AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sosie smiled. “Sure,” she signed back.
The bird scrabbled into view. Seeing the girls, it squawked and darted into the dense jungle growth. With a war cry, Sosie grabbed her spear, and she and Jennifer ran after it, full-bore, without second-guessing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Brittani raced into Petra’s hut, her voice full of alarm. “Petra, come quick! Tiara’s freaking out!”
A crowd had gathered around the hut Tiara shared with Brittani.
“What’s going on?” Petra asked.
“Tiara grabbed the machete and started going all women’s prison movie on her hair,” Miss Ohio informed her. “She said something about sparkle hips and pretty feet and princess hair.”
“She won’t let anybody in. She keeps waving the machete around,” Brittani said. “And the earrings I wanted to wear are in there.”
“Why me?” Petra asked.
“She likes you,” Brittani answered.
“She thinks I’m a freak of nature.”
“I know. She says she’s a freak, too, and you’re the only one who would understand.”
Petra went inside. Tiara sat on a rock, sawing through a section of hair with the machete. Her hair was a mix of short and long pieces. She pointed the machete at Petra.
“Whoa! Whoa, there. Can’t a friend just drop in and say hi?”
Tiara blinked. She gave a vague smile. “Oh, hi, Petra. Come on in.”
“So. Going for a new ’do?”
“Yeah. Something new,” she said in an empty voice. A clump of hair hit the sand. “My parents are gonna be so pissed, though.”
“Your parents aren’t here. Can I have the machete?” “Huh-uh.” Tiara pulled a long piece of hair in front of her face and examined it. “Split ends. Guess I’ll have to get some princess hair when I get back.”
“Princess hair?”
“That’s what my mom calls the hairpieces we use. Princess hair. They cost a lot, about five or six hundred dollars.”
Petra made a whistling sound.
“The dresses, too. And you need new dresses for each pageant.”
Petra did the math in her head. “You could start a business on that. Or pay for college. Well, state college.”
Tiara hacked off another bit of hair.
“Hey, could I see that awesome knife for a sec? It’s so cool!”
“No, thank you. I like the knife.” More hair hit the sand.
Petra needed to distract Tiara. She glanced around the hut for something that might help and noticed that Tiara had bobby pinned fat, blue flowers to the walls. It was crazy-cool and very adorable. “Wow, you did this?”
Tiara looked up for a moment and gave a weak smile. “Mmm-hmm. I wanted to give my hut a jungle theme.”
“Tiara, I think they’ve all got a jungle theme,” Petra said. “But yours is definitely the most creative. And hella cute.”
“You think?” Tiara seemed to come alive. The knife stopped its mutilations. “Can I tell you something? I kinda always wanted to be an interior decorator.”
