“Do you know where he is or not?”
“You better stay away from Jack, Alice.” Edith arrives.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Jack is mine,” Lorina says. “All mine.”
“And you’ve been looming for some time,” Edith says.
I thought we were a couple by now.
“It boggles my mind why you think he’d be interested in you,” Lorina says. “He is mine.”
“Not yet,” Edith reminds her.
“I always get what I want,” Lorina says, chin up.
I don’t have time for this nonsense.
“And what’s with the thinning hair?” Edith points at my withering hair. I guess it haunts me everywhere I travel in time. I think it has something to do with the time I have left alive.
I comb my head with hands. No time to be embarrassed about it. My mother has already disappeared somewhere.
“We shouldn’t lock her in the basement too often,” Lorina says. “It looks like rats are ripping out her hair.”
“Looks better that way,” Edith says. “She looks mad. To the point.”
The sisters giggle.
I need to know where to find Jack, couple or no couple. Or should I just stay away from him? If we’re not a couple, why would he get on the bus with me later? I’m confused here.
“I know he’s yours,” I tell Lorina. “Can’t you just tell me where I can find him? I need to return a pen I borrowed.”
“A pen? Such a lame excuse.”
Why can’t I just be the Bad Alice and choke both of them right now?
“Tell you what,” Edith says. “I’m suggesting you forget about school today.”
“Yeah,” Lorina says. “I’m seducing Jack into kissing me today. Better find something else to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like your favorite mad professor at Oxford University.” Edith giggles. Lorina giggles back.
“Mad professor?”
“The one whom you trust over everyone else,” Lorina says. “The one you think understands you.”
“Aren’t you too young for him?” Edith laughs.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you’re naive.” Lorina waves her hand, dismissing me. “Go to him. Professor Carter Pillar, who believes that Wonderland exists, like you do.”
I am speechless.
“Honestly, it’s a joke,” Edith says to Lorina. “You won’t believe how many young girls attend his free lectures, escaping school. Each one of them believes she is Alice.”
They both laugh and walk away.
In my mind, I think that finding the Pillar isn’t a bad idea. He always has a way out in these situations. I follow them out. Going to Oxford University wouldn’t be a problem.
Chapter 65
THE PAST: LECTURE ROOM, OXFORD UNIVERSITY
The girls swarming outside the lecture hall are all teenagers. Most of them are certified nerds. A few pigtails here, thick glasses there, and of course they all carry an Alice in Wonderland gadget. Several goth-like girls are also present, loud talkers and jokers, wearing silver piercings and black tattoos, hair dyed in pink and dressed like rock stars, and wearing t-shirts about an evil Alice. Last but not least are the girls in costumes. All Wonderlastic masks, disguised as the Hatter, the Rabbit, and Queen of Hearts, and more.
Oxford University has turned into a simple Comic Con, waiting for Professor Carter Pillar. What can I say? It’s the Pillar. Always influential and doing what he likes to celebrate madness.
I walk among them, hugging my books and strapping on my backpack. The girls talk about their crushes on the professor. His free spirit, and the fact that he understands them.
“I hope you don’t end up in an asylum,” I mumble, chugging through.
“You know Alice is real?” a girl suggests to her friends. “Professor Pillar says so. There is a Wonderland War coming.”
I roll my eyes and stay silent. I think we’re all waiting for the lecture room’s door to open. There is a bulletin board that talks about the Pillar’s theories on insanity. It basically spreads the idea about the world going nuts. It also promotes hookah smoking.
A few professors, wearing ties and smoking pipes, pass through the corridor. They stare at us, Wonderland believers, as if we’re parasites. One of them mentions the committee’s disgust with the Pillar’s ways, wondering how the university permits him to gather those teenagers and poison their thoughts.
Then the doors open.
The girls compete to be first inside. I wait for the clatter to subside and follow in. The lecture hall is almost full, so I resort to a lonely bench in the last two rows, and watch the Pillar enter.
My plan is to wait for a chance to approach him and talk him into helping me with finding Jack. But my plan is thrown out of the window when I take a better look at the professor.
How could this be?
The vicious serial killer is nothing but a nerdy professor like I have seen before.
Chapter 66
Professor Pillar wears a multicolored jacket too short at the waist. It’s battered and probably hasn’t been washed since Wonderland. His trousers are pink, too large, and he wears flip-flops. His eyes hide behind thick glasses with black frames. Glasses that desperately need wiping. The man stutters when he welcomes his students. He has a tic of adjusting his glasses whenever he says something. For God’s sake, the Pillar blushes when a girl compliments him.
I sit, mouth agape, unable to fathom what’s going on. How is this going to help me? I suppress a shriek when he mentions his idol is Indiana Jones.
I spend the lecture in a terrible kind of awe, waiting for him to finish. I need to go talk to him. Wake him up.
When he is done, all I have left is seven hours. I slither through the crowd and pull him by the arm. “Professor!”
“Yes?” He adjusts his glasses. “How may I help you, kiddo?”
“I need to talk to you.”
His eyes dart sideways. “Aren’t we already?”
“In private,” I whisper.
His eyes widen. He blushes and worries. Says nothing.
“It’s important,” I whisper. “I’m Alice.”
“Alice?”
“I’m the Real Alice you’re looking for.” I grit my teeth.
He backs away, suspiciously scanning me from head to toe. Then he slouches, hugging his book, about to leave.
“We need to talk alone.” I pull him back again. “I need your help.”
“Who are you?” He stops, irritated now.
It’s going to be hard to explain things to him among all those girls. Then I remember seeing a poster out in the streets of the upcoming Star Wars movie. It gives me an idea. “I have tickets for the next Star Wars. Front row. Premiere day.”
His eyes widen again. Immediately he excuses himself and pulls me into his office. He locks the door behind us, gets behind his desk, and glares at me. “Is Darth going to be there?”
Really? I fist one hand. Is this really happening, or is he making it up?
I rap my hand on the desk and lean forward as he slumps back in his seat. “Look, whoever the Jub Jub you are now, I’m Alice Pleasant Wonder. Mary Ann. I used to know you in Wonderland. We go back then. Not in Wonderland, but in the future. I have seven hours to save myself from dying because of a lapse in time travel. According to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wonderlastic Time Travels, I need to find my Wonder or I will die. But even if I can’t find it, I need to save Jack. You know Jack? In fact, I need to save my classmates, probably the hordes of girls outside, from killing them in a bus accident a few hours from now. I need you to stop me from doing that. No, this isn’t right. I need you to help me stop me from killing my classmates and ending up in an asylum for the next two years. Do. You. Get. That?”