by Lisa Siberry
‘Is everything going to be OK?’ I asked.
A wrinkle sprang up between Mum’s eyebrows, then it was gone. ‘Of course it is.’ She slipped her hands around our shoulders, forming a tight triangle. ‘A problem is just an opportunity to make things better.’
‘Dad always said that,’ sulked Faye.
‘He did?’ I felt a pinch of jealousy. My sister remembered so much more about Dad.
‘Yeah.’ Faye nodded. ‘But even Dad wouldn’t be able to solve this problem. What we really need is a beauty miracle.’
A beauty miracle? I shivered, and Mum pulled us closer together.
‘Hey, who are we?’ she asked.
Faye and I stayed silent.
‘Come on,’ urged Mum. ‘Who are we?’
‘We’re the Green Girls,’ we mumbled in unison.
‘And what do we do?’
‘We make the world a beautiful place.’
‘And how do we do that?’ insisted Mum.
Faye didn’t say anything, but I knew the answer. It’s basically our family motto. ‘We put the you in be-you-tiful.’
‘Exactly,’ beamed Mum. ‘And as long as we have each other, we’ll keep doing that.’ She hugged us even tighter just as the salon door tinkled and Mrs Dougall poked her head in.
‘Helloooo, Green Girls?’ she sang out.
We all put on our brightest smiles. That’s rule number one in a beauty salon: service with a smile.
‘Come in, Betsy.’ Mum bustled over to the washbasin. ‘Just the usual today?’
‘Yes please, Kitty.’ Mrs Dougall winked at me as she lowered herself into the chair. She’s in her seventies, and comes every week to get her blue-rinsed hair washed and set into tight little curls. ‘So, Lily dear, how’s the honey and garlic pimple cream going?’
‘Not bad, Mrs D.’ I gave her a thumbs-up. ‘The cat liked it.’
‘The cat likes dead rats, too,’ muttered Faye, shoving me aside to get to the nail polish shelf.
I slumped into my usual spot behind the desk. Mum was wetting Mrs D’s hair, and Faye was opening a bottle of Cotton Candy Pink polish, and as I watched them floating around in their purple aprons, I thought about what Faye had said.
We really need to make Kitty’s beautiful again.
But how? I wished there was a magic formula for getting customers back in the salon, but for once I was out of ideas. And even worse, Mum was reaching for the very last bottle of French Orange and Organic Coconut Shampoo, which meant she was only seconds away from washing poor Mrs D’s hair with coconut milk, dishwashing detergent and orange juice.
Please work please work please work, I prayed as the creamy orange goo slid out of the bottle and splatted onto Mrs D’s hair. The salon filled with the rich scent of oranges, and for a moment I thought maybe my homemade shampoo was OK.
Maybe, for the first time in my life, I’d made something, you know, good.
Then Mrs D’s hair started to glow.
At first, it was just a glimmer, like a beam of golden sunshine dancing across Mrs D’s wet hair. Then it vanished.
‘How’s the water temperature, Betsy?’ asked Mum, scrubbing the shampoo into a foamy orange lather.
‘Heavenly,’ replied Mrs D. ‘Now, Lily, tell me what’s next on your big list of inventions.’
I blinked at her hair. Must have been a trick of the light.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking of a few things, Mrs D.’ I opened my notebook to my latest list. ‘I have this idea for a peanut butter and apple-cider-vinegar hairspray.’
Faye snorted and dabbed pink polish on Mrs D’s toenail. She also muttered, ‘Gross,’ but I ignored her.
‘It’s for removing tangles,’ I explained. ‘Peanut butter has natural oils in it, so it’s really good for breaking down knots. And the acid in the vinegar is good for hair.’
‘Excellent thinking.’ Mrs D tapped the side of her head, and the orange glow rippled through her hair again.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Faye got in first.
‘You have to be joking. Who would spray peanut butter and vinegar in their hair?’ She laughed. ‘I think that might be even worse than your seaweed body scrub.’
‘What was wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, darling,’ said Mum as she rinsed out Mrs D’s hair. ‘It was very creative. And the bathroom still smells faintly of, uh, the ocean. Very refreshing.’
Faye snorted again.
‘What else, Lily dear?’ asked Mrs D.
‘Oh, um.’ I stared hard at her hair. It looked fine. I’d just been breathing in too many nail polish fumes. I went back to my list of ideas. ‘I thought I could try an oatmeal and mint body cream? Mint makes your skin feel fresh and tingly, and oatmeal’s supposed to be really soothing.’
‘Yeah, if you like covering yourself in green porridge,’ mumbled my sister. ‘Honestly, Lily, everything you make is … how can I put this? Disgusting.’
Urgh, this always happens. Why do I even bother? I hugged my notebook to my chest. ‘Forget about it. They’re all bad ideas.’
‘No such thing as a bad idea,’ said Mrs D, wagging her finger at me. ‘The only way to get good at something is to keep trying.’
‘Well, I know I won’t be trying peanut butter in my hair, or rubbing mint leaves on my face, and neither will our customers,’ said Faye, screwing the lid back on the nail polish. ‘You think Mum got beautician of the year because she slopped porridge on people?’
I looked up at the dusty silver plaque on the wall above the nail polish shelf. Mum had won it twenty years ago at a beautician competition.
‘I guess not,’ I mumbled.
‘Exactly. The whole point of a beauty salon is to be beautiful,’ continued Faye, fanning Mrs D’s toes. ‘And your icky gloop is blurg, not beautiful, so keep your experiments where they belong. In the kitchen. Or even better, the bin.’
‘Faye, that’s enough.’ Mum gave my sister a warning look as she wrapped Mrs D’s hair in a towel and twisted it into a turban.
I could feel the heat rising in my face. ‘My inventions aren’t icky, Faye. Do you even know what’s in nail polish?’
Faye shrugged. ‘Nail polish, duh.’
‘Nitrocellulose, which is the same thing that makes bombs explode.’
She didn’t look impressed. Fine. Whatever. I had more where that came from.
‘And your red lipstick.’ I pointed at her mouth. ‘It’s made from squished cochineal insects. That’s what makes the red colour. Dead bugs.’
‘Not true.’ Faye looked queasy.
‘Is too.’
‘Is not.’
Faye poked her tongue out at me. I poked mine back.
‘Girls?’ whispered Mum.
Faye was now mouthing loser at me, and I wanted to kick a hole in the desk. Sometimes I just wished my sister would say one nice thing to me.
One nice thing.
‘Girls!’
We both swivelled our heads over to Mum. She had just pulled the towel off Mrs D’s head. But the old lady’s normally blue hair was glowing a soft, dreamy orange colour, and every single strand was standing up towards the ceiling as though Mrs D had put her finger in an electrical socket.
‘Mrs D?’ I whispered.
‘Mum, what did you do?!’ Faye jumped to her feet.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ Mum looked horrified. ‘It was just a shampoo and a towel dry.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mrs D prodded at her vertical, glowing orange hair. ‘Not my usual look, Kitty dear.’
‘No … I … what?’ While Mum struggled to speak, Faye picked up a section of Mrs D’s hair and dragged it sideways. It stuck there. Now Mrs D had a glowing, right-angle hairdo. Half sticking up to the ceiling, and half pointing out the door.
‘It must have been the shampoo,’ said Mum, looking at the bottle in disbelief.
My legs were turning numb with shock, but I forced myself to walk over and touch Mrs D’s hair. It felt spongy, like Play-Doh.
‘Oh.’ Mrs D raised an eyebrow. ‘Slightly better, dear.’
I flashed Mum a look. She was sniffing the open shampoo bottle.
‘Wait, wait, let’s try something else.’ Faye was getting excited, gathering up all of Mrs D’s hair and expertly sweeping it into an orange beehive. Not a single strand wafted down, and Mrs D looked pleased.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ shrieked Faye, jumping up and down. ‘It’s like, it’s like …’
‘It’s like glue shampoo,’ I said slowly. My hands trembled as I touched Mrs D’s gluey hair again, trying to figure out how it had happened. ‘It must have been the coconut milk,’ I whispered to myself. ‘Or the dishwashing detergent.’
‘The what?’ asked Faye.
I froze.
‘Lily?’ Mum’s face darkened. ‘What did you do to my beautiful French shampoo?’
I felt the room shrink. ‘I had a little, um, accident with the bottle this morning. So I topped it up with a few ingredients …’
Mum’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Like dishwashing detergent?’
‘And coconut milk?’ added Faye.
‘And a bit of orange juice.’ I hung my head, wishing I could disappear. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. Crunch knocked over the bottle and I was just trying to make things better.’
Silence stretched around me, and I got ready for it: another lecture from my sister, another disappointed headshake from Mum, and no purple apron – ever. But weirdly, Faye started laughing as she took the shampoo bottle off Mum, and I could see a plan forming in her head like a bubble on a bar of soap.
‘This is it,’ said Faye, her green eyes twinkling. ‘This is how we make Kitty’s beautiful again.’
‘Forget about it,’ said Mum. ‘No-one wants to wash their hair with dishwashing detergent.’
‘Well actually, Kitty, I do.’ Mrs D winked at me in the mirror and patted her glowing beehive. ‘It’s unusual, but I think your daughter has come up with quite the brilliant beauty invention.’
Brilliant beauty invention?
‘And the customer’s always right,’ said Faye, pointing at Mrs D. ‘Right?’
Mum frowned, but I could feel the tips of my fingers starting to tingle.
‘Think about it, Mum, this is exactly what we need to get customers back into Kitty’s,’ said Faye excitedly. ‘BeautyGlow has Lava-Rock Hand Cream and six hundred shades of nail polish, and what do we have?’
Mum gazed around our shabby salon and the edges of her eyes creased.
‘Exactly,’ said Faye. ‘But now we have something to put us back on the beauty map.’ She held up the bottle and the orange goo sparkled in the sunshine. ‘No clips, no hairspray, just a big bottle of beauty magic that holds hair perfectly in place. People will go crazy for it. And the best part is we can make this ourselves, right, Lily?’
My sister turned to me, waiting for an answer. The truth was, I had no idea what was going on with that shampoo, or if I could even make it again, but the way everyone was looking at me made me want to try.
‘I guess so,’ I said.
While Faye jumped on the spot, Mum touched my chin and gently steered my face towards her. ‘Lily,’ she said, frowning, ‘there isn’t anything … strange in the shampoo, is there?’
The memory of the orange tree niggled at me, but I heard myself say, ‘Nope.’ I wondered if that was a lie. I don’t like lying. Why didn’t I just tell her about the orange?
Because it came from a shivering tree.
‘Guys, who cares what’s in it!’ shouted Faye from the basin, where she was sticking her head under the tap and pouring shampoo on her hair. ‘For once Lily’s made something that’s not disgusting. And I have the perfect name for it.’
There was a pause as Faye lathered her hair into a mountain of orange foam. Then she pointed at her head. ‘Everyone, say hello to Glue Goo Shampoo!’
That night, I sat on my bed with the window open. The sweet smell of flowers floated in on the cool breeze, and I imagined the scent curling up from Rosa’s garden, creeping over the back wall like wisps of invisible smoke.
I took a deep breath and went back to writing in my notebook. I’d started a new page called Glue Goo Shampoo, and so far I’d listed the three things I’d put in it:
3 cans of coconut milk
10 squirts of dishwashing detergent
1 orange
My pen hovered over the word orange. It made zero sense. I once tried making perfume out of jasmine petals, almond oil and a squeeze of orange juice, but all it did was give me a rash. This was different. This was …
‘Perfect!’ Faye stood back from the bedroom mirror and admired her Glue Goo hair. She’d experimented for hours, and her latest style was a horn-shaped spike out the top of her forehead and ringlets down her back. She looked like a unicorn, but at least the orange glow had faded. After Faye washed out the shampoo, we’d discovered that only wet hair glowed, and dry hair was just plain gluey.
‘Heads up, Lil. I think we’re ready.’ Faye threw her phone at me, then riffled through all the cosmetics on her dressing table. Our apartment is teeny, so we have to share a bedroom, and Faye’s side is all pink: pink bed, pink fluffy cushions, pink wardrobe overflowing with clothes, and a pink dressing table covered in hair straighteners, hair curlers, perfume, makeup and nail polish. My side is less pretty and more dirty, with mounds of rumpled clothes, half-eaten bowls of cereal and a stack of abandoned experiments rotting away under my bed.
I picked up Faye’s phone. ‘What are we getting ready for again?’
‘Promotional video.’ Faye dabbed some shimmer on her cheeks and glanced at a book on her bed called Be the Boss: How to Run a Business and Rule the World! ‘According to Be the Boss, promotion is essential for every business. Which means we need to tell everyone about Glue Goo. Now.’
I went back to my shampoo ingredient list. Three ingredients had somehow turned my homemade shampoo into glowing hair-glue. It made me feel excited and nervous at the same time. It also got me thinking about the Lab Girls, and how they’re always saying good scientists test their inventions first.
‘Can we wait a bit?’ I suggested. ‘I should figure out how this goop works before we start rubbing it in people’s hair.’
‘Are you serious?’ Faye tilted her head at me, and her horn wobbled. ‘Lily, do you want to get customers into Kitty’s or not?’
I nodded. Of course I did. That was all I wanted for Mum.
‘Then we need to do this, now.’ Faye straightened her pink leopard-print nightie. ‘Hit record.’
I hesitated. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘Lily, this shampoo is the only good idea you’ve ever had. Hit record.’
My finger hovered over the red button on the phone. I’d just made something that people might pay for. Something that would help Mum and the salon. The thought was so unbelievable it made me feel dizzy.
I pressed record and Faye posed for the camera.
‘Hey everyone, big news from Kitty’s Beauty Parlour!’ She waved a hand around her head as if she were a game show host. ‘The Green Girls have just developed a styling shampoo that is going to change. Your. Life. No filter. All real. You can go from unicorn’ – Faye unravelled her horn and re-styled it into a slick ponytail that popped out from the top of her head – ‘to pony!’
I smothered a laugh. Her hair was staying perfectly in place, without a hair tie or anything.
‘Book your appointment for tomorrow,’ continued Faye, pouting at the camera. ‘Because Glue Goo will run out like that.’ She snapped her fingers and I stopped recording.
‘Did I look amazing?’ Faye replayed the video. ‘Amazing! Look at my hair, and my cheekbones. My friends are going to love this!’ She tapped at the
screen, and within seconds, she’d sent it to everyone she knew.
The thought of that video slipping out into the world made me feel a bit sick, and I flopped back onto my bed. As always, Faye spritzed my side of the room with a can of Lilac and Vanilla Body Spray, then snapped off the light.
There was a gentle rattling as the light switch activated a wire on the ceiling and the mobiles over our beds started whirring to life. We’re about a decade too old to have baby mobiles, but Dad made them when we were little and we’ve never taken them down. Faye has purple flowers, and I have green. Dad invented this mechanism so that when the light goes off, the flowers start glowing and floating around in a circle all night without any batteries or anything. It’s kind of genius.
Mum once told me that Dad really liked gardening and it was his idea to call me Lily. But I could never figure out why, because here’s what I knew about lilies:
1. They’re funeral flowers.
2. They make people sneeze.
3. They’re toxic enough to kill a cat.
He should have just called me Daisy, I thought, watching the glowing green flowers rotating slowly over my head. For the millionth time I wondered what Dad was thinking about when he made it. Did he know that green would be my favourite colour? Did he know those twelve glowing flowers would keep me company every night when my brain was whirring and I couldn’t sleep? Did he ever wonder who I’d be?
‘Hey Lil?’ My sister’s voice made me jump.
‘Yeah.’
‘Want me to do your hair tomorrow?’ She sounded nicer than usual.
‘Er, no thanks.’
‘How about a bit of eye shadow? I saw a mermaid-inspired makeup video today and I want to try it out on someone.’
‘Nope, all good,’ I mumbled into the blankets.
There was a long silence. Faye’s bed squeaked as she turned over. ‘By the way, nice work today.’
I held my breath. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I know so. This shampoo could change everything for us.’
Change everything? Faye’s words filled my chest with something warm and golden.
‘It’s pretty impressive stuff,’ she sniffed. ‘You know … for you.’