Chapter 2 - Hair...Hair Everywhere

These worries were soon replaced by other ones about the malfunctioning dishwasher and inevitable arguments about it. The rest of our meals that holiday weekend were eaten at home with no obvious signs of change. My parents had their places and I camped out in my area of the house with homework and games.

I’d nearly forgotten about what happened when I returned to school after the holiday.

My early class was PE with random archery and sending blunt arrows spiraling far over wobbly targets on the dense, muddy rear athletics field. If anyone was affected by me, they didn’t show it.

The class after that was Biology with a teacher who seemed more suited to ordering an army into battle than explaining parts of a cell. He spoke little, but with force, and I said even less when he looked in my direction.

My high school was about as inner-city as a medium-sized town could get. Certain quiet corners smelled like lemony skunk funk. Other areas always had tall guys with a certain swagger and an intimidating entourage. Fights were always dragged across the wide-open fields between the gym and rows of 1950s style classrooms with throngs of whooping spectators.

Most of the time, I’d find a friendly teacher who had their door open during lunch and chat with them about some club I’d never join or a TV show I rarely watched. It was an excuse to people watch and hang out.

Because my father was a substitute math teacher at the local college, it just felt natural to relax around teachers. Well, except for that one biology teacher.

He nearly made me pee myself the first day of sophomore year with a dump truck of everything we had to accomplish and when. It felt like a boulder on my shoulders swelling in size with each word. Worst of all, he assigned us seating according to our last names. As Kenzie Waller, I was in the rear corner of lost souls with a column of Vs in front of me and no unfortunate Ws or worse behind me.

Thankfully, this seating only lasted a week before he shifted us around again. I found myself still in a corner but in the front. The girl who sat to my right, Sophia Velacruz, was one of the V exiles who always wore a low top which seemed on the verge of popping off her.

Across from me was a big guy named Ramirez Ramos, who often tried out for the football team and chuckled about TV references I never understood because our TVs at the time only carried half the cable channels we paid for before the signal dissolved into static. Next to him at our table was Salvador Diaz, a tall, skinny guy with a ponytail of black hair and deep, rust-toned skin. He always took notes even though he’d crack jokes about whatever the topic was.

Though I was kinda out of my element with the three of them, I did my absolute, surefire best to be the biggest moron possible when talking to the group. Sophia sometimes gave me makeup advice I would barely listen to. Ramirez would copy off my group work answers after a sufficient period of all of us screwing around. And Salvador would talk about who at school had the best weed, especially when the teacher was in earshot.

That day began with a quiz about amino acid terms which included essay questions for stuff I had no memory of ever reading. I was so focused on my quiz that I didn’t even realize Salvador was cursing. Then, Ramirez added his own expletives. I looked up and it felt like everyone else in the room was also looking up from their quizzes.

My eyes settled first on Ramirez because he was closest. The guy always wore these oversized jerseys which curved over his broad but muscular belly. He usually had his hair buzzed short, nearly to the skin. But right then it had already grown out as long as I’d ever seen it before he got it cut. His fuzzy goatee was gone, leaving a clean, jutting chin. His meaty hands had undergone the same shift as my dad’s, but he hadn't noticed that quite yet. He was more concerned about his hair and face. I also noticed he had less of a hard belly pressing against his jersey. The material hung loose on him.

A couple harsh swears circulated before the teacher stamped them out and commanded sharply, “What’s going on over there?”

I glanced at Salvador. He usually towered over me, which is not that much of an achievement, considering I barely push five and a half feet in the right shoes. However, it was obvious he was closer to my eye line than usual. And he wasn't slumping back in his seat, like he sometimes did.

“Dude, I’m fucking shrinking!”

I kept my mouth closed and held onto a stunned, wide-eyed expression as the teacher marched over and spoke directly to Ramirez and Salvador. I still tried to finish my answers, but my attention was on their conversation.

Ramirez brought up his hair and it stumped the biology teacher into reflective silence. It didn’t take long before the subject of the nurse’s office came up with wild speculation from Salvador that they’d been "poisoned or some shit".

The teacher gave them both a pass to the nurse. I watched them leave and how they had to hike up their jeans to keep them from slipping. Not a big deal since Salvador wore jeans so baggy that he’d often get written up for exposing his boxers, but Ramirez’s clothes were always a tight fit.

I watched the teacher. He wrung his hands but gave no other sign of nervousness. He did allow us extra time to finish due to the interruption.

When the teacher was on the other side of the room, Sophia quietly whispered to me, “The shit you think that was?”

I shrugged and offered the same as they’d said, “Poisoning?”

She uttered a quiet “tsh”, almost to herself, and checked her phone. I swallowed quietly as I noticed her own hair seemed a few inches longer than when we’d started class. It was always pretty long, so I doubted it was enough yet for her to realize a difference.

I tried to focus on the quiz, but it was a lost cause from the moment paper touched table. Going over the answers afterwards only made me groan. Later, Salvador and Ramirez returned from a lengthy trip to the nurse. They looked the same as they always did. Most surprising of all was how Ramirez’s hair had shortened back to his usual cut. The biology teacher narrowed his eyes at the two of them and asked, “Are you trying to pull something?”

They gave their best, most emotive answers with lots of flailing and gesturing. Of course, they did the same when trying to deny anything they got called out on.

The teacher sent them back to their seats, which they only settled into after checking all around.

At that point, I had a vague but sneaking feeling in the back of my head. I often get the weirdest sorts of intuitions. Sometimes, they’re crazy ones like thinking that my whole life is just some online novel someone else is dreaming up and they’re putting words in my mouth and spreading them across my life like jam brushed over toast.

This intuition was that this sort of thing was too weird to just randomly happen at two different places and situations to very different people.

The whole class kept looking at us but things quieted down when the changes didn’t instantly revert. However, Sophia, who had been sitting next to me the whole time, did mutter complaints about her nails. They’d always been claws but the nail did seem a little glossier than usual. Also, I couldn’t see the faint shimmer of light, silvery hairs along her upper arm, but I was just glancing at her while paging through the textbook for whatever section I was supposed to be on.  

Only the usual classroom nonsense disturbed the lull until Salvador burst out with a fresh curse. This time, the teacher rushed over to them with his arms folded.

He had no explanation for why Ramirez’s hair fluctuated from close cut to normal to close and now back to the kind of growth which would take weeks. But he still assumed the two of them were trying to pull something. Sophia and I were even questioned. I rubbed my cheek, shook my head, and hoped that would be enough. Then, Sophia chirped out, “My hair too!” as she finally noticed that it had slipped over her shoulder.

Swallowing quietly, I quickly added, “I think my hair might be a little longer too…”

At that age, my mom made me keep my hair nearly to my shoulder and in a style that she approved of. The less said about this time in my hair life, the better. But it was a plausible statement because the way my hair fanned out made it look fuller than it actually was.

The teacher squinted at me and I nearly recanted before he nodded and pronounced, “I can move this group to the other side of the room.”

Ramirez took the initiative to use his linebacker-quality body to muscle us and both tables away from the right side of the room and whatever strange, mad science lab equipment he imagined was causing the change.

Ultimately, we worked together to shift over towards the center of the room and right next to another group which had a friend of mine.

It didn’t take long before the next changes showed up.