Alice in Wonderland High (33 page)

I sat up straighter, a smile so wide it hurt my cheeks.

“Someone, please stand outside the doors and make sure no one else interrupts.” Principal Dodgson pointed to a boy close to the door. He scrambled to get up. The commotion triggered an eruption of whispers.

Whitney waved the boys over. Chess stepped over my legs to secure the spot next to me, and Kingston dropped next to Whitney. Quinn stared at Kingston with her mouth parted. For a moment her face stayed suspended like that, like she couldn't decide if she should be seething or excited. Seething won out and her lips descended into a scowl. He blew a kiss at her, and she folded her arms over her chest.

“You're back!” I slid my fingers between Chess's. “Illegally?” It came out harsher than I'd meant, but I was on edge, my toes curled over the side of a cliff. It was a miracle I could even speak at all.

“Long story.” Chess squeezed my hand.

I blinked at him, waiting.

“Oh no. I'm keeping you in suspense just like you've been keeping me. At least until after the trial.”

I knew he meant me not saying “I love you” back to him. And I would say it, but not when prompted. As Principal Dodgson continued her speech, I sank into Chess, and his hand held onto mine tightly, anchoring me.

“As I was saying, we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses to determine whether Alice Liddell committed several crimes against the school.”

Quinn cleared her throat. “Alice broke into the teacher's lounge and stole the paper, then snuck back in later and glued sheets to every desk, making it impossible to learn anything important the teachers were saying. That was only a few days before she flooded the school, causing severe damage to both property and your education.” She pointed at the audience, her arm sweeping across the room like a bad rendition of “Y.M.C.A.” “Consider your verdict.”

“Not yet, not yet!” Principal Dodgson flashed the notebook she'd been lugging around. “There's a great deal to come before that.”

“Fine, I call the first witness.” Quinn opened a folder on her desk.

Whitney pressed her palm against the carpeted floor and pushed herself up.

Before she could take the stand, Quinn sang, “And the first witness is me.” Quinn pushed her chair behind her and stood, as if it would make her more authoritative. “Alice has a history of crime. She tried to get the students drunk one morning.”

“Scratch that from the record,” Principal Dodgson said. “We analyzed the contents, and it was clean.”

Quinn tsked angrily. “Okay, but Alice
forced—
” She yelled the word so loudly they could have recorded it in the soundproof studio across town. “—my friends to help with her paper prank, threatening them if they didn't.”

Principal Dodgson pursed her lips. “What friends?”

“Dru and Di, but don't worry, they didn't have a hand in decoupaging the school. They managed to escape.”

Yeah, only because I took the fall for them when Principal Dodgson showed up. Whitney rolled her eyes as well.

“And—” Quinn rummaged through the papers on the table and yanked one from underneath a pile. “I have proof that she flooded the school!”

Quinn held a photo of me at the dam up to the jury, one of the same ones Kingston had shown me. Hushed whispers filled the room. A dull sense of dread welled up inside me. I doubted crying “Photoshopped!” would suffice, since Quinn could barely even draw a stick figure.

“If that's not enough for you, here's Alice vandalizing my house, proving that she has it in for me. That's motive for framing me with the roses.” Quinn held up another photo of me on the roof of her house.

“Bitch,” Kingston mumbled under his breath but loud enough for Quinn to hear. She eyed him like she was trying to cast a love spell on him. Or a binding spell. “You stole that off my phone.”

She grinned at him. “Guess we both used each other.”

“Let me see those.” Principal Dodgson yanked the photos out of Quinn's hand.

Chess whispered in my ear, “We won't let you get expelled. School won't be any fun for me without you.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“Are we speaking in adverbs? Okay, my turn. Moreover, I'm back.”

“Back in school?” My heart thudded in my chest, brain too tightly wound to come up with possible explanations for his sudden return. “How?”

Chess gestured with his chin for me to pay attention. What a tease! Principal Dodgson peered at the photo, and all the lines on her face became more defined. “Well, this is certainly more evidence than I expected.”

“Off with her head!” Quinn drew her finger across her neck and pointed at me.

“Not yet. Let's hear from Alice.”

Quinn dropped back into her seat. “Alice. Now.” She twirled her hand in the air. Well, it was more like a stabbing motion.

I scrambled to push myself off the ground and gulped in a long breath of air. Fresh air. Probably the last I'd breathe for a while because the air at my house would be stifling after my expulsion. Kingston's photos certainly ensured that.

“Why'd you flood the school?” Quinn asked me, eyes narrowed to almost the same degree as the venom in her voice. “It was all some giant environmental demonstration, right? Like, say, the ones your parents used to do?” Quinn turned to face the audience. “And I
know
none of us have forgotten her parents' Adam-and-Eve incident,” she said, referring to the time they dressed up as the famous duo as part of a protest against the school.

“I didn't flood the school.” Lying under fake school oath wasn't any worse than the other crimes I'd committed. I was becoming desensitized to felonies.

“Okay. Tell me, then, why were you all wet right as the flood hit? Why didn't anyone see you fall in?”

Principal Dodgson made a sound like
hmm, this is starting to fit together.

“I fell in because I slipped. Whitney pulled me out.”

“And you were behind the school because . . . ?”

“Um . . . I . . . ” I fiddled with my hands in my lap, my heart beating fast.
Brain, you're usually very good about making words come out of my mouth, even when they sound stupid. Why are you failing me now?

“Stumped you, haven't I?”

“No. I . . . I love Chess.” Okay, those were not the words I was looking for. But they'd been on the tip of my tongue for weeks; they were bound to come out sometime. I knew I should probably look at him and smile or something, but I wasn't making great decisions today. As the students in the room snickered, I fumbled for a way to bring it back to the trial. “And I was . . . meeting him behind the school.” Sort of true. If by “meeting him” I meant “doing a pledge task as a way to get into his group of eco-vigilantes.” They were practically synonyms.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Oh please. If that were true, he would have pulled you out of the creek like a knight in shining armor. No, you were causing the flood.” She stood up and paced the floor in front of the audience like a lawyer about to reveal irrefutable evidence. “Because you were pissed because your friends wouldn't help you paper the school. This was your way to get us back for being good and wholesome. Damage the school enough and you damage our transcripts.”

“That doesn't even make sense. It's ridiculous,” I spat. “In fact, this whole trial is a sham.”

“A sham? The facts are simple: you vandalized the school with the flood and the paper. So you should be punished.”

Principal Dodgson chewed on her pen. “I'm afraid the evidence here is hard to deny.”

My skin was on fire, and I fanned my hand in front of my face to cool it down.

“Expulsion is the only solution.” Quinn slammed her hand onto the desk. “Court's adjourned!”

“Might not want to be so quick on that trigger.” Whitney jumped up before the students could start packing their bags. “Because what I'm about to say will change your mind.”

“You like how I slipped that in?” I said when I plopped back down next to Chess, putting my all into a smile.

“Yes.” He returned the smile. “But also no. Because it wasn't exactly the smartest move as far as testimonies go.”

“It was a creative way to say it though, right?”

“And on the bright side, it gave you an alibi.” He placed his hand on my knee. That hand was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

Whitney dropped into the witness seat next to Quinn's desk. “I think you'll see here that only a portion of the creek crosses onto the school's property.” Whitney pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and showed it to the audience. It was a land-survey map with lines detailing property borders. “The part where the dam resides is owned by the township. If the dam was tampered with, I'm afraid it's not under school jurisdiction to prosecute a punishment.”

“School property was still damaged,” Principal Dodgson argued.

“Well,” Whitney said, crossing her legs. “Recently the senior lounge was covered in paint. Since it's still there this morning, I'm guessing you're having difficulty getting it off the windows.”

Principal Dodgson's head snapped up. “We can't figure out how to remove it, some kind of glue, and—”

“That seems like damage to school property. Are you going to expel the kids who did that, too? Or the ones who painted the roses surrounding the school red?”

“Objection!” Quinn yelled. “She's leading the witness.”

“She
is
the witness,” Principal Dodgson reminded her.

“Fine, objection! This has nothing to do with Alice. I move it be stricken from the record.”

Principal Dodgson nodded. “Sustained, the prank was done by Neverland High. It has no particular bearing on this case.”

Whitney shook her head. “You don't really believe that. And anyway, I know exactly who did it. Quinn Hart, Di Tenniel, Dru Tweedle, and a few others. I have proof, which I'd be happy to show you.”

“Already in your inbox, Principal D.” Kingston finger-pointed a gun at Whitney like
I got you covered.

“Okay!” Quinn stood and circled around the desk. “Thanks, Whitney. I think it's time for our next witness!” She glanced desperately around the room. Whitney made no move to get up. “Di and Dru!” Quinn waved at the back of the audience. “You guys are the next witnesses. Go. Go!”

Both girls rose in unison, like they'd practiced this move for a synchronized-swimming competition. They both wore white scarves tied around their necks, and I immediately ached for them. Even I knew scarves like that had disappeared from the fashion radar, thrust back into the realm of been-there-done-that.

“The decoupaged desks.” Whitney raised her voice, ignoring Di and Dru's approach to the stand. “Alice couldn't have done it because I know who did.”

“Principal Dodgson, if she says me, she's lying. I swear!” Quinn held up her hands in a way that made her look guilty even though she was completely innocent in that crime. “I didn't do anything wrong.”

“You did. Unless you consider the paint in the senior lounge to be school-sanctioned. But anyway the decoupage wasn't you; it was me. Only me.” Whitney leaned back in her seat, completely relaxed with the prospect of getting in trouble. Di and Dru paused in the middle of the room, probably unsure whether they still needed to claim their fifteen minutes of high-school fame.

The crowd erupted in whispers. Too bad they hadn't dozed off like they did in class, but I guess this trial was intriguing in a half-to-watch kind of way. Water-fountain material for tomorrow.

Principal Dodgson tilted her head. “Whitney, are you confessing to vandalizing the school?”

“I'm telling you the truth. I decoupaged the desks. Quinn and her friends trashed the senior lounge.”

“Alice flooded the school,” Quinn added. “Let's not forget that.”

Principal Dodgson waved Di and Dru forward. They reluctantly climbed the rest of the way to the front, stumbling over seated bodies. “Girls, is this true?”

Whitney strutted back to her seat next to me. She smirked when she sat down. “You're welcome. I highly doubt they're going to expel all the goody-two-shoes losers involved with the prank, especially not someone who kisses as many butts as Quinn.”

I wanted to thank her. I wanted to tell her how impressed I was with her. But I knew words couldn't even begin to convey the gratitude I felt. I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug. She stayed still and rigid for a moment but then returned the hug. A second later she wiggled out of my arms.

“Well, that's one way to make Chess jealous,” she said with a smirk. “But I don't swing that way.”

“I know.”

Chess nudged me with his shoulder. “I'm waiting for you to deny it, too.”

“It would explain my silence for so long, wouldn't it?” I joked.

“Dinah?” Principal Dodgson prompted. “Is this true?”

Di lifted her eyes from the floor. “Yes.”

“No!” Dru's eyes widened. “No how.”

“Di means no,” Quinn clarified. “Alice Liddell and Kingston Hatter pulled the prank. No one else, certainly not me. Right, Di? The photos Kingston sent you are fakes.”

“Oh,” Kingston shouted. “But the red paint splashed all inside your locker is what? Art project gone wrong? Funny thing that you don't even take art.”

“It was planted in there.” Quinn narrowed her eyes at him. “By you.”

Kingston shrugged and winked at the three of us. Well, at least one of Quinn's accusations had turned out to be true.

“Order! Order! Let's get back on track. Di, you said yes. I'd like to hear more.”

“If Alice did the flood, she didn't mean any harm by it. She was trying to save the dry field.” Di's voice was shaky and quiet, though the whispering crowd was beginning to drown it out. I leaned forward to hear better.