Dead Hairy Read online

  Matt rubbed his teeth miserably. Why was he doing this? Coriander had begged him not to. But didn’t she see where it could lead? To her dream – building this place into a world centre of wonders! Hadn’t she said there was nothing she wanted more? He put his head in his hands. There was nothing he wanted more than to see her again.

  ***

  In her little room Coriander finished brushing Winnie’s hair. She’d do anything to be back brushing Perdita’s. She sighed. Winnie snuggled up to her.

  Coriander kissed her forehead. ‘Now then, Win,’ she said briskly, ‘how about some lunch?’

  3 - Missing

  ‘Don’t ask for biscuits,’ said Mum the next afternoon. ‘And you could’ve brushed your hair.’ She turned left off the main road into a twisty lane.

  ‘OK Mum, sorry Mum,’ said Abbie, messing her milky coffee curls even more.

  ‘And for goodness sake, take your wellies off inside.’ They thought the Platts must live on a farm because Perdita’s directions said park by a gate into a field.

  They reached the gate. They thought again.

  There was the field all right, muddy from last night’s rain. It was dotted with dark green bushes. But it looked nothing like a farm. The bushes were squat and trimmed into strange shapes. What’s that called again, thought Abbie. Tapiry? Toppery? Topiary – that’s it. She grinned as she remembered one of her favourite car games: pointing out a heart or cockerel-shaped bush just in time for Ollie to miss it.

  But there were no hearts or cockerels here. Only balls on stems. Some balls had a dangly triangle each side. Others were smooth on top with little tufts at the side. And others were large balls with small balls on top – like fat-bottomed number eights, or Big-Bum Beryl, Abbie’s music teacher.

  In the middle of the field stood a round tower. The bricks were fleshy pink. At the bottom of the tower was an arched wooden door. Above the door, in a vertical line, rose four round barred windows. The roof was rusty red thatch. It brushed the top window like a fringe. Two columns of interwoven thatch, also rusty red, hung down, one each side of the tower. And tied round the bottom of each column was a huge, yellow … ribbon. As if – well, as if the tower had plaits!

  Abbie gasped. That was it. Hairstyles. Not just the tower, the bushes too. Those balls on stems were like heads on necks. The dangly triangles were bunches. The tufty bushes were balding heads. And the big-bottomed number eights were heads with buns.

  Mum switched the engine off. Her mouth opened, closed and opened again.

  ‘Cooo-wul,’ breathed Abbie. She fingered the tape recorder in the right-hand pocket of her jacket.

  The door in the tower opened. Perdita appeared, waving madly. She half bounced, half flew towards them like a great daddy longlegs. Her plaits danced, her eyes danced, even her teeth danced. She was wearing a pair of hairy trousers which looked like they’d been hacked from the hide of some mountain beast.

  ‘You can’t go in there!’ hissed Mum from the side of her mouth.

  ‘Please,’ Abbie whispered, ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘We don’t know them. That girl looks bonkers.’

  Of course she’s bonkers, thought Abbie. What she said, though, was, ‘Perdita’s lovely. She didn’t laugh at Grandma.’ That was a first among Abbie’s friends. Mum raised an eyebrow.

  ‘And Dad really liked Mr Platt.’

  Perdita was climbing over the gate with a grin wider than her face. Abbie played her best card. ‘We can’t leave now. What would it look like?’

  As usual, that did the trick. ‘Then let me come in with you,’ sighed Mum.

  You just dare, thought Abbie. What she said was, ‘Your shoes. They’ll be ruined.’

  Mum glanced from her pearly pumps to the muddy field. ‘Well, I don’t know. You must take my phone then. Ring the minute you’ve had enough.’ Abbie put the phone in her left pocket, on top of the packet of Jammy Dodgers she’d stolen from the snack cupboard.

  ‘I must be mad,’ muttered Mum. ‘The Bellinghams don’t let Tallulah post a letter on her own – and she’s twelve.’

  Perdita’s grin barged through the car window. ‘Helloo there!’

  ‘Aargh!’ Mum jerked backwards in her seat. Then she collected her face and switched on a smile. ‘You must be Perdita.’ She put her hand to her head and combed through Bob with her fingers. ‘Nice to meet you, dear.’

  ‘Bye Mum,’ said Abbie firmly. ‘See you at five.’ She jumped out and slammed the door. Perdita vaulted back over the gate into the field. Abbie clambered after her and waved. Mum mouthed something bossy and drove off.

  ‘Do you like my designs?’ asked Perdita, waving towards the bushes.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Abbie. ‘You’re a great gardener.’

  Perdita laughed. ‘Hairdresser, you mean. The bushes are just for practice. If you can style yew, you can style anything.’

  They followed a path that wove between the bushes to the tower. When they reached the front door Perdita stepped out of her hairy trousers, revealing tatty jeans underneath. She hung the outer pair on a hook by the door.

  ‘Must fix that,’ she murmured, peering at a hole in the right knee. Then she brushed bits of brown hair off her jeans. ‘Yak,’ she explained. ‘Gets everywhere.’

  Abbie stared up at the thatched plaits. ‘What is this place?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, right. I forgot to introduce you.’ Perdita cleared her throat. ‘Welcome,’ she said grandly, ‘to The Platt Institute of Hirsute Pursuits.’ She stood up and threw her arms out, smacking Abbie in the face. ‘Oops, sorry.’

  ‘The what?’ said Abbie, rubbing her nose.

  ‘OK,’ Perdita muttered, ‘just call it The Museum of Hair. Come on.’

  Abbie followed her through the front door. When her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, she made out a circular room with a stone floor. It was empty apart from a fat pillar in the middle, which rose to the ceiling. There was an archway in its side.

  Perdita had already gone through. ‘This way,’ she called.

  Abbie followed, shivering in the damp air. Inside the hollow pillar was a spiral staircase that rose up the centre of the tower. She panted up the stone steps after Perdita, putting out a hand to steady herself against the wall. Her fingers touched moss. The cool air smelt sweet and vaguely familiar: a cross between strawberry jelly and bathroom cleaner.

  Abbie reached a circular landing. Perdita was waiting by a door in the pillar wall. At the top of the door hung a crooked metal sign.

  Perdita turned the handle and beckoned her in. The sweet smell rushed up Abbie’s nose, making her gag. Hairspray – that was it – like the stuff Mum squirted over Bob every morning. Abbie stopped in the doorway and looked round.

  At first glance the room was full of people.

  At second glance they were standing or sitting, still as statues.

  At third glance they were statues – or rather tailors’ dummies in costumes.

  At fourth glance the one on the left looked strangely familiar.

  At fifth glance –

  ‘Hi Robin,’ said Perdita.

  And there he was. Robin Hood. Well, a model of him, large as life and clothed in faded green. He looked very sorry for himself. His tunic was ripped. His breeches were frayed. A longbow sagged from his right shoulder, a quiverful of arrows from his left. His feather cap was dusty and his painted eyes lopsided.

  But his hair! It gushed from his fibreglass chin, perky and red. It crawled across his brows like two hairy caterpillars. And it sat beneath his hat, glossy and smug.

  ‘How are you today, Rob?’ asked Perdita, patting his hand. ‘Has Dad got round to fixing you?’ She pressed a button on his thumb. His left hand unhooked the bow from his shoulder. His right hand plucked an arrow from the quiver. He aimed at the ceiling. The string drew back. Then the bow and arrow nosedived and Robin shot himself in the foot.

  Perdita sighed and pulled the arrow out. ‘Nope,’ she muttered. ‘Let’s try Einstein.’ She went over to th
e next model: an old man standing by a desk. He held a piece of chalk in his right hand. Behind him was a blackboard. His jacket and trousers were dusty with chalk. But his hair – again it looked almost alive. It cuddled his lip in a snowy moustache. It whizzed and fizzed and sprang from his head in wild white wires.

  ‘Pull that lever on the desk,’ said Perdita.

  ‘Whoooaaauuh?’ said Abbie, which would have been a reasonable noise for someone yanking a handle to make, but was actually the sound of all her questions crashing out of her mouth at once.

  She pulled the lever. Einstein turned to the board and began to scribble with the chalk.

  Abbie read what he’d written. Ee, it’s a messy square. ‘I – I thought it was supposed to be E = MC squared.’

  ‘It is,’ sighed Perdita. ‘Dad has some great ideas. But they don’t always quite work.’ She sat down on the floor and hugged her knees.

  ‘What is this place?’ whispered Abbie, crouching next to her. ‘And why does the hair look so real?’

  ‘Because it is.’

  Abbie stared at Perdita. She didn’t have the sort of face that pulled legs. But what on earth …?

  Perdita jumped up. ‘Come and see for yourself.’ She ran over to a model of a lady in a white robe. The lady was sitting by a small paddling pool that was half full of water. Toy boats huddled against the side furthest away from her. ‘Helen of Troy,’ said Perdita. She took a handful of the lady’s hair. It was dazzling. It poured down her back like golden syrup. Fat lashes curled from her painted blue eyes. Golden eyebrows arched on her forehead.

  Helen of Troy, thought Abbie, the face that launched a thousand ships. Wouldn’t Dad love this! He was always banging on about that ancient Greek king who’d led a fleet of a thousand ships to Troy to rescue his beautiful wife Helen. And at the end of the story Mum always asked the same thing: would Dad launch a thousand ships if she was kidnapped? And Dad always assured her, ‘Ten thousand, my angel.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Perdita, ‘feel it.’

  Abbie came up to Helen and reached out a trembling hand. The hair felt as silky and cool as butter.

  ‘Now press her nose,’ said Perdita.

  Abbie pressed. The boats in the paddling pool shot into the air. They soared towards Helen, then over her head, and crashed into the wall behind her.

  Perdita tutted. ‘Oh dear. The face that launched a thousand aeroplanes.’ She went over to the wall and started picking up the boats. Then she hurled them at the wall. ‘Dad’s giving up!’ she cried. A tear splashed onto the floor.

  Abbie came over. She patted Perdita on the arm and said the most comforting words she could think of. ‘Jammy Dodger?’

  Perdita grinned through her tears. ‘Thanks.’ They sat on the floor. Perdita took a sniffly bite. Crumbs sprayed everywhere. ‘He’s giving up,’ she went on, ‘because he thinks she won’t come back.’

  ‘Who won’t?’ asked Abbie.

  ‘My mum. She’s gone. Disappeared. Ten weeks, four days and –’ Perdita counted on her fingers – ‘eight hours ago. We got up one morning and there she wasn’t.’

  The first question that flashed across Abbie’s mind was who made your breakfast then? Wisely she asked the second. ‘Did you call the police?’

  ‘Not straight away. Mum had been called to Spain urgently. That was no big deal. Mum’s a world expert on hair, you see, and she often has to –’ Perdita sniffed – ‘had to, leave at short notice. To check out interesting finds.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Abbie.

  ‘A strand of Cleopatra’s eyebrow, a hair from Shakespeare’s moustache, that sort of thing.’

  ‘But what’s interesting about a few old hairs?’

  ‘If they turn out to be real, Mum brings –’ Perdita sniffed again – ‘brought them, back to the museum. Then Dad dipped them into this mixture he invented to make the hairs grow.’

  ‘What do you mean “grow”?’ asked Abbie, who had a funny feeling she knew exactly what Perdita meant. She was right.

  ‘Get longer, sprout, thicken,’ said Perdita. ‘All the things hair does.’

  Abbie stared at her, blank as a blanket.

  ‘Look,’ said Perdita, pointing to a model dressed in pirate clothes. ‘Take Blackbeard. Mum collected a tiny tangle of his beard. Then Dad dipped it in the mixture, and hey presto.’ The model’s painted brown eyes glared at Abbie between furious eyebrows and a coal-black beard. Abbie swallowed. This was so crazy you couldn’t make it up.

  Perdita took a photo out of her pocket. ‘There’s Mum in Israel,’ she said, handing it to Abbie. ‘She’s just dug up the end of Abraham’s beard.’ A big lady with a round face was beaming under a tree. She wore a blue tent of a dress. One arm was raised high above her head. Hanging from her finger and thumb was a cloud of white hair.

  But it was the lady’s hair that made Abbie squeal. ‘Red plaits with yellow ribbons – she looks like this tower!’

  ‘Other way round,’ said Perdita. ‘The museum was her idea, so Dad and I thatched the tower to look like her. We did it a few months before she left.’

  Abbie thought for a minute. ‘That morning … how do you know your mum had gone to Spain if she’d left by the time you woke up? Did she leave a note or something?’

  ‘No. Mum had told my aunt – she lives here too with my uncle, you see. Mum woke Auntie Mell to say there’d been this phone call from an archaeologist. He was digging in the ruins of a castle near Barcelona. And he found a golden hair comb with a few strands of black hair. He thought they might belong to Wilfred the Hairy, Count of Barcelona, who lived more than a thousand years ago. So Mum flew over there to check.’

  ‘Why didn’t she wake you?’

  ‘She told Auntie Mell not to disturb me, she’d be back that night.’ Perdita shook her head. Her plaits whacked her cheeks. ‘But there’s more to it than that. I heard Mum and Dad arguing the night before. And they never argue –’ Perdita sniffed her sniffliest sniff yet – ‘I mean argued. Dad still won’t tell me what it was about.’ She wiped her nose with a plait. ‘And we haven’t heard from Mum since.’

  ‘Not even a phone call?’

  ‘No calls, no letters. I try her mobile phone every day, but it just says the number’s not available. The police have searched all over, here and in Spain. And now they say she might be …’ Perdita’s teeth ploughed her chin. ‘But I know she isn’t.’

  Abbie wasn’t at all sure how someone could sound so sure about something that didn’t sound so sure at all. What she said, though, was, ‘Sure.’

  ‘Even my aunt and uncle are beginning to lose hope. They say I’ve got to start facing reality.’ Perdita tugged her front plaits fiercely. ‘But I am! I know Mum’s still out there. And I know she still loves us.’

  Abbie squeezed Perdita’s arm. ‘I wish I could help you.’

  Perdita slotted a Jammy Dodger into her mouth like a giant coin. ‘You can. Find her.’

  If you’d poured petrol over Abbie’s knickers and lit a match she couldn’t have jumped up faster. ‘What?!’

  Perdita brushed crumbs from her mouth. ‘You’re a journalist. There’s your story.’

  If you’d squashed a tomato on Abbie’s face and squirted ketchup on top she couldn’t have gone redder. ‘No! I mean how can I – I mean what can I – ?’

  ‘Think about it,’ said Perdita, standing up. ‘Now come and see Henry the Eighth.’

  She ran over to a barrel-shaped model of a man. He wore a bejewelled tunic and stood with his legs wide apart. A red beard rimmed his chin and fat cheeks. On his head sat a furry pancake of a hat. His right hand grasped his hip. His left hand clutched an axe.

  Perdita pushed the axe and jumped back. The king’s arm lifted. The axe swung above the hat. ‘Off with her head,’ growled a voice deep within his fibre glass chest. ‘Off with her head. Off wiith herrrr heauu …’ The voice wilted.

  ‘Battery dead,’ muttered Perdita. ‘Oh dearie me. How about you, Sam?’

  Next to the king to
wered a huge figure. His head was bent and his palms pressed against two plaster pillars either side. He was covered from head to toe in dark brown hair. It glowed and flowed. It glistened and gleamed. It poured onto the floor like melted chocolate. It sprouted from his chest, thick as a doormat. It swamped his face in beard.

  ‘Samson?’ gasped Abbie. That bruiser from the Bible whose strength lay in his hair? That really took the biscuit. She took a biscuit.

  ‘Remember how he pushed down pillars with his bare hands and killed loads of Philistines? Watch.’ Perdita stamped on the model’s foot. His right hand, pressing against its pillar, cracked and fell off.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake!’ shouted Perdita. She looked at Abbie. They burst out laughing.

  ‘Hang on.’ Abbie wiped her eyes. The Mexican Hat Dance was blaring from her pocket. She fished out the phone.

  ‘Hi darling,’ came Mum’s too-bright voice. ‘Slight emergency. Dad needs the car. See you at the gate. Bye.’

  ‘Mum, it’s not even –’

  But Mum had rung off. Abbie stuck out her tongue at the phone. ‘Can you believe it? I’ve got to go.’

  She put the phone back in her pocket and felt the edge of the tape recorder. Some journalist. She’d forgotten to switch it on.

  ‘Ring me,’ said Perdita, leading the way to the door.

  Abbie turned for one last look at the room. Wonky eyes gazed out beneath whizzy hairstyles. As she turned away something grey streaked across the floor.

  ‘Yeeuggh,’ Abbie gasped, ‘a rat!’ She shot after Perdita.

  ***

  On the floor above Hairstory, Matt was peering through a magnifying glass. He’d just squeezed three drops of liquid from a pipette onto a woodlouse. The creature was scuttling round his desk. Matt sighed. Poor thing. Better take it back to its family.

  Hang on a mo. Its back was sprouting tiny white hairs!

  Matt sighed again. So what? A hairy back didn’t mean the mixture had worked. How on earth could you tell with a woodlouse? Oh, this was getting nowhere.

  Matt threw the magnifying glass down. He grabbed the end of his left plait and yanked off the elastic band. He did the same with his right plait, then the one at the back. There. He ran his fingers through his hair. It flopped onto his shoulders, greasy and sad. He’d plait it again when Coriander came back … or rather if.