Down the Rabbit Hole

by Peter Abrahams

  The electric pulsing speeded up. “Have you seen the movie?” Vincent said.

  “No,” Ingrid said. “It wasn’t at Blockbuster.”

  “How did you hear about it?” Vincent said.

  “On the Internet.”

  “Oh dear,” said Vincent. “Can’t believe everything you see on the Internet. Hardly anything, in fact.”

  “You don’t think it’s a real movie? I was going to try Wally’s.”

  “Wally’s?”

  “The only other video place. It’s in the Flats.”

  “Ah,” said Vincent. “The Flats.”

  Uh-oh. Was he referring to how he’d dropped her there, how she’d fooled him about where she really lived? What else could it be? Maybe it was time to clear the air. “Vincent, I—”

  “Must run,” said Vincent. The electric pulsing faded fast, down to nothing in an instant. “See you tomorrow night.”

  twenty-six

  “WELCOME, ONE and all,” said Vincent. “Here are new scripts. You’ll notice some little changes.”

  He passed out the scripts. They sat around the Mad Hatter’s table onstage in Prescott Hall—Meredith O’Malley, Vincent, Chloe, Ingrid—a few filtered lights shining down on them.

  “Tonight I wanted to nail down the tea-party scene,” Vincent said. “We’ll begin the croquet match on Wednesday.”

  Ingrid checked the title page of her script. In place of what had been written there before—“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. Adapted for the stage by Jill Monteiro”—it now read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a play by Vincent Dunn (story by Lewis Carroll).” She opened it to her first line, the opening line of the play. Jill had thought of a really cool beginning: The stage is dark and you hear Alice’s long clattering fall down the rabbit hole. Then a spot comes up on her, and she says, “Oh my goodness, where am I?”

  The clattering fall was still the same, but—hey. There was a new opening line: ALICE: If I ever lay my hands on that rabbit, he’ll be sorry.

  Ingrid looked up. Chloe and Meredith were leafing through their scripts; Vincent was watching her. He smiled. “I thought it lacked a little edge,” he said.

  Meredith blinked. She wore new eyelashes, big enough to make a breeze. “Edge?” she said.

  “We’re in the twenty-first century,” said Chloe.

  “Precisely,” said Vincent. “Now let’s turn to the tea-party scene, page twenty-nine, and do a read-through from Alice’s entrance.”

  After a moment or two Ingrid realized they were all waiting for her.

  “Ingrid,” said Vincent, “if you please—your mark.”

  “But Vincent,” Ingrid said, moving to the black cross Jill had taped to the stage.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Understand what, Ingrid?” he said in that soft voice of his.

  “My new first line,” Ingrid said.

  “Of the play?” said Vincent.

  She nodded.

  “Not strictly speaking the subject of this rehearsal,” he said. “No one’s fault, but we really don’t have a lot of time. Jill was running a little behind schedule.”

  Meredith and Chloe were turning to the first page, reading the new opening line. Meredith blinked again. Chloe said, “Pretty cool.”

  “What’s cool about it?” said Ingrid. The words came popping out on their own. Chloe got under her skin like nobody else.

  Chloe shrugged. “The old line was so wussy. This gives her some spunk.”

  “She already had spunk,” Ingrid said.

  Chloe raised an eyebrow, so maddening.

  “There’s a difference between being spunky and being mean,” Ingrid said. “Like wanting to kill rabbits, for example.” Oops. This could be taken as dissing Vincent’s work, not nice, and besides, he knew way more about the theater than she did. Maybe he was right. Was Jill’s way a little boring, basically the same old thing? She shouldn’t have shot her mouth off so fast.

  “How interesting,” Vincent said, shifting on his stool, changing the angle of the light from above. His face seemed to have gotten a little thinner; he was brilliant, all right. You could see it in his eyes. “Exactly the kind of discussion we can only hope to set off among our audience,” he went on. Jill had never mentioned setting off discussions. But so what? Vincent had different goals—nothing wrong with that. “Shall we get to work?” he said.

  He, Chloe, Meredith moved their stools closer together—Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse. Ingrid crossed to her mark.

  “No room, no room,” they all cried.

  Vincent held up his hand. “Meredith? Chloe? Try to project a little fear.”

  “Fear?” said Meredith.

  Fear of Alice? Ingrid thought.

  “Alice’s presentation will be a little different from before,” Vincent said. “It will all make sense.”

  “Different?” said Ingrid.

  “Mostly costume and makeup changes, more or less a punk effect,” Vincent said. “Plus she’ll be armed.”

  “Armed?” said Ingrid.

  “With a croquet mallet,” said Vincent.

  Chloe laughed.

  “In this vision of the material,” Vincent said, “Alice appears more as an intruder in a magical world.”

  “Cool,” said Chloe.

  “Does that help you at all, Ingrid?” Vincent said.

  Ingrid thought about it. Alice was sort of an intruder in a magical world, but not in a threatening way. Wasn’t it supposed to be a fun story? On the other hand, he might be right. There were times, when Alice got so big, for example—“all persons more than a mile high to leave the court”—that the others clearly thought of her as a threat. Yes, this might work. She even started to feel some excitement. Maybe this was what it was like to work with a really great artist. “It does help,” she said.

  “Excellent,” said Vincent. “Then from ‘No room, no room.’”

  “No room, no room,” they said, Meredith shrinking back this time with her arms raised, like one of those virgins in a Dracula movie.

  Ingrid checked her line, “There’s plenty of room,” in Jill’s script. Now it read: “Are you all blind?” She spoke the words: “Are you all blind?”

  “A little more feeling,” said Vincent.

  “Are you all blind?” Ingrid said again.

  “Not louder,” Vincent said, “so much as…contemptuous.”

  “Contemptuous?” said Ingrid.

  “Sorry,” said Vincent. “It means when you feel superior to other people.”

  Ingrid knew what contemptuous meant. But how did it fit Alice? An intruder and maybe unwelcome, but didn’t Alice kind of enjoy all these characters—Hatter, Hare, Dormouse, Caterpillar, White Rabbit, even the out-and-out crazies like the Queen of Hearts? More like a friendly unwelcome intruder. Plus for some reason Ingrid really didn’t know how to do contemptuous.

  “Try again,” said Vincent.

  “Are you all blind?”

  Vincent sighed. “Think of someone you don’t like,” he said, “or have problems with.”

  Chloe, of course. Mr. Ferrand, too. And Ms. Groome. But was not liking someone the same as looking down on them? Was there anyone else, anyone she actually looked down on? No one came to mind.

  Ingrid did the next best thing. She thought of Chloe, looked right at her, and tried again. Was that really her voice, so sharp and grating? But contemptuous? She wasn’t sure.

  Vincent made a note in his script. “Let’s move on,” he said. “Alice sits down and—” He cued Chloe.

  Chloe said: “Care for some wine?” Just as before, in Jill’s script.

  Ingrid checked her next line, no longer “I don’t see any wine,” but “In a clean glass.” She said it.

  “Not so much fussy,” said Vincent, “as snobbish.”

  “Like you know the glasses will be dirty,” said Chloe.

  “That’s it,” said Vincent.

  Ingrid
didn’t want any help from Chloe. It pissed her off, and this was no time for that because she needed to focus. Alice was getting away from her. She’d felt so inside Alice at the last rehearsal, just the way acting was supposed to work; now she was starting to feel naked.

  She tried the line again, trying to be really nasty, curling her lip. Better? Impossible to tell from the expression on Vincent’s face. He made another note on his script.

  “Did the lip curling work, Vincent?” Ingrid said.

  “Ah, lip curling,” said Vincent. “I see. Perhaps some homework in front of the mirror.” He turned the page. “Now I—the Hatter—say: ‘A clean glass? Then let’s all move one place down.’” His voice was suddenly full of charm and at the same time half whacked. Vincent was really very good.

  Chloe read her line: “I can’t. The Dormouse is asleep.”

  “Meredith?” said Vincent.

  Meredith stopped snoring—a low snore she’d adopted, following Jill’s direction—but kept her eyes closed. “Yes?”

  “Try whimpering,” Vincent said.

  “Whimpering?”

  “As though you were having a nightmare.”

  Meredith whimpered.

  “Perfect,” said Vincent.

  She opened her eyes. “Really?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  Meredith smiled a big moony smile.

  “Then comes a bit of stage business for Ingrid,” Vincent said.

  Ingrid looked down at the script: “(Alice roughly elbows the Dormouse awake.)”

  “But—” Ingrid said.

  “Can I fall off my chair?” said Meredith.

  “Wonderful,” said Vincent. “The scene’s much too static as is.”

  What was going on? Why was everyone getting this except her? Ingrid got the crazy feeling that this was turning into Alice in Wonderland for real.

  “Let’s try it now,” said Vincent. “Minus the falling, Meredith—we’ll have landing pillows for that. Just the elbowing, if Ingrid is ready.”

  But she wasn’t ready. “Do you really think Alice is capable of something like that?” she said.

  “Something like what?” said Vincent.

  “Violence.”

  “Isn’t everyone capable of violence at one time or another?” Vincent said.

  Ingrid didn’t know. And anyway, weren’t there different kinds of violence, some worse than others?

  Vincent waited for a reply, his liquid eyes reflecting a green-filtered light from above. When no reply came, he said, “Shall we?”

  Ingrid leaned across the table and elbowed Meredith’s upper arm.

  “Can we be just a teensy bit more convincing than that?” Vincent said.

  “But Vincent.”

  “What is it?”

  Ingrid put her finger on it. “Isn’t this supposed to be comedy?” Then she thought of Vincent telling her the plays he’d been in and remembered he didn’t do comedy.

  “It’s my belief, as director,” said Vincent, “that there’s a little more to it than that.”

  “A lot more,” said Chloe. “It’s satire.”

  Vincent gave Chloe a long look; Ingrid could see how impressed he was. “Satire of the most savage sort,” he said.

  Chloe smiled.

  Something happened in Ingrid at that moment, a hot-red something, rising so fast she was hardly aware of it. The next moment she elbowed Meredith but good, and maybe more in the neck than the upper arm this time.

  “Ow,” said Meredith. “That really, really hurt. What’s wrong with you, Ingrid?”

  Ingrid started crying, couldn’t help it.

  “Perhaps that’s a wrap,” Vincent said.

  Ingrid hurried off the stage, up the red-carpeted aisle, into the lobby outside the theater. The Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland posters—“directed by Jill Monteiro”—had all been taken down. Two doors led out of the lobby—one to the octagonal entrance hall, the other, which was always closed and had a NO ENTRY sign, into the shut-off part of the building. She was probably too upset to notice that the NO ENTRY door was slightly ajar, would not have noticed if a huge cat hadn’t suddenly run across the marble floor, a rat in its mouth, and disappeared in the opening.

  She went outside. Dad was already there, parked by the door. Practically a first, but thank God, because she heard Chloe and Meredith coming up behind her, didn’t want to see them. She got in the car. Dad, punching numbers on a calculator, glanced at her.

  “Something wrong?” he said.

  Ingrid came really close to spewing out a whole mess of things. But she got a grip, dabbed at her eyes, and just said, “Rehearsal didn’t go so well.”

  “You’ll get ’em next time,” Dad said, patting her knee.

  What a stupid thing to say, like it was football. Ingrid sat stone-faced, arms across her chest. But halfway home, the moon higher in the sky now, no longer lemon yellow but now outlining all the trees and houses in silver, she realized he was right, had confidence in her. She’d get ’em next time.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

  “Huh?” said Dad. “For what?”

  Back home, in her room, Ingrid started rereading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, looking for signs of the mean Alice. But the words swam around and soon she could hardly breathe, the feeling of dread so strong inside her. After a while she got up and practiced lip curling in the mirror. She looked like a fool.

  Her door opened.

  “Phone,” said Ty.

  “I don’t want—”

  But the thing came flying in and Ty was gone.

  “Hello?” Ingrid said.

  “This is Vincent. I sense you’re having some slight problem with the new vision.”

  “A little bit, Vincent. I was looking at the book and—”

  “What book?”

  “Alice.”

  “The novel is just the starting point,” Vincent said. “The play is completely different, a work of art on its own.”

  “I know, but I still think it’s meant to be a fun thing.”

  “A fun thing?”

  “The whole story of Alice,” said Ingrid. “Falling down the rabbit hole, having all these adventures.”

  “Not all adventures are fun, to borrow your little word, and—”

  “But in this case—”

  “In this case,” said Vincent, “as in all cases having to do with the theater, actors must take direction.”

  Ingrid was silent.

  “Perhaps you’d be better off waiting for a production more suited to your capabilities,” Vincent said.

  Ingrid wasn’t sure what that meant. “You’re not saying I should quit?” she said.

  “That’s such a harsh word,” said Vincent. “We could call it a withdrawal, for illness, say.”

  “Oh, no,” Ingrid said. This was her passion, no doubt about it. “I could never quit.”

  Silence. The strange electric pulse started up in the phone wire again.

  “Then perhaps an extra rehearsal might help,” Vincent said.

  “Oh, yes,” said Ingrid. “Thanks.”

  “Shall we say tomorrow, the regular time?”

  “I’ll be there,” said Ingrid. “Do you want help making the calls?”

  “No,” said Vincent. “And in the meantime, rethink your approach to this darker Alice. I suggest you work from within.”

  twenty-seven

  THE WIND ROSE AND the waves rose with them, whipped into a frenzy. At first the snug little boat did what it always did, bobbed snugly along, staying warm and dry. Then a worm crawled up from the space between two deck planks. It started mouthing at the wood. Another worm wriggled up, and another and another. Soon there were hundreds, thousands, millions of worms, chewing and chewing, the worms in a frenzy too, eating the boat out from under her. Ingrid awoke. Nigel was whimpering beside her.

  Brucie Berman got on the bus, did what he must have thought of as a cool King Tut dance down the aisle. No one looked at him. He stopped by Ing
rid’s seat.

  “Way cool,” he said, “that thing in The Echo.”

  “Huh?” said Ingrid.

  “About dogs not voting.”

  “Guy,” called Mr. Sidney from the front. “Zip it.”

  “Thing in The Echo?” said Mia, sitting beside her.

  “No one reads The Echo,” said Ingrid.

  “I do,” said Mia. “What thing?”

  It turned out that lots of people read The Echo, including Mr. Porterhouse, a dodgeball lover who taught gym and was also Ingrid’s homeroom teacher, which meant taking attendance and recording tardies before letting them loose.

  “Our friend Ingrid here made the paper,” he said, standing under the basketball hoop and holding up The Echo. He took reading glasses from the pocket of his warm-ups—Mr. Porterhouse always wore warm-ups, the colors always intense—and read aloud: “Heard on Main Street. Best quote yet on the widespread and much-to-be-lamented disobedience of the town’s leash law comes from the mouth of thirteen-year-old Ingrid Levin-Hill, eighth grader at Ferrand Middle. According to young Miss Levin-Hill, ‘The problem is that the dogs didn’t vote.’”

  No one laughed except Mr. Porterhouse.

  “Get it, kids?” said Mr. Porterhouse, looking at them over the rims of his glasses. “Town meeting voted in this leash law thing—but the dogs didn’t vote!”

  Silence, unless all the blood flowing into Ingrid’s face made a noise.

  Mr. Porterhouse cleared his throat and read on: “We had the pleasure of making Miss Levin-Hill’s acquaintance when she dropped by The Echo office while researching a school project about ‘pretty much anything.’ Our intrepid middle-schooler, who has chosen ‘The Life and Death of Kate Kovac,’ is a young lady to watch indeed.”

  More silence. Ingrid’s embarrassment deepened, got all mixed together with the dread.

  “Enough culture,” said Mr. Porterhouse. “Choose up for dodgeball.”

  Mia was a captain. She chose Ingrid first. “What school project?” she said.

  Who else was going to be asking that same question?

  At lunchtime Ingrid hung out by the swings with Mia and Stacy. No one actually ever swung on the swings, but they stood in a corner of the yard farthest from the school and partially screened off by trees. Clouds were thickening overhead, growing darker and darker, and the wind was blowing across the grounds, scattering dead leaves and the shouts of a bunch of boys playing touch football.