Alice the Amazing ⇒ STRANGER THINGS

[18] The Lunch Club

{MADMAX, Part I}

Needless to say, Alice's mom wasn't happy the next morning when she saw the results of her hair-dying experiment.

"Why did you do this to your beautiful, beautiful hair?!" Mrs. Henderson crowed.

She tried to reach over to touch the bottle blonde locks, but Alice ducked out of the way.  

"You dye your hair!" Alice protested, ducking to the side. "What's the difference?"

"The difference is that I don't look like a cheap hooker!" Mrs. Henderson snapped.

Alice took much offense to that comment, and spent the rest of the morning pouting and tucking her hair under a Hoosiers cap.

When she got to school, she showed off her new look to Steve and Nancy—with mixed reactions.

"Ta-dah!" Alice said, shaking her new hair out of the hat. "What do you think!"

Steve's eyes lit up. 

"It looks great!" he said with a grin. He squinted and tilted his head to the side. "You kinda look like Farrah Fawcett."

"Thanks, Harrington," Alice said, beaming. "That was the idea."

Nancy forced a smile.

"It's nice!" she said. However, the smile didn't reach her eyes.

The lukewarm reaction caused Alice to frown.

"What?" she said, tugging the ends of her hair. "You think it looks bad?"

"No!" Nancy said quickly. "I just don't think it's very—you."

Alice bit back a snarky remark about how she'd spent the last year practicing how to use superpowers she didn't know she had, and coming to terms with Barb's death and a near-death experience—at this point, she didn't know who she was anymore.

"Maybe my mom is right," Alice grumbled, putting her hat back on and pushing the negative thoughts aside. "Maybe I do look like a cheap hooker."

Nancy rushed to reassure her that it was fine, and she didn't look like a prostitute at all, and that it would probably be easy to re-dye it brown if she wanted help that weekend.

Alice's blood boiled. She pushed away the anger and instead rushed off to the library, claiming she needed to study for Algebra and hoping Ms. June the Librarian would like her new hair as much as she did.

💇🏼‍♀️ 💇🏼‍♀️ 💇🏼‍♀️

Alice's favorite holiday was Halloween.

There was something about the genuine spookiness of it all that was thrilling. Halloween was a day for people to let their freak flags fly and be unabashedly themselves in crazy, awesome costumes. It was also a day to load up on candy and get so sick that you swear to exercise and eat more salads—and then never do either of those things even when the candy runs out.

Alice's Halloween plans included going to Quincy's place to watch scary movies with Robin, Samuel, and Maria, but that changed when Samuel met the gang at lunch holding a bright orange flyer.

"We have to go to this," he demanded, slamming it on the table.

"What's this?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Tina's Halloween Party," he said. "She throws one every year and I've finally been invited. And since I'm going, you all have to go too."

Robin picked up the flyer and inspected it.

"'Come and get sheet faced,'" Robin read aloud and scoffed. "Typical. The popular bimbos are going to drink as if they don't want to live. No thanks."

"That doesn't sound fun to you?" Quincy teased, snatching the flyer out of her hands.

"Not at all," Robin said sharply.

"I'm right there with you," Alice said, adjusting the ball cap that was hiding her new hair. "Who wants to go to some dumb party when we can have our own fun? Quincy, you still down to host us?"

"Well," he said, eyeing the flyer.

"What?!" Maria said. "We've been planning this spooky movie night for months!"

"I know!" Quincy said. "But I'm a senior now, and this is my first time being invited to a real party. I want to experience teenage rebellion just once!"

"It's not our fault you were sheltered as a child," Robin said with an eye roll, "and now you feel the need to prove something to your past self and rebel for no reason."

"Can we just go to the party for, like, an hour?" Samuel begged. "And then we can head to Leeds's for the movies."

"I suppose that compromise is pretty reasonable," Alice said. "As long as you still do our joint costume."

Samuel sighed.

"Do I have to?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yes!" Alice snapped. "I can't be a shark attack victim if you don't dress up like the shark from Jaws. Then I'm just a bloody lifeguard."

"And no one wants that," Maria added.

"Fine," Samuel said. "I'll be the damn shark. Let's meet at my house at 8 and drive over together. Then, we can go to Quincy's for the movies and steal his brother's Halloween candy."

The bell for sixth period rang and the group stood, walking to the trash cans together. Alice ignored jeers from Tommy H. as she walked past his table, but felt pleased to see Steve flick the back of his head out of the corner of her eye.

"Are you coming to the drama club meeting after school?" Maria asked Alice as they walked into the hallway. "I know we're talking about the spring musical auditions."

"I can't," Alice said, fidgeting with her sleeve. "I'm leaving school early for a doctor's appointment."

That was code for, "Lab-Rat Session in Hawkins Lab."

"Didn't you just have one last week?" Samuel asked, not trying to be unkind.

"Yeah, Samuel," Alice deadpanned. "That's what happens when you're chronically ill. You go to a lot of doctor's appointments."

Her friends still didn't know the true nature of the coma she was in last year, and she planned to keep it that way. That meant, however, that she often had to lie.

"We hope you feel better soon," Maria said, elbowing Samuel for his rudeness. "And we'll let you know what happens at the meeting."

"Absolutely," Quincy said, patting Al on the shoulder.

"Thanks, guys," Alice said, checking her watch. "My mom should be here to pick me up. I'll catch you guys later?"

They all went their separate ways, in ignorant bliss of what was about to transpire in the coming days.

{Edited July 10, 2020}