RELUCTANT PRESS

hold back my tears. At one point I did get a brief glance in the mirror on the other side of the room and saw that my hair was standing straight out from my head in every direction. Mom began to carefully comb the hair and arrange it to her satisfaction. I was doused with scented hair spray and Mom twirled the chair around.

"Voila!" she exclaimed.

"WOW! Is that really me?" I wondered. My hair was puffed out in a beautiful bouffant with a sweeping wave that came down over my right eye and curled up. The left side was behind my ear and curled under. But the biggest difference was not the style.

Mom had bleached my hair!

Suddenly, the whole look came together. From the hair style to the make-up to the clothes, all combined to create a picture of a lovely young woman.

I had a great difficulty believing was me.

It was another half hour before all the models were ready for presentation to the judges. We all had to walk individually up and down the room and sit in front of the judges while they examined the hair style close-up.

Mom won first prize!

She was given a trophy and we had our picture taken together. More importantly, she was offered a job at the most fashionable salon in the city. It was not so much the better pay but rather the experience and exposure that mattered, she explained to me later. All the way home she repeatedly thanked me for all that I had done and for being such a good, cooperative model.

"Ah, Mom, you didn't tell me you were going to cut my hair or you were going to bleach it. Will it look OK after I wash it out?"

"Actually, I only cut a little to shape it and I did not 'bleach' your hair, it's just frosted a little."

"Oh, all right," I answered, not really sure what frosting was but thinking it was like a coating on a cake and it would come right out when I showered.

When we pulled into our driveway I pretended I couldn't wait to rush up to my room, get out of these awful clothes and get rid of the very feminine hair style. But Mom, thankfully, had other ideas and persuaded me to remain as her

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RUFFLES & CURLES

By Kammi Morton

"girl" for the evening. She told me how pretty I looked and she just wanted to prolong this wonderful day. Well, it seemed like it would mean a lot to her and what difference would a few more hours make anyway, I told myself. But she did let me change my clothes and it sure felt good to get out of the confining garments. In their place, I put on the nightie I had worn the night before covered by a quilted, floor length, pink satin robe. I had to admit, it sure was comfortable to dress that way for an evening in front of the TV. Mom handed me a bottle of nail polish remover and some cotton swabs and showed me how to clean my nails. At bedtime, I took off the robe, and to please my mother, I left the nightie

on.

-000-

Standing under the shower in the morning, yesterday seemed like a dream. But today was reality and back to school. When I put my jockey shorts on, I felt a little pang of guilt thinking the panties had felt a lot softer. What was happening to me? Maybe all the kids at school were right maybe I was a sissy, or worse, "queer"!

When I combed my hair I found Mom was right and my hair was still long and it did fall in place better. There did seem to be strands of lighter hair but with my hair still wet, I really was not sure. After getting dressed and having breakfast it had dried enough to see it was definitely lighter. "Mom, the frosting did not wash out!"

"Of course not, silly. It's not supposed to."

"But I can't go to school like this. Everybody will laugh at me."

"Nonsense! I only lightened it a couple of shades lighter than your regular color. Anybody that does notice it will just think you have been out in the sun."

"In February?" I exclaimed sarcastically.

I went off to school with my mind once again greatly exaggerating the effects of the change in hair color. I thought everybody would immediately notice my platinum color, though in truth it was certainly far from this light. I tried to think up different excuses to explain my appearance and decided I would say I had mistakenly used my mother's shampoo. I was braced for all sorts of nasty comments when I walked into school but none were forthcoming. Even the class bully

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