But the only answer was more static. Finally, he spoke, his words breaking up every few syllables.
“…can’t talk long,” he said. “You found…notes?”
“What?” I shouted. “Yes, we found your notes! Are you safe?”
“Yes! I…right.”
“You’re all right?” I asked.
“He said he was right,” Duke whispered, listening in and taking notes.
“Right? About what?”
“I know the message…book. What it means…changes everything…mother tried to tell…right about everything…”
“What’s the message? And where are you?”
“I can’t tell…wish I could…”
“Can’t tell me? Why can’t you? Is someone there?”
“Rain…need to…” The phone popped and crackled again.
“What, Pops? What is it?” I was practically screaming into the phone, willing my voice to find him and his voice to find me. My heart was pounding like a hammer on my ribs. “What do you need me to do? I’ll do it!”
And then…suddenly, the line cleared and as if Pops were in the room with us, I heard him speak four strange words.
“Find the March Hare.”
Then he hung up.
—
“Find the MarchHare?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
If there were a museum for lost and forgotten sounds, the dial tone of a landline phone would surely be a future exhibit. I listened to that sound for a full ten seconds before finally hanging up.
I looked at Duke, who was looking at me.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Good news,” Duke said. “That was good news. We know your grandfather is safe. And right, apparently. He said he was right, he figured out the message from your mother.”
“He’s safe. He’s alive. But where? And what does ‘Find the March Hare’ mean? Why couldn’t he tell me?”
“Rainy, you’re hyperventilating, so perhaps sit a moment while your brain reoxygenates itself.”
“Right, right. Oxygen. Brain. Good.” I slowly sank down into the desk chair again. I met Duke’s eyes. “Any idea what he meant?”
“No clue,” Duke said, sitting on the edge of the desk. “I was expecting a ransom call, not that.”
“Ransom? Do you think…Duke, what if someone made him call me?”
“I didn’t get that impression. He said he was safe. But he was speaking in a sort of code for a reason. Unless heliterallymeant we’re toliterallygo into theliteralstory of the March Hare and have aliteralchat with him.”
“I can’t think of any March Hare,” I said, “except for the same March Hare in the other Alice book—Through the Looking-Glass.”
The March Hare, as all readers know, is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s novelAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland.Like every other denizen of Wonderland, the March Hare was mad. But that’s all I knew about him. What else was there to know?
