Petal's Problems Read Online Free PDF Page B

head. "I need to see if he's got those passports yet."
    ***
    "We look like ... criminals," Durinda said, puzzled, when Annie returned an hour later with our brand-new fake passports.
    Annie shrugged. "Pete says they always come out like that, even the legal ones."
    "I look like I could rrrrr ob a bank," Rebecca said, pleased. "Maybe when I'm in F rrrrr ance, I'll rrrrr ob the Rrrrr ight Bank."
    Rebecca had been reading up on France, but apparently she'd missed a page.
    "Right Bank refers to a side of the river," Marcia pointed out. "So you can't get money there unless you rrrrr ob actual people." Then she realized what she'd just said. "Oh, blast! Now you've got me doing it!"
    "Oh, look!" Zinnia said. "Pete's man who knows a man who knows a man, or whatever, also put little stamps in our passports so it looks as though we've traveled all over the world. I like the idea of being a world traveler!"
    "I don't like my picture," Petal, who'd come out from under the bed long enough to see her passport, said. "I'm getting scared just looking at me."
    "What about Pete's and Mrs. Pete's passports?" Jackie asked Annie. "Do they look like criminals in theirs too?"
    "I don't know." Annie shrugged. "I didn't see theirs. Maybe they already had theirs and didn't need fake ones?"
    ***
    But one thing Annie did decide we all needed before our trip was haircuts.
    "Oh no!" Georgia cried. "You're not getting me in that... insane room!"
    That insane room she was referring to was the Haircutting Room. It was one of Mommy's inventions. It used to be, before a new semester started at school, we'd all go to the Haircutting Room to get our hair trimmed in our favored styles. In the Haircutting Room, scissors flew around a person's head like crazy, snipping so fast and furiously that there was always the fear that one would lose an ear or get stabbed in the eye. Since our parents' disappearance, the only one brave enough to go in there regularly had been Annie, with the exception of Jackie, who'd gone as an April Fool's joke.
    We missed our parents terribly, but one nice thing about their disappearance was that none of us had to go into that shudder-making room anymore unless she really wanted to.
    But now...
    "Just look at yourselves!" Annie shouted.
    "What's wrong with the way we look?" seven Eights shouted back at her.
    "Go look in the mirror," Annie said with a darkness worthy of Rebecca, "and you'll see what I mean."
    We went. We looked. We saw.
    "Yikes!" seven Eights shouted at our reflections. "How did that happen?"
    Somehow, miraculously, even without benefit of the services of the Haircutting Room, we'd all managed to look exactly the same since New Year's Eve, except for Jackie, who'd changed her look voluntarily.
    But now?
    It was as though our hair had made up for lost time overnight. Each of us had hair that was five inches longer than it had been, except for Jackie, whose hair had only grown two and a half inches since April 1, and Annie, who had hers trimmed every month. Georgia's intensely wavy hair no longer grazed her shoulders but instead cascaded almost to the middle of her back,

    while Zinnia's hair was so long it trailed behind her on the floor, like a weird bridal veil.
    We looked so different. We looked nothing like ourselves.
    "See what I mean?" Annie said. "It's as though overnight you've all turned into those dolls whose hair keeps coming out of their fake little heads when you tug on it."
    "I don't like not looking like me." Petal's lower lip began to tremble. "It's as bad as seeing myself looking evil in that passport photo."
    "I have to confess, I don't like it either," Marcia said. "My bangs are down to my chin. It's like looking at the world through a hair curtain."
    "What do we do about this fresh horror?" Georgia said.
    Almost immediately, she regretted her question. We all did. For, instead of answering, Annie simply jerked her thumb hard to the left.
    Toward the Haircutting Room.
    ***
    "Ouch!"
    "Watch it!"
    "Be ca