The Pearl Inside of Anything

9:15 p.m. Villa Renzo elevator

"Wendy?"

"Angie?"

"Streaks!"

"I know." Big Sigh.

"They really suit you!"

"Really?"

"Uh huh. Very Studio 54. Here's your floor! Nice to see you!"

"Nice to see you, too." I step out of the elevator and realize Angie did not ask if she could photograph my hair. This is probably a good thing.

9:17 p.m. Chez Riley

I knock on our door quietly and sure enough, it's Dad who lets me in with a "Shh! Your mum's asleep" mime. I shouldn't have worried. She can never make it past nine.

But Patrick can. He's in bed, but his big, blinky eyes are wide open. I sit down on the edge of his bed.

"Wow!" he says. "You look like a flower!" Or ice cream."

"Ice cream?"

"Strawberry vanilla swirl."

"Aw, that's nice Bud. Thanks. Go to sleep now, okay?"

"Okay," says Patrick, scooching down under the covers. He's quiet for a minute, but I know he's not sleeping.

"Wendy? Can you come do Guess and Share tomorrow?"

This is new. Guess and Share is this thing Patrick does at school instead of Show and Tell. They have to hide something weird or cool in their backpacks and then come up with clues to see if the other kids can guess what it is.

"I don't think I'd fit in your backpack." But I'm flattered in a take-your-big-sister-to-Guess-and-Share-day-way. I really am.

"I've got school, too. But maybe some other time."

"Aw!" Patrick flops back on his pillow. "You look so neat. Nobody else has a pink-haired sister."

Wednesday, 12:04 p.m., under the watchful stare of Vetruvian man

"Nice bandanna, Wendy." Except when Whitney says this, it sounds like the polar opposite of a compliment.

I give her a tight smile and head for where the guys are sitting.

"Hold on a sec', what's with your hair?" says Whitney.

Oh no. I touch my head. The bandanna has slipped back and my bangs have flopped through.

"Pink? Streaks? What is this, Grade Seven sleepover hair? There's no way you went to Mirabella for that. I knew it! I knew you couldn't afford that place." Whitney narrows her eyes and looks at me suspiciously. I inch towards the guys' table. But I'm slow, halfway between finding some sort of comeback and just getting away from her. It doesn't matter anyway, she follows me to the table. A chair slides smoothly out for me. Ben! But if I sit down, Whitney's taller and she wins. Oh whatever, out with it then.

I turn and face her. "Actually, Whitney, you're right. I didn't pay for it. I'm a hair model. And this... This is a creative vision." I do my scrunchie move, and whip the bandanna off, but it catches some of the back of my hair and I have to tug it all the way off. Not so smooth; I lose a small hunk of pink from the back. Ow.

"Hair modelling?" sniffs Whitney. "Huh. That's not even real modelling!"

Now I do sit down—hard—and make a bit of a show of plowing through my backpack.

"Well, you get what you pay for," smirks Whitney, walking past our table serenely. My face is burning, it's probably a good match for my streaks. Ben does not look at me, it's not like there'll be a test on this, I think bitterly. But I hear him say calmly,

"Looks pretty real to me."

Captain, my captain.

Oh, Wendy. Please.