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being born. “Did the Jack say anything about me?”
    M.H. pulled the 10/6 price tag from his hat. Taped to the back was a yellowed note. After carefully unfolding it, he handed it to me. Written in r ed ink was the Jack’s prophecy.
    BackWards Wanderer Prophecy: A strong-Willed child shall set the time-stalemate into motion, but only if a tWo-eyed hare can lure her to the Wonderful World of Wonderland. She Will be given a choice to live Wondrously forever or be banished to Weep in her homeland. Seconds Will tick forWard and backWards until her decision no longer Wavers. HoWever, she Will choose Wrong.

 
     
     
     
    C HAPTER F IVE
    ( Ryley: Present Time)
    The crazy ones have the most fun. That was the reasoning of most warm-blooded males. Well, it was my friend Mick’s, logic anyway. He was the one who’d brought it up.
    “ I thought it was blondes who had the most fun,” Dax chimed in innocently, looking at Mick’s light colored hair. But, I knew better than to think that Dax’s sideways glance was purely innocent. So would anyone, if they took two seconds to see how he looked at Mick.
    “ Well, then it’s a double whammy!” Mick laughed, and put his arm over my shoulder like we were going to have a version of a father/son pep talk. “Alice Mae is nutty and a natural blonde. I would know—I sat behind Becky and Courtney during second period algebra. For the entire hour, they had a heated discussion about hair. Hair! I didn’t realize there was so much to discuss. Anyway, by the time the bell rang they agreed—no, swore to high-holy-heaven—that Alice Mae’s hair was indeed a natural blonde, but Becky was sure she saw extensions, whatever that means.”
    “ Maybe you should go for her,” I said, shrugging off Mick’s arm.
    Dax metaphorically kick ed me in the shin.
    We walked through the halls to our sixth period class. Weight Training. It filled the physical education requirement and freed up an hour after school. Just because it was baseball’s off-season didn’t mean we got a free pass for the school year. Our coach required us to train year-round if we had any shot at state next summer. After changing in the locker rooms, we headed to the school’s basement; a glorified storage closet where all the old sports uniforms and band suits went to die. Before my time, the school council agreed to put up a false wall in the middle so there would be somewhere to put the new weights.
    It’d been decades since anyone could call the weights new, but the old metal fulfilled its purpose. Dax lay down on the old, red pad that had been donated a decade ago by the aerobics instructor when her gym went out of business. He began knocking out the second set of our pyramid workout.
    “You hear anything about what Alice Mae and Becky were talking about?” I asked, nonchalantly.
    “No,” Mick said, crossing his arms. “Why are you so interested in what Alice Mae does and who she talks to? You interested in shackin’ up with the new girl?”
    “I have my eye on Courtney.”
    Pushing the bar up, Dax grunted. “Maybe the both of you should leave the poor girl alone.”
    “ Let the poor girl be?” Mick said. “And rob her of the experience of dating a good looking guy like me? Besides, someone’s got to show her around Rockingham.”
    I guided the bar to the rack when Dax completed his eighth repetition. “You act like it’s your civic duty to—”
    “ Scar the girl for life,” Dax interrupted as he sat upright. “When was the last time you dated a girl for longer than a month?”
    Not wanting to get in the middle of Dax and Mick’s nonexistent love affair I bailed. “I’m going to grab a drink.”
    On my way to the drinking fountain upstairs, I overheard Alice Mae’s voice. I froze. While Alice Mae might be bat-crazy, I had to admit she had a mesmerizing voice. So when I was able to convince my legs to move, I took on the role of a creeper. I’d never admit it to another soul, but I peered around