you’ve got perfect legs. You first, Soos. Yeees. Perfect.

Now you, La. Nope, it won’t go through at all. Soreee.’

Lara wanted to cry, her legs were all right before,

now she knew they weren’t. She masked it, joined

the other two prancing around the room chanting,

‘Susie’s Miss Lovely Legs! Susie’s Miss Lovely Legs!’

‘WISH I HAD hair like yours, Soos. It’s so nice.’

‘Yeh, it’s long but it goes like haywire at night, La.

I used to scream like hell in the mornings. Truly!’

Theatrically Susie tossed back her yellow mane,

brushed it effortlessly. ‘Mum says it’s my crowning glory.’

She jumped off the desk in the empty classroom, bent

over, hair dropped like a waterfall, she back-combed it.

What was it like to see your hair in front of you, Lara

wondered. All she could do with hers was part it down

the middle and stick in stupid pins so it stayed put.

She hated her hair, couldn’t even fit the school beret on,

it just bounced off. As for the boater – forget it.

‘Yours is so soft and bouncy, Lara.’ Susie patted her head.

‘See, just like a sponge. Amazing.’ A surf of anger surged

through Lara at her own hair. If only Susie knew how hard

it was to comb though its trillion stubborn tangles.

‘Course, I have to wash mine every day else it gets greasy.

Dad says blondes have more fun but it’s such a drag. Truly!’

The mane was bunched up for split-end inspection,

released, flicked over her right shoulder, shaken out,

flicked over her left shoulder, shaken out.

Susie peered intensely at Lara’s hair, said solemnly.

‘You do wash your hair, don’t you, La?’ She sighed at Lara’s

affirmative nod. ‘Good.’ She ruffled her mane.

‘What’s up, Lara? C’mon, it might never happen.’

BENEATH the squawking eaves of her attic retreat,

before Laetitia appeared for bed and the customary row,

Lara sought to resolve the issue of her springy hedge;

slender hands dived into her chest of drawers, quickly

extracted her long, red-ribbed cardy, placed it excitedly

over her head so it fell, equally either side, like hair.

But the wardrobe’s oblong mirror muttered

‘Silly billy,’ her head was too bulky underneath.

What to do? She dug out her white swimming cap,

squeezed her abundance into it, donned red cardy again,

but the mirror cringed ‘Wrong colour,’ it yelled, ‘yellow.’

Surreptitiously, Lara the cat burglar, tippy-toed downstairs,

tensing at every Victorian tell-tale squeak. She sneaked

into her parent’s bedroom, sought her mother’s yellow

cardigan, long, soft, lambswool, then, lightfoot as a spider,

snuck back upstairs, carefully placed the yellow hair

on her swimming head, held breath, 1, 2, 3, Hey Presto!,

to the magic circle she’d go for she was now a blonde.

She experimented, flicked it to the right, shook it out,

flicked it to the left, shook it out, skipped, danced,