Alice And The Billionaire's Wonderland (Once Upon A Billionaire Book 3)

by Catelyn Meadows

  “Why not?”

  Adelie pointed at the TV with her fork. “Do you know what kind of crowds are going to be there? He just broadcasted this on national TV. People are going to be traveling from far and wide for a chance at this.”

  To their cozy Westville. As far as towns went, it didn’t get the massive traffic other big cities often did. It was a quaint little slice of heaven. They didn’t need Disneyland-level tourism here.

  “You know, the one I feel sorry for is that rabbit,” said Adelie.

  “Nah,” Suzie contradicted her. “I feel sorry for all those poor suckers who’ll be driving in from out of town. Because it’s going to be for nothing. I’m finding that rabbit, Adelie.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Adelie argued.

  “See these hands?” Suzie flared them in her direction. “Rabbit catchers.”

  Adelie laughed. “Good luck with that.” She took another bite of buttery, ketchup-slathered hash browns.

  “You sound like you’re not coming.”

  Adelie finished chewing. “I’m not. I lost my job, Suz. I’ve got to find a new one, just in case your little plan to catch loose, four-legged creatures with cotton tails falls through.”

  “I thought Ella offered you a job,” Suzie said with confusion.

  “She’s marrying Ever After Sweet Shoppe’s owner, but that doesn’t mean she owns the business. Besides, I don’t want to accept her charity.” Though the idea of working in a candy shop had been tantalizing. Her other grandma, Grammy Larsen, had discouraged Adelie from taking the position.

  “You’d be great at it,” Grammy had assured, “but being around all that candy all day long? Makes my mouth water and my waistline expand just thinking about it.”

  Grammy had worked in one of the stores in downtown Westville for a year now, and she assured Adelie the part-time position wouldn’t cover the expenses she and Suzie needed it to.

  “You know you’d offer the same to Ella without a second thought if the situation was reversed,” Suzie said.

  That much was true. Adelie knew Suzie was referring to the surprise she and Suzie had helped their other grandma with last Christmas. Ella had been in need, though she’d refused to ask for any help. Grammy had gathered reinforcements to help clean Ella’s apartment and convince her to attend the ball where she’d met her soon-to-be-husband.

  But this was different. Adelie hated putting herself out there for anyone or anything. She preferred staying close to home, away from crowds. While she loved reaching out to help others, receiving help, on the other hand, or being around more than a handful of people at once, made her feel too exposed. She was the queen of reservation and caution, and she wasn’t about to lose her crown.

  “At least come to Wonderland with me.” Suzie interrupted her musings.

  Adelie shook her head. Suzie didn’t understand. Her sister was an extrovert. Where crowds made Adelie want to cower in corners, they were like an IV pumping energy straight into Suzie’s veins. She thrived off the attention and the vitality.

  “Come on,” Suzie whined. “This is our hometown. All these other people have to travel or drive long distances, but we’re right here. You have to come. You’ve never even been to Wonderland.”

  “Because it costs a fortune to get in.”

  “It’s one day,” Suzie said. “It’s a magical, whimsical, granted, campy, place, and how often do you get to see me rub elbows with thousands of others out to catch a rabbit? You know Fletcher can’t go with me. He has to work. I need you.”

  Adelie could no longer hold down her smile. Suzie had always been good at melting her defenses. The Fletcher reference did the trick. Suzie’s boyfriend was just as quirky as she was and would probably love something like this.

  Suzie didn’t usually beg, so Adelie knew this was something she really wanted. How could she tell her no?

  It didn’t completely alleviate the worry in her chest, but still, it managed to lift her spirits. “All right. I’ll come—”

  “Yay!”

  “—but only to watch you make a fool of yourself.”

  “I’m finding that rabbit.” Suzie punctuated the statement with a bite of eggs.

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  Her sister smirked. “Then you have to be there to see it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Adelie exhaled through a part in her lips. This was worse than playing the lottery, something she’d never wanted to do because the chances of winning the jackpot were so unlikely it was laughable. Seeing these crowds? All these people who would use the same clues to find the same prize? They didn’t stand a chance.

  She couldn’t help being charmed by the park’s setup. The ticket booths sported top hat-shaped roofs. Towering rides, including a double-loop roller coaster, coiled through the sky above the park’s fence. The sight gave Adelie a tiny thrill in her chest. She’d never ridden anything like that before.

  The line trickled forward, and each step wound Adelie tighter with nerves. Just when she’d talked herself into accepting this scenario, they approached the window, and Adelie’s mouth dropped.

  Fifty dollars for the entry fee? That money was food on their table, and here they were, blowing it on some silly whim.

  The woman behind the register, wearing a brightly colored, imaginative uniform with patched, puffy sleeves smiled patiently. Suzie, however, was the opposite of patient. She widened her eyes in a pointed sort of way at Adelie’s hesitation, as if to say, what are you waiting for?

  With a sigh, Adelie ignored her better judgment. She forked over the money from her wallet and received a ticket, a stamp on her hand, and a midnight-blue flier the size of an envelope.

  “Your first clue is in here,” the woman behind the register instructed. “You have until midnight tonight to find Mr. Missing Cottontail. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Suzie said, beaming as she stepped through the silver, three-pronged rotation bar. Adelie followed, nabbing a park map from its distributive box in the process.

  Suzie whirled around the instant they stepped out of the way of thronging people. “Let me see, let me see.” She tried to tear the first clue from Adelie’s hand, but Adelie yanked it to her chest and inspected the thick paper, then read the gold inscription aloud:

  "It's rather curious, this sort of life."

  “That's the clue?” Suzie said skeptically.

  Adelie’s brows furrowed. She’d read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a long time ago, but she found herself intrigued by the quote, by the detail and depth someone had put into choosing it. A quote like that could be taken in multiple ways, which was probably what made it so appealing.

  She couldn’t allow that to give her false hope in this little scavenger hunt. She should be out job hunting. She should be doing something that could actually help them, not make them pilfer the little money they had left. A hundred dollars was a sliver she couldn’t dig out.

  “It can’t be a clue,” Adelie said. “I think it’s just a teaser. Look, it opens.”

  “Here.” Suzie reached for it again. This time, Adelie gave the card up willingly.

  “They’d better be good riddles,” Adelie said, examining the milling crowd and the sheer number of people who’d stopped to read their cards just as she and Suzie had, “or this thing is going to be over within the hour.”

  Suzie didn’t seem to have the same misgivings. She practically bounced on the balls of her feet. “Let’s check them out.”

  She tore open the golden sticker in the shape of a top hat sealing the folded end of the blue cardstock.

  It might have seemed less daunting if either of them had ever been to Wonderland Theme Park before. They’d grown up in this town, and while they’d driven past Wonderland countless times and seen the Ferris wheel and other rides tangling up the sky, Adelie had never once set foot here. She could have visited with school trips, but unlike Suzie, she’d always opted out of them. She was beginning to regret t
hat decision.

  Adelie leaned in to study the clue closer. Below a brief string of instructions, on the illustrated tag of the image’s large glass bottle, were the words:

  To begin, you'll have to start at the end.

  Suzie lowered the paper in frustration and glanced around. People pointed excitedly toward a synthetic rabbit leaping toward a large, dark hole carved into the fake spread of grass. Others paused, taking selfies, rushing through what appeared to be a larger rabbit hole with a makeshift sign whose top plank was directed toward the hole.

  “Start at the end?” Suzie said. “What does that mean?”

  “Let’s check the map.” Adelie opened its folds, crinkling it and taking in the various attractions. The layout was extravagant and enticing, with bold, bright colors and easy-to-follow routes to get to every ride.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “In the book, they play croquet at the end. Does this place have anything like that? Oh, look.” She pointed to a large flamingo marking an attraction called The Queen's Croquet-Ground. “Let’s start there.”

  Linking arms, the sisters wove through the crowds for what felt like miles until they made their way to a large ride set off by a flamingo next to a hedgehog. Playing cards with heads, arms, and legs were situated here and there, as well as a sign. On it, a cartoonish depiction of Alice scolded a disobedient flamingo.

  “Do we ride the ride?” Suzie asked.

  Adelie took in the whirling carriages shaped like fat hedgehogs. The hedgehog carriages spun and dodged in and out of sight along a track. A trail of people so long it interrupted traffic coiled along. “I don’t think so. Look how long that line is.” Besides, they weren’t here to ride anything. They needed to find that rabbit and vamoose.

  Adelie searched their riddle, skimming the instructions they probably should have read before they started. Skim…skim…there. “For clues that lead to rides, the next clue will only be given after your enjoyment of that particular attraction.”

  Her dismay deepened. “Never mind. Looks like that’s a yes, we do need to ride it.”

  “Come on.” Excitedly, Suzie tugged Adelie over to the end of the ride’s line.

  The sisters indulged in ride after ride and received clue after clue. Adelie had to admit, she would have loved to come any other time, if money wasn’t so tight. If she didn’t feel like every ride, every line, every step toward the next clue and the next—clues that hundreds of others had already found—made things seem that much more hopeless.

  ***

  Maddox paced the park. He couldn’t help checking the camera feeds from his phone, to see if the final riddle had been solved yet, but so far, no one had discovered the rabbit he’d named Pierre.

  He could have watched from the sidelines, but that was no fun. Instead, he’d opted for meandering and soaking in the energy that had tripled at every turn. This was what Wonderland was meant to be about. The fun. The marvel, the discovery, the pure enjoyment. Maddox breathed it all in like a drug.

  Around lunchtime, he stopped into the Ever After Sweet Shoppe for a fruit smoothie—peach mango, his favorite—and a toasted turkey and cranberry panini. He’d suggested the Sweet Shoppe in the park offer more than just candies and goodies, and it had turned out to be a good idea.

  As he sat eating near the window, a pair of women caught his eye. Or rather, one woman. Of all the people he’d been watching today, with their gaping smiles and easy laughter, this woman was not only beautiful, but also apparently grumpy.

  “Not the reaction I’m going for,” he muttered to himself with a smile, taking a final sip from his smoothie to finish its contents. It wasn’t her apparent displeasure alone, though. His gaze was drawn to her. She had a spark about her, from her creamy pale skin that matched the color of her hair to the cautious way she approached the Odds N' Ends gift shop. Something told him she was that way about everything. Cautious. Careful. And completely oblivious to the effect she had on others around her.

  Driven by a force he couldn’t explain, he hurried to toss his sandwich wrappings and empty cup in the garbage and made his way out.

  Odds N' Ends was Maddox’s favorite shop in the park. It offered the widest variety of souvenirs and do-dads for tourists. The shoppers were charmed by the shelves offering teacups and tiny bottles of liquid, by the white kid gloves, the stuffed cats and mice and flamingos, the croquet sets made up of flamingos and hedgehogs. Maddox’s best-selling item was a T-shirt saying Curiouser and Curiouser on one side while the back declared, I forgot how to speak good English at Wonderland, above the Wonderland Theme Park logo.

  This time, though, the merchandise, the associates, the displays, it all blurred. Even through the packed crowd of shoppers, he saw only her.

  The woman stood before a Victorian display featuring lace doilies on antique suitcases surrounding a lamp dripping with fringe on its shade. She lifted a finger to tap one of the beads dangling from the lamp shade’s fringe. Wonder filled her gaze, and Maddox’s heart seized in his chest.

  “Alice,” he breathed, taken by astonishment. “That’s her. She looks just like her.”

  He couldn’t let this woman out of his sight. He had to talk to her. Not paying attention, Maddox kicked the edge of a display table covered with teacups staggered on separate stands. The entire display trembled, the china tinkling. Heat flamed in his cheeks. Patrons glanced in his direction. Maddox waved to them and then righted himself, only to knock down a decorative, black teapot that sat too close to the table’s edge. He lunged for it, but too late, the teapot shattered on the floor.

  People nearby gaped at him. Great. That was just what he needed—for anyone who might recognize him to see the park’s owner making a fool of himself. Hurriedly, he spun around and signaled for the nearest employee.

  “Sorry about this, Clark,” he said, reading the young man’s nametag. He couldn’t possibly know everyone who worked for him. “This was my fault. Can you get that cleaned up?”

  “I—sure…” Clark said, but Maddox didn’t stay to finish their conversation. Quickly, he scoured the shop for a sign of what rabbit hole the woman—the perfect Alice—had disappeared down, but his heart dropped. The shop’s bell tinkled, and in a flash of blonde hair, she was gone.

  ***

  “I’m starting to think there is no rabbit,” Adelie overheard one frustrated patron mutter to another as she took a stuffed rabbit to the nearest cash register.

  Adelie had to say she agreed with the woman. She and Suzie had been here for hours and still had barely managed to find the fourth clue. “How many clues were there?” she wondered aloud.

  She’d paused to admire a charming lamp with dripping beads along its shade when the sound of crashing porcelain startled her. People had clustered near the scene of the crime. Adelie spotted Suzie immediately and ushered her toward the exit. The last thing they needed was for the employees to think either of them had been the culprit for the crash.

  Out in the sun once more, she could see many patrons still examining their clues. Others, however, seemed to be enjoying themselves, not caring about the prize at all—pushing strollers, buying treats for their children, and laughing in the spring sunlight.

  “Tell me again what the next one said,” Suzie said as she ambled along beside Adelie. She’d stopped to inspect and admire a squat building labeled The Duchess's House. A cross-looking woman holding a baby could be seen through the window, and the Cheshire Cat smiled and blinked in and out of view from behind a tree.

  It didn’t matter what others said, Adelie had always thought he was creepy.

  She pulled up the last clue they’d gotten after the Pool of Tears. The water ride’s inflatable boats carried them over rapids and around treacherous rocks, surrounded by mice and birds. Her shoes and shirt were still wet, and the chilly March air didn’t help. The snow had melted mostly everywhere, but it was still cold.

  “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” she repeated. “Ugh, this is maddening. Ev
en Lewis Carroll said there was no answer to that riddle. How are we supposed to find one?”

  “Don’t you love that we share a last name with him?” Despite her pronouncement to find the rabbit, Suzie seemed oblivious that they’d made absolutely no progress.

  “It’s not his real last name,” Adelie said, exasperated, trying to think things through, to see where others might be heading. If they didn’t at least try, this whole day would all have been for nothing.

  “What if it’s not in reference to a ride this time?” Suzie suggested.

  “What do you mean? They’ve all referred to rides.”

  “You’ve read the book,” Suzie said. “What does that line have to do with anything?”

  Adelie considered her sister’s question. The instruction on their pamphlet did imply not every clue would lead to a ride. If not a ride, then where?

  “In the book, the riddle is said by just another crazy character while Alice is having tea at the March Hare’s house.”

  “Then we go to the March Hare’s house.” Suzie declared this as if this was the simplest thing in the world.

  Adelie pulled up the map. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.” Too bad everyone else who’d already gotten the clue was probably there too. Whoever had thought this whole scheme up needed to be shaken.

  “It’s this way,” Adelie said as the mechanized Cheshire Cat reappeared from behind his tree and rolled his eyes at her.

  Holding hands to stay together through the thick masses, the two sisters passed a robotic man dressed in a caterpillar suit on a large mushroom, holding a hookah and shouting out dizzy commands.

  “The rabbit will be released at half-past ten. You’ll have the day to find him, though you’ll need more than time if you want to catch him. You’ll never catch him. I never said you would.”

  People moseyed along, some stopping to admire a large waterfall. Others gathered at kiosks for breadsticks or corn on the cob. Workers swept the pave stones, collecting bits of garbage and fallen popcorn.

  A thickset, cartoonish house came into view. Its thatched roof was interrupted by pointed bunny ears sticking straight up out of the rooftop. A sign with a caricature Alice holding a teacup labeled it, “March Hare's Mad House. Keep your wits about you.”