Mates, Dates and ♥♡♥ Inflatable Bras. Book 1

Chapter 12- Inflatable Bras

    When I got home, everyone was eating supper. Four faces stared open-mouthed at me from the kitchen.

   'What've you done to your hair?' cried Lal.

   Wrong response, I thought. But I knew there wasn't a right one.

   I ran upstairs and hid under my duvet. Minutes later, Mum knocked.

   'Come and have something to eat, love,' she said.

   'Not hungry,' I called.

   Five minutes later, Dad knocked. ‘It’s not so bad, love. We don’t care what you look like. Come down and have your supper.’

   ‘You’ve got more hair than I have,’ I cried. ‘It’s not fair!’

    Then Steve tried. ‘Lucy, come down. We’re watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’

   ‘Go away,’ I said. I didn’t want to watch a Buffy DVD. All the girls in it had long fabulous hair.

    Then Lal knocked. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, then pushed his Beatles wig under the door. Ha ha, very funny. Not.

    The clothes I’d made were lying on the chair at the end of my bed. I put them straight in the bin. What had I been thinking of? They were rubbish. It doesn’t work to try and change the outside if the inside isn’t right. And my inside feels definitely not right.

   I looked at my awful hair in the mirror again. I pulled at the roots, willing it to grow like the doll I had when I was five. You just tugged the hair and it came straight out right down to her waist. Why wouldn’t mine do that? I couldn’t even tie it up any more so that no one would notice what a strange style it was. So sticky-outee. I felt miserable.

    And Izzie was right, I did have two sides as a Gemini. There were definitely two in me, both driving me nuts.

   One part was completely freaked. My hair, my hair, I can never go out again. The other side was saying you selfish, petty, pathetic thing. Think about all the starving people in Africa. What does your stupid hair matter when there are war and famines?

   Where did that voice come from? I know. Our headmistress Mrs Allen. How did she get in my head?

   I think I may be going mad. Completely. What makes me ‘me’? I am a nutter. Completely and utterly barking mad. And ugly. At eight thirty, the doorbell rang.

   ‘Lucy, it’s for you,’ called Mum.

   ‘Not in,’ I called back.

   I heard a knock on the door.

   ‘Lucy,’ said Izzie’s voice. ‘It’s me and Nesta.’

   I hid even further under the duvet as the door opened and they both trooped in.

   ‘Luce, come out. Nesta has an idea.’

   I stuck my face out of the covers as both of them sat on the end of the bed.

    ‘I spoke to Mum,’ said Nesta. ‘She has someone come to the house to do her hair every other week. She’s coming tomorrow. She’s really good, Lucy. She could fix yours.’

   ‘But I haven’t got any money,’ I said. It was hopeless.

   ‘Me and Iz have thought about that. We know you get less pocket money than us and we’ll club together and we’ll pay.’

    Both of them were looking at me with such kindness, it set me off again. Blub, blub. What is the matter with me these days?

   ‘We thought you’d be pleased,’ said Nesta, looking puzzled.