Shattering Crystals

“Ready, Cody?”

“Uh, yeah… as long as my hair doesn’t fall out.”

“It won’t, don’t worry,” Lorraine assures him. “But we have to do this quick – the people who live here can come back at any moment.”

“Yeah I know. I just don’t want to be hideous.”

I watch as Lorraine sets up everything. She mixed the hair dye, wraps a towel around Cody’s shoulders, and pulls on her gloves. Once she starts to apply the dye, I lose interest and turn back to the window.

September.

I can’t really believe that I’ve actually been in this house since early July. School here starts in a few days, but Cody found out that the vacationers don’t come back until tomorrow.

It was a stroke of luck that we even had a place to stay. If we had not met Connor… I push that thought out of my mind. Better not to think of him. He still isn’t talking to anyone but his brother. That’s still not much, because Cody has to sneak here to talk to us. And Connor can’t leave the house, or he’ll get recognized. It must be driving him crazy.

How will we live when we get to Florida, if we’re not all cooperating? There’s no time to think.

“Dana, get up off your lazy ass and go see if everything is clean or not?” Lorraine says. “The house has to be exactly the way it was when we first got here!”

“Do I have to? You’ve already cleaned the house like… five times.”

“Yes!”

”Fine.”

I slowly walk throughout the whole house and see that everything is just the way Lorraine had left it. I wonder why I even bothered to check.

I go down stairs, and everything is still the same as ever. Dean is reading some book while Connor stares blankly at the black television screen. Typical.

“Connor…” I say, sitting down beside him. He automatically scoots over, trying to get as far away as possible without actually getting up.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Really?” I say. Every time I see him like this, I still get disappointed. But by now, it doesn’t have that much of an effect anymore. “We’re about to leave this place forever, just like you wanted. It’s gonna be a change for all of us. Is it that hard to get over it?”

“Yes.”

”Wow.” I see no point to continue this conversation, so I decide to go back upstairs to Cody and Lorraine. As I walk upstairs, I hear the sound of a hair dryer, signaling that they’re finished. That was pretty fast.

“How did it go?” I ask, entering the bathroom. Lorraine shuts off the hair dryer.

“It turned out pretty good,” Cody says, rearranging his now-black hair over his forehead. “But I look sexy in any color, so why does it matter.”

“Oh yeah. Definitely,” I say, though it’s mostly true.

“I always knew I could be a hairdresser,” Lorraine sighs dreamily.

“You almost got it in my eye,” Cody says.

“Yeah whatever.”

“We should get ready to go now,” I say to them.

“If you say so, boss.” I ignore her jab and lead Cody down the stairs while Lorraine cleans up the mess.

“Nice hair,” Dean says, looking up from his book. “Same color as mine.”

“Yup,” Cody replies. His dark blue eyes scan over the few bags we set by the door. “Is that it? Are we ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I say, walking over to check. “We don’t need that much, plus we did shrink a lot of stuff. Did you leave a light on, and a faucet dripping? We need something to explain the bills.”

“Lorraine’s doing that after she cleans up. This is all so weird, though. Running away… you know I didn’t want to.” He turns towards his brother. “You sure about this?”

“Yup.”

"Okay then..." Cody runs his hand through his bangs, causing them to stick up a little.

Suddenly Connor breaks into a smile. His smiles are rare these days, and it feels nice to see them, even if I don't know the cause. “Your eyebrows…”

“Aw, damn!” Cody runs over to the television screen, using it as a blurry mirror. He turns towards me and groans. I can’t help but smile while I try to hold back laughter.

While Cody’s hair is now black, his eyebrows are still its original blond color. At this point, Connor bursts into laughter and even Dean laughs a bit.

“What’s so funny?” Lorraine asks, appearing behind me. She drops a wad of paper towels into the trash bag.

“It’s not.” Cody says.

“What?”

"Look." Cody pushes aside his bangs to reveal his mismatching eyebrows. "Can you fix it?"

“All the dye is done. You’re not supposed to use it on eyebrows anyways. And your hair covers it mostly.”

“Yeah, mostly. Can't you use magic?" he pleads. "People will think I'm a freak and that will catch attention and eventually we'll get recognized." We all know that he just wants to look good again, but his argument does make some sense.

"I can try..." Lorraine says "I've done eye color, but I've never tried hair color. I just relied on the dye for that. Something bad could happen."

"Well, try it anyway. I trust you."

She smiles, showing only her top row of teeth. I know that although her top teeth are perfectly straight, the bottom ones are terribly crooked. "Okay, I'll try." She tries to change them, pure focus etched on her face. Gradually, Cody's eyebrows get darker and darker until they match the hair on his head. “Done.”

Cody runs into the bathroom and comes out a few seconds later. “Thanks,” he says, flashing a perfect smile. “Is it permanent?”

“I think so. And if it isn’t, I can just do it for you again.”

“I owe you one.”

“Yeah, you definitely do.” She picks up her bag. “We should go now. Better sooner than later.” We all murmur our agreement.

“Next stop, Florida?” I say.

”Yeah. Oh, and Cody?” she says, walking out the door. “You can repay me by taking out the trash.”