Ally's Mad Mystery

  “Not bad,” Ally said, fastening the strap on hers. “Although they do smell a little like fungus.”

  Jane giggled and hopped on the back seat of the bike. Ally was just about to push off and start pedaling toward Tweedleton when a thought came to her. She turned around to face Jane. “Wait a minute. Should we ask your mum if we can go? It’s against the rules to leave campus without permission.”

  Jane shrugged. “If I’ve learned anything from you, Ally, it’s that sometimes rules need to bend.”

  Normally, Tweedleton is about an hour bike ride from Auradon Prep. But nothing I do is really normal, now is it?

  One would think that with two people pedaling it would take only half that time, but with Jane and Ally, it took almost twice as long. Mostly because they kept stopping along the way to argue about who was pedaling more and who should sit in the front seat to steer.

  At first Ally was in the front, so she couldn’t see Jane behind her. Going up a particularly steep hill, Ally called back, “Are you even pedaling at all?” Except the words came out more like wheezes, because Ally was working so hard she was out of breath.

  “Yes!” Jane tried to shout, but that also came out like a wheeze. “I’m…pedaling…as…hard…as…I…can!”

  “Well, it must not be very hard,” Ally complained, putting her foot down to stop the bike. “Because it feels like I’m doing all the work up here.”

  Jane fought to catch her breath. “No, I’m doing all the work back here. You’re just sitting up there and steering.”

  Ally put her hands on her hips and turned around to face Jane. “There’s no way you’re doing all the work.”

  “Going uphill on a tandem bike automatically puts the brunt of the work on the backseat.”

  Ally scoffed at that. “Is this another one of your logical things?”

  “Actually, it’s a physics thing,” Jane corrected.

  “Well, I don’t care if it’s a biochemistronomy thing! I am definitely pedaling harder than you.”

  “Biochemistronomy is not a thing,” Jane argued.

  “It sure is,” Ally countered. “It even has some exquisite anagrams like…” She tapped her forehead. “ ‘Misty moon brioche,’ and ‘shiny robotic memo,’ and ‘bionic theory moms.’ Ooh! That would make a marvelous name for a punk rock band, don’t you agree?”

  “Ally! Focus!” Jane snapped her fingers in front of Ally’s face. “We have less than five hours before the concert starts. If you want to fix that watch and keep the White Rabbit from ruining Mal’s big concert surprise, we need to keep going.”

  “Fine,” Ally huffed. “But I’m getting in the back.”

  “Fine by me.”

  The two girls swapped places and Ally soon realized that Jane might have been right. Not only was the backseat harder, it was also frustrating because she couldn’t see around Jane and there was no way to control the bike. Jane was doing all the steering and she was doing a dreadful job at it.

  “Veer left!” Ally shouted when they were coasting down another hill, heading straight toward a patch of trees on the side of the road.

  “I’ve got it!” Jane shouted back.

  “No, you don’t got it! We’re going to crash!”

  They didn’t crash. But they came close. So close that Ally insisted on being in the front again. And so it went for the rest of the way to Tweedleton.

  Ally had heard stories about the town of Tweedleton from her mother, and she’d always wanted to go there. She’d seen pictures of it before and located it on maps, but nothing could have quite prepared her for seeing it in person.

  The town’s entrance was marked by a high,steel archway with the word TWEEDLETON carved out of the metal. They set the bike aside and decided to continue into town on foot. Stepping under that archway and onto the stone path felt like stepping right through the rabbit hole to Wonderland. All around them were thick green forest, tall colorful flowers, shrubs that made Ally feel the size of an ant, and handwritten wooden signs pointing in every direction.

  Once they reached the center of the town—which required a dizzying walk through a maze of high groomed hedges—Ally marveled at all the various statues in the shapes of caterpillars, playing cards, and Cheshire cats. And the little shops had the most peculiar names, like Dormouse and Sons’ Mattress Company, Spades’ Garden Supplies, Ravens and Writing Desks, and The Walrus’s Oyster Shack (except Walrus had been crossed out and the word Carpenter had been written in, as if the restaurant had recently changed ownership).

  Ally smiled, taking it all in. Just being there made Ally feel connected to her mother, and that made her quite happy.

  “This place is really weird,” Jane said, spinning in a slow circle.

  “It’s not weird,” Ally corrected. “It’s curious. There’s a difference.”

  “Well, who are we supposed to talk to?” Jane asked. The town appeared to be deserted. The main square was completely empty, as though someone had just evacuated the streets.

  “Maybe we should try one of the shops?”

  Ally walked up to the Ravens and Writing Desks store and peered through the window. The shop was also empty apart from the unusual merchandise lining the shelves. One half of the shop was filled with nothing but small black ravens sitting in bird cages, while the other half of the shop was stocked with nothing but writing desks.

  “What a peculiar combination,” Ally mused, stepping away from the glass.

  “Anyone in there?” Jane asked.

  Ally shook her head. “Not a single one.”

  “That’s odd,” Jane said. “I wonder where everyone is.”

  “At the party, naturally,” came a voice. Actually, it sounded more like two voices saying the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  Jane and Ally spun around, searching for the source of the sound.

  “Who said that?” Ally asked.

  “We did,” the curious double voice said. “Obviously.”

  Ally and Jane shared a dubious look. They still couldn’t see where the voices were coming from.

  “Who are you?” Ally asked, hoping to lure out their mysterious new friends.

  But still no one appeared. Ally heard a quiet tsk, tsk, tsk sound, and then one of the voices whispered, “She doesn’t know who we are.”

  “Everyone knows who we are,” the other voice replied.

  “She must be from out of town,” the first voice reasoned.

  “Precisely,” the second voice agreed.

  “We are from out of town,” Jane called in no particular direction, since neither of the girls knew where the voices were coming from.

  “But we want to know more about your town,” Ally put in. “And perhaps ask you some questions.”

  “Questions?” the voices said eagerly, back in perfect sync with each other. “We love questions. And songs!”

  “Us too,” Jane said uneasily.

  “Have a seat, then,” the voices commanded. “Comfortably.”

  Ally and Jane both glanced around before finally spotting a small park bench behind them. The girls shared another look before shrugging and taking a seat on the bench.

  They waited. The problem was they had no idea what they were waiting for, or how long it would take.

  Then, suddenly, two small boys crawled out from beneath the bench, startling Ally and Jane. The boys were dressed in matching uniforms of red shorts with blue belts, yellow polo shirts, and red caps on their heads. They looked perfectly identical, from their clothes to their little button noses to the way they stood side by side before Ally and Jane, hands on their hips, feet slightly turned out. Ally felt her eyes cross. It was as though she were looking at mirror reflections of the same person.

  “Oh! You’re twins!” Ally said, pleased.

  The two boys turned toward each other then back to Ally and Jane and shook their heads firmly. “Not twins,” one of them said.

  “Cousins,” explained the other.

  Then, a moment later, they
both added, “Biologically.”

  “Cousins?” Jane repeated with doubt. “But you look so much alike.”

  “Our fathers are identical twins,” the boys said at the same time.

  “Therefore we are identical,” the first boy said. “That’s logic.”

  “But that’s not logical at all,” Jane started to argue.

  “Of course it is,” the second boy insisted. “Logically.”

  “Did you say something about a party?” Ally prompted, changing the topic before Jane had a chance to protest again.

  “Not just any party,” the boys said, sounding annoyed by the question. “The mayors’ unbirthday party. Plainly.”

  “You mean a birthday party,” Jane said.

  “Oh, no,” one of the boys replied.

  “We mean an unbirthday party,” the other continued.

  “What is that?” Jane asked.

  The two boys looked delighted by her question. They stood up straight, cleared their throats, and announced with an official tone, “The History of the Unbirthday Party!” Then, a moment later, they burst into a bouncy song, complete with a little dance that bobbed them up and down.

  “The birthday is a sad event, for it comes but once a year.

  The unbirthday is much more fun and full of much more cheer.

  In Tweedleton, we see no sense to wait to celebrate.

  So every day at half past twelve we stop and eat some cake.”

  The boys opened their mouths to sing yet another verse and Ally knew she had to put a stop to this. She had no idea how long the song might continue and she really needed to move the conversation along. She had to get information about the watch so she could figure out how to stop the White Rabbit from ruining the rest of Spirit Weekend.

  “Very lovely!” she interrupted them, clapping loudly. “Now, did I hear you say it was the unbirthday party for the mayor?”

  The mayor of Tweedleton sounded like the perfect person to talk to about the watch. Certainly he or she would know a lot about white rabbits and pocket watches.

  “Mayors,” the boys corrected, once again sounding annoyed by Ally’s ignorance.

  “You have more than one mayor?” Jane asked, confused.

  “We have two,” one of the boys said.

  “Our fathers,” the other boy explained.

  Then they shared a look and at the same time added, “Constitutionally.”

  “Your fathers are the mayors?” Ally confirmed.

  “Positively,” the boys replied.

  Ally turned to Jane and bent her head close to whisper, “Perhaps we should ask them about the pocket watch. If their fathers are the mayors, maybe they’ll know the connection between the White Rabbit and the watch.”

  Jane looked like she was about to respond, but then both girls noticed the boys leaning in close to try to overhear their conversation.

  “It’s not polite to eavesdrop on people’s conversations,” Ally told them in a stern voice.

  “It’s not polite to whisper,” one of the boys responded without missing a beat. “Certainly.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Ally reasoned.

  “It’s not true. It’s manners,” the boys said in unison.

  Ally sighed and pulled the broken watch from the pocket of her dress. “Okay, fine. We were hoping you could tell us—”

  But she never managed to finish the sentence. Because as soon as the boys saw the pocket watch, their eyes grew very, very wide and they let out a concurrent shriek as they darted away from Ally and Jane, heading straight into the forest, with perfectly synchronized steps.

  If those guys thought they were getting away easy, they had another thing coming.

  Ally immediately leapt off the bench and sprinted into the forest after the boys.

  “What are you doing?” Jane called after her.

  “Following them!” Ally called back.

  “Can’t we talk to someone else? Those two are kind of strange!”

  “They reacted to the broken pocket watch! They clearly know something!”

  Ally came upon a clearing with three paths jutting out in three different directions. She stopped to consider her options. Which way had they gone? Had they split up?

  She immediately ruled out that possibility. The two were practically joined at the hip. In fact, Ally wondered if maybe they were physically joined at the hip. Were conjoined cousins a thing?

  She was starting to think that anything could be a thing in Tweedleton.

  Jane caught up with her, slightly out of breath. “What now?”

  “They can’t have gone far,” Ally reasoned.

  “We haven’t.” The unmistakable sound of the boys’ voices seemed to echo all around them, as if the cousins were in a hundred places at once.

  Ally painted on a sweet smile. “Can you two please come out? We need to talk to you about the watch.”

  “We must hide,” one of the boys said with a quiver in his voice.

  “Why?” Ally asked.

  “Because the veil has been broken,” was the response.

  “What veil?” Ally asked, wandering around the clearing and peering into bushes in search of the boys.

  “The veil between Auradon and Wonderland,” the boys said together.

  Ally paused. She stared down at the pocket watch still in her hand and ran her fingertip over the cracked glass.

  The veil has been broken?

  “What does that mean?” Ally called into the trees.

  “The White Rabbit!” the boys responded, as though the answer were obvious.

  Ally’s eyebrows sprang up. “What about the White Rabbit?”

  “If the veil is broken then he’s escaped.”

  Escaped.

  So she was right! There was a connection between the White Rabbit being in Auradon and the breaking of this watch.

  Ally knew she needed more of an explanation and she was certain these boys could give her one. She just had to figure out a way to lure them out of hiding. Ally tapped her forehead to think, but it was Jane who came up with the answer, as though she were reading Ally’s mind.

  “Will you sing us a song about the watch?” Jane asked, and she nodded knowingly at Ally.

  “A song?” the boys chirped excitedly.

  Ally really didn’t want to sit through another one of their songs, but she had a feeling Jane’s tactic to draw them out was a clever one. “Yes, please,” Ally said. “A song would be lovely.”

  Before she could blink, the boys had reemerged and were standing in front of Jane and Ally. They walked toward them until the girls backed up against a fallen log and had no choice but to sit.

  The boys straightened their spines. The first one announced, “The Story of the Magic Pocket Watch.” Then the other added, “Or, How the White Rabbit Got Trapped in Wonderland.”

  With the same playful rhythm and bouncy dance moves, the boys started to sing.

  “Once there was a white rabbit, who was always, always late.

  He ran from place to place, babbling about a date.

  He took no care in what he did or the trouble that he caused.

  So the watchmaker sent him home, and everyone applaused.”

  “I think the word is applauded,” Jane interrupted.

  The two boys shot her aggravated looks at the disruption and Jane quickly tucked her hands in her lap and fell quiet.

  They cleared their throats and continued.

  “For the rabbit was the worrying sort, whose nerves did bring a stir

  To every town and hovel where he shed his tufts of fur.

  But once the watch was wound, the rabbit was safe and locked.

  He was forever kept in Wonderland, unless the clock be stopped.”

  Ally knew she should have applauded—or applaused, as it were—at the end of their performance, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She was in too much shock.

  A watchmaker had locked the White Rabbit in Wonderland using this pocket watch, and when
the watch had stopped, the White Rabbit was let loose. Now he was wreaking havoc in Auradon, eating cakes and stealing watches and ruining signs.

  “You were right,” Jane said to Ally with wide eyes, “about everything.”

  Ally wanted to feel pride at hearing Jane say this, but she was too busy trying to put all the pieces together. “He’s just been scared,” Ally concluded. “The song said he was the ‘worrying sort.’ ”

  Jane nodded. “This whole time he’s probably been panicked and lost, trying to find his way back home. That’s why he’s caused all that trouble.”

  “Trouble is right,” one of the boys said, before the other added, “And more trouble he’ll bring the longer he’s out and about.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ally said, staring down at her lap. “I can’t imagine what he’ll do next. What if he leaves the school? What if he starts causing trouble all over Auradon?”

  The two boys let out another simultaneous shriek of fear before removing their caps and covering their faces with them.

  Ally was feeling guiltier than ever about breaking the pocket watch. What else would the White Rabbit do? These boys were clearly very scared of the possibilities. She knew she had to find a way to fix this mess.

  “But how do we send him ba—” Ally started to ask, but flinched when the boys suddenly darted into the trees again. There one second and gone the next.

  Ally was beginning to understand why her mother didn’t like to come to Tweedleton. This town was already making her head spin.

  “Oh, dear,” Ally said again. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

  “Don’t panic,” Jane said soothingly. “We’ll figure out what to do. We just need to send the White Rabbit back to Wonderland before he does more damage.”

  “But how?” Ally asked, feeling helpless.

  Jane bit her lip, thinking. “In the song, the boys said the watchmaker sent him home and ‘once the watch was wound, the rabbit was safe and locked.’ ”

  “ ‘He was forever kept in Wonderland, unless the clock be stopped,’ ” Ally continued the rhyme. She turned the watch over and once again traced the letters of the engraving on the back. “The watchmaker in the song must refer to this Mr. Weiden fellow.”