Scissors Sisters & Manic Panics

First published in Great Britain in 2013

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2013 Ellie Phillips

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 5820 3

eISBN 978 1 7803 1329 0

www.electricmonkeybooks.co.uk www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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Have you read . . .?

About the Publisher

1

Manic Panic

It is essential for the hairdresser (or barber) to have a part-time apprenticeship, at least one day a week, in a registered salon.

Guideline 1: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

I was having a bad hair day when this whole thing started.

Up until that point everything had been pretty peachy. I mean, I’d been feeling like my life was totally sorted for once: I had a cool boyfriend, I had a dad-type figure in my life who actually listened to me and I was following my ambition to be a greatass hairdresser. Unfortunately this last bit meant working every Saturday in my Aunt Lilah’s salon – which was where the bad hair day came in and everything in my life went BANG . . .

That Saturday began as it always did, with Aunt Lilah yelling at me for not sweeping up the hair right. How can you criticise someone for the way they’re sweeping?

‘For the fifteenth time, Sadie, sweep the floor from left to right.’

‘I am.’

‘No, you’re the wrong way round – from left to right facing the back door. That’s the way the floor tilts. If you go the other way it’s uphill and the draft comes under the door and blows the hair all over the salon again.’

‘Yeah, it does do that actually. It blows all over the salon,’ repeated Tiffany, who’s so dumb that it’s like the wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead.

Tiffany’s the junior stylist who Aunt Lilah employs solely so that she has someone to bitch and complain at all the other days of the week when I’m not there. Saturday is Tiffany’s day off from Aunt Lilah’s bitching and she spends it repeating whatever Aunt Lilah’s just said to me.

‘Left to right.’

‘Yes, Aunty.’

‘Yeah, you gotta do it left to right.’

‘Thanks, Tiffany.’

And it went on from there as usual.

‘That’s the wrong mug.’

‘The wrong brush.’

‘The wrong setting on the drier.’

‘The wrong rollers.’

‘The wrong sized pot.’

‘The wrong gown.’

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

‘Sorry, Aunty.’

‘Yeah, it is wrong actually.’

‘Whateva, Tiffany.’

It’s not like I wasn’t grateful to Aunty and all for making me Girl Saturday in her salon. Hair is, after all, my ‘thing’. I was doing Level 1 Hairdressing at college one day per week, plus I was taking things to the next level in World of Hairdressing by entering the Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award – and all this on top of going to school. It was hard work, but I’m not lying when I say that I was loving it. I was flying! Except for Saturdays, when I was in Aunty’s shop and I was not flying at all. I was stuck on the runway with no prospect whatsoever of a take-off.

At three thirty that Saturday Mrs Nellist came in for her cut-and-colour while Aunty and Tiffany were out the back having a coffee and a Kit Kat, leaving me to sweep up from left to right as you’re facing the back door, and that’s kind of where everything got really ugly.

It was the hairstyle that Mrs Nellist never knew she wanted. That’s all it was about. I don’t know why everyone had to go so completely hysterical about it, but that’s my family for you.

I think it was maybe the colour. In a certain light I’ll admit that when she came out from under the dryer, Mrs Nellist’s hair did look a little bit pink. I swear to God on a stack of Holy Bibles that it was not intentional. I’d tried out the tiniest smidgen of one of the new Manic Panic shades I’d been wanting to use for the longest time. Manic Panic do dayglo colours – like Fuschia Shock, Vampire Red and Electric Lemon. None of Aunt Lilah’s customers would ever be up for any of those, being that they’re all over thirty-five years of age and say things like, ‘Oooh, I’m going to really be daring and go a shade lighter’ or ‘I want something radical: two millimetres off the top. It’s going to be a whole new me.’

I don’t know why Aunty had even bought the Manic Panic range. I think she got overwhelmed at the Hair Show and thought she was running a completely different kind of salon, with interesting customers wanting to try out new looks and styles – which is the kind of salon I’d like to run one day. Anyway, in Aunt Lilah’s salon I was banned from even suggesting Manic Panic in case it induced a heart attack or something, but this colour was called Pearly Queen, so it sounded like it was going to blend beautifully with Mrs Nellist’s white curls – just pep them up a teensy bit. Plus Mrs Nellist was well up for it.

‘I think it sounds nice, Sadie love,’ she said when I suggested we try a new colour. ‘I’m a secret smoker, y’know, and sometimes I think it makes me hair go a little bit yellow.’

Glamorous world, hairdressing. I’d had a Saturday job for twelve weeks in Aunt Lilah’s shop and so far I’d seen dandruff, nits, seborrhoeic dermatitis (which is like mega-dandruff) and alopecia (this woman was literally bald on one side – it was like a nightmare).

So anyway, back to Mrs Nellist and her Colour by Nicotine. Secret smoker? Who was she kidding? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mrs Nellist without a ciggie in her hand. Even when she comes in the salon she has to nip out from under the dryer for a fly fag in the back garden.

So I did Pearly Queen because Mrs Nellist seemed enthusiastic, and I partly blame the ceiling in Aunt Lilah’s salon for the result. It’s a sort of blancmange pink, so with hindsight I think it was just the newly dyed glossy whiteness of Mrs Nellist’s hair reflecting the ceiling colour that made everyone get a bit over-excited. I wish I’d pointed that out at the time. But what with Aunt Lilah shouting at me and turning on all the water jets and offering to rinse and strip the hair down for Mrs Nellist, and Tiffany repeating whatever Aunt Lilah had just said, it was kind of hard to think, let alone speak.

Tiffany, who is like living proof that evolution can go in reverse, made Mrs Nellist four cups of tea in a row, which made her go jittery, and she had to take one of her pills and they spilled all over the floor, and then I had to pick them up and count them and I kept coming out with different totals, which made her a bit upset. So then we had to calm her down with a camomile infusion which she said smelled of wee and made her feel even weirder. Aunt Lilah resorted to brandy then and this seemed to do the trick.

All the while Aunt Lilah was hissing and stage whispering at me over the water jets. Mrs Nellist is very deaf so you don’t actually have to hiss, and it was just annoying and unnecessary.

‘And you’ve cut it too short, Sadie. She likes it jaw-length – jaw-length! It’s barely past her ears!’

‘But it suits her – she has such a little face, she can wear it short,’ I said, which is true actually cos Mrs Nellist does look like a pixie, with a little pointy chin and a bony schnozz.

‘Yes! But she doesn’t want it short. She wants it jaw-length! You have to give the customers what they want.’

‘How do you know she wants it jaw-length? She never said.’

This was true as well. I’d kept right on trimming while Aunty and Tiffany were in the back garden chomping through the Kit Kats and Mrs Nellist was saying, ‘Yes, lovely dear. That’s lovely.’ She never once said, ‘Stop!’

‘Because she always wants it jaw-length!’ continued Aunt Lilah, who was now manically whisking powder bleach and peroxide in a bowl like Gordon bloody Ramsay on Ritalin. ‘Mrs Nellist has been coming to me for fourteen years and she has always had her hair JAW-LENGTH!’

You see, this is where Aunt Lilah and I fundamentally differ. As anyone who’s heard my philosophy on haironomics will know, I firmly believe that you don’t just give the customer the style they think they want or the style they’ve always had – because often they don’t have a clue. You give them the style they never knew they wanted. It’s like magic. It’s like you can read their minds. I know this because I’ve tried it out on Mum, on my cousin Billy and on my boyfriend Tony – and with 100 per cent success, though I say so myself. I’d really like to try it out on Abe now that we’re getting to know one another. Abe is my biological dad, who Billy and I tracked down last year. Unlike the rest of my family (Mum, Aunt Lilah, Uncle Zé, Great Aunty Rita) Abe actually listens to me. He is also undoubtedly in need of a decent haircut and I think I could be the person to give it to him. I truly believe that I can ‘channel’ hairstyles like psychics can read minds.

Personally I think that Mrs Nellist liked the hairstyle I gave her. She did leave the salon eventually, although only after she’d been to the toilet twice because of all the cups of tea. We didn’t charge her for her hair and she was ever so pleased and really confused about why we’d washed her hair quite so many times . . . And then Aunt Lilah sent Tiffany home and made my Uncle Zé come downstairs for backup.

And then she fired me.

At first I thought she was joking.

‘You’re joking, right?’ I said and laughed, although I didn’t think she was being particularly funny.

But Aunt Lilah was not laughing.

‘No really, I don’t like to have to do this, Sadie, you being family and all, but it’s the only way you’ll learn to stay in line. You’re a loose cannon and I can’t afford to have you running riot in here with my customers once a week.’

Stay in line.

Running riot.

Loose cannon.

I tell you, my Aunt Lilah is power mad. She even sounds like some crazed military dictator rather than the owner of a crap salon in E9. She was standing there firing me in a pair of red spiked heels, with her eyebrows drawn on at an evil tilt. No wonder Uncle Zé says she reminds him of Imelda Marcos, who’s this power-mad shoe-mad politician from the Philippines, which is where Uncle’s from. The thing is, Uncle Zé has been married to Aunt Lilah for twenty-five years, so it’s kind of a weird thing to say about the woman you love.

‘You don’t want me to come back next Saturday?’ I said, swallowing hard, because a wave of panic was sweeping over me. Maybe it wasn’t just panic. Actual tears were stinging my eyes. My hands shook like they always do when I am nervous or shocked. I felt as if I had never mucked up quite so badly. I felt ashamed of myself. Like I’d been too confident, conceited, arrogant – and I’d tripped myself up. Like when you’re walking along the street in your best heels thinking you look so fine and then you twist your ankle for no reason. I had bombed myself out.

You’d think I’d be a teensy bit relieved wouldn’t you? After all, there would be no more Saturdays dragging by in Aunt Lilah’s salon, no more moan-ins with Tiffany, no more instructions about which way to sweep the floor. But being fired screwed my master plan, which was to win the Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award. I’d set my heart on it, and the main requirement was a part-time apprenticeship in a local salon. And I’d just lost mine.

‘But I need the job, Aunty . . .’ I said. A tear started to spill. I trapped it with my knuckle.

‘Well you should have thought of that, Sadie Nathanson, before you dyed Mrs Nellist’s hair pink. No, I think it’s best if we draw a line under this,’ said Aunty, and she started sweeping up from left to right facing the back door so that the hair went downhill and when the wind blew it didn’t go all over the shop.

2

Pancit With Tears

The hairdresser (or barber) should remain calm and professional at all times, ensuring that best practice in customer relations is observed.

Guideline 2: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

Uncle Zé said he thought being fired would be the making of me. He took me next door to his café and gave me pancit with pork, which is one of his best ‘cheering up’ dishes.

‘Your aunt doesn’t mean to be fierce, anak, but you know what she’s like. We all have to do what we’re told. You know what? Everyone gets fired once in their lives. See it as an opportunity. You can have a fresh start – maybe somewhere you have a bit more freedom to try stuff out. Somewhere with younger customers maybe?’

He was right. Working at Delilah’s wasn’t like my dream job or anything. It’s not a particularly good salon, but I’m kind of fond of it. I have spent countless hours there. I know every inch, every chair and its quirks, every tap, every dryer. I probably took my first steps on that floor and I’ve played a million games on it too. When we were shorties, my cousin Billy and I would line up the mixing pots and the brushes and pretend that the Pot People were going into battle with the Brush People. I was on first-name terms with the curlers – I swear I knew every hairpin in the box. That salon had been my world for the longest time. It was my anchor. OMG – not to be too dramatic, but that salon was my life . . .

Two fat tears fell into my pancit.

‘Anak, that dish has plenty salt as it is,’ said Uncle. ‘It needs something, but it’s not salt.’ Then he winked at me, which of course made me cry even more.

‘Stop being so nice to me, tito – you’re making it worse!’ I pleaded.

‘I’m your tito, my job is to make it worse,’ said Uncle Zé.

Anyone who knows me knows that Uncle Zé is basically my dad. In fact there was a moment – last year, before I found Abe – when I thought that Uncle Zé actually was my dad. No, really! I began to think my mum had been lying to me all these years and that my ‘dad’ wasn’t an anonymous sperm donor that she carefully chose off the Internet at all. I started to suspect that Uncle Zé was maybe more than just my uncle. At the time when I was having these suspicions my boyfriend Tony Cruz said my life was like something from the Mid West of America, where people find out that their cat is really their brother or whatever. My cousin Billy and I went on a crazy trail, hacking into Mum’s PC looking for clues about my ‘donor’, and of course, the truth was far less twisted than I feared. My dad turned out to be a Mr Abraham Smith, Municipal Gardener from Bough Beeches, Kent.

So Abe is half of my genes – I like to think of him as the generous half. After all, it takes proper generosity to help someone to have a baby and not shout about it. If Aunt Lilah did something like that she’d expect a double page spread in Heat or The Hackney Gazette or something. But Abe is not like that. He’s pretty chilled and his hands shake like mine do when he’s nervous. This was practically the first thing I noticed when me and Mum went to meet up with him last October – a whole year ago now.

That meeting was a pretty special moment in my life, because even though Abe didn’t exactly seem like my dad he did seem like a nice guy, and now that we’ve got to know each other better I can honestly say that he is a nice guy. When I see him he asks me loads of questions and then he listens to my answers! These are two things I am not used to. In my actual family, people ask you questions like, ‘Do you think I deserve to be spoken to like that?’ or ‘Who died and made you Queen?’ or, if it’s Great Aunty Rita (my oldest known living relative), ‘Do you have a nice Jewish boyfriend yet, bubelah?’

Abe asks me about my ambitions, about what I’m good at, my likes, my dislikes. Even his girlfriend Sarah talks to me like I’m an adult – like we’re on a level. Sarah is pretty cool, but fussy about her hair, which is straight and thin and which she likes to hide behind. She’s one of those people who’s really really sensitive – like I bet she notices if you take a millimetre too much off her fringe. I was kind of honoured on my third visit to Bough Beeches when Sarah said I could do her hair. I think it was a big deal for her, and I made sure that I didn’t screw up.

I shared my philosophy on hair with her and also my top tips on hairdresser-spotting, which are as follows:

1. Hairdressers often have things stuck to their clothing – like section clips or Kirby grips. That’s because hairdressers need (but don’t have) three hands; two to do the hair and an extra one with an elongated arm to take out the clips and put them in a box on the other side of the salon. Because we only have two hands we end up sticking the clips to ourselves and then forgetting we put them there until we’re at a restaurant or a barmitzvah and a kind stranger points out that we’ve had a section grip stuck to the bottom of our jumper for the last hour, which members of our own family neglected to mention.

2. Hairdressers are often to be found asleep on the tube at about 8.30 p.m. on a Saturday night. Sometimes they’re the people that wake up in the tube terminus at High Barnet or Amersham or other weird places you’ve never been to. You see Saturday is the busiest day of the week for a hairdresser. You stand up for ten hours cutting, washing and brushing other people’s hair, and by closing up time you are a wreck. There’s absolutely no chance you’ll get up the energy to go out yourself. That’s why some hairdressing salons are like nightclubs, with loud music and crazy hair and clothes – because this is the substitute for a night out for a hard-working hairdresser. Actual hairdresser nights out usually occur on a Monday when the salon has been closed all day.

3. Hairdressers are acquaintance magnets. A hairdresser at a party may inspire a queue. Once the secret is out that you do hair you will never be entirely friendless, but unless you insist on charging for your services from the word ‘go’, you may end up penniless. So, if you see a tramp-woman with fabulous hair, the chances are she used to be a hairdresser. That’s a bit like the 50p lady round our way; her clothes are always in tatters and she generally looks as if she’s never eaten a square meal in her life, but every so often she gets her hair done and it’s surprisingly chic. Someone told me she used to be a hairdresser and I believe them. It totally figures.

As I explained all this to Sarah, it did make me wonder why on earth I’d chosen this career in the first place. But the point is I have chosen it. And I am totally 100 per cent committed to it.

Well, Abe just sat and watched us while I was cutting Sarah’s hair and listened to me talk. He didn’t interfere like your normal, real dad might – like Uncle Zé would, for example. You see I realised quite early on in our relationship that Abe might be my biological dad, but he was never going to be Dad. He’s just Abe – he’s like this extra relative I have who happens to be a nice guy. While I was cutting Sarah’s hair he was a little nervous – his hands shook a bit. But my hands didn’t shake while I was cutting because I am NOT nervous about hair. Because I know I’m good at it. At least, I thought I was until Aunt Lilah fired me.

Now Uncle was doing his ‘dad’ bit and picking up the pieces. He waved a tenner at me.

‘You buy yourself a treat with that,’ he said. ‘Put it towards new clothes or something.’

‘I can’t, tito. I’ve just been fired. I don’t deserve it.’

‘Course you do; you work hard. I work hard, your Aunt Lilah works hard. We all work hard.’ Then he stood up and said, ‘That pancit needs more fish sauce,’ before disappearing into the kitchen.

My phone buzzed. I stared at it. A text from Mum.

What happened?

I ignored it. The news had clearly taken less than a nanosecond to travel from Aunt Lilah to Mum. She’d be on her way round here.

I texted Billy, just so he could get my side of things before he got Aunty’s.

Ur mum just fired me

Within seconds there were two texts back. One was from Billy.

No way wot you done?

And the other one was from my boyfriend – that’s José Antonio de Cruz himself, or Tony Cruz to the general public. He’d have clocked the text I sent to Billy, being that they’re best mates and generally hang out being geeky together.

Wossup?

Then the phone was ringing and Tony was on the end of it.

‘Dish the dirt,’ he said.

So I put on the brave face and mopped up the tears and told him all about it. About the hair and Mrs Nellist and the sweeping and Aunty. In the telling, my personal tragedy became a good anecdote and I could just imagine Tony’s cute little head bobbing up and down. It’s his nervous tick, but it also makes him like the most positive person I know. It used to annoy me, but now I find it kind of reassuring.

‘Your aunt sounds as if she really lost it there,’ he said. ‘See – you should never work with your family.’

‘She did lose it,’ I said, ‘and you were right about not working with family. Are you nodding your head off right now?’