Judith

It Was Meredith's Fault...

All in all, thought Judith, it’s a rather unfair world. She smashed her nose up against the window pane, and wrinkled her forehead. Grown-ups, as a general rule, were not very understanding. It was only hair, and it was Meredith’s idea. In the background she could hear wailing, and she rolled her eyes.

She always got in trouble for rolling her eyes in front of her mom, but she thought it looked so cool and grown-up. So she practiced rolling her eyes in front of the window- just so she could see how cool and detached she looked. As a general rule, Judith was not good at looking cool and detached. She knew this. Cool people didn’t smile or snort when they laughed. Judith did. Cool people didn’t have “educational” toys, like blocks. Cool people had battery-run cars that looked like their parents’ SUVs or sports cars. Judith’s parents drove an Audi with roof that leaked every time it rained, so she didn’t even really want a toy car like her parents’ car. And cool people definitely didn’t have names like “Judith.” Cool kids had names like “Jessica,” “Ashley,” and “Amanda.” Cool kids were not named after warriors in Jewish mythology. All these things conspired to make Judith “uncool.”

And right now Judith, despite her eye rolling, didn’t feel very cool. In fact, Judith felt rather guilty, and she decided that feeling guilty was very uncomfortable and as a general rule should be avoided. She shouldn’t really feel guilty at all. after all, it had been Meredith’s idea…

Meredith was Judith’s younger sister. She was five. Five was a difficult age, in Judith’s mind. Meredith tried to be a grown up, but five year olds were still just babies. You had to be in school to be really, truly grown up. Judith was in second grade. That was more grown-up the first grade and kindergarten, but not quite as grown-up as third and fourth grade.

It had all started when Meredith decided that she wanted to look like her Cabbage Patch doll. Judith thought that the doll was ugly, but she didn’t tell Meredith that. After all, five-year old, baby sisters can’t be expected to know what looks good. Alice, the Cabbage Patch doll, had short curly hair. Meredith had long straight hair.

“But Alice is so beautiful…” sighed Meredith. “Just maybe, if I try…”

“Try what?” asked Judith suspiciously. Meredith was always concocting schemes that ended up getting Judith in trouble.

“Well… if you still have your scissors from art…” Judith had forgotten to put her scissors back in her desk on Friday, after art, and they had, as a result, ended up in her back-pack. Meredith had an amazing ability to remember things like that.

“Well… maybe you could try to make me look like Alice.” Judith snorted,

“You look nothing like Alice. Even if I cut your hair, you’d still look like you. Only balder.” There was a pause. Then both sisters thought of the same thing,

“Mom’s perm kit!” yelled Meredith.

“No!” cried Judith at the same time.

“Pleeeeease, Judy… You’re so good at doing hair.” (Judith was good at doing hair, she was the only person in the second grade who could braid hair without making a single knot.) “And besides, Mom’s been talkin’ ‘bout doin’ something with my hair. This will save her a lot of time and trouble…” As the oldest, Judith always tried to save her mother time and trouble. “And, Marcie Gray did it.”

That was it. Marcie Gray was the prettiest, most popular girl in school, and everyone wanted to be her friend. Judith had wanted to be like Marcie Gray since forever ago- kindergarten, in fact.

Meredith and Judith headed into the bathroom. Underneath the sink, along with Mom’s rollers, hair dryer, nail polish, and several foot scrubs, was the perm box. Being in second grade, Judith found the directions very easy to read. She was in reader group 4. That was the highest level in Ms. Pierce’s room. She mixed the three tubes together and used a toothbrush to mix them all together. One of the tubes burped while she was squirting it into the bowl, and a glop of something got in the mirror. The bathroom began to smell. Judith’s eyes began to water. When she scooped up the first handful of the chemicals, she paused,

“Shouldn’t there be curlers or something?” Both girls hesitated as the creamy goop dripped from between Judith’s fingers. Some got on the bathroom rug.

“I don’t remember…” said Meredith.

“It says, ‘Complete Perm Kit,’” said Judith, “I would assume that…”

“… you don’t need any curlers. Yup. Okay. Let’s go.” Meredith knew no fear. Judith smeared the first handful of permanent on Meredith’s hair. It took almost no time at all to cover her sister’s head with permanent. Judith wondered why her mother always bemoaned the time it took to perm. This was going quickly.

“Now, it says wait 45 minutes to an hour, depending on hair type.”

“What’s ‘hair type’?”

“Well, your hair’s really straight, so it’ll probably take longer than someone’s who is curly.”
“Why would a curly haired person need a perm?”

“Do you know what ‘hair type’ is?”

“No.”

“Then stop asking silly questions. You have straight hair. You’d probably better leave it on for an hour.”

They sat there.

“An hour is an awful long time.” said Judith.

“Yeah.” Said Meredith.

Meredith reached across the counter. Mom’s bath powder sat open, the big pink duster sitting on top. Meredith tapped it. Poof! A little cloud of white powder puffed into the air.

Judith still wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but five minutes later, the entire bathroom was covered in “Etoille Lavender Fresh After Bath Powder,” and she and Meredith were standing on top of the counter laughing and blowing clouds of powder at each other.

All of a sudden Meredith sat down. Hard. Judy stopped blowing.

“What’s going on?” But Meredith didn’t answer, instead, tears welled up in her eyes, and she began to bawl. Then she began to scream.

“My head!!! It hurts!” Tears streamed down her face, making tracks through the powder. “Get Mom! Get Mom!” Mom was downstairs working on the clog in the kitchen sink, and the last thing Judith wanted to do was go get her, seeing as both of them, and her bathroom were coated in her favorite powder.

“No, we’ll just rinse it out on our own.” Said Judith, suddenly getting a little scared of all the gunk and chemicals. But Meredith kept on screaming…

Mom opened the door 5 seconds later.

“What’s go---.” Mom stopped. Meredith and Judy were sitting in the middle of the counter. Meredith had been flipping her head around, trying to get rid of the burning, and glops of permanent solution had flipped all over the bathroom, mixing with the lavender bath powder. The entire bathroom, and both girls, were covered powder and perm. The smell was awful.

Mom had smoothed it all out, as only Mom could. Meredith was hosed down, Judith was sent to change, and Mom had run the vacuum in the bathroom for over an hour trying to clean up all the powder.

Now Mom was trying to comb out Meredith’s very tangled, “permed” hair.

Apparently you did need rollers for the perm…

Meredith’s hair looked like the bales of hay Judith always saw around Halloween. As punishment, Judith was having to help Mom clean. And she got her least favorite job- windows. Judith smeared her nose along the glass. If she was going to clean them, might as well get them good and dirty first. In the next room Meredith wailed. Judith didn’t feel very sorry for her.

After all, it had been Meredith’s idea…