The Town That Loves a Good Trim

Bloomberg was not a normal town.

Every single person in Bloomberg had perfect hair. The mailman had perfect hair. The librarian had perfect hair. Even the pigeons somehow had perfect hair. There were fourteen salons on Main Street alone, and every one of them had a glowing sign, a spinning chair, and a very confident hairdresser holding very loud clippers.

Jackie hated Bloomberg.

Well — she loved her house, her bike, and her shark-tooth necklace. But she absolutely did not love the fact that haircut season was coming.

She stood on the footpath outside Curl Up and Dye salon, her long black hair hanging past her back, her red-streaked bangs flopping over her dark eyes. She crossed her arms over her red-and-black skull shirt and squinted at the salon window.

Inside, a girl in a pink apron smiled and waved a comb.

Jackie turned and walked the other direction. Fast.

The Parrot Knows Too Much

Jackie made it half a block before she heard the noise.

It started as a low hum — the kind that crawled under your skin — and then got louder.

Clippers. Six pairs of them.

She spun around.

Six girls in matching pink aprons were marching down the footpath in a V-shape like a very determined flock of very stylish geese. Each one held a pair of clippers. Each one was smiling.

In front of them all was a girl with a sleek black ponytail and a clipboard. She looked organized. That was the worst part.

"Jackie!" the girl called out cheerfully. "And Ollie! Remi! Mike! Jacob! Carson!"

Five boys came crashing around the corner of the street, bumping into each other, their wild, overgrown hair flying in every direction. They looked like shaggy dogs who had never once heard of a comb.

Ollie froze first. His hair was so long it covered half his face. He pointed at the clippers with a shaking finger.

"THOSE DEVIL BUZZERS!" he screamed.

Then all six of them — boys and Jackie — turned and ran.