Alice should've known something was up when she woke up to Quincy and Maria whispering.

"What are you guys talking about," she said groggily, rubbing her eyes.

"Talking about how much we admire you," Quincy said. "You're the best."

Alice narrowed her eyes.

"Nice try, Leeds," she said. "You're buttering me up. But I don't know why."

"We're going to stop for the night," Maria said. "We're still 90 miles away from the cabin and it's late."

Alice was surprised to see the sun sinking below trees in the distance. Wow, she really had slept for a while...

"Sounds good," she said. "What about that place?"

She pointed to a Cheap 'N' Cozy motel on the right side of the road. Those were always the motels the Hendersons stayed at.

"We can't," Maria said. "It's all booked."

Sure enough, the neon pink sign in the window of the Cheap 'N' Cozy bore a simple message: NO VACANCY.

"Well, I'm sure if we drive to the next town there'll be another one," Alice suggested.

"It's the first real weekend of summer vacation," Quincy said. "Everything cheap will be filled up. We might have to raise our standards a little."

After a few more minutes of driving, Quincy said, "Let's try this place."

Alice's jaw dropped as he pulled into the parking lot of a palatial Empire Inn.

"Dude," she said with a scoff, "no way. This is the kind of hotel rich people stay in."

"So?" Maria said. She turned to face Alice in the backseat with a sly grin. "Let's be rich for the night."

"No way we can afford a room," Alice said.

Quincy put his Ford into park and looked back at Alice.

"Oh, we can," he said. He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I've got graduation money. It pays off to never know what gifts you want. Literally pays off, I mean."

He and Maria stepped out into the warm night and grabbed the bags from the trunk. Alice stood next to them, still gawking at the expensive resort.

"This is too much," she said.

"This is my grad trip!" Quincy protested. "And if I want to pay for us to spend the night like the Harringtons or the Wheelers, I will."

He handed Alice her backpack and locked the trunk.

"This is crazy," Alice said. She had to crane her neck to look up at the whole hotel. "Absolutely bonkers."

"Just hurry up!" Maria said, grabbing Alice's hand. "Quincy is booking it."

The boy in question practically jogged through the revolving door. Alice and Maria followed a few steps behind.

The lobby of the Empire Inn was shiny. Everything was either gold or painted to look gold. The walls were covered in expensive paintings and mirrors—Alice could see her shocked expression in multiple angles.

"Holy shit," she said. "Are we really doing this? Are we seriously staying at this swanky place?"

"We are indeed," Maria said, eyes shining. "This is so cool."

"I feel bad," Alice said. She glanced at Quincy by the front desk. "We shouldn't make Quincy pay for the room himself."

"Hey, look!" Maria said, turning Alice by the shoulders. "There's some kind of convention going on. Let's check it out."

The two of them walked over to one of the ballrooms off the lobby. A bunch of adults in business attire talked, drank, and shook hands. Soft, classical music echoed throughout. A makeshift dance floor was set up in the center of the room, but the adults weren't dancing. Instead, they were using the dance floor for more talking space.

"Boring," Alice scoffed. "These chumps don't know how to have any fun."

"I've got us rooms!" Quincy said, suddenly appearing behind them.

"Rooms? Plural?" Alice said. "Damn, Leeds. How much graduation money did you get?"

"I got us a suite with connecting rooms," Quincy said. "Let's just say, Nanny Leeds knows how to write a check."

Alice and Maria chuckled as Quincy offered one arm for each of them.

"M'ladies," he said cheekily. "May I escort you to your sleeping quarters?"

"Indubitably," Maria said in a fake British accent.

Alice and Quincy laughed.

"What?" she said. "I don't know any other fancy words!"

The trio giggled as they boarded the elevator.

As the doors began to close, Alice noticed a familiar face walking out of the ballroom and toward the elevator they were in. Alice furrowed her brow, trying to remember where she'd seen that woman before...

The doors snapped shut before she could take a second glance. She figured it was just deja vu and ignored the sense of worry blooming in her chest.

When they made it to their suite (on the top floor, no less), they immediately dropped their backpacks and did what any teenager would do: jumped on their beds.

"This is the height of luxury!" Quincy yelled with a fist pump.

"We have to order room service," Maria said, hopping back to the floor and rifling through the menu on the nightstand. "Ooh, they can make us personal pizzas!"

"This is wild," Alice said. "I can't believe we're staying here!"

"Well believe it!" Quincy said. "Alice Kathleen Henderson, welcome to the big time."

She laughed as Quincy hopped from his bed to hers, grabbing her hands and jumping up and down.

Alice decided in that moment that this trip was going to be the best—and hopefully it wouldn't be her last.

🐰🐰🐰

That night, the rabbits returned.

Alice woke up frozen. Sleep paralysis glued her to the bed as a familiar, anthropomorphic rabbit sat on her chest.

"Clive," she hissed, barely able to move her mouth. "Let me go!"

"I'm warning you," he said in his posh accent. "17 more days."

"Until what!?" she said.

"Until you die. Probably."

"No," Alice wheezed, sweating and trying to pull her arms from their positions at her sides. "No, it can't be true. I don't believe it!"

"Alice, stop fighting fate," Clive chided. He leaned his fuzzy face closer and said, "Death isn't the end."

"I think it is!" she said angrily. "I'm not going down because a bunny said so. I have too much to live for!"

"Death isn't the end," Clive echoed.

Alice cried out, trying to move, to breathe freely. It wasn't until she stopped resisting that Clive hopped away, leaving her to slowly move again and think about what she'd learned.

Alice had spent the past few months anxiously wondering if her dreams were a reflection of reality. She wondered if they were dreams at all, or if talking rabbits did exist and loved to torture her.

She did research on dreams, learning that dreams about death didn't always mean death. They usually just meant change. Alice tried to let that fact comfort her, but it would be impossible to rest until July 4th came around.

She rolled over and saw that it was already 9:30. Maria wasn't in her bed, and the shower was running. The door to Quincy's adjoining room was ajar, and it seemed that he'd left the TV on during the night; the muffled sound of horses and gunshots from an old western—and his obnoxious snores—reverberated into the room.

Alice sat up and stretched, wondering if it was too early to order more pizza.

"Good, you're awake," Maria said, exiting the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel. "Do you have room in your backpack for these tiny shampoos?"

Alice snorted.

"And why do you need those?"

"They're mementos!" Maria said. "And the shitty souvenirs Robin asked for."

"Ladies!" Quincy said hoarsely, appearing in the doorway of their room. "Quiet down. I need my beauty sleep."

"No time," Maria said. "We should get going."

She nodded in the direction of the clock, and Quincy widened his eyes in realization.

"Oh! Yes!" he said. "We should do that now."

"Should we order room service for breakfast?" Alice asked, reaching for the phone.

"Actually, I saw a diner next door when we drove in," Maria said. "Let's check that place out."

"Fine with me," Alice said. "Let's get going!"

As they walked through the Empire Inn's lobby, Alice noticed the boring adults from the night before were already heading into the ballroom again. A sign outside the room said, "WELCOME TO THE SOCIAL WORK CONFERENCE OF 1985!"

"Social work conference?" Alice said. "I would've thought they were all Wall Street types."

When the trio made it to the diner, they snagged a booth by the window. They ordered the deluxe breakfast sampler special.

"So," Alice said. She tapped her fingers on the plastic tabletop. "What do we think? If we get on the road after we eat, we'll be at the cabin before lunch. Then we've got the whole afternoon to swim."

"Yeah, about that," Quincy said sheepishly. "My grandparents actually aren't expecting us until tomorrow."

Alice frowned.

"What?" she said. "Why?"

"Because I told them we were coming tomorrow," Quincy said.

He and Maria shared a look.

"I can't keep the secret anymore!" Maria burst out. "Alice, we're not just on this trip for Quincy's graduation."

"That's just part of it," Quincy said.

"What, wait?" Alice said, lifting her glass of orange juice. "Then why are we on this trip?"

"To find your birth mom," Quincy said.

Alice choked on her juice.

"What?!" she said hoarsely.

"Ever since you told us about your meeting in the park with that Piper lady," Maria said, "we've been doing research. Or attempting to—we are just teenagers after all."

Alice had told her friends about Rebecca Piper and the money hand off around her birthday. She was shocked that they remembered the conversation.

"We've spent months tracking her down," Quincy said. "It's hard to find someone who prefers to lay low."

"When you told us her name," Maria continued, "we looked in the local phone books and in newspapers from nearby towns. She works with foster kids in Muncie."

She showed Alice a newspaper clipping of Rebecca and a smiling boy she helped find a home for.

"We knew she'd come to the social work conference since it's so close to her hometown," Quincy said. "That's why we're staying in the Empire Inn."

"Our plan is to corner her in the lobby and demand she tell you who your birth mom is," Maria said. "It's a little aggressive, but she was a little aggressive, so it works."

Alice could only stare at the newspaper clipping, eyes boring into the smiling face of the woman who told her to fuck off. Anger raged through her veins. She felt her hands heat up and discretely crossed them so her friends wouldn't feel the warmth.

"So?" Quincy prompted. "What do you think? Do you like this plan, or are we totally insensitive?"

"This is...insane," Alice said. "You two did all this for me?"

"Of course," Maria said with a smile. "You're our best friend. You deserve the answers you're looking for."

Alice wasn't sure what to think. She was happy, confused, and overwhelmed all at once.

"I—I don't know," she said, biting her lip. "I wanted to meet my mom a year and a half ago, but now I'm not sure anymore. I have a great mom, and a brother, and you guys. Do I really need her?"

Quincy nodded and folded the newspaper clipping back up.

"We get it," he said. "If you don't want to meet her, we can pretend this never happened. We can get in my car and drive the last 90 miles to the lake and have a normal vacation."

"But you guys practically stalked someone for me!" Alice protested. "And I do want answers from Rebecca and my mom, even if they aren't what I want to hear."

She looked out the diner window at the Empire Inn. A group of well-dressed people headed to the conference milled around the front doors smoking and talking. Some tourists skirted past them in colorful Hawaiian shirts, obviously on road trips to sunnier, better destinations.

I should do this, Alice thought. While I have the chance.

"Okay," she said. "After we eat, we go to that conference and find Rebecca Piper."

"Yes!" Maria said. "We're going to get some answers."

"And we're going to find your mom!" Quincy said. "Let's go team."

"We need a cool code name," Alice said. "Operation Mom?"

"The Mom Trackers?" Quincy suggested.

"The Mother Hunters?" Maria offered.

"Those are so morbid!" Alice said. "What about, The Mom-Finders Alliance of Hawkins, Indiana?"

"It's long, and doesn't acronym well," Quincy said, "but it's your mission. MFAHI it is."

"Cheers to MFAHI!" Maria crowed, lifting her coffee cup.

"MFAHI!" Alice and Quincy echoed, lifting their glasses as well.

What Alice didn't realize at this moment was that learning more about her mom was only going to cause more confusion and heartbreak. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

{Posted December 20th, 2019}

{Edited July 12, 2020; Republished January 31, 2025}

A/N [from 2019] I have some exciting things in store for the next few chapters. Sorry if this one seemed a little slow—next time it's going to be a little wild.

Vote and comment your answer to my QOTD: Would you rather join the Scoops Troop or the Griswold Family? Why?