she could even think about how much work that would entail. But by the time she’d had a moment to second-guess her offer, everyone was cheering and Fairy Godmother was beaming and it was too late.

  Along the way to the royal hall, Ally heard several Auradon Prep students shout things like “Nice cake, Ally!” “Looks delicious, Ally!” “Can’t wait to get my hands on that!” But unfortunately, Ally had no idea who was saying any of it, because the cake was so tall she couldn’t see over the top. So she just called back “Thanks!” to everyone she heard and kept walking.

  By the time Ally made it through the grand front doors of the royal hall and was able to set the cake down on the food table, she was totally exhausted and out of breath. But she knew she didn’t have much time for rest. The part
y was going to start soon and she still had so much to do to prepare!

  For the next twenty minutes, Ally was like a bee that had consumed too much caffeinated tea. She buzzed around the royal hall, filling teapots, arranging sandwiches on trays, and making sure every last detail was perfect.

  Moments before the guests arrived, Ally took a step back to admire her work. She had to admit, the food table looked magnificent with its towering trays of freshly baked cookies and scones, tiny tea sandwiches perfectly cut into triangles, and hot pots of tea in every flavor from chamomile to peppermint to Darjeeling. And in the center of it all, her masterpiece: the three-tiered carrot cake complete with white cream cheese frosting and decorated for Spirit Weekend in the Auradon Prep signature blue and gold.

  She beamed, took her phone out of her pocket, and snapped a photo.

  “Well done,” she commended herself as she studied the photo, noticing how the light shone perfectly on the cake’s sparkling silver platter. But she frowned at the screen when she noticed something was missing.

  “Oh, swizzle sticks!” Ally swore. “I forgot the clotted cream for the scones!”

  She checked the time on her phone. The reception was scheduled to start in two minutes! She’d have to hurry. Ally pocketed her phone and took off through the front door, running at a full sprint to the tea shop. She grabbed the clotted cream from the refrigerator and doubled back to the royal hall. But even though she ran at top speed, the reception had already started by the time Ally returned. Lonnie was deejaying from the stage and the room was packed with people. As Ally tried to make her way through the crowd to set down the bowl of cream she was holding, she kept getting intercepted by people who stopped her to compliment the spread.