The Town That Smelled Like Hairspray

Bloomberg was not like other towns.

Every shop window gleamed. Every hedge was trimmed into a perfect square. Even the pigeons looked suspiciously well-groomed. Bloomberg was the kind of place where people took their hair very, very seriously.

There were seventeen hair salons on the main street alone.

Jackie did not fit in here. Not even a little bit.

She stomped down the footpath in her ripped jeans and red-and-black striped skull shirt, her long black hair swinging behind her, bangs flopped right over her dark eyes. Her shark-tooth necklace clicked with every step. Her skull earrings jangled. The gap where her left front tooth used to be made her grin look wonderfully dangerous.

"Oi," she muttered, glaring at a shiny salon sign. "Don't even think about it."

Somewhere nearby, a group of boys crashed through a hedge, yelling something about running.

Jackie stopped walking.

Hair Today, Gone Bananas

The boys burst out from behind the hedge like they'd been launched from a catapult.

There were five of them — all shaggy, all wild-haired, all sprinting like their shoes were on fire. The tallest one had hair so long and tangled it bounced off his shoulders in clumps. The shortest had a curtain of brown frizz covering his entire face. Jackie wasn't even sure he could see.

She pressed herself against the salon wall as they thundered past.

"OLLIE, THEY'VE GOT CLIPPERS!" one of them shrieked.

"DON'T LET THEM NEAR MY HEAD!" Ollie bellowed back. He was the tall one, red-faced, arms flailing. His hair fanned out behind him like a frayed mop.

Right behind them — three girls in matching pink salon aprons, armed with combs and a look of extreme patience.

"Boys," the tallest girl called out calmly. "You have to come back eventually."

Jackie blinked.

A parrot on the salon's sign squawked loudly.

"COME BACK!" it screamed. "COME BACK!"

Ollie glanced back, spotted Jackie, and skidded to a stop right in front of her.

"You," he gasped, pointing at her massive hair. "You've still got yours. How?!"