Penelope had already seen it coming.

As soon as I arrived home and shocked Mom, and after I told her everything, she took me to the hairdresser. My parents both worked mostly from home. Papa had laughed before Mama could reprimand him for laughing at his own child.

"That I didn't notice that this morning!" she stammered, while Angelo, our favorite hairdresser, despaired of my hair. He complained very dramatically. Almost cinematic.

"Honey? You have to comb your beautiful hair sometimes! You see what happens otherwise!" he warned me. "A spaked poodle! A mop! The hair of horror!"

"Beautiful hair? This felt mat?" I questioned his statement. "I like mop."

He laughed. "It's your own fault!"

"No. It's the curls!" My curls were very thick and curled stubbornly. Knots formed faster than I could brush.

I had known Angelo since I was 6 years old. He liked to throw pet names around. Every time Mom dragged me into his small, idiosyncratic hair salon, he had a new pet name for me and a different hairstyle and hair color for himself. He said his creative streak was growing; I called it a rapid loss of taste.

He had already gone through too many hairstyle mistakes to list them all, but they had gotten worse and worse. At the moment it was long, smoothly gelled black hair with colorful highlights and cruelly short bangs. The police should arrest people for such hairstyle attacks!

"Good. I'm done!" he announced after he had snipped my hair like a madman.

Not exactly happy, I stared at my reflection. Short hair...

Now my eyes looked all the bigger behind the glasses.

"Do you want some color? Pink perhaps?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Glitter?"

"Glitter." I nodded.

"Lots of glitter!"

More depressed than ever, but at least glittering, I made my way home.

Angelo waved happily after us. With a forced smile, I waved back, then got into our car.

"Don’t look at me this tragically. Your hair will grow again." Mom turned the key, and immediately the old used car began to purr softly. I made no reply.

"You look very cute even with short hair! We can buy you glitter hairspray or gel...", she tried again and smiled encouragingly at me.

"Really?" I rolled my eyes. "YOU didn't notice it either."