"It's so strange. They must have grown overnight. Just like in my dream!"

"What kind of dream?" Angelo took a big sip of coffee.

"Well... In my dream I drank a magic potion, and my hair grew to its old length.... Nothing more. Well, and when I woke up, it was like that." I held up a strand of my hair. Angelo nodded briefly.

"A dream," Penelope whispered next to me. She was now looking through the grandma magazine.

"Yes. A dream," I confirmed.

Angelo sighed. "I would like to have dreams like that, too. A dream of a strong, sexy athlete who... That would be something. Waking up with a dream of a man in my bed. Yes, please. Now, please."

"Sure." I rolled my eyes. No one knew about my dream world. No one knew about Naomie. The person I'd been in my dreams since I was a child. These dreams were my secret treasure. I hadn't even told my best friend about them.

"You see me at a loss." Angelo shrugged his shoulders. "A miracle, perhaps. What do I know? I'm a hairdresser because my school grades were always bad. I'm not a genius, but I'm good with hair."

"Hm..." I didn't get any further here. Angelo didn't have the solution.

"Magic?", Angelo mused and looked at one of his many small film posters that adorned the door to the next room. "No wig, no hair extensions, and still no camera. Oh darn! I'm too old for something like that!"

"You're only 36! You’re not old yet..." Smiling, I finished my coffee. "And magic doesn't exist!" I added afterwards. I wasn't sure. In the dream, my hair had grown by magic.

Angelo scratched his head. "I'm sorry. I can't help you."

"Never mind. My hair miracle will probably remain a mystery."

When we left the salon a little later, Angelo, sweet as he was, waved after us and waited until we were out of sight.

"I've really never experienced anything like it...", I sighed.

Penelope tugged at her pink blouse.

"Maybe we're taking drugs and haven't noticed it yet?" she joked. "Us and the hairdresser. In a few hours, your hair will be short again."

"Drugs?" Shaking my head, I imagined a toad with a joint in its mouth... Absurd.

"No. The only drug I take is coffee! Caffeine!"

"Oh, yes. Coffee is a good drug. The only real one!" Penelope agreed with me happily, "20 cups of it, please!"

"You get sick from so much..."

"Do you suddenly see hair growing from it?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried that yet," I murmured.

Penelope giggled softly and pulled her headband out of her dark brown hair to play with it. "I know." She smiled at me apologetically.

I sighed.

I had known Penelope for 2 years now. Until then, I had never had any friends. (Unless you want to count an extremely talkative hairdresser among my friends...) Meeting Penelope was a blessing. She had moved from a boarding school to our school and now lived in a group home. She didn't talk about her parents.

When she had entered our classroom for the first time, I had thought I was seeing a fairy. She had worn a fluttering pink dress and had been barefoot. By now I knew that she didn't like shoes and basically did without them in the summer. She always said she wanted to feel the ground under her feet.

We had understood each other immediately. She had grabbed the free chair next to me and sat down on it as if she had been sitting there forever. Next to me, the person no one wanted to sit next to. Since then, we had been friends. Being an outsider was bearable together, but unlike me, Penelope seemed to want nothing to do with the others.

I had tried for a long time to make friends with them. It had only brought me pranks, ridicule, and jokes at my expense.

"I don't know what I would do without you," I said, full of gratitude. Penelope blinked at me, confused. I was just about to give her an explanation when I ran with momentum in front of a lantern. I hadn't paid attention to the path, and so I hadn't seen the black monster. "Ouch! Damn!" I, the wonderfully skilful toad, then also lost my balance and plopped unpleasantly into a puddle. When I tried to hold on to Penelope, I took her down with me.

"Nelly!" cried Penelope.

"I'm dizzy..." I moaned softly; my glasses had slipped, and one of the lenses was broken. "Damn. Sorry. Ouch..."

"You just ran in front of a lantern!"

"I noticed that. And now we're both wet. Shit."

"Your glasses died!"

"I didn't miss it."

"You're not hurt, are you?" Penelope stood up and held out her hand to me, which I grabbed.

"I don't know. You tell me. I have a headache." Slowly, I straightened up. The roar in my head turned into a stabbing pain. "What a horrible monster lantern!"

"You poor thing. Maybe it's a concussion. Or the shock? Wait. Doctor or ambulance?"

"No. Don't be silly. No ambulances! It's not that bad. Besides, you don't own a cell phone!" I stopped her.

"To the doctor?"

I shook my head.

"Where's your cell phone?"

I shrugged. "Home."

Both at the family doctor and in the hospital, I was known like a colorful poodle. I could gladly do without the hundredth visit.

Clumsy as I was, this was not the first lantern that attacked me. Something stupid happened to me all the time. And so I had been driven to the doctor by my parents over the last few years with various cuts and sprained ankles. Sometimes several times in the same month. Once or twice I had even broken a bone.

And, yes. The hospital was concerned and sent the youth welfare office to my parents.

The employee experienced my clumsiness live and exclusively, and since then they have not visited us.

And because Dad found my accidents so amusing, he liked to take a photo and had put together a photo album with the cheerful inscription: "Our little one is going to the doctor".

In his defense: I was really terrible, absurdly unlucky. Running into a lantern was comparatively boring. The banana on the floor? I had already done the classic. And in my cinematic slide, I broke a finger, sprained both wrists, and hurt my ankle.

"Why is your cell phone at home?" Penelope asked me in surprise...

I slowly shook my head, which was gradually becoming less painful. "I accidentally killed it a week ago. I put a chair on it and sat down."

"You have what?" Penelope looked at me in shock.

"I sat down on my phone. Accidentally. I didn't see it lying there. The cracking was epic!"

"Why was it lying on the floor?"

"I don't know. I use Dad’s old cell phone now. I forgot to take that with me. It's probably better that way. One from the 2000s. He says it's indestructible."

"Oh, dear." Laughing, she hugged me and pulled me further down the street.