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

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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EGMONT

Our story began over a century ago, when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Petersen found a coin in the street. He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.

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One for the girls: Bette, Jo, Tilly & Gail, and

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Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

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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?’

‘So what if I’m nodding my head – what is the problem with nodding my head?’ His voice went up at the end like it always does when he’s irritated. I like him even when he sounds like that.

‘You are way, way too positive about life. It’s not natural.’

‘And you are way, way too angsty. Why are you so angsty?’

Why was I angsty?

‘Two reasons. Number 1: I’ve just been fired. And number 2: Have you met my family at all?’

‘Y’know,’ said Tony, ‘I think you badly need some TLC, maybe I’ll swing by with Billy – see what you’re up to . . .’

I knew exactly where this was leading, because Tony Cruz is always looking for an excuse to give me Tender Loving Care. Unfortunately, it is up to every member of my family to prevent him. And as my family live all over the neighbourhood, it means that my neighbourhood is a No Booty Mr Cutie zone.

As if on cue, there was a rapping sound on the glass of the café door. It was my mum. I rolled my eyes. Now I couldn’t even have a conversation with Tony without being interrupted?

‘Gotta go,’ I said. ‘Call you later.’

‘Laters.’

Mum was mouthing What happened? at me through the door, like she couldn’t even wait to be inside before starting to interrogate me. Oh God, why couldn’t my family just give me a centimetre of space; a window of like five minutes to gather myself together before they turned everything into an episode of Eastenders?

Uncle came bustling through from the kitchen and opened the café door. ‘Ay naku, Angela, it’s all fine. No drama here. We’re just having a bite to eat. Join us if you like.’

Mum pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. Her hair needed a trim. Even though I totally remodelled her hair last year, making her ditch the two styles she’d always sported (one on the back and one on the front of her head), she never let me get at it regularly enough. It wasn’t surprising that her hair had started to make its way back into the old shmullet. I made a mental note to pin her down to a trim at some point. Get her back into that stacked bob we’d gone for. But now didn’t seem to be an appropriate moment.

Mum peered at me over her glasses while Uncle dished up pancit, for her this time. Then he went back into the kitchen, claiming to be hunting for the fish sauce again. He was giving us space. Subtle, my uncle.

‘Are you OK? Do you want to talk about it?’ said Mum.

‘Not particularly, if that’s all right with you.’

‘That’s OK. That’s just fine.’

Her mouth went into a straight line. I was sure it wasn’t OK. I was sure that Mum was desperate to talk about it – that she was really frustrated that I didn’t want to tell my side. Sure enough, five minutes into a conversation about other salons in the area who might be hiring, Mum said, ‘But of course all salons will expect you to sweep up.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I said.

‘It’s not supposed to mean anything,’ said Mum.

‘Has someone been telling you that I’m a stroppy teenager who thinks I know it all, how I have a lot to learn, how I’m unable to follow instructions, how I don’t listen, how wilful I am, how I refuse to sweep the floor from left to right downhill as you’re facing the back door because if the draft comes under the door it blows the hair all over the shop?’

‘No,’ said Mum, going a bit pink. ‘No one’s been telling me that. At all, as it happens.’

‘Hmmm.’ Like I really believed her.

‘So is that why she fired you?’

‘I said I don’t want to talk about it!’

‘I know,’ said Mum, ‘and I said that is fine, we don’t have to talk about it. Let’s not talk about it. Look – we’re not talking about it! It’s negative. Let’s concentrate on the good stuff and where you’ll go next.’

‘I don’t want to talk about that either.’

‘Sadie, you have started a Level 1 Hairdressing course. That’s one day out of school a week! We need to sort the apprenticeship or this year is a complete waste of time, not to mention you can’t enter that competition unless –’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Mum!’

‘Well we have to think about it, even if we’re not talking about it,’ said Mum.

She cannot just let things lie, my Mum. She has to poke them and prod them.

‘OK.’

‘And we have to talk about it before Monday because Monday you have college.’

‘I know.’

Of course I knew that Monday I had college. And by Monday, everyone would be getting their entry forms for the Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award filled out and signed. Everyone except me, because as of an hour ago I was no longer eligible to enter.

3
Acid Perm Lotion

The hairdresser (or barber) must complete the entry form before or on the required date stated.

Guideline 3: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

Monday morning and when I arrived at college I saw that Aimée Price was wearing green earrings that matched her green bag that matched her green-and-white spotty shoes that matched her green-tipped nails. No wonder people called her Claire’s Accessories behind her back.

She was sitting on one of the barber chairs we have in the student salon and her feet were up on another, matching shoes and all. These chairs are from Taylor Belshaw’s Nirvana range – expensive kit with funky patterned seats like I plan to have in my own salon eventually. You can bet that Aimée Price wouldn’t have a clue about quality salon chairs, judging by the way she put her feet all over them. She was also boring the pants off Florence, our lecturer.

‘Misty really reckons I’m in with a chance,’ she was saying. ‘She’s getting the senior stylist to do extra work with me to like coach me up and everything for the competition.’

Yeah. Well, Aimée was going to need all the help she could get. I knew the salon she worked in. Cissor’s Palace – Unisex Hairdresser was at the south end of Roman Road, and it was as cheesy as it sounded. All the fittings looked like they were from the 1980s or something, and not in a good, retro way, and 1985 was when the owner, the famous Misty, last changed her hairstyle, by the looks of things. The woman wears it up in a scrunchie, and I’m pretty sure she still demi-waves in there. If you ask me, for an apprenticeship, Cissor’s Palace – Unisex Hairdresser really sucks the big one.

Florence wasn’t quite so convinced either. ‘Aimée, I think if you work on your timing you could be in with a shot for the competition,’ she said. ‘But you do need to speed things up a little bit.’

Aimée Price needed to speed things up more than a little bit – I mean snails took a dump faster than Claire’s Accessories cut hair. I was waiting to hear what else Florence had to say about Aimée’s chances when she caught sight of me.

‘Oh, Sadie, have you filled out your form yet?’

‘Er . . . not yet,’ I said.

I lied. Of course I had filled it in. Of course it was sitting on the table in the lounge, ready to be signed off at the bottom by Aunt Lilah, who was the owner of the registered salon where I was doing my apprenticeship. Where I had been doing my apprenticeship. Until she fired me.

‘Well don’t forget, will you?’ Florence winked at me. ‘They have to be in soon.’

I don’t mind saying that our lecturer thinks I can cut hair. She may say that Aimée’s in with a chance if she speeds up a little, but Florence reckons I’ve got ‘real talent’. The previous week I’d come top for my colouring. Florence said she thought it was professional standard.

‘You’re a performer, Sadie, even under pressure – which makes you ideal for any sort of competition situation. I don’t want you to miss out on a chance like this.’

That’s why I wanted to enter. That’s why I’d had my heart set on it, right up until Aunt Lilah struck on Saturday. But I didn’t feel like I could tell Florence about what had happened in the salon. She might have said it was my fault – which sounded about right. And I didn’t want her to guess for one minute that maybe I’d tripped myself up and tried something out that the customer didn’t necessarily want.

‘You need to be objective about your performance,’ Florence was always telling us. ‘It’ll help you improve. You need to be able to stand back and say, “I did that well” or “I didn’t do that as well – I need to work on that.” That way you’ll keep getting better. If you make the same mistakes over and over and clients complain, then the chances are you’re just being arrogant.’

I thought back to Saturday. Mrs Nellist hadn’t complained about her new style. I was convinced that she liked her hair how I did it. But maybe I shouldn’t have done it at all. I should have gone and got Aunt Lilah away from those Kit Kats and handed her the customer. I should’ve carried on sweeping up and washing heads. If I had, then I’d still have my job and I’d be handing in my form for the competition, and I wouldn’t have been worrying about what was going to happen next instead of concentrating on my class.

We spent the morning learning about contraindications for perming and did porosity and elasticity tests on each other’s hair. Aimée was my partner and she took this as a licence to yank strands out of my scalp. This was not only painful, it was also annoying, being that I’d spent about half an hour before college twisting my hair up into a perfect French pleat. All through last year I’d had this customised ‘Hairstyle a Day’ calendar that Aunt Lilah and Uncle Zé had given me for my fifteenth birthday. It was the most perfect present and I was gutted when it had finally run out on my sixteenth birthday. I secretly hoped they’d get me another one, but they got me vouchers instead because Aunt Lilah said I was ‘too difficult to buy for these days’. Vouchers didn’t tell you what hairstyle to wear every single day of the year and how to do it. Without that calendar I was on my own. I mean, I had to decide for myself. That morning I’d decided on a French pleat, and now Aimée Price was busy dismantling it.

‘Wow, Sadie, you hair is so porous –’ (yank) ‘– must be all the chemicals you use. You really shouldn’t perm it, you know.’

‘But I’m not going to perm it, Aimée – we’re just doing this for class, right? This is an E-X-E-R-C-I-S-E.’

I swear, sometimes I wondered why I was doing this class, instead of training to be a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon. I’d got some decent exam results last year and my predicted grades for this year’s batch were pretty good. But some of the girls who wound up doing hairdressing were dumber than a box of hair. Were they really dumb though? I mean who’d just lost their job? Them or me?

‘D’you think I’m thick or something, Sadie?’ said Aimée, like she’d read my mind.

‘No?’ I said, not even attempting to sound convincing.

‘Because you act like you’re all superior and I am actually an incredibly intelligent, motivated and sensitive person.’

‘OK,’ I said, although I felt the words ‘frighteningly stupid, lazy and dumb’ summed her up better.

‘My nan brought me up, you know,’ continued Aimée, like I was interested or something, ‘and she would never do a thing for me. She always says, “you want something, Aimée? Well, go get it. You can have anything you want in this world, but the catch is you have to work out how to get it yourself.”’

‘Oh,’ I said.

The truth is that I wasn’t interested in Aimée Price’s damage. I mean we all have our own tragic childhoods to overcome, don’t we?

‘So now, specially because my Nan’s getting old, so she can’t help me,’ Aimée said, ‘every time I have a task to do I just say to myself, “You want it – you work out how to go get it, girl.”’

And I’ll bet she’ll have that on a bumper sticker when she gets her first pink-with-matching-interior car, I thought.

‘You girls finished up there?’ interrupted Florence.

‘Sadie’s hair is really porous,’ said Aimée, snapping back from Aimée-Price-Self-Motivator into hairdresser mode.

‘Acid perm lotion for you then, Sadie, if you were ever thinking of getting your hair permed, which I wouldn’t advise by the way. Alkaline for you, Aimée.’

‘You want it – you work out how to go get it, girl,’ Aimée repeated in case I hadn’t heard.

Oh, purlease . . .

Usually I was 100 per cent absorbed in my college day – I mean, compared to school it was a dream come true. Nobody blanked me at college; there were no ex-best friends like Shonna Matthews, who’d made my life a living hell last year. I had no ‘history’. I didn’t have to hide out in the library or the music room, nobody called me ‘donor girl’ and nobody knew I had a nerdy cousin Billy who played guitar. At college the teachers talked to you like you were a grown up and so mostly you behaved like one. Mainly I liked the sense that I was moving onwards with my goal, that even though the steps were small they were all in the right direction.

But that Monday just didn’t feel positive. That Monday all I could think about, all day and even on the bus home, was the wretched competition form on the lounge table that needed Aunt Lilah’s paw-print. And all I passed on that bus journey home, in between the skanky fried chicken shops, were hair salons and barbers. I had never really noticed just how many there were. Headlines, Concept Hair, Cissor’s Palace, Curl Up ’n’ Dye, Trimmers – I must have passed at least twelve along Roman Road alone. How was it that somehow I’d wound up without a job? I had no excuse – there were millions of salons out there. I just had to find another apprenticeship. But the memory of being fired still felt too hard and too raw, and for now all I could do was to look on with envy at these other salons and the people who worked in them. Were they better than me? Were they cleverer? It felt like they must be because they had jobs and I didn’t.

And then just as I got off the bus I saw Mrs Nellist. I knew it was her because her neat little head looked slightly rosy in a certain light.

‘Hello, love,’ she said vaguely, and then she really recognised me and her face lit up. ‘You know I’m glad I run into you,’ she said, ‘I’ve had so many compliments about me hair. The family were over on Sunday and my granddaughter just couldn’t get over it, and my son. They love the shape and the colour. You are clever, y’know. I was going to pop into the salon and tell you, but I don’t have to now. Ta-ra!’

And with that she was off, her little pink head bobbing away down the road, leaving me nodding and shaking my own head with the huge irony of it all.

4
This Was Starting to Sound Good

The trainee hairdresser (or barber) should be open to suggestion and input from professionals, clients and their peers.

Guideline 4: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

An hour after I got home, when I was just settling down on the couch with a cup of tea and the laptop to distract myself from the anxiety of not having an apprenticeship, the buzzer went. I’d been about to log on to this site I used to chat on all the time when I was really lonely last year. It’s www.girlswholikeboyswhoplayWoW.com and I found it when my cousin Billy was in Nerd Frenzy Mode and playing World of Warcraft the whole time. I used to chat to Groovechick2 on there – she always had something positive to say. Lately though she seemed to have disappeared. She never responded to my updates about how cool my boyf was or how great college was. Then again, I wasn’t online so much these days, so I guess she’d found someone else to talk to.

But today I kind of felt like I needed her. It was definitely a Groovechick2 moment. I wanted to tell her about the whole firing thing. I wanted to say Feel like world is imploding. Lost my job, lost my purpose – something like that. Maybe some friends are just there for the hard times. Maybe they feel like you don’t really need them when things are great.

The buzzer went again. I got up off the couch and picked up the handset. It was my cousin Billy. Even in my less than great mood I noticed he was using way too much wax on his tips at the moment. You could even see it on the itty bitty security screen we have on our intercom. I must tell him some time. It doesn’t really do anything for him.

‘D’you wanna come up?’ I said.

‘I’m with Tony and Enrico,’ he said. ‘Can you come down?’

Enrico is Tony’s older brother. He’s twenty and so totally fit that you almost faint when he looks at you. He works in PC World in the workshop or something, so he’s always pretty cashed up. Recently he bought a nice car, which is where I found them when I made it down to the front entrance.

Tony was in the back seat and when he saw me he opened the car door and got out. I liked how he did it. In fact I like the way Tony does pretty much everything. I read in a magazine that after six months you stop liking the way your boyfriend does everything and you start hating it instead, but that hasn’t happened to me. We’d just had our first anniversary and I still even liked the way he got out of a car.

‘All right?’ he said and kissed me. He has to bend down like three feet to reach because I’m such a squirt.

Did I mention that Tony Cruz kissing me always makes me want to laugh? We’ve been together a whole twelve months, but I still can’t quite believe my luck – it’s so mental it makes me giggle. Tony is seriously a hot guy and I keep wanting to ask him, ‘What are you doing with me?’ In my most insecure moments – and I have tons of those, believe me – I think he’s picked me out for one of those horrible dares. Like, Do you dare to ask out the weird short girl with the shaky hands?

Sometimes I do ask Tony what he’s doing with me, and he goes, ‘I’m waiting for a bus – what the hell kind of a question is that?’ And his voice goes up at the end and he nods the Tony Cruz nod because he is just soooo positive about life.

I’m never so optimistic though and I have to ask, ‘But why are you waiting for it with me?’

‘Because I like you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you have brown eyes and a cute little mouth and – I dunno, Sadie. You do good hair.’

Tony always kisses properly. He generally greets me with a snogfest, and this time in the car park was no exception. And as usual a member of at least one of our families was present: Enrico was peering at me in the wing mirror of his car. I could see him out the corner of my eye while Tony and I were kissing. I should have been used to it of course. At first it was just Uncle Zé, but lately I’d noticed that it was never ever just me and Tony; it was me, Tony and Billy or Enrico. Maybe it’s just a coincidence because we are all mates, but anyhow Tony and I have got used to doing all of our making out in public, because if we ever walk into a private space someone else invariably walks into it two seconds later. It’s generally Uncle Zé holding an everyday household object, like a cast iron saucepan or an electric carving knife, in a threatening manner.

‘In my country you would have a chaperone, anak,’ says Uncle when I complain about it.

‘Yes, tito, but we’re not in your country,’ I say.

‘Yes, but I’m still your uncle!’

You can’t argue with that. You could try, but the fact is immoveable even if it is completely irrelevant.

Tony stopped the snogfest and I finally focussed on the here and now.

‘What’s going on then?’ I said in the general direction of Billy and Enrico when I got my breath back.

‘We want to talk to you, if you and my brother have finished eating one another,’ shouted Enrico, smiling at me through the car window so that my knees went weak and I felt completely disloyal to Tony for just a nano-second. But I mean really – just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu, does it?

There is quite possibly nothing more thrilling than travelling in a car with your hot boyfriend, your cousin (who, thanks to a great haircut, no longer looks like a geek even if he is one and is using too much wax on his tips) and your boyfriend’s brother (who is better looking than God) at the wheel. Enrico has great taste in music too and the sound was just pumping out of the car stereo, vibrating through our chests – heaping possibility on top of possibility. I mean, who knew what was about to happen? It felt like anything could.

We drove slowly down towards Mile End and then turned left on to Roman Road. People stared into the car when we got to the crossroads, like they wanted to be riding our train, reading our book. Tony’s shoulder was resting against mine. I was so happy that I had a shoulder and that he had a shoulder and that they were resting against one another. Luckily the small gestures made me happy, instead of HUGELY FRUSTRATED LIKE THERE IS A FURNACE SWEEPING THROUGH MY ENTIRE BODY, which is how Tony described his experience of our relationship most of the time.

‘Enrico’s come up with an idea about the salon thing,’ said my cousin Billy from the front passenger seat.

‘What salon thing?’ I felt my spine arch in irritation. ‘Are you wanting me to go back and apologise to your mum or something – get my old job back?’

Enrico pulled up at the kerb. ‘You can go beg Billy’s ma for your job back if you want, Sadie, but that wasn’t what I was going to suggest.’

‘OK . . . suggest away,’ I said.

I was flattered that Enrico was taking any interest at all in my life, being that he was so good-looking and successful and everything. I decided he must really like his brother a lot.

‘What d’you think of this place?’ said Tony.

Opposite the car was a salon I knew only too well. CISSOR’S PALACE – UNISEX HAIRDRESSERS it said, in red block lettering on a shiny black background. In the window I could see Misty with that faithful scrunchie securing her hair à la 1985. Aimée Price was probably in there somewhere too, boring some customer stupid with her motivational slogans.

Go get it, girl.

So what? Was Tony suggesting I go and ask Misty for a job?

‘You’ve gotta be kid–’ I started.

‘Not that one,’ said Tony. ‘This one.’

I hadn’t noticed but we were parked bang outside an ultra-modern salon with tinted windows and coloured spotlights. It was called Stylee Stylee, Roman Road. For this area it was pretty fashionable. I’d never been in it – in fact I was fairly sure I’d never even heard of it or seen it before.

‘Looks OK,’ I said. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s pretty new,’ said Enrico, ‘and it’s run by an old friend of mine.’

‘Oh?’

‘Dariusz Zengelis,’ said Enrico. ‘I was at college with him. He opened this place about three months ago – had a chair in Soho somewhere before – and I hear he’s looking for a Saturday person.’

Dariusz Zengelis was looking for a Saturday person. I, Sadie Nathanson, was looking for someone looking for a Saturday person. This was starting to sound good.

‘Sounds good,’ I said.

‘We thought maybe you should apply,’ said Billy helpfully.

‘Sure, I should apply,’ I said.

‘Cool,’ said Tony and he squeezed my hand.

‘Go on then,’ said Enrico, turning round and flicking his head towards the salon. ‘What you waiting for?’

What was I waiting for?

I wasn’t dressed for it. I didn’t even have my CV to hand. I needed to psyche myself up.

‘I can’t do it now,’ I said. ‘I’m not ready. I need to get my head together. I need my paperwork . . .’

‘Well, get it all together, girl.’ said Enrico, ‘Saturday morning – go in there early and mention that you know me. It might just help.’

5
Another Great Moment in My Life – No, Really

In any job there is a surprise element, and hairdressing (or barbering) is no exception. The entrant should be able to demonstrate that they are well prepared for the unpredictable, surprising and exceptional.

Guideline 5: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

It was Friday night, and Friday nights in my family are traditionally spent at Aunt Lilah and Uncle Zé’s place, with Mum and Billy of course, and my Great Aunty Rita, who travels down from Ilford on the number 25 bus. We eat a smorgasbord of Uncle’s Filipino faves and my Great Aunty Rita’s finest Jewish delicacies. Uncle’s cuisine basically worships every part of a pig you can possibly eat and Great Aunty Rita has an absolute ban on pig products, being that she’s kosher, but she likes to pickle everything in sight: cucumbers, cabbage, herring, beetroot . . . If you sit still long enough she’ll pickle you. Of course, Great Aunty Rita is more my family than Uncle is – I mean she’s blood – but somehow I haven’t inherited the pickle gene so I tend to go for the pig-product end of the table. And both sides of the family fry everything that isn’t a pickle. No wonder we never have guests.

Except that this evening we’d invited Abe. It was Mum’s idea and it was a bad one in so many ways. Yet, strictly speaking, Abe is my family, so why shouldn’t he come to Friday night dinner?

Great Aunty Rita simply cannot get her head around Abe. As far as she’s concerned he’s connected to our family by an unmentionable substance that she’d rather not have to think about, together with an act of extreme insanity that her niece Angela (that’s my mum) committed some seventeen years ago when she decided to have a child on her own. To be fair to Great Aunty Rita, she has never had any problem with the product of what she considers to be this unholy and unnatural union, i.e. me. And I guess that this is something to be grateful for, but whenever Abe is mentioned she gets an odd look on her face. It’s a look that says, If anybody even mentions the words ‘sperm donor’ I may spontaneously combust. So by and large we don’t. I mean, why would we? Does Aunt Lilah continually mention the night that she and Uncle Zé conceived my cousin Billy? No, thank God, because otherwise we would all lose our dinners, pickles and all.

Great Aunty Rita has met Abe once before. On my sixteenth birthday this year we broke the habit of a lifetime and went out for a meal. Not at Aunty and Uncle’s place. We went out in town. To a restaurant. Like normal people. But in the whole year we’ve known him, Abe has never been to Friday night dinner, so he’s never had the full-on Family-From-Hell Nightmare Experience. I’d wanted to save him from it until the time felt right, because in the beginning I needed Abe to be separate from my actual family, somehow. I wanted Abe to be mine and nobody else’s. Even Mum had done her best to stay out of things between me and Abe. A couple of times she’d stood chatting in the kitchen with Sarah for hours while Abe and I bonded. And we had walked Abe’s Labrador Daisy together three times – just the two of us. We even worked on Abe’s amazing garden one day. I was getting into the habit of being quite outdoorsy when I went to Bough Beeches.

My actual family are completely indoor people. And they are so loud, so dominating, so opinionated, that I sort of wanted to be sure that Abe and I knew each other at least a bit before letting my family loose on him. I mean, he might run away and never come back – and who could blame him really?

So anyway, there they all were when I walked in that evening: Mum, Great Aunty Rita, Uncle Zé, Aunt Lilah, Billy and Abe. I’d been home after school and got changed and then I’d decided to put a colour through my hair – partly because I wanted a new look for when I went into that cool-looking salon the next day to ask for a job, and partly because I hoped it would wind up Aunt Lilah. I had of course thought about boycotting Friday night dinner altogether, being that I was so pissed off at Aunty for firing me, and of course at the exact same time I was full of insecurity that she might have been right to do so. But I knew I was going to have to face her eventually and Mum had already invited Abe, and so I did Revenge Hair (a do that is sooo good your enemy will admit defeat) and used Goldfinger from SFX. I just put one streak in right at the front. It looked completely genius.

‘We’re all waiting for you – what happened to your hair?’ said Aunt Lilah as I sashayed to the table like the room was a giant runway at the grand final of the Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award.

‘It’s totally natural,’ I said, deadpan. ‘I woke up and there it was.’

‘Looks good,’ said Abe.

I went over and gave him a hug and then gave Great Aunty Rita a hug too.

‘How’s my favourite great-niece?’ said Great Aunty Rita – it’s what she always says. I’m her only great-niece, but it does crack her up every time she says it.

‘I’m good,’ I said and sat down at the table.

Everyone tucked into the Friday night spread. I glanced over at Abe. He looked slightly bewildered by the offerings in front of him, but manfully piled his plate with pickled cabbage, pickled beetroot, tsitsaron (bits of pork), gefilte fish (fried fish balls), fried potato latkes (patties) and lumpia (fried spring rolls). I felt like offering him an indigestion tablet too. He’d suffer for it all later.

Conversation lurched around the table – if you could call it conversation. ‘Conversation’ implies that there is a talker and a listener. But nobody in my family is a listener and everybody is a gabber. Mum talked about her clients, who were suffering from something called ‘the downturn in retail’, Billy was sick of revising for his mocks, something had happened to Uncle Zé in the Cash and Carry, and Great Aunty Rita had been knocked out of this year’s League of Ilford Jewish Women Spring Bridge Tournament. Aunt Lilah had something to contribute on just about every topic (surprise surprise). She is the original yakasaurus and loves nothing more than the sound of her own voice. She was thinking of getting a new floor put down in the bathroom.

‘I’d like a stripe,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘with a sort of pink fleck. Like he had on that detective programme you were watching the other night, Zé.’

Uncle Zé said nothing.

‘What was it called?’

‘What?’ said Uncle.

‘That programme with the head in the bag. What was it called?’

‘You mean Blood Bath?’ said Uncle.

‘Eughh,’ said Mum. ‘Could we talk about this after tea perhaps, sis?’

‘No, but the flooring, Angela – it was lovely, wasn’t it, Zé?’

‘What?’

‘The flooring on that programme. Y’know, the bit where they came in and the head was in the bag . . .’

‘Lilah, I don’t know what you’re talking about, my love,’ said Uncle. ‘I wasn’t looking at the flooring; I was looking at the head in the bag. How come you were looking at the flooring?’

‘It sounds gross, Mum,’ said Billy. ‘Like Serial Killer Interiors.’

‘Oh, all right then,’ said Aunt Lilah. ‘Just forget it.’

She looked crushed for a moment. Like her family didn’t appreciate her sensitivity and attention to detail or something.

‘How about you, Abe?’ said Mum changing the subject. ‘Did you have a good week?’

‘Actually I had a letter from someone,’ Abe said. He folded his serviette neatly in his lap and glanced up at me.

‘Oh yes?’ said Mum.

‘Someone who I believe is my daughter,’ said Abe. Then paused and corrected himself. ‘Someone who I believe is another daughter.’

6
The Geek Gene

Excellent communication skills in hairdressing (or barbering) are vital to ensure good relations with colleagues and clients. The entrant must be able to show that they are a good communicator in order to be considered for the award.

Guideline 6: Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award

There was a sort of stunned silence, during which time my heart did a tsukahara-double-twist-with-crash-landing in my chest. In case you don’t know, that’s like a really complex vault that gymnasts do in the Olympics. But this wasn’t gymnastics. This was a potential sister.

‘What did he say?’ boomed Great Aunty Rita after a few seconds. She’s a bit deaf and her voice has a tendency to sound a bit like the foghorn on the Woolwich ferry.

Nobody responded. We all just sat there. I could feel my face going very hot and I wondered if I was about to pass out. After all, I – Sadie Nathanson, only child – had just found out that I might have a sister. I gripped the table, trying not to swoon into my plate of mostly pig products. I am not joking. This sometimes happens to me.

‘Well, my word,’ said Mum eventually. ‘That puts all our news to shame. This is huge.’

‘It’s big,’ said Abe.

‘What is?’ said Great Aunty Rita.

‘Abe might have another child, Rita,’ said Aunt Lilah.

‘Good grief,’ said Aunty Rita, ‘that was quick.’

Nobody knew quite what to do with that comment and so we all carried on like it hadn’t happened.

‘It turns out that this Marie – her name’s Marie by the way,’ continued Abe. ‘Well, Marie’s dad died last year and then she found out that he wasn’t her natural father after all. Then her Mum got out all the papers with my details on it from the sperm donor website . . .’

I was quite sure that Great Aunty Rita flinched when Abe said the words ‘sperm donor’, but maybe her hearing aid was just giving her feedback.

‘. . . and she’s not so far away,’ Abe continued, oblivious to Aunty Rita. ‘Canterbury, I think she said in her letter – I must have read it three times! But it’s so hard to take in . . . even after Sadie getting in touch last year!’

‘Well!’ said Mum, and she reached under the table and squeezed my hand. I couldn’t work out if this was meant to be a comforting gesture or if she was clinging on to me for support. She’s like that, my mum. Overemotional. Hysteria is my family’s default position.

‘Well, what d’you think about that, Sadie? Turns out you’ve got more family out there!’ said Mum.

I could see tears behind her smiling eyes. Please don’t cry, I thought. And then I looked at Aunt Lilah and thought, Please don’t say anything annoying.

‘Sadie – what do you think?’ said Abe.

‘Amazing,’ I whispered, because it was truly amazing. ‘Maybe I might get to meet her one day. Did she send a photo? I mean, do you know what she looks like?’

‘No,’ said Abe, ‘it was just a letter.’ I tried to picture a sister.

‘Right now she doesn’t know she has a half-sister. She’s sixteen years old – exactly the same as you – and up until last week she thought her dad was her . . . Dad.’ Abe looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Odd what parents don’t tell their kids, isn’t it?’

It was odd. And, I realised, it was potentially sort of wonderful too . . .

On his way out later that evening, Abe said, ‘I sent Marie my phone number – I’m hoping she’ll call me.’ He stooped so that his face was level with mine. ‘Would you like me to mention you? It’s up to you. I don’t have to, if you’re not ready for it . . .’

He put his hand on mine and I could see that both were shaking slightly. His hand; my hand. We were nervous. It was like we were both full of energy and it had nowhere to go.

‘No . . . Yeah . . . Sure. Mention me to her. Tell her I exist. Give her my details if you like – she might want to call me or visit or something. I mean, we could get to know one another. I wonder what she looks like. I wonder what her hair’s like . . .’ And then I laughed because I knew I sounded ridiculous.

‘You’re a prize loon!’ said Abe. ‘If she calls I’ll tell her you asked after her hair.’

Sometimes I just loved having a donor parent. You wouldn’t get moments like this if you were conceived by a regular mum and a regular dad in a regular kind of set-up. You had other stuff of course – like maybe a dad who you got to know over loads of years and who you could look at pretty much every day of your life and know that you got your nose from him, or the way you lifted your eyebrows or your natural talent at fractions. But you didn’t have moments where you finally found the provider of 50 per cent of your DNA spiral, or discovered a half-sister called Marie totally out of nowhere.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night. I went home and sat on my bed and stared into my embarrassing kiddy Snow White mirror for the longest time, imagining what Marie’s face might be like, her eyes, her hair.

Of course, I always have to imagine the hair. I accuse my cousin Billy of being a guitar geek, or a computer nerd, but the sad fact is that I’m a hair geek. Really they need to put me and Billy in a lab and isolate that geek gene.

I don’t even know if I can explain it, but hair to me is like this giant puzzle – like a labyrinth or something that you have to solve. You see it and you think, Yuh-uh, I am going to figure out how this works. And then you get your fingers into it and sometimes it feels totally different from how you imagined it would feel, and it has this whole life of its own – like it knows what it’s going to do – and sometimes it defies you with its curl or its porosity. But the thing is, you don’t know how hair is going to work until you’re in it and you don’t know how you’re going to be with the hair until you’re doing it. And that pretty much sums up my life too.

I’ve been obsessed with hair forever – since I got my first Girls World Style Head, which was from Uncle’s cousin Moss (the one who buys and sells on eBay for a living). The Style Head was a talking one from the Philippines and it said, ‘Hello, ang pangalan ko ay Minnie!’ when you switched it on.

I didn’t really mind that the head spoke Tagalog, or that it was called Minnie, but what did matter to me was that it was blonde, which was a different colour to the redhead pictured on the box. And red was the colour I wanted. But instead of being devastated, I sneaked into Aunty’s salon and did a red dye-job on the Styling Head. You know, I did pretty good for a six-year-old, even if I say so myself, and I’ve never looked back since. It’s what made me the hair geek I am today. That and my DNA.

So now, when I was about to acquire a half-sister, I thought about Marie’s hair and I wondered if it resembled my growing-out Cleopatra bob, or if it was like Abe’s shaggy mess of curls that he had refused to let me loose on so far. (To be frank, Abe is a bit of a hippy. He could carry a buzz-cut. I think it would really improve his whole look.) Or maybe Marie wasn’t like either of us – she might just be like the bits that connected us. There weren’t many, granted. We had the shaky hand thing obviously, and we had similar round eyes, but people said that there was another subtle similarity too.

‘There’s something else about you and Abe that’s the same,’ Mum says. ‘You don’t look alike, but there’s an expression, or it’s how you hold yourselves. There’s something that makes me know you’re related.’

Would Marie have that something too?

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