Monday morning, Cherry walked into Calculus class exhausted and dreading the week.

She walked out of it wondering where the hell Alice was.

By Wednesday, Mr. Wilson no longer called Alice's name with the roll.

By Friday, she was still wondering.

The next Monday, she raised her hand in class. "Um, Mr. Wilson? I was wondering what ever happened –" she hated herself for it, but she couldn't reveal their friendship, especially with more rumors flying about Alice than ever – "to that freak Alice Morton."

Giggles flew around the room. With all the speculation, no one had dared ask a teacher, either because they didn't want to seem that interested in the girl, or because they preferred to circulate wildly hurtful lies and speculations instead.

"She is no longer a student here," was all Mr. Wilson would say.

"Oh, hey, Mrs. Morton," Darry said politely in line at the grocery store. He had seen Alice's mom around the neighborhood, but hadn't had much occasion to talk to her until now. At her confused look, he added, "I'm Darrel Curtis. My brothers are good friends with Alice, we're neighbors."

Her face tightened at the mention of her daughter, but she tried to be nice. "Oh. I'm sorry; with my work schedule I haven't been able to meet many of our – my – new neighbors. Though I guess it's not even really new anymore."

Darry laughed good-naturedly. "I get it. It's hard to keep up with my brothers as much as I work these days. They did speak very highly of Alice, though," he added, pressing for information for his brothers' sake, "and they mentioned they hadn't seen her around lately."

"Alice and I had a disagreement," Mrs. Morton replied tersely. "We couldn't work it out, and we agreed it would be better for both of us if she left."

Darry tried to think of an appropriate response, but he was floored, so he just turned around and paid for his groceries.

"She was something, Johnny," Ponyboy whispered up to the sky, puffing on a cigarette. "I mean, brave like you. Everyone was against her and she sorta acted like she wanted to prove them wrong. She was a tuff girl."

He sat silently for a few minutes, looking at the stars through the leaves of the tree. Eventually he moved from his position leaning up against the tree, to lay flat on the ground. The view was better that way.

"No one's seen her for almost two weeks. I heard her mom kicked her out. I don't know how she's going to eat and stuff. If Soda had to take care of us by himself, without Darry, when Mom and Dad died, I don't think he could have done it. Seventeen's real young."

"I miss her," he admitted a few moments later. "She was mean at first, but maybe she's learned to be. Like Dally. I liked that you didn't ever learn that, but I can't do it either so I sorta admire people who can."

"Hey, Ponyboy," a girl's voice called out quietly.

He sat up partly, placing his elbows underneath him. "Hey, Brenda." His heart thumped a little.

"Can I join you?"

"Hey, hot stuff," someone whispered in Two-Bit's ear as he took a long draught of his beer at Buck's place. He nearly spilt it down his front when he saw the tits on the girl the voice belonged to.

"Uh, hey yourself," he grinned back, waggling his eyebrows.

"I'm Karen." She sat down next to him and stole a sip of his beer without asking. "I've seen you around here a lot."

"Yeah, I'm Two-Bit. Keith," he rolled his guys. Lots of girls had a thing about using 'real names' or whatever. "I'm here a lot."

"I never see you alone," she admitted, biting her lip and causing Two-Bit to stifle a groan. "You're always with different girls. Usually that cute brunette."

"Huh?" He laughed. "Nah, it ain't like that with her at all. Besides, she skipped town anyways. Now you, on the other hand…" he openly looked her up and down. "You, I'd like to get to know."

"You heard from her?" Steve asked one slow afternoon in the garage as he and Soda were trying to entertain themselves.

"Huh?"

"Alice. Have you heard anything from her?"

"Wouldn't I tell you?" Soda rolled his eyes but otherwise didn't move from where he was laying face-up on the counter.

"She doesn't like me," Steve shrugged. "You don't seem to like me when she's around either. Maybe you wouldn't."

"Come on, Steve," he flipped over. "You know that ain't true. I just worried about her, is all. You know my buds come first."

Steve was silent, seeming to accept what he said. Then he added a few moments later, "So have you heard from her?"

"Nope." Soda shook his head and rolled back onto his back, looking up at the ceiling again. "Wherever she is, she doesn't want anyone to find her, I guess."

"Have you heard from them at all?" Mrs. Morton sighed anxiously into the phone. She had returned home from work the day Alice left to find the house eerily silent. It was only four days before she began to secretly hope her daughter would return.

Yes, she was disgusted and confused at her daughter's revelation, and she could never even pretend to understand. But she had been a mother for almost seventeen years, and it was strange to not be one. She suddenly cooked smaller portions at dinner, and she didn't have to yell up the stairs in the morning to ensure that her daughter would get to school on time. She even missed having to tell Alice that she couldn't wear jeans.

Since her realization that she would rather have a degenerate for a daughter than no daughter at all, she'd been fruitlessly searching. She'd gone to the Tulsa police department, but they didn't do much. Besides, it was unlikely that Alice would have stayed in the area anyway. She'd called Laura's parents frequently, hoping their daughter would have called to let them know she was safe, but they never heard anything.

Mrs. Morton was not a religious woman, but the week after she learned that her daughter was an abomination, she began to pray that she would come home safe.

"Soda! Darry!" Ponyboy whooped, sprinting into the house from the mailbox. "We got a postcard, it's from her!"

Soda met him at the door. "Is she okay? Does she need anything? Where the hell is she?"

With a wide grin, Pony held up the card, allowing his brother to see the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the front.

Darry whistled as he came into the room and saw the picture. "San Francisco," he nodded. "She'll do fine there."

"Well, read it, come on, Pony!" Soda urged.

Ponyboy frowned. "Well, there's nothing to read exactly. Just a bunch of little drawings."

Sure enough, crammed into the tiny space of the postcard were several small sketches. There was one that was clearly a horse from the farm Soda had taken them to, and a caricature of Ponyboy with a huge cigarette in the lot. There was one of two girls and a dog on a bridge – probably the same one that decorated the front of the postcard. There was a street sign that read "Castro" in all capital letters. Close to the bottom, there was a mailbox with the letters "PO" on the side, and an arrow pointing towards it with the word "soon".

Darry smiled. "We'll be hearing from her again."

He was right, as usual. Two weeks later, they got a real letter, addressed from San Francisco PO box.

Hey, boys!

Laura and I are doing just fine here in San Fran. Kenji's adjusting well to city life, and we both have jobs in the city. You wouldn't believe the queers running around here. I guess in World War II, they kicked out a bunch of gay guys from the army and sent them here, so this neighborhood the Castro developed. Everyone we meet loves Kenji, and we have yet to meet a person in this neighborhood that's as much of a jerk as anyone in Tulsa.

We got a PO box, so you can send us mail if you want. We have an apartment too, but we figured just in case our parents had a change of heart we shouldn't use the address. As much as we like it here, we miss you guys. Laura says hi to all of you, and says to go see the horses for her. Write us soon.

Alice