Why I Let My Hair Grow Out Read online

  Fek the rebound thing, I thought. I could actually get to like this guy.

  seven

  after lunch i Went to the restroom (sorry, maeve, but I’d already peed in the grass once today and we modern-day types prefer to use indoor plumbing when it’s available). While I was in there I pulled the bottoms of my pant legs back down over my socks. They were still only sweatpants, but no way was I going to put the moves on Colin looking like a kid in knickers.

  I rolled the waistband down a bit and stretched my arms up high in a big practice yawn, just to make sure it would flash a bit of belly button. It did. Perfect.

  I didn’t have any mints or a toothbrush handy but I swished my mouth out with water the best I could to alleviate my shepherd’s-pie breath. That pie was awesome—I’d finished my whole plate. I’d seen Carrie Pippin gobbling down her mashed potatoes and gravy too, like a starving woman— or, to be more accurate, like a woman who hadn’t eaten any carbs or meat products in a really, really long time.

  I did one last mirror check before leaving the restroom. The lack of hair and the gym-class outfit made me look unavoidably boyish, but it was the best I could manage for now. My plan was simple. Lay some big flirty move on Colin to give him something to think about this afternoon, and then, tonight, when we were all done sweating for the day, I’d take a bath and change into something frisky and get a little makeup going on to make me look older and more girl-like. Then we’d have a beer and see what happened.

  This kind of man-trap thinking was both strangely enjoyable and totally out of character. I’d never been the aggressor with Raph. He’d picked me, quiet me, out of the sea of sophomore girls. I wasn’t sure why, but I was so surprised and grateful that I never questioned going along with the you’re-my-girlfriend-now plan he’d quickly established. Just like I’d gone along with his now-we-hang-out-with-my-friends-not-yours plan, and the Morgan-needs-a-makeover plan and all his other plans, until finally we reached the this-was-fun-but-I’m-moving-on plan.

  Final mirror check. Check. Raph had made a lot of plans, true, but those plans were ancient history and an ocean away. Now I was making my own plan. And Colin was going to go along with it. I could tell.

  fek that Colin.

  Fek fek fek. That’s all I could think.

  While I was in the “loo,” Euro-twit Heidi had somehow convinced Colin that the seat on her bike was loose. By the time I got outside to where the bikes were parked, he was bent over with his face next to her ass and an Allen wrench in his hand, checking the height of the seat while she moaned “Higher, Colin! Lower, Colin! Ooh, that’s wunderbar Colin, my buttocks have never felt so good!” or something very close to that, at least in my suddenly crazed mind.

  Plus—maybe this was what really ticked me off—she’d taken off her helmet and let her hair loose and it was thick and blond and falling halfway down her back, and all of sudden the tall-as-a-supermodel jock looked like the cover of Sluts Illustrated.

  And Colin was laughing and chatting and plying his trade about six inches away from Heidi’s buff, spandex-clad butt, with all that hair swinging in his face.

  And then there was me. A bald under-aged shrimp in a baggy sweatsuit.

  Fek that Colin. All of a sudden I felt like crap, and it was completely his fault.

  I was just about to go lay down in front of the van so he could run me over by accident when he drove off (that would cost him his job, heh heh), but he spotted me.

  “Hey Mor,” he said, grinning. “C’mere for a minute.”

  Only an idiot would try the belly-button move now, so forget that. I shuffled over to where they were, trying to look as reluctant as possible. Colin handed me a camera.

  “Be a luv, Mor. Heidi wants a photo taken of me and her. Can you manage it?”

  “You push the little button,” said Heidi, smiling.

  She was pushing somebody’s buttons, all right. “Sure,” I said. “Smile!”

  I pointed the camera at Heidi’s tits and zoomed in so they filled the frame. If only this thing had a wide-angle lens—that would be awesome.

  “Can you see Colin? And the bike?” Heidi asked, through her frozen smile. “I want to see the bike also.”

  “Got it,” I said. And I snapped the photo.

  “Danke schön!” said Heidi.

  “No problemo,” I said, tossing the camera back to her. My throw was wild, and she had to jump to catch it.

  the sad thing about digital cameras is that you can look at the photo right away. Out of the corner of my eye I’d watched Heidi look at the camera’s viewscreen and get confused. Then Colin looked too. Then they’d called Lucy Faraday over to take another picture.

  I hightailed it back to my bike, tossed my helmet on the ground (it was making my head too hot, I decided) and prepared to kick off. Lucia could ride with someone else. I was in no mood to be anyone’s buddy right now.

  It was only after I was sitting on my bike about to make my getaway that I realized I did have a problemo, and that problemo was I needed a map for the afternoon, because how the hell did I know where we were supposed to go? And Colin had the maps. We were supposed to get one from him on our way out.

  No way was I going to interrupt his worshipping-Heidi’s-buttfest to ask him for a map now. I figured they must be in the van, so I hopped off my bike again and snuck over to the van as invisibly as I could. I’d grab a map and hit the road before anyone could react to my innocent, whimsical tit-photo prank.

  I opened the front passenger-side door of the van and started rummaging around the mess of papers on the seat. Map, map, where was the map. . . .

  “Hey,” Colin said. He was leaning casually on the driver-side door. The window was open. “Whatcha lookin’ for, Mor?”

  “Map,” I said. I kept rummaging.

  “I’ve got ’em right here. No need to tear the place apart.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a wad of folded papers. He offered one to me, leaning through the driver-side window and reaching all the way across the front seat to where I was. I took it and shoved it into the pocket of my hoodie without opening it.

  “Want me to go over it with you? There are some tricky bits.” I wished he would stop looking at me. It was making it hard not to look back and I was in no mood for eye contact.

  “It’s just a map,” I said. My voice was getting stuck in my throat for some reason. “I’m not stupid. I’ll figure it out.”

  The window opening of the van door framed Colin as if he were a photograph. “ ’Twasn’t your idea to come to Ireland, was it?” he said. A real brainiac, that Colin. Maybe he should be a “leader of tomorrow,” like Raph.

  “Nope.”

  “Well.” He leaned in through the window and lowered his voice. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here now. Don’t act the bitch, all right, Mor? Doesn’t suit you really.”

  I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say.

  “See ya later then.” He opened the door and climbed behind the wheel, then reached over and slammed the passenger-side door shut, with me on the outside. “Keep your phone handy.” The words were friendly enough, but his voice sounded cool. “Right button’s me, don’t forget.”

  Like I would ever, ever ask this guy for help. Jerk.

  i Was a half mile down the road before lucia caught up with me.

  “There you are,” she said, breathless, as she came up alongside me. “Sorry to take so long getting ready. I guess you got tired of waiting.”

  “I want to ride by myself now,” I said. “Nothing personal,” I added. That was nice of me to say, wasn’t it? I was being considerate of her feelings, me being a nice person and all. Only a total jerk like Colin would call a nice person like me a bitch.

  “O-kay,” she said, after a minute. She was still riding next to me. “But they did ask us to stay in pairs. For safety.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I started to pedal harder. “I’ve got the phone. I’m totally fine.”

  Did I have my phone? Or had I
left it on the ground with my helmet? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t care.

  There was a split in the road up ahead. Lucia was falling a bit behind me now. I picked up more speed.

  “See you at dinner, then!” I heard her call. “Morgan, wait! The map says bear to the right!”

  I barreled down the left-hand road, into parts unknown. I put my head down and my ass in the air and pedaled as hard as I could, just like I was Lance Armstrong in the Tour de fekkin France.

  “Morgan!” I heard her call. “Morrrrrrrgannnnnnn!”

  And then I couldn’t hear her anymore. Just the wind rushing past my ears.

  here be dragons. that’s What it says When you fall off the edge of a map.

  But I didn’t see any dragons. Just green grass and rolling hills dotted with animatronic cows. The road went up and down like dunes at the beach but overall I seemed to be climbing in altitude, and the terrain was growing more rocky and less green. There was a strange hill in the distance with a pronounced bump on top, even and symmetrical in shape, almost as if it were man-made.

  My veer into unmapped territory was not premeditated, but how else was I supposed to shake my sad, nosy buddy? At least this way I’d have some privacy. When I got tired or felt like I’d gone too far, I would just head back the way I came and then follow the map till I caught up with the group.

  So what if I arrived at tonight’s inn after dark? This wasn’t Connecticut, where no one under the age of twenty-one is allowed outdoors unsupervised and there are photos of kidnapped children on the sides of milk cartons and Amber Alerts on the news at night. This was Ireland, where you could knock on strangers’ doors to use the bathroom, and you could ride your bike down the middle of the road for hours without seeing a single Lexus, Hummer or SUV.

  This is Ireland, I thought as I pedaled. I’d crossed the ocean but I was still miserable and a loser. I still felt outclassed and outgunned by every random female who crossed my path, and I was still making up daydreams about happy romances with guys who clearly were just not that into me.

  This was Ireland, and my family was glad to be rid of me and I didn’t know where I was or in what direction I was heading. Worse, I had no idea where Raph was or what he was doing right this very minute. All I knew is that wherever the two of us were, I was the one thinking, missing, longing and wondering about him. No way was he thinking about me. Raph? Please. He’d have his brainiac-camp girlfriend all picked out by now.

  This was Ireland, and my butt was starting to chafe and a cool wind was kicking up, and it was starting to look like it might rain. As much as I hated to admit it, I was stupid to have gone off on my own. It was time to turn back.

  And I slowed and made a sharp U-turn, but I hadn’t slowed enough and my bike started to skid out on the pebbled ground. I stretched one leg out for balance and the baggy fabric of my sweatpants got tangled in the chain.

  And first I was flying and then I was falling, falling, falling.

  i Was On the ground, but i Wasn’t sure how long i’d been lying there. I opened my eyes.

  The long gray muzzle of a horse was pushing gently against the side of my head. I felt its hot breath on my cheek.

  “Fergus!” the horse cried. “Look who’s come back!”

  eight

  Quick recap, here: there Was a horse talking to me. Strange, right?

  And there was a young man—named Fergus, if you can believe what the horse was saying. I had never met anyone named Fergus in my life, and now it was the second time in a day I’d heard the name. This also struck me as strange.

  The man was wearing some seriously punked-out clothing—made all of leather but not the glossy black biker kind, more the I-skinned-it-myself natural look, with bits of fur still stuck to the edges. His face was in need of a shave and his hands were rough and dirty, but this was in no way dimming Fergus’s grubby warrior-dude sex appeal. This guy was a hottie, even if he did look like an exhibit from the Natural History Museum.

  “Morganne!” was the first thing he said to me. He knelt beside me and cradled my throbbing head in his hands. “Morganne! You’ve come back!”

  So he knew my name, sort of, and acted like we’d met before. There were a number of very strange events going on, no question, but at that particular moment, the thing that struck me as the strangest and most inexplicable of them all was—my hair.

  My long, thick, strawberry-blond hair. It was spread out on the ground around me like silky gold ribbons. I only realized it was attached to my head when Fergus sat me up and the hair came along for the ride.

  “Fek me!” I yelled. “Look at my hair!” And then I shut up, because now I knew I must be dreaming.

  Fergus smiled, with dream dimples, no less. “Ah, Morganne. If I start looking at your hair now, where will it end? Soon I’ll be looking at your eyes, and then your lips, and then all the rest of you—”

  My Little Talking Pony stomped its feet with impatience. “We’ve no time for that now,” the horse said. “Let’s get her somewhere safe, and quickly.”

  “Samhain is right, as always.” Fergus looked into my eyes with a searching, serious expression. “Thank the goddess you’re back, Morganne. There’s much trouble brewing. We need you now, more than ever.”

  Then Fergus picked me up and placed me on the horse’s back like I was a toddler taking the five-dollar pony ride at Lucky Lou’s. (It costs eight if you want a Polaroid at the end. Major ripoff, that.)

  Some of the richer girls at school were way into the horse thing, but personally I found horses smelly, inscrutable and unnecessarily large. I was just about to ask Fergus how he expected me to stay on board when the beast started to move, but before I could freak out Fergus was sitting on the horse too, right behind me, and Samhain took off at a trot or a canter or one of those gears that a horse shifts into when it starts to run.

  There was no seat belt in this vehicle but Fergus’s strong legs were wrapped around mine, and I could lean back against his chest as we bounced up and down in rhythm with the hoofbeats. My fingers were clutching the horse’s wavy silver-gray mane, and my long, long hair was whipping all around me.

  I like this dream, I thought. I hope it lasts a little longer.

  “We’re taking you back to dun meara,” shouted Fergus, above all the noise and the wind. I didn’t know what or where Dun Meara was—and since I’d never been there before how could I go back?—but hey, dreams aren’t supposed to make sense. I was happy to play along, and what choice did I have, anyway?

  Dun Meara turned out to be a small village of thatched-roof houses inside a large circular fort, ringed by a wall of mounded earth. There were people everywhere, women and men and children too, and many of them gathered to see who it was who’d come galloping up to the gate in a cloud of dust.

  “Ahh, it’s only Fergus!” I heard a child’s voice cry. “I was hoping it would be Cúchulainn!”

  Fergus slid off Samhain’s back and landed lightly on his feet. “Not Cúchulainn, child, not yet!” he said, as he lifted me to the ground. “But one who can help us in his absence.”

  “Morganne.” It was as if the whole crowed started whispering my name, or some version of it. “Morganne, Morganne.”

  “Hey, people,” I said with a wave. “ ’Sup?” This was like being on the red carpet at the Grammys. I’d never had such a vivid and detailed dream before. I hoped I’d remember it later when I woke up, which I was in no rush to do since I vaguely recalled leaving a bit of unpleasantness behind me. Something about Colin and Heidi and Lucia and a camera and a map—

  “Have you told her of our sufferings yet?” asked a thin, pale-haired woman. She was wincing as she spoke, her hand on her belly. “Does she know about the king? Can she lift the curses upon us?” The woman looked up at me. Her face seemed familiar—she looked a bit like Julie Andrews, in fact. “Will you help us, Morganne?”

  “Patience, Lachama,” said Fergus, kindly. “I’ve told her nothing yet. She is newly arrived from the land
of her own kind. First we offer our hospitality. Afterward,” he said, glancing my way, “after she is fed and rested, then we may ask for her aid.”

  “Morganne, do you like wheat cakes?” said a young girl, tugging at the sleeves of the dress I was wearing. (All due props to the dream fashion designer for the dress, by the way. It was flowy and cream-colored and fit me perfectly.) “I made them myself and I want you to eat one because they are so good!”

  Fergus grinned and cuffed the girl on the head. “My sister, Erin, was a baby at the breast the last time you saw her, Morganne, and look what a mayfly she has become! Impossible to ignore.”

  The Billingsleys, I realized. The little girl looked like Sophie and the woman with the bellyache looked like her mother.

  “You ignore me all the time, Fergus. But Morganne won’t,” Erin said, firmly taking my hand. “I will show you the finest hospitality in Dun Meara. Fergus, tend to your horse!”

  Fergus grinned at me and did as he was told, and little Miss Feisty dragged me off to find the snacks.

  i should have Woken up by now.

  That’s what I kept thinking, as Erin fed me wheat cakes and honey inside the primitive but comfortable house that she’d led me to. It’s a dream, I kept telling myself, but the food tasted so real, and my stomach was actually getting full. Most dreams—my dreams, anyway—tended to be vague and blurry around the edges, but this one had way too much information. It was jam-packed with details that didn’t seem lifted out of Lord of the Rings, so where the fek were they coming from?

  I could never make all this up, is what was starting to run through my mind. No way, not even in a dream, not even if I had Tammy’s imagination (which no one does; that kid is always droning on about her imaginary friends and the strange adventures they have, and if you get sick of listening she’ll just continue the conversation with her Beanie Babies).

  These thoughts started to make me anxious. To calm myself, I started imagining ways for the whole experience to peter out, like a toy that needed new batteries. Maybe I’d look behind a wall and find it was a painted flat, like the ones they used in the drama club shows at school. Maybe I’d snap out of it suddenly and find myself waking up by the side of an Irish country lane after an unplanned but pleasant afternoon nap, my bike parked nearby under the watchful eye of a decorative animatronic cow.