Down the Rabbit Hole Read Free

fallen in love with something starring Drew Barrymore? Drew Levin-Hill: cool, essence of. But no. When she was eight, Ingrid had finally thought up a nickname, but it hadn’t caught on. Nicknames, she learned, were something others had to give you.
    â€œThen what is it?” said Cracked-Up Katie. “Your name.”
    Had to say something, real name out of the question, no fake names coming to mind except Miss Stapleton from The Hound of the Baskervilles. “Griddie,” said Ingrid.
    Cracked-Up Katie’s expression grew thoughtful, her forehead wrinkling, pushing ridges of dried pancake makeup out of the furrows. “Griddie,” she said. “Cool. Mine’s Katherine, but you can call me Kate.” She held out her hand. Ingrid shook it.
    Surprise. The only person who’d ever bought into her nickname turned out to be Cracked-Up Katie. And a second, smaller surprise: how cold her hand was.
    â€œNice to meet you,” said Ingrid. The handshaking was going on too long. The actual shaking part was over but Kate still hadn’t let go.
    â€œSo what are you running away from, Griddie?” she said.
    â€œI’m not running away,” said Ingrid, pulling her hand free. “I’m on my way to soccer.”
    â€œAt the fields up by the hospital?”
    â€œYeah,” said Ingrid, surprised that Kate would know a fact like that.
    â€œHow are you getting there?”
    â€œWalking.”
    â€œWalking?” said Kate. “It’s five miles from here.”
    â€œIt is?”
    â€œSo. Lost after all.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say lost.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œHow can you be lost in your own hometown?” Ingrid said.
    â€œLet me count the ways,” said Kate. With her free hand, she reached into the chest pocket of her lumber jacket, took out a cigarette and a lighter, and lit up, the lighter spurting a foot-long jet of flame. She took a deep drag. “Got any money on you, Griddie?” Smoke blew into Ingrid’s face.
    What kind of question was that? After most school days, the answer would have been no, but Mom hadn’t had anything smaller than a ten for lunch money, so $8.50 was sitting pretty in the zipper pocket of Ingrid’s backpack. Did Cracked-Up Katie have robbery in mind? If so, could Ingrid outrun her? Ingrid glanced at those gold lamé stilettos and decided the answer was yes.
    â€œâ€™Cause if you do,” said Kate, blowing more smoke, “I could call you a cab.”
    â€œA cab?”
    â€œA taxicab.”
    Ingrid knew what a cab was, of course. She’d beenin two, once when she and Mom had gone to New York to see The Producers , then on the vacation to Jamaica, where the Rasta driver had sung under his breath practically the whole way from the airport to the hotel, that Bob Marley song about burnin’ and lootin’. But Echo Falls wasn’t the kind of place where people took taxis. Had she ever even seen one in town?
    â€œOtherwise,” said Kate, “you’re not going to make it.”
    â€œI’ve got eight fifty,” Ingrid said.
    â€œMore than enough,” said Kate. “Come inside.” She went up the steps and opened the door.
    Echo Falls was a pretty safe town. The local paper—which came out three days a week and no one took seriously (right off the top there was the name they hadn’t been able to resist— The Echo )—printed the police blotter and Ingrid always went to it first thing. Crime in Echo Falls meant lots of DUIs, underage drinking (Stacy Rubino’s brother, Sean, for example), and any-age drugging, some theft, some late-night mugging and second-home vandalism, bad checks passed at Stop & Shop and CVS, a little domestic violence, the occasional bar fight. No murder, no kidnapping, even in the Flats: a prettysafe town, but Ingrid knew better than to enter a stranger’s house, and would never have done so in this case except for the