Welcome to Bloomberg, Where Everyone Looks Amazing (Except Six People)

Bloomberg was the kind of town where even the pigeons looked like they'd just stepped out of a salon.

Every shop on Maple Street had gleaming windows, polished signs, and at least one mirror angled to catch your reflection. The people of Bloomberg took their hair very seriously. Very, very seriously.

Then there was Jackie.

She stomped down the sidewalk in her red-and-black striped skull shirt, ripped jeans, and Mary Jane shoes, her long black hair swinging behind her and her bangs completely covering her eyes. Her shark-tooth necklace bounced with every step. One side of her smile had a gap where a tooth used to be, and she wore it proudly.

Behind her came Ollie, Remi, Mike, Jacob, and Carson — all equally wild-haired, all equally unbothered.

"Oi, this place is dead quiet today," Jackie muttered, her Australian accent sharp.

Ollie glanced nervously at a striped barber pole spinning on the corner.

"Too quiet," he whispered.

The Pole That Spins for No One

That barber pole wasn't just spinning.

It was spinning *toward* them.

Not the pole itself — but the man attached to it. He rolled out a bright orange sandwich board sign and planted it right in the middle of the pavement, blocking the whole sidewalk.

The sign read: **BLOOMBERG FREE HAIRCUT DAY. ALL WILD HAIR MUST GO.**

Jackie stopped so fast her Mary Janes squeaked.

"Oi," she whispered. "That's a threat."

The man behind the sign was tall, broad-shouldered, and wore a crisp white barber's cape over his clothes. He had neat, close-cropped hair and the most confident smile any of them had ever seen. He pointed two finger-guns straight at the group.

"There they are," he said to someone inside the shop. "Six of them. All magnificent disasters."

Two more barbers stepped out behind him, clippers already buzzing.

The sound hit Ollie like a bucket of ice water.

"NOPE."

He grabbed Carson's sleeve and bolted. Mike and Jacob were already gone. Remi tripped over his own feet but recovered fast.

Jackie stood frozen for one extra second, staring at those clippers.