Jenn fumbled with her keys, looking around the parking lot making sure no one else was around. She was lucky, the lot was screened by trees so no one bored looking out a classroom window would see her. She finally managed to unlock the door and jumped in, pulling her blonde waterfall in with her and draping it on the passenger seat. It was growing a foot every six minutes and was becoming a real problem. She only hoped she wasn’t pulled over by a cop or she’d really have some explaining to do.
She drove nervously home, making the 15 minute journey in 20 minutes, during which her locks grew over 3 feet, piling up on the seat beside her. The journey usually only took a quarter hour because she sped in some places to shorten the trip, but she couldn’t chance that this time and the anxiety was killing her.
Finally she made it home, but hesitated at the door. She had come home hoping to talk to her mother and get some sort of treatment other than the curse from Kyle to fix her problem. Now she realised that, for one thing, her mother wasn’t home, she was out shopping, and their maid had a day off. For another thing, and doctor, specialist or hospital they went to would start asking questions. They would want to study her, probably want to have her insult someone or cut her hair to test her claims of how it worked. Then they’d try all sorts of chemical cocktails and hormone shots to try and counteract what was clearly curse magic and well outside the ability of science or medicine to fix. Her only chance was Kyle and she was finally getting desperate enough to beg him for help.
The problem now was that he was still at school and there was almost three hours left before he would be home and she could call him. All this time Jenn had been lost in thought and still standing at her front door, key in hand and blonde tresses piling up at her feet. They’d made quite a shimmering gold pile while she had been thinking over her options. Shocked into action, she looked around to see if anyone had noticed, unlocked the door and dragged her hair inside. She struggled into the lounge and collapsed on the couch with a sigh.
Safe from prying eyes at last, Jenn gave vent to some of her feelings. The first thing that came out was:
“Damn you Kyle, I can’t believe you did this to me! All I did was drop your pants in front of…hundreds…of …people…oh,” she finally realised what a bitch she’d been just as her hair responded to the last insult. It was growing 256 inches an hour now, 4 and a quarter inches every minute and for the first time she could feel it. Blonde tresses were pouring out of her head like a waterfall and her scalp was now tingling constantly.
“Damn it!” she cried “Why won’t it stop? Oh well, nothing to do now but wait for Kyle to get home.” She knew she may not be able to move soon so she dragged her hair around the house getting everything she’d need. Jenn gathered the school phone list, a portable phone, a drink, a few snacks and the largest pair of scissors she could find and took it all back to the lounge room where she settled on the couch to watch TV for a couple of hours. As she sat there, her hair was draped over the back of the couch and pouring onto the floor where it pooled. She noticed that daytime TV was every bit as boring as people said it was, and even cable wasn’t much better. What she didn’t notice was that in the three hours she sat there, her hair grew 64 feet and made a huge mound behind her.
Finally, it was time to call. She heard the school bus drive past her house, so she knew school was out and she phoned Kyle’s number. While it rang she stood up and nearly dropped the phone when she saw the enormous pile of shimmering gold she was attached to. It was one of the most beautiful things she’d seen, but she knew she’d never leave the house again if she didn’t stop it. At last, Kyle picked up.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Kyle, it’s me, Jenn.” She began.
“Oh, right. Have you learned anything yet?” he sounded like he wasn’t expecting a miracle.
“Definitely.” She had no problem admitting it. Now that she looked back, all the people she had insulted, all the people she’d made miserable, it hadn’t gained her anything. No one was better off, it just made people sad. “I just want it to stop.”
“How fast is it growing now?” he asked.
“About four inches a minute as far as I can tell. I couldn’t even guess how long it is, though the pile is about six feet wide and four feet high and getting higher as we speak.”
“You must have insulted a fair few people to make it grow that fast.”
“Well, I found out your curse also counts thoughts as insults even if I don’t say it out loud. That’s why its going so fast.” That was a lie and she knew it, only one insult had been a thought, but saying it made her sound less of a bitch, which was what she was trying to be anyway.
“Hmm, well I didn’t intend that, so I’m sorry.”
“I just want you to make it stop, you do still have the curse don’t you?” she knew he’d been careful getting it back from her.
“Yeah, I’ve got it. But if I use it to fix your hair I’m not taking any chances, alright?”
“Sure,” she said. Now she knew he would help her she could finally be free of the golden heap behind her. She picked up the scissors and grasped her hair about where it would reach her bra strap. She had a problem with that though. Every time she gripped her mane she stopped the flow and her hair pouring out of her scalp quickly enveloped her hand and she couldn’t see where to cut. After a few tries she gave up, tugged it round in front of her to begin piling up at her feet and sliced through it with the scissors at about her midriff. Kyle wasn’t finished though.
“Jennifer? Are you there?” she dropped the scissors and picked up the phone. Her scalp was on fire as every hair split once more and her hair grew to 4 times its original thickness. She barely caught Kyle’s next words.
“Yeah, I’m here.” She threw her now much shorter locks over her shoulder and concentrated on his words.
“Right, now I’m not taking and chances with this curse so when I say it to you, you have to pick both. If you say transform, I’ll turn you into something that doesn’t have a mouth, like a rock so you can’t use it back on me. If you say only dare, then for starters I can’t fix your hair, and secondly I’ll just dare you to give me back the curse. So you have to say nothing for a minute alright?”
“Okay,” she replied, wishing he’d get on with it, but being careful not to even think about insulting him.
“Right, Jenn transform or dare?” She said nothing for a minute until he continued. “Okay, for your transform, your hair will go back to growing at the normal human rate and it won’t get any thicker. However, you only have three strikes so if you insult or embarrass anyone three times, your hair will revert to the original curse I gave you. Oh, and thinking insults doesn’t count, only if you say it out loud. After a year though, the three strikes period will be over and you will be completely back to normal.” Jenn felt her scalp tingle fiercely as her follicles stopped pouring out silky golden threads and returned to normal. “For your dare, I dare you to say ‘transform or dare’ back to me right now and then dare me to hang up the phone.”
“Transform or dare?” she said under the compulsion of the curse.
“Dare.”
“Kyle, I’m sorry about pantsing you the other day, that was really stupid.”
“Okay, thanks Jenn.”
“I dare you to hang up the phone.” She finished woodenly and heard a click at the other end as he cut off the call. Free of the curse at last, or at least for the moment until the year limit was up, Jenn got up and looked at the pile of golden hair behind her. It gleamed in the afternoon sunlight streaming in the window and almost seemed to mock her. It warned of what would happen if she didn’t stop being so nasty to people. Resolving to do just that, she picked up the ends where she had cut it a moment ago. She dragged it into the kitchen, the pile slowly unwinding and giving her more room. Jenn found some sticky tape and bound the end together securely. Then she looked at her watch, it was nearly five o’clock, her Mom would be home any minute. Suddenly rushing, she hauled on the taped end of the golden pile and pulled it up to her room. The pile unwound as she moved and the golden locks followed her path from the lounge through the kitchen, up the stairs, down the hall and into her large bedroom. Climbing on a chair, Jen kept hold of the bound end and stuffed the hair into a big cupboard, that she never used, built into the wall above her walk-in closet. It never seemed to end, but eventually she had pulled all 70 odd feet of it through the house and crammed it into her cupboard where she stowed the bound end and shut the door.
Only then, back on the floor of her bedroom, did Jenn look at the hair still attached to her head. True to the last cut, it was much thicker than before and was barely held behind her shoulders when loose. She could lose her hand and half her arm in the strands before her fingers came out the other side and brushing was going to take a lot more time than usual. She had cut it off at about her midriff, but while Kyle had been talking and using the curse on her, it had kept growing. It had finally stopped at the tops of her thighs and was long enough to sit on. She thought about cutting it back to her shoulders, like it had been originally, but she realised that with it being so thick now she’d probably look like she had an afro. It needed the weight of being long to hold it down. Besides, she thought with a smile, there’s not too many girls with hair as beautiful as mine, and even less who can sit on it!