Table of Contents A Coded Message 4 The Plot Twist 12 A Cat in the Fog 23 Down the Rabbit Hole 34 The Mad Tea Party 44 A Change of Alice 52 A Glassy Climb 62 The Queen’s Garden 71 The Fountain 82 Escape from Wonderland 92 Extracting Alice 99
A Coded Message Carter hauled his backpack up on his shoulder as he trudged up the front steps His mom stood right inside the front door juggling a portfolio and easel as she snagged her car keys from the rack beside the door Hi honey How was school His mom reached up to brush his hair off his face only to have it fall right back We need to get you a haircut I have to run or I’m going to be late for my painting class Grab a snack Dad’s cooking tonight I put your mail on your bed Carter blinked as his mom closed the door behind him Sometimes these fast-forward conversations took a minute to sort out Mail on his bed Cool He dashed up the stairs and dropped his backpack next to his desk with a 4
thud He snatched the postcard from his bed He knew it was from Uncle Dan before he even looked at the message Dan Hunter collected weird postcards and sent them with his secret messages The picture was usually some kind of hint This card showed two kids sitting a few inches away from a television eyes intent on the screen Behind them two robots stood reading thick books Carter wondered if his uncle was trying to teach robots to read or maybe he was trying to hypnotize people by television Uncle Dan worked on a lot of high-tech projects and some of them were supersecret things for the government Carter fl ipped the card over and noted the date fi rst 12 23 2009 At fi rst glance it would look like his uncle was seriously behind in his mail but Carter knew that the date was a clue to the code Then he read the message You wouldn’t believe the great new fi shing rod I bought last week I want to take you fi shing so we 5
