Bad Hair Day Read online

  CONTENTS

  1. Franny’s House

  2. Beauty and the Beastly

  3. Let’s Face It

  4. Franny Nails It

  5. Teaching Your Dog to Heel

  6. Hair We Go

  7. Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong

  8. Franny’s Hair Lets Her Down

  9. Shear Madness

  10. Igor Gets Pumped

  11. Your Hair Is Really Messed Up

  12. We’re in Pig Trouble Now

  13. Split Ends

  14. The Tail Comes to an End

  About the Author and Illustrator

  For Nava

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Editors: Krista Vitola and Catherine Laudone

  Designer: Tom Daly

  Art Director: Lucy Cummins

  Production Editor: Dorothy Gribbin

  Production Manager: Chava Wolin

  CHAPTER ONE

  FRANNY’S HOUSE

  The Stein family lived in the pretty pink house with the lovely purple shutters down at the end of Daffodil Street. Everything about the house was bright and cheery.

  But, of course, the outside of a house is never as interesting as what’s going on inside it.

  And inside this house, behind the little round upstairs window, something interesting was always going on, because this was the bedroom and laboratory of Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist.

  Last week, for example, Franny developed a giant sea horse, and the day before that she worked on a way to fly based on how bats flap their wings.

  Those projects became pretty expensive, so Franny needed to get a piggy bank to save her money in.

  Of course, being a mad scientist, she created her piggy bank from a real live pig, which meant that she had to learn all she could about pigs.

  This got pretty messy, but she didn’t mind getting messy, because that’s just what happens when you’re doing mad science.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BEAUTY AND THE BEASTLY

  Mad science isn’t just messy. Mad science isn’t always pretty, either.

  There’s nothing pretty about a hamburger that makes its own ketchup. Especially when you bite into it.

  And nobody ever called Franny’s Totally Circular Wiener Dog pretty.

  The word most people would use is “disturbing.”

  Still, Mom liked the wiener dog better than when Franny invented a spray-on Halloween costume that made Franny completely break out in giant warts.

  “It’s so much faster than putting on a costume,” Franny explained.

  Mom had to admit that it was really fast, but when Franny decided she didn’t want to wash the warts off, her mom felt like she had to talk to her about it.

  “You know why nobody ever wants to pet Igor, right?” her mom asked her, wiping off her warts.

  Igor was Franny’s lab assistant. He wasn’t a pure Lab. He was also part poodle, part Chihuahua, part beagle, part spaniel, part shepherd, and part some kind of weaselly thing that wasn’t even exactly a dog.

  “It’s because of the way Igor looks,” Mom continued.

  “What’s wrong with how he looks?” Franny asked.

  Mom stammered, “Well, he’s kind of . . . I mean . . . Igor’s not going to win any beauty contests, Franny.

  “And wouldn’t you like it if he was, you know, a better-looking dog?”

  Igor tried to look better looking.

  Franny had never noticed anything wrong with Igor’s looks.

  “Mom, Igor is beautiful! He doesn’t need to win any contests for me to see that. And look at his adorable puppy-dog eyes.” Franny giggled.

  Franny held Igor up, and he fluttered his eyelashes at her mom.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “Put him down.

  “Franny, all I’m trying to say is that maybe you might think it’s fun to dress up a little occasionally, or wear your hair different. You might like to be fancy sometimes.”

  Mom draped a beautiful coat on Franny, and she looked in the mirror.

  She started combing Franny’s hair and grabbed a can of hair spray.

  “You know what hair spray does?” she said as she shook the can.

  “It holds hair in place. I know, Mom, I just don’t—”

  “Okay. We’ll skip the hair spray. But how about a blow-dryer: Do you know what this does?” her mom said.

  “I’m guessing it does something to your hair?” Franny replied.

  “Well, yes, but there’s a little more to it than that.”

  “Thanks, Mom, but it just doesn’t feel like me,” Franny said, taking off the coat. “I don’t think I need to know anything about this stuff.”

  Mom smiled and hugged Franny.

  “Okay, okay. That’s perfectly fine. Do what feels right, but know that you can always change your mind. You can explore different options whenever you want,” she said, and walked out of Franny’s laboratory.

  “At least don’t spray the warts back on,” she called from the hallway.

  Franny looked in the mirror.

  “Does Mom want me to change?” she whispered.

  “I wear my special lab suit to protect me from dangerous chemicals. I wear my hair in pigtails so it doesn’t get caught in machinery. I never wear nail polish because the pretty colors will just cause some creature in the lab to chew my fingers off.

  “Cosmetics, hair stuff, fancy clothes. They aren’t for me, Igor. I just don’t understand them,” Franny said.

  Lightning cracked outside.

  “Wait a second,” Franny said. “Do you hear what I am saying?

  “I understand electricity and dynamite and tarantulas and chemistry.”

  Igor held up a recently modified teddy bear.

  “Yes,” Franny agreed. “And surgically implanting a brain in a teddy bear. I understand that, too.”

  The teddy bear smiled.

  “But you know, Igor, science is also about exploring the things we don’t understand.

  “It’s about reaching higher and exploring the unknown!

  “Even if it’s the really super-weird stuff that moms like.

  “Do you see what I mean? I can’t ignore something because I don’t understand it. Not understanding things is exactly what attracted me to science in the first place.”

  Igor nodded.

  “Mom’s products are super kooky, Igor, but c’mon—we love kooky stuff.”

  Igor tried to smile and nod in agreement, but the truth was, he really didn’t like kooky stuff very much.

  “Tomorrow we get as weird as Mom!” Franny yelled triumphantly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LET’S FACE IT

  Makeup is an interesting thing, Igor. Mom only wears it sometimes, but when she does, it’s just the right amount. Look what happens when we put on a little too much.”

  “Can you imagine if a clown walked out in front of an audience without enough makeup on? He would be nothing but lovely, and that would be terrible for a clown.

  “That’s why I invented this,” Franny said, lifting a rather dangerous-looking device. “It’s my Cosmetic Bazooka. It’s filled with regular old makeup, but it’s all carefully measured so that with just one blast you look perfect.”

  Franny pointed it at Igor and pulled the trigger.

  Igor ducked just in time, leaving a perfectly made-up face on the wall behind him.

  Franny giggled.

  “Oh, Igor, you act like I’ve never shot you in the face before.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FRANNY NAILS IT

  Mom likes her nail polish, too, Igor,” Franny said, and began brushing some of her new chemical formula onto her own nails.

  “But I was thinking, her fingernails aren’t really nails at all, are they?”

  Franny wiggl
ed her fingers at Igor.

  “Watch what my nail polish does.”

  Suddenly long, pointy nails sprang out from Franny’s fingertips, and she slashed them back and forth in the air.

  “Now these are something special,” she said, and she plunged them through two boards, nailing them together.

  “I’ll bet Mom would like these. Don’t you think so?”

  Igor wasn’t sure if Franny’s mom would like them, but he knew how much he would like to have those the next time he was bullied by the mean cat next door.

  Franny broke the nails off with a snap and held the board up for inspection.

  “Did you see how fast those grew? And how long?”

  Igor looked at the nails. They seemed to wriggle a bit, as though they might actually be . . . alive.

  “I have another idea,” Franny said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TEACHING YOUR DOG TO HEEL

  You know how Mom wears those high heels sometimes? They’re, like, three inches tall. Well, if she likes those, I can make some she’s going to love.”

  Franny carefully placed the shoes on her feet.

  “I made a few adjustments to the formula, and I changed the nail polish to shoe polish.”

  She smeared some on the shoes.

  In seconds the heels erupted into five-foot-tall spikes.

  Franny wobbled as she walked around the room.

  “What do you think, Igor? Pretty nice, right?”

  Igor scurried around frantically. He didn’t want to get stepped on as Franny modeled her shoes.

  Just then Franny caught sight of herself in the mirror. She tugged at one of her pigtails. “You know, Igor, this stuff might work on lots of other things! Maybe I can make everything grow.”

  She jumped out of the shoes and let them fall to the ground. Igor picked one up and examined it. It didn’t wiggle like the fingernails had.

  He dropped it and ran after Franny, who was already busy with the next experiment.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HAIR WE GO

  I’ve made some more adjustments to the formula,” Franny told Igor as she handed a little bottle to him.

  It bubbled and fizzed, and a little cloud of smoke puffed out the top.

  “Put just three drops onto each pigtail,” she said. “No more than that.”

  Igor nodded and carefully dripped the formula onto Franny’s hair.

  “It tingles,” she said.

  And her hair started to frizzle. And frazzle. And suddenly, with a strange, creaky whine, it began to grow.

  And grow.

  It grew until it draped all around her on the floor.

  “It worked! It’s a success!”

  Franny tossed her hair around and around, so much so that it knocked over a beaker. Then it got caught on a table leg.

  She tried to get it loose and stumbled into a cage of monsters, knocking the door open and setting them loose in the lab.

  “What a mess! I can’t get anything done with this hair everywhere. Igor, hand me the scissors, and I’ll cut this useless stuff off right this minute.”

  Before Igor could grab the scissors, one of Franny’s pigtails stretched out and grabbed the scissors by itself.

  It handed them gently to Franny.

  “Whoa!” she said. “Did you see that, Igor? These pigtails might be pretty good assistants. Maybe I’ll keep them around for now.”

  Igor frowned. He was Franny’s assistant, and he didn’t think she needed any new ones.

  “And I wonder,” Franny said. “Maybe if we used just a couple more drops . . .”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

  Franny moved around the lab, suspended by her pigtails, which walked her around like big, fuzzy legs.

  She used them to grab a device on a very high shelf and stretch for a beaker that had rolled under a sea monster’s fishbowl.

  “Isn’t this great, Igor?” She grinned. “I can reach everything!”

  Igor pointed at the super-tall shoes.

  “Those are great, but shoes aren’t alive the way hair is. They can’t move on their own.”

  Igor scowled.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Igor. This experiment was supposed to be all about Mom stuff, so why would Mom be interested in living pigtails?

  “Well, watch this. . . .”

  Franny snapped her fingers, and her pigtails sprang into a brand-new hairdo. She snapped again, and they changed into another style. With each snap they became something new.

  “Now, you know Mom is going to love that,” Franny said. “So much faster than fiddling around with her hair spray and brushes and blow-dryers and stuff.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FRANNY’S HAIR LETS HER DOWN

  Late that night Igor was awakened by the sound of somebody rattling through cabinets.

  And at first he wasn’t worried about it—he figured it was probably just the monsters stirring in their cages.

  But as his eyes opened slowly, he saw that one of Franny’s pigtails had stretched all the way over to the shelf where she kept her formula.

  The pigtail was trying to get the bottle open when Igor pounced! He tried as hard as he could to wrestle it from its hairy grasp.

  The scuffle woke up Franny, who jumped out of bed to see what was the matter.

  “Trying to sneak more of the growth formula?” Franny asked, and she shook her head sadly.

  “I’m disappointed in you but not very surprised. I know all about pigs. I learned that pigs are greedy by nature. I guess pigtails are too,” she said.

  She patted Igor.

  “Good job, Igor. I’ll do something about these two little piggies in the morning,” she said, and walked sleepily back to her bed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHEAR MADNESS

  The next morning Franny shuffled into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. But when she looked in the mirror, something was different.

  “MY HAIR!” she shrieked as she charged out of the bathroom.

  “Igor! What happened to my hair?”

  Igor didn’t answer.

  He wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t playing in the bathtub. He wasn’t watching cartoons on her computer.

  Finally she found him tied up by a thick cluster of her own purple hair.

  “Those pigtails must have cut themselves off my head!” she shouted. Franny went to examine the bottle of growth formula.

  “And I’ll bet they doused themselves with more of this stuff.”

  Franny ran to the window and looked through her telescope.

  “I see them! They’re in town already,” she yelled. “Gosh, they’re so fast! I’ll never catch them on foot.”

  She ran downstairs and found Mom watching something on the news.

  “Reports are coming in from all over town,” Mom said. “From beauty salons and barbershops! Two strange beasts are on a rampage.

  “They say they’re two large, piglike creatures that are eating everything.”

  Franny’s mom looked at her sternly.

  “Franny, you wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?” she said.

  “Mom, it’s two weird creatures on a rampage,” Franny said. “Of course I know something about this. Rampaging creatures are kind of my thing.

  “They’re basically pigs, Mom. Don’t worry. All they want to do is get bigger,” Franny said. “And they’re not eating everything. They’re made out of hair, and that’s all they’re after. They’re just going to go after people’s pets, and when those are gone, they’ll start eating the hair on people’s heads. Maybe they’ll chew the beards off men’s faces.”

  Franny laughed.

  “So it’s not everything.”

  “That still sounds pretty bad, Franny,” Mom said. “Maybe somebody else should handle this,” her mom added hopefully. “Maybe these are somebody else’s rampaging creatures.”

  “Oh, they’re my pigs, all right, and I’m sure tha
t nobody can stop them but me.”

  Franny dug through a drawer.

  “But I’ll need a rubber band.”

  “You’re going to defeat them with a rubber band?” Franny’s mom howled.

  “There’s no time to explain,” Franny said fiercely, and she pulled what was left of her hair into a ponytail and quickly twisted a rubber band around it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IGOR GETS PUMPED

  Franny dribbled a couple drops of her formula onto her ponytail and grabbed her scissors.

  Franny’s mom watched in amazement as Franny’s ponytail turned into a full-size pony.

  Franny snipped it off and climbed onto its back, then grabbed her mom’s purse as she galloped out the front door.

  Igor started to follow her, but she paused and shouted back at him.

  “You’re too deliciously furry! They’d gobble you up! Stay here with Mom!”

  Franny then reared up on her ponytail and galloped out of sight.

  As Franny got closer and closer to the pigtails, she saw the destruction they had left in their path.

  On the streets lay dolls without braids, peaches without fuzz, and completely bald caterpillars.

  “How much hair can these things eat?” she said.