The first thought to flicker through Ally’s mind was: We were too late. The White Rabbit must have done this before Mr. Thumpkins fixed the watch. If we had only pedaled faster or argued less or left sooner…
Mal let out a frustrated sigh. “Now the band is packing up. They’re going to leave soon and my big surprise for Ben is ruined. I can’t believe this.”
Ally bit her lip, not knowing what to do. She’d never seen Mal so upset before. Ally glanced over at the road, where a bunch of guys were loading instruments and equipment into a van. Written on the side of the van were the words TALKING DRAGONS.
“You know,” Ally said, trying to keep her voice light, “Talking Dragons is an anagram for ‘a dangling stork.’ ”
She was hoping the word game would cheer Mal up, the way it always cheered Ally up when she was upset or feeling down. But it didn’t seem to work. Mal just let out a huff and started to walk away.
And that’s when Ally knew that she had really, truly failed. She’d wanted so badly to avoid this. She’d wanted to fix everything. But she was too slow. Too late. She pulled the pocket watch from her pocket and stared at it. It was six thirty.
Wow, Ally mused. She and Jane had really gotten back in record time. It had taken them two hours to get to Tweedleton but only an hour to get back. She knew it was only an hour, because when Mr. Thumpkins wound the clock forward to sync the time, he’d set it for five thirty.
Five thirty?
Ally’s eyebrows shot up and she chased after Mal, who was already halfway across the cratered field. “Mal!” she said urgently.
Mal stopped and turned to glare at Ally. “What?” she snapped.
“When did you say you went inside?”
“It was dinnertime,” Mal said. “Dinner is always at six.”
“And the field looked normal when you left it?”
“Yeah,” Mal said, growing impatient. “Perfectly normal. Why?”
But Ally didn’t answer her. Her mind was too busy reeling.
It didn’t work.
We fixed the watch but the White Rabbit is still out there. That’s probably why he dug all of these holes. He’s still trying to get home to Wonderland.
“Ally?” Mal said, interrupting Ally’s thoughts. She sounded slightly suspicious. “Do you know anything about this?”
But once again, Ally didn’t answer. She took off at a run, carefully weaving around the holes in the grass until she reached Jane, who was waiting with the bike.
“It didn’t work,” she told Jane breathlessly.
“What do you mean it didn’t work?”
Ally gestured to the field. “The White Rabbit did this”—she fought to catch her breath—“after Mr. Thumpkins fixed the watch. We didn’t send him home. He’s still here.”
Jane rubbed her eyes, clearly trying to make sense of this. “I don’t get it. If fixing the watch didn’t send him home, what will?”
Ally shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought…” Her eyes pricked with tears. She had done it again. She had made the wrong assumption. She had jumped to the wrong conclusion. “I messed up,” she blubbered. “I’m always always messing up. I can’t get anything right.”
She expected Jane to reprimand her again. To tell her she was a lousy detective and should just spend her days baking cakes and pouring tea. But Jane didn’t say any of that. Instead, she put a gentle hand on Ally’s shoulder and said, “No, that’s not true. You can do this. I believe in you. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you. You’re the best detective I know.”
Ally sniffled. “I’m the only detective you know.”
Jane giggled. “That’s true. But even if I knew a hundred detectives, you’d still probably be the best.”
“No. No, I wouldn’t. I can’t even solve a single mystery! I just keep misinterpreting the clues.”
“But that’s what makes you interesting!” Jane said. “Because you see things differently. You look at the world differently. It’s like your superpower.”
“But what good does that do me now?” Ally asked. “The concert is ruined. The White Rabbit is still out there, and I don’t know how to send him back.”
“Well,” Jane said, “let’s just slow down and think about this logically. You broke the watch and that let the White Rabbit out. What else could possibly send him home?”
Ally huffed and threw up her hands. “I don’t know! I thought that fixing the watch would do it. But maybe it was the wrong watchmaker. Maybe the original watchmaker from the song has to fix it. The one who locked the White Rabbit in Wonderland in the first place. That Mr. Deiwen person.”
“Mr. Weiden,” Jane corrected.
Ally shook her head and stared at Jane as though she were out of focus. “What are you talking about?”
“The name on the back of the watch,” Jane clarified. “It’s Mr. Weiden. Not Mr. Deiwen. You mixed up the letters.”
Ally pulled the watch from her pocket again. “No, I didn’t. Look, it says—” But she stopped when she realized that Jane was right. There it was, engraved right into the back.
MR WEIDEN
Ally had rearranged the letters, just like she always did. Except this time, she’d done it unconsciously.
“See,” Jane said, giving Ally’s shoulders a squeeze. “I told you. You see the world differently. You even see words differently.”
“Yes, but—” Ally’s sentence was cut off by a loud gasp. It came from her own lips. She covered her mouth with her hands as she stared down at the watch, still clutched in her hands.
“Jane!” Ally cried out, causing Jane to look slightly scared for a moment.
“What?”
Ally grabbed Jane’s arm and shook it. “JANE!”
“WHAT?” Jane repeated.
“You’re a genius!”
Jane looked puzzled. “I am?”
“See the words differently,” Ally echoed Jane’s previous comment. “Of course! How could I not realize it before? I spend most of my day rearranging letters.”
Jane still didn’t appear to be catching on. “What are you talking about?”
Ally held up the watch. “ ‘Mr. Weiden’ isn’t the name of the watchmaker. It’s not a name at all.” Then Ally grinned the biggest grin she’d ever grinned and said, “It’s an anagram!”
If it was truly an anagram, then I knew I could solve it. I just had to think, think, think.…
For the next few minutes, Ally tapped her forehead and tried to come up with every possible combination of words she could think of using the letters found in “Mr. Weiden.”
“Wed miner.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Weird men.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Windmere.”
“Drew mine.”
“Remind we.”
“Rewind me.”
Ally stopped, the last combination echoing loudly in her mind, like a series of clanging bells.
“Rewind me,” she repeated. “Drink me. Eat me. Rewind me!” Ally’s mouth fell open.
But once the watch was wound, the rabbit was safe and locked.
“Of course! The cousins’ song. ‘Once the watch was wound, the rabbit was safe and locked.’ Watches are wound forward and back. The answer has been written here all along. The engraving is telling us to rewind the pocket watch!”
Ally expected Jane to look as ecstatic as Ally felt. But she saw only confusion in Jane’s eyes.
“Wait. Why?” Jane asked.
But Ally was already turning the little knob on the side of the watch, back and back and back. “Don’t you see?” Ally said. “The watch broke at one thirty p.m. yesterday. We have to wind it back to exactly that time to send the rabbit home.”
Jane frowned. She wasn’t following. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does. It makes Wonderland sense. It’s Ally logic!”
Ally turned and turned until the small hand had been rewound twenty-nine hours, the amount of time that had pass
ed since Ally had broken the watch the day before.
And then…
Very peculiar things started to happen.
The pocket watch began to hum. Softly at first, but getting louder and louder with every tick, tick, tick of the second hand. Then the entire watch lit up with a bright orange glow. Ally was so startled she nearly dropped it and broke it all over again. But she kept it firmly clutched between her fingers as both girls watched the glowing object in wonderment.
“Holy dragons!” a voice cried out, and Ally’s eyes darted back toward the tourney field where Mal still stood. Except she didn’t look angry anymore. Now her mouth was open in astonishment as she gazed across the field.
Something was happening to the grass.
The holes were filling right before their very eyes.
Ally’s heart started to thud in her chest as the realization hit her. “The watch. It’s reversing everything the White Rabbit did!”
The girls looked on in amazement as the holes finished filling with dirt and the giant stage, which had been sitting lopsided just a moment before, slowly started to right itself, like a sleeping giant rising from a nap.
Mal clapped giddily, but the sudden sound of a door slamming shut snapped her out of her celebration. She turned to see the musicians getting into the Talking Dragons van, about to pull away. “Oh, no! I have to tell the band the concert is back on!” She took off toward the road.
Ally had a sudden thought of her own and started running. She dashed straight to the royal hall and burst through the front doors. Jane was right behind her, clearly understanding what she was doing.
And there it was. Sitting in the center of the table was Ally’s cake. Beautiful. Towering. Frosted white. And completely untouched.
“What about my watch?” Jane asked eagerly, her eyes alight.
The two girls took off again, running toward the dorms. When they burst into Jane’s room, Jane immediately looked to the top of her dresser and let out a shriek. “My mom’s watch! It’s back!” She grabbed it and fastened it to her wrist, tilting her arm this way and that to admire it. She bent down to kiss it. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Then she turned to Ally. “Thank you.”
Ally shrugged. “Oh, it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Jane argued. “You did it. You solved the mystery of the White Rabbit!”
“The mad mystery is more like it,” Ally said with a sigh. Then the two girls broke into fits of triumphant giggles.
I did it! Nothing can stop me! I proved I’m really a detective. And now everybody knows it!
The drummer of Talking Dragons beat his drumsticks together three times and launched into the final song of the night. It was a loud, rocking number and everyone at Auradon Prep was on their feet, jumping up and down, and singing along.
Ally stood in the back of the crowd, watching all her classmates enjoy the show. The look on Ben’s face as Talking Dragons had taken the stage earlier was pretty priceless. It made Ally feel warm and fuzzy all over.
She’d done it. She’d saved the day. Well, she’d had help from a friend. A very good friend.
Ally slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the pocket watch. Her family heirloom.
Once the watch was wound, the rabbit was safe and locked.
He was forever kept in Wonderland, unless the clock be stopped.
And at that moment, as the band hit the first chorus and the crowd went wild, Ally made a promise. She would take care of this watch. She would never let anything happen to it again.
She would protect it, just as her mother had for all those years. Because she now understood just how important it was to keep that watch’s heart beating strong.
“They’re pretty wicked, aren’t they?” Mal said, coming up next to Ally and bumping her hip against Ally’s to the beat of the music.
Ally hadn’t expected to see Mal. She’d thought Mal would be up in the front with Ben. “What are you doing back here?” Ally asked.
“Thanking you,” Mal said. She put an arm around Ally, surprising her. “Jane told me what you did. She told everyone. You saved this concert. You saved this school. You’re pretty much my hero right now.”
“Hero?” Ally choked out, the word barely making it past her lips.
“Yes,” said another voice, and Ally turned to see Fairy Godmother approach with Jane trailing right behind her. “Hero.” Fairy Godmother smiled her warm, motherly smile. “While I don’t approve of the two of you sneaking off like that, I have to say I’m proud of you.” She turned back and opened her arms to Jane. “Both of you.”
Jane stepped into her mother’s embrace and snuggled up close to her. Then the most peculiar thing happened. Fairy Godmother started to dance! She unbuttoned her blazer and raised her hands in the air, letting out a “Whoop, whoop!”
Mal, Ally, and Jane all broke out laughing, but it didn’t deter the headmistress. The music had overtaken her and she was now dancing her heart out.
Jane sidled up next to Ally. “Well,” she said with a sigh. “That was exciting, huh? I guess we can finally get some rest now that the case is solved.”
“Yeah,” Ally agreed with a mournful sigh. Although she was happy to have solved the case and saved the day, she was also a little sad that it was all over. This was the end. What would she do now?
But as soon as the question popped into her head, she realized the answer was obvious. What do all detectives do when they finish up a case? They start another one!
And that’s exactly what Ally intended to do.
As she glanced around the packed tourney field, watching her friends and classmates rock out to the music of Talking Dragons, there was no doubt in Ally’s mind that she’d eventually find another case.
As long as there was magic, there would always be mysteries to solve in Auradon.
More new books coming soon in the School of Secrets series…
Next:
Lonnie’s Warrior Sword
Ally's Mad Mystery Page 10
