When they reached the gatehouse, Rose said, “Um, Mavis…”
But Mavis opened the screen door and said, “Okay, cross your fingers. Here we go.”
When Mavis stepped through the door with Henry, Rose hollered, “Wait! I think—”
But Mavis and Henry had already disappeared inside.
Rose crossed her fingers and stepped inside behind them.
HENRY
Henry had made a big mistake.
He should’ve ignored that delicious food and stayed hidden in the bushes.
He never should have trusted this wild-haired girl.
He should’ve run far away from that wrought-iron fence where the freckled girl lived.
He should’ve run farther away from Wonderland.
But he hadn’t.
Now here he was, inside a small building with a gray-haired man who looked quite surprised.
MAVIS
“Ta-da!” Mavis said, sweeping her arm out toward Henry.
“What in the name of sweet Bessie McGee is that?” Mr. Duffy stared at Henry.
Mavis grinned. “A dog!” she said. “A really sweet dog who needs a home. Right, Rose?”
Rose looked from Mr. Duffy to Henry and back to Mr. Duffy. “Um, right.”
“I know he’s kind of funny-looking,” Mavis said. “So skinny. But he’s nice.”
“Where in tarnation did y’all find that mongrel?” Mr. Duffy walked slowly around the gatehouse, inspecting Henry from a distance.
Henry sat beside Mavis, watching Mr. Duffy, looking kind of pitiful.
“In the woods,” Mavis said. “He’s been there for a long time. That’s why he’s so skinny. He needs a home, right, Rose?”
Rose nodded.
“And he has tattoos on his ears,” Mavis said. “I bet you never saw that before.”
Mr. Duffy raised his eyebrows. “Tattoos?”
“Yeah, look.” Mavis flipped Henry’s ears over and showed Mr. Duffy the tattoos.
117E
51549
Mr. Duffy squinted down at Henry’s ears. Then he straightened up, took his cap off, scratched the top of his head, and said, “That dog’s from Wonderland.”
ROSE
“Wonderland?” Mavis said.
“Yep.” Mr. Duffy put his cap back on and nodded toward Henry. “That dog’s from Wonderland, or my name ain’t Duffy.”
“What’s Wonderland?” Mavis asked.
But Rose knew what Wonderland was.
Which is why she had had that little niggle about Henry.
Mr. Duffy jerked his head toward the door. “Dog track up yonder on the other side of the highway,” he said.
“What’s a dog track?” Mavis asked.
But Rose knew what a dog track was.
Rose knew because her uncle AJ went there and wasted his hard-earned money. At least, that’s what Rose’s mother always said.
“It’s humiliating to know that my own brother goes to that dog track and wastes his hard-earned money,” she often snapped when Uncle AJ came over.
Mr. Duffy explained Wonderland to Mavis. How the dogs raced around a track, chasing a stuffed rabbit on a pole. How people went to Wonderland to watch the dogs race and to bet money on them. How Henry must have run away from Wonderland and how he would have to go back.
Mavis’s face fell. “But how do you know he came from there?” she said.
“It’s as plain as the tail on a rattler,” Mr. Duffy said. “He’s a greyhound, for one thing. And those ear tattoos, for another. Sure sign of a racer.”
“What do they mean?” Mavis rubbed the numbers on Henry’s ears.
“I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve seen plenty of ’em.” Mr. Duffy went over to his desk and dropped into his chair with a groan. “I tossed away more than a few dollars at that track back when I was young and dumb.”
“You did?” Mavis said.
Mr. Duffy nodded. “I sure did. And Edna? Sweet-as-pecan-pie Edna? She’d get mad as all get-out. Wouldn’t say pea turkey squat to me for days.”
Mavis kissed Henry on his nose. He must’ve liked being kissed, because he snuggled against her shoulder and licked her on the cheek.
“Aren’t you going to keep him?” Mavis asked.
Mr. Duffy shook his head. “That dog’s not mine to keep,” he said. “He’s gotta go back to where he came from.”
And that was that.
Mr. Duffy called Wonderland to come and get Henry.
MAVIS
Mavis couldn’t believe her plan hadn’t worked. She had been so sure everything was going to turn out great.
But it hadn’t.
So here she was, sitting outside the gatehouse with Rose, waiting on someone from Wonderland to come and pick up Henry.
“I wonder if he wins a lot of races,” Rose said, patting the top of Henry’s head. “I bet he does.”
Suddenly Mavis snapped her fingers. “Hey, we should go there sometime!”
“Where?”
“To Wonderland.”
Rose shook her head. “My mother doesn’t approve of Wonderland. My uncle AJ goes there and loses a lot of money.”
“We could go to watch sometime,” Mavis said. “We wouldn’t even have to tell anybody. It could be like our first Best Friends Club field trip.”
Rose got that worried look that Mavis knew well.
“Forget it, then,” Mavis said. “I’ll go by myself.”
Rose didn’t answer, so Mavis said it again.
“I’ll go by myself.”
Then, just as Mavis was starting to get irritated, a white van pulled up to the gatehouse. Painted on the side in black letters was:
WONDERLAND GREYHOUND PARK
PALMETTO ROAD
LANDRY, ALABAMA
A bald-headed man wearing a red Wonderland T-shirt got out of the van. Over the pocket of his shirt was the name Roger. “Well, you little devil,” he said to Henry. “We been looking all over for you.”
Henry put his tail between his legs and hung his head.
Then the man slipped a collar and leash over Henry’s head and said, “Thanks for calling me, y’all.”
Before Mavis even had a chance to hug Henry goodbye, the man scooped him up and put him into a crate in the back of the van.
“Bye, Henry,” Mavis called.
“Bye, Henry,” Rose called.
The man climbed into the driver’s seat, draped his arm out the window, and gave Rose and Mavis a wave.
“Can we come watch him race sometime?” Mavis asked as the van was backing away from the gatehouse.
“This one ain’t racing no more,” the man said.
Then the van drove off, leaving a puff of black smoke behind it.
ROSE
“Wait! Stop!”
Mavis was running after the van.
But it didn’t stop.
It kept going until it disappeared from sight.
Mavis stopped running and stomped her foot. “Dang it!”
Rose ran to catch up with her.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you hear what that man said?”
“About what?”
“About Henry.”
“Um, I…”
Mavis gestured in the direction where the van had disappeared. “He said Henry doesn’t race anymore.”
“So?”
“So why is he there?”
“Well, I guess he, well, um…”
“We have to go there,” Mavis said.
Rose had a bad feeling that Mavis was about to talk her into doing something she wouldn’t want to do.
“Go where?” she asked.
But she knew the answer.
“Wonderland,” Mavis said, throwing her arms out and then dropping them with a loud slap against her legs.
Yep, Rose had been right. Mavis was going to try to convince her to go to Wonderland. But that would be crazy. In fact, that would be the craziest thing Rose had ever done.
<
br /> Crazier than going back in those woods where she wasn’t supposed to go.
Crazier than taking those little quiches her mother always kept for company.
Crazier than bringing Henry to Mr. Duffy.
“Don’t you get it?” Mavis said. “If Henry isn’t racing anymore, then what’s he doing there? What happens to the dogs who don’t race? Maybe they get sent to a dog pound or something. Let’s go find out.”
“How are we gonna go to Wonderland? I don’t even know for sure where it is, but I know it’s way on the other side of the highway. I’m not even allowed to go near the highway.”
“We’ll ride bikes. We can do it.”
Then Mavis started rambling on and on about how they would go to Wonderland and find Henry.
Mavis always made everything sound so easy.
Suddenly there were two Roses.
One Rose wanted to say, “No.”
She wanted to say, “Forget it.”
She wanted to go back home and sit in Grace’s room by herself.
But the other Rose wanted to do their special handshake and say, “Let’s go for it!”
But both Roses just stood there, listening to Mavis make everything sound so easy.
MAVIS
“Geez, you would’ve thought I’d committed a crime or something,” Mavis’s mother said as she took pizza out of the microwave. “It looked like a sugar bowl to me. How was I supposed to know it was for salt?”
She cut the pizza into slices and dropped one onto a paper plate for Mavis.
“Who ever heard of a salt cellar, anyway?” she said.
While Mavis ate her pizza, her mother went on and on about Mrs. Tully.
How she’d gotten so irritated when her mother didn’t know how to cook artichokes.
And who cares whether you serve the chicken platter from the left or the right?
And what’s the point of having dishes that you can’t even put in the dishwasher?
But Mavis wasn’t listening.
She was thinking.
Could she convince Rose to go with her to Wonderland?
If she could, where would they get another bicycle? Mavis had only seen one in the garage.
If they did get another bicycle, would they be able to find Wonderland?
And if they did, could they get in?
If they got in, would Henry still be there?
So many questions.
ROSE
When the “Ode to Joy” doorbell rang, Rose opened the front door, and there was Amanda Simm.
“I’m selling raffle tickets for my swim team,” Amanda said. “To raise money for our meet in Birmingham.”
“How much are they?” Rose asked.
“They’re five dollars each, and there are a bunch of prizes, including a weekend time-share condo in the Smoky Mountains,” Amanda said. “Will you ask your mom?”
“Um, sure. Just a minute.”
Rose found her mother on the screened porch, reading, and told her about Amanda’s raffle tickets. Her mother said she would buy five.
When Rose returned to the front door with the money, Amanda thanked her and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Rose said.
Amanda waited.
“Um…” Rose shifted from one foot to the other. In her head, she argued with herself.
Ask her.
Don’t ask her.
Ask her.
Don’t ask her.
And then she did.
“Can Mavis and I borrow your bike?” she asked.
Amanda narrowed her eyes. “What for?”
“Um, just to ride.”
“Ride where?”
Then Rose argued with herself again.
Fib.
Don’t fib.
Fib.
Don’t fib.
And then she did.
“To ride around Magnolia Estates,” she fibbed. “Maybe we could come to some of your swim meets.”
Amanda cocked her head and had skeptical written all over her face. If she didn’t answer soon, Rose was going to slam the door and run up to Grace’s room.
But then Amanda said, “Sure. I guess so.”
* * *
Rose couldn’t wait to tell Mavis that she had asked Amanda about borrowing her bike. She was so proud of herself that she called Grace and told her about Mavis’s crazy plan to go to Wonderland.
“No way!” Grace said.
“Yes, way!”
“Rosie, that’s awesome,” Grace said. “I’m so glad you have a friend like Mavis.”
“Yeah, me too.”
But of course, Rose didn’t tell Grace that she didn’t really want to go to Wonderland. That the thought of riding her bike across the highway gave her a stomachache. That she could never be as brave and adventurous as Mavis was.
* * *
That evening, the Magnolia Estates Garden Club sat on the Tullys’ patio, sipping sweet tea and talking about Mr. Duffy.
Rose sat on the window seat in Grace’s room and listened with a knot of dread growing inside her.
“Sometimes I wonder if he’s going deaf,” one lady said. “I specifically told him my niece was coming last Tuesday, and he swears up and down I never did.”
“When Wanda Lawrence came to hang my new drapes,” another lady said, “she told me he had been sleeping when she stopped at the gatehouse.”
The others mumbled things like “good heavens” and “seriously?”
Rose could picture them down there, nibbling on their quiches and nodding at one another.
And it made her feel terrible when she realized they were right.
But was Mavis right?
If Mr. Duffy had another dog to love, would he really be like his old self again?
And could he ever love Henry the way he had loved Queenie?
But that didn’t matter anyway because Henry belonged at Wonderland.
Still, Mavis had a point.
If Henry wasn’t racing, why was he there?
Then one of the ladies down on the patio said, “Well, personally, I think it’s time to discuss Mr. Duffy at our next board meeting.”
Those words hit Rose hard.
Like a punch.
So she made a decision right then and there.
She would go to Wonderland with Mavis.
HENRY
When the bald man named Roger opened the crate and let Henry out of the van, the dog’s heart sank.
Just as he had suspected.
He was back at Wonderland.
Henry didn’t understand what was going on in the place where he had lived his whole life.
First of all, he wasn’t racing anymore.
Why?
He had been racing for as long as he could remember.
And now he wasn’t.
Maybe he wasn’t quite as fast as he used to be.
Maybe that bad hip of his made him limp sometimes.
But still, racing was what he had always done.
And now he wasn’t.
And second of all, he had been moved out of the kennels where he had always lived.
Now he was in a new building, where every few days one of the dogs left and didn’t come back.
Where were they going? Why weren’t they coming back? Maybe something bad was happening to them.
Henry felt scared and confused.
He was convinced he shouldn’t stay here in this new place.
He would wait for just the right time.
Then he would run away again.
MAVIS
It had been raining for three days.
Mavis was bored.
She and Rose had been to the gatehouse every day.
Sometimes the three of them played cards, but most of the time they stared out at the rain, which left little rivers running along the edges of the streets of Magnolia Estates. The heat left the gatehouse windows cloudy with steam and the air smelling like mildew.
Mavis couldn’t wait until she and Rose
went to Wonderland.
If only the rain would stop.
And, speaking of Rose, Mavis could hardly believe that she had convinced Amanda to let them borrow her bike. Such an un-Rose-like thing to do!
But Mavis was a little worried that Rose might change her mind about going to Wonderland. The more it rained, the more Mavis worried. She also worried that if they waited much longer, Henry might be gone. Since he didn’t race anymore, would he still be at Wonderland? And if he wasn’t, where would he be?
Mavis had never been a worrier.
But now she was.
Not as much as Rose, of course, but still …
If only it would stop raining so she and Rose could go to Wonderland.
ROSE
Rose had two feelings twirling around together.
First of all, she was feeling pretty proud of herself for asking Amanda if she and Mavis could borrow her bike.
Maybe she really was getting to be more like Mavis.
But twirling around with that feeling was another one.
Guilt.
Rose was feeling guilty that she didn’t want the rain to stop.
Sure, she had agreed to go to Wonderland.
But now that she had committed to going, she wasn’t feeling quite so sure.
As long as it rained, she wouldn’t have to actually do it.
She could hang out in the gatehouse with Mr. Duffy instead.
The problem with that, though, was that it seemed like he was getting grumpier every day.
When Mildred Owings had called to complain about Mr. Duffy letting somebody selling magazine subscriptions into Magnolia Estates, he had practically hung up on her. Then he’d grumbled about her all morning.
“That woman is so annoying she could make a preacher cuss,” he’d said, not once, but three times.
When Darlene Badger had stopped by to take a look at his clipboard to make sure the guests for her barbecue were on there, he had handed it to her with a big humph.
After she’d left, Mr. Duffy had said, “She thinks she can charm the dew right off the honeysuckle.”
When the rain didn’t let up, Mavis got more and more impatient.
“Maybe we should go anyway,” she said. “Who cares about a little rain?”
But finally the day came.
Wonderland Page 8