Super Bad Hair Day! by Dave Strom

SURFVILLE, CALIFORNIA. THE BARBERSHOP "LASH'S PLACE." LATE AUGUST. 4:32 P.M.

Wonder Woman never had bad hair days in the comic books.

Super Holly Hansson lived in California. And the blue-supersuited and red-caped medusa in the barbershop wall mirror held her gaze like a starship tractor beam. Blond knots and tangles poked out of her thick asphalt helmet. Holly forced her trembling fists to stay at her sides: if she tore off that icky oobleck, her super-strength would take half her hair with it.

Old fingers slipped over Holly's hand. Her hand that could squash a cannonball like a ripe plum. She unclenched her fist and turned to her barber Lash, she so needed some comforting words. She got some.

"Holly, you look like you got into a fight with a cement mixer and lost!" Lash's hair and mustache were grayer, but his bespectacled eyes were still bright. And fixated on Holly's train wreck of a hairdo. "What kind of super stuff did you get into?"

"Long story," Holly said, a smile twitching her lips. Same old Lash, he'd said a word other than stuff. New road smell tingled her nose. Hers was not a little nose, so it was a lot of tingle. And the mirror medusa grabbed her eyes harder, and her telltale-heart thumped her latest deadline into her brain, he's coming, HE'S COMING, HE'S COMING FOR ME!

Holly swallowed hard and breathed slow. She took her barber's hand in both of hers. "Lash. Can you fix my hair by five?"

Lash's eyes bugged out so far Holly was scared he'd ruin his old cataract surgery. He did an uncanny impression of a cranky old starship doctor: "I'm a barber, not a road repairman!"

"PLEASE?" Oops, Holly had come dangerously close to giving Lash a bloody nose with a spittle bullet. "The scariest of all the supers is coming for me. He's dark, he's grim, there's no escaping him! And I can't face him," Holly had grabbed her head and had to force herself to let go, "like THIS!" She pumped pleading into her eyes and loosened her super-strong tear ducts to let one drop run down her cheek. "Help me, Lash. You're my only hope."

Lash frowned, deepening his few wrinkles. "But... how'm I gonna... you don't get scared, you get mad... you..." He shook his head. "You and your big blue eyes. Lemme think." He scanned dozens of customer photos checkerboarding the walls like spirits of haircuts past. Then he smiled like Lex Luthor putting the last screw into the ray-gun that would shred Superman into sub-atomic particles. "Yeah. That'll do it."

Holly followed his gaze to a photo of a hard hat guy on an oil rig. What kind of hair-brained plot is he hatching?

Lash's lips moved as he expertly texted on a smart phone. That was new. Holly remembered Lash's old phone calls: Holly, can you come in? My frakkin' computer ate up my email again! He'd used a different word than frakkin'. Lash turned to Holly, and despite Holly's super-strength, he pinned her down with a super-tough gaze. "This is a job for my hairdresser."

"But you always do my hair!" Another piece of Holly's past hung over a cliff!

Lash pointed, not to the old shampooing station, but to a chair near a big metal sink. That was new too. "I'll start, Ann will finish, and that's IT! Now have a seat."

"Okay," Holly sighed. She shuffled over and sat. "When did you put in this bathtub?"

Lash fumbled on the shelf above her head. "Few weeks ago. Some of you supers have special hair needs. Heroic Hippie's twenty-foot ponytail takes a quart of shampoo." He pulled out a blow torch. "I use this to style the Human Flame's mohawk." He looked down at her and grinned. "Now tell me about your day, little Miss Storyteller."

That old nickname. So sweet of him, he knew she loved to perform. Holly put on the pompous voice she used when reading her stories at open mics. "Brave and bold Super Holly Hansson, the world's mightiest superhero, received a clarion call that the horrible Harry Headbutt was quarter-mile leaping and bounding toward downtown..."

SEASIDE CITY, CALIFORNIA. 3:37 P.M.

...leaving fear and potholes in his wake! Holly flew through the summer sky, staying just under the speed of sound to avoid getting another sonic-boom speeding ticket. She checked her Wonder-Woman-esque e-bracelet, which she used not to deflect bullets—she was already bulletproof—but to make phone calls and to navigate her flying. Why couldn't her phone's map app project a destination dot on the city streets below? She faced front again, toward danger, toward duty, toward— SHPLLLPTT!

Holly sputtered and spat. Why don't bugs ever splat in Superman's face? She reached to wipe.

Oops! And lost her aerodynamic pose! City streets, windowy tall buildings, and clear blue sky churned into a 600-mile-per-hour kaleidoscope!

"ULP!" Afternoon iced coffee leaped up her esophagus. She flipped feet forward and dug her heels into the air. It was silly, but she hadn't found a better way to midair stop... stop... STOP!

Her heroic heart hammered as she hovered. A foot from her face stood tall tenth-floor lettering: FIRST COASTAL BANK. She wiped icky insect guts off her face and looked down.

Now THAT was a dot! In the street before the bank, a dozen cops formed a dark blue mound that rippled like a walrus corking a geyser. If Harry was under there, he could mash those cops into dark blue meatballs! A hundred riot-geared police surrounded that mound, along with some abandoned road work, a terrified road crew, and some parked cars. Shops were shut tight. Pedestrians cowered behind the police line. Paparazzi spotted Holly and zoomed their telephoto lenses. Holly longed to zoom her finger.

She landed and stood hand-on-hips heroic. The public liked that. Ugh, her costume had ridden up her butt again. Paparazzi liked that. She reached under her cape and tugged. Take that, super wedgie!

She walked up to the police line and put her hand on a cop's shoulder. "I'll take it from here, guys."

The cop looked over her shoulder and smirked at Holly. "Give him some girl power!"

"Sorry. And I will." Holly strode toward the mound and yelled a fair warning. "Give it up, butthead! Or get beaten up by a girl! AGAIN!"

From under the heap of police erupted a gorilla growl: "YELLOW HAIR?" The heap shook like a volcano. "HARRY HATE YELLOW HAIR!!!"

All at once! Car alarms blared! Dogs howled! Windows shattered! Windows computers crashed, wait, they always did that. And the mound of cops exploded like...

LASH'S PLACE. 4:42 P.M.

"...ants from a firecrackered anthill... HEY!" Holly wished for an iron bar to chew, like her dentist had recommended instead of grinding her teeth.

She'd stayed quiet when easily distracted Lash had taken two phone calls. She'd growled, "Take it on voicemail," when Lash had almost taken a third. She'd stayed still as Lash had softened the asphalt with the torch and scraped it off with a chisel. But now Holly grabbed the armrest with a CREAK when Lash had elbowed Holly's chest for the FIFTH TIME! She blurted, "Stop bumping my bumps!

"Sorry, Holly," Lash snapped right back at her, "but I gotta work fast, and some of you is closer to me than used to be!" With a groan, he straightened up, popping vertebrae like knuckles. His eyes lowered to Holly's chest, then to her face. "Can I ask you something?"

Oh, boy, here it comes. When Holly received her superpowers, she had also grown a super-bosom in under two minutes. She wished he'd kid her about her beaky nose again. You sure you're Swedish and not Jewish? Have a seat, Miss Durante! Holly wanna cracker? But judging from the girly magazines Lash shelved toward the back of the shop... Holly braced herself. "What?"

He bounced his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. "Why no 'S' on your chest?"

Holly could have kissed him, he was giving her a punchline! She Grouchoed her eyebrows right back at him. "Because my up-arrow chest logo says that my eyes are up HERE!"

Lash threw back his head and barked a laugh: "HAH! I'm pulling your leg, I know your supersuit's the one in your graphic novel. It made me cry a little. The novel, I mean."

"Thanks." She felt better. She looked at the clock. She felt worse.

The front door dinged. Ann the hairdresser—still so slim and makeup so perfect—carted in two five gallon jugs from Hardware Hank's. "Oof! I could use some help here!"

Holly stood up. "Ann!" It had been a year.

Ann gasped. "Holly! Your hair!" She ran to Holly and embraced her. "You poor, poor thing!"

"Thanks. I can use a hug right now." Holly snuggled into Ann's comforting arms, it felt so much like how Holly's mom used to hold her, so long ago. Holly sniffed, broke the hug, grabbed the jugs, and poured into the metal sink. "But I have a deadline. What is this stuff?"

Ann and Lash donned filter masks.

Lash stuck a broom handle into the sink and stirred. "Oilman Ollie told me how he cleaned drills fast. Hydrocarbon dissolver and a hint of acid." His eyes lit up like a wicked warlock's. "Double, double, toil and, um, crumple? Damn, forgot my Shakespeare."

No mere solvent could harm Holly, but the fumes tickled her nose. "Is there anyone in town you don't know?"

"The bald-headed bowling league." Lash blinked at the smoking stub he'd pulled out of the bubbling brew. "I needed a new broom anyhow."

He and Ann put on arm-length rubber gloves. Two mad doctors about to install a brain into a soon-to-be reanimated corpse.

Lash pointed to the sink. "Holly, go soak your head."

Ann gaped at Lash. "Wait. How long can she hold her breath?"

"With a deep enough breath," Holly said with a little superpowered pride, "I could rescue orbiting astronauts." She inhaled, then plunged her head into solvent. She must look like an ostrich, except she had better looking legs.

Twenty fingers kneaded her scalp. The BLURBLE-SLURGLE-FFFSSSHHH of sizzling solvent muffled Lash and Ann's conversation, but not Holly's writer imagination. "Hee hee, Henchwoman Ann, see how we melt the superheroine's brain with my evil bubbling brew! Soon, she will be my obedient, brain-bleached bimbo!" "Yes, Master Lash, yesssss! Hahahahaha!"

After minutes that passed like hours, Lash tapped Holly's shoulder. She carefully stood up, trying not to splash or drip. Lash asked, "You okay?"

Her sinuses seltzered like she'd snorted boiling dandruff shampoo. Childhood memories of summertime pollen itched her nostrils. "Yeah, but... SNIFF!... feels like my hay fever's coming back... AH, AHHH, AH-CHOO!"

Oh no! Holly reached out fast! Giant, translucent blue hands and arms extended from her flesh-and-blood hands and arms and caught Lash and Ann before they bashed into the ceiling. She gently lowered them to the floor. "Sorry. My sneezes are superpowered now."

Ann frowned. "Cover your mouth next time."

Lash chuckled. "So that's what your super-telekinesis looks like! Let's rinse."

Holly leaned over the sink. "My teke comes in handy. Lets me bench-press army tanks without ripping off two fistfuls of armor."

Lash washed solvent off her head. "Yeah, yeah, you've said comic books were screwing physics for years." He imitated Holly's righteous fangirl voice: "'Human-size hands can't lift a whale-size battleship,'" and Ann joined in, "'even if you're Superman!'"

Holly straightened up and pouted at the two un-fans. "Well, he can't!"

Lash turned off the water. He waved a tissue at Holly. "Need to blow?"

"No." Holly sniffed. "Maybe. This day sucks. I even had to do sports."

Ann turned to Lash and smiled. "She's storytelling again, isn't she?"

"Just like old times," Lash said. Behind him, dozens of football banners and baseball caps lined the apex of wall mirror and ceiling. Holly frowned. Tribalism. Ugh.

THE STREET BEFORE THE BANK. 3:49 P.M.

Super Holly was a double-mitted baseball catcher fielding high and outside pitches, her giant telekinetic hands scooping up flying, flailing cops before they splashed into the ocean or splatted on buildings. She set them down behind the surrounding police line and whirled to face the jerk at ground zero. "You lumbering lummox! You could've killed them!"

Harry puffed out his chest like he owned the road. Seven feet tall, five feet wide, a muscle-bound brick wall with a matching I.Q. Tree trunk arms and legs. Battleship armor pectorals. Cauldron of a belly. Moon of a head fronted by a stupidly pleased face. Close-cropped hair so no one could grab it during fights, he picked a lot of those. Torn white shirt falling off. Ripped black pants thankfully staying on. No shoes or socks on those fee-fie-foe-fum feet.

He laughed like a burping foghorn. "BUH-WAH HAW HAW! HARRY HURL PUNY COPS!"

BANG! A young cop shot Harry in the mouth.

PAH-TOOEY! Harry spat the bullet back.

DOINK! It hit the cop on the forehead and knocked him out cold. PLOP!

An older cop shook his head. "Damn rookie."

Harry looked down his nose at Holly. "HARRY GONNA ROB BANK! GONNA GRAB MONEY, GET A GIRLFRIEND, BUY TEN POUND STEAK, AND NOT LEAVE TIP! NOW HARRY LEAVE BIG FAT FOOTPRINTS ON YELLOW HAIR'S BIG FAT—"

"Talk to the hands!" yelled Holly. She punched twice. Two bowling-ball-size blue fists cannonballed at Harry's big fat mouth.

And missed because Harry had bent way, way back like a hippo doing the limbo. When had he learned to do THAT?

KERR-RUNCH! SKKKKKTT! A parked car behind Harry had skidded onto the sidewalk, its driver-side door caved in. Holly grit her teeth. Good thing her super-job had liability insurance.

"BAH-WAH HAW HAW! YELLOW HAIR MISS!" Harry stuck out his tongue at Holly: "NNNNN!"

Holly boxer-posed, she was fine with up close and personal. "Fine! You want to rob the bank, you gotta go through me!"

Harry stomped toward Holly like an elephant. Then he winced, like a tiny thought had burst in his B.B. of a brain. He stopped next to a heap of fresh asphalt. He crossed his arms and defiantly glared at Holly. "NO."

Holly kept her guard up. "What do you mean, no?"

Harry lifted his chin. "HARRY NOT LISTEN TO YELLOW HAIR. YELLOW HAIR JUST A GIRL." He snorted, a derisive truck backfiring. "LITTLE GIRLY GIRL. PUNY. TINY. EXCEPT..." His eyes found Holly's chest. And widened. "WHERE SHE BIG AND ROUND."

Holly's intestines curdled. She closed her mouth in time to stop her jaw from dropping past her knees. Oh, no. Please, no. Not him. Anybody but him.

Harry's head bobbled as he rollercoastered his leer over Holly's every curve. "YUM, YUM! HARRY LIKE WHAT HE SEE! LONG LEGS! SMALL WAIST! BIG CHEST! WANNA DATE?"

Holly shuddered, it felt like Harry's eyes had left a slimy slug trail all over her. "Ew! No!"

"YELLOW HAIR LIKE BIG MUSCLE?" Harry bodybuilder-posed and flexed his biceps with a bassbase drum sound: BOM, BOM! "CUMMERE AND GIVE HARRY A LITTLE SMACK! KISSY, KISSY!" He smacked his lips, sounding like a toilet plunger working on a clog.

A few cops stifled laughter. Paparazzi zoomed their lenses.

Holly gagged. "Stop that!" She upped her boxer stance to heavyweight. "Or I'll give you a smack, all right!"

"WHY DON'T YELLOW HAIR MAKE HARRY STOP? IS YELLOW HAIR, UHHH, YELLOW? BAH-WAH HAW HAW!" Harry blew a motorcycle-revving super-raspberry: "BBBBBTTTHHHHHPPPPP, BBBPPPP, BBBPPPP, BBBTHHHPPPPPP!"

Bullseye. Holly's face tried to crawl out from under a pint of super spittle. Gasping, trembling, she wiped—gross, gross, GROSS!—and flicked gooey saliva off her hand—ew, ew, EW! Her steely muscles trembled. Her telekinesis quaked road and atmosphere to make Darth Vader jealous. Inside her mind, she composed, Get on your knees, hands behind your head, and... OH, THE HECK WITH IT! Out of her mouth, she roared, "Mff, glerk, snrt, RRRRRAAWLLL!"

She flew at Harry, rocketing her fist at his fat face as...

LASH'S PLACE. 4:48 P.M.

"...steam rocketed out her nose!" Holly sighed. "That happens now when I get really mad."

Lash toweled her head. "Maybe you should've asked yourself why Harry was hitting on you instead of hitting you."

Holly got up and faced the wall mirror. "Hindsight is easy... oh no. NO!"

She wasn't a medusa any more, she was Phyllis Diller after changing hairstyles by sticking a wet finger in a wall socket. The asphalt was gone, but Holly's hair was a knotted, tornado-twisted haystack topped by a hairy golf ball. Dry gasps scraped her throat, her pulse pounded her eardrums. Calm down! The clock slammed onto her retinas: 4:49:11, 4:49:12, 4:49:13. CALM DOWN!

Holly pulled her steel wire brush out of her yellow hip purse. "I gotta comb! NOW!" She super-strength YANK, YANK, YANKED!

Ann scowled at her. "Holly, you need detangler first."

"No I don't!" An icky memory itched. YANK, YANK YANK YANK! Holly backed away, bounced off a barber chair, whew, she hadn't broken it. "I can do this!"

She was doing it! Knot after knot came out. Just the smaller knots, but if she used a tougher tool... Holly grabbed a huge pair of scissors from a shelf and stuck it into that large, nasty knot on top of her head. She pulled and pulled and grr, GRR, GRRRRRED!!!

Lash barked, "Hey, those're my favorite... okay, they're old, but they're still my scissors! And you're gonna tear your hair!"

"My hair's stronger than steel!" Holly bumped into a barber chair. It spun like a top.

Lash pushed his face into Holly's. "Then how come it hasn't grown past your knees?"

"My hair only grows when it has to, just like Superman's!" Holly drilled the scissor blades into the knotted hairy fist crowning her cranium. She would DEFEAT IT!

Lash kept up super-battle banter surprisingly well. "So you shaved your legs just before you went super?"

"As a matter of fact, I did!" Holly yanked hard. The knot didn't budge.

Ann rushed at Holly with fire in her eyes and a bottle in her hand, bobbing and weaving like a boxer looking for an opening. "You hold still, or so help me, I'll spank you!"

Holly pried at the knot as her lips skinned back. Ooo, those bullies who'd ambushed her in fourth grade and held her down and broke her nose and rubbed cow patty into her hair, but she'd fought her way up again and busted all their noses too! Then Uncle Pops had taken her to Lash, who washed away stinky poop and angry tears. Then Ann had poured that goopy detangler on her hair, its stink had slimed into Holly's nostrils like two rotten slugs, Holly had punched Ann's nose, Ann had spanked Holly's butt, and Holly had thrown up for the first time ever. "Ann, you'll just hurt yourself! I'm twenty five and six-foot-one and SUPER now!" She YANK, YANK, YANKED, harder, harder, HARDER!

Ann and Holly ping-ponged about the shop. Lash was a spry referee, blocking them from mirrors, shelved decorative beer bottles and sports trophies, and some stacked up Playgal magazines. He was smiling. It figured that he'd like girl fights.

SWAT! Ann had spanked Holly! BLP-PTT-PTT-PTT, PFFFFFT! And gooped her!

Grease slithered down Holly's scalp. Her sinuses shivered. She reigned in her retching reflex: if she vomited with her super-strength, she'd blow a hole in the wall.

Ann grasped her hand in pain and looked daggers at Holly.

Holly stiffened her lips. "Sorry! But I've told you what happened," YANK YANK YANK, "when Pa Kent tried to spank Superbaby! YANK-YANK-YANK-YANK-YANK-YANK-YANK-YANK! TWKK-FFT-TWAAANNNG!

Oops. Really big oops. Lash's left sideburn was half an inch higher than his right, the victim of a broken-off scissor blade embedded in the wall. He glared at Holly so hard she was grateful he didn't have heat vision.

A tidal wave of shame engulfed Holly. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I never wanted superpowers, I hate my super-job, I hate my supersuit climbing up my butt, why can't I just be a writer again?" She stomped her foot: THOOOOOMMMM!

Lash steadied shampoo bottles about to rattle off the shelves. "You're worse than Herman Munster."

Ann stroked Holly's cheek. "Poor thing. Why don't you get a new supersuit?"

"This is the only suit on Earth tough enough for my job." Holly's heartbeat slowed, easing the base-drumming in her ears. When she'd stopped a giant heat ray from frying a bunch of fanboys, she'd worn a cotton T-shirt and jeans. The aftermath had been embarrassing.

"Holly, look over here," Lash said, pointing to the wall. Amid photos of actors, actresses, cops, cheerleaders, radio hosts, football players, sports announcers, and Lash's kids and grandkids, was a photo of a gawky, pre-teen girl. Short brown hair, convex arching nose, excited smile, big blue eyes, and a Batman T-shirt. She had her arm around Lash's waist. He had his arm around her shoulders. With her other arm, she thrust forward a book titled, "Stories of Super Gals!" The photo was signed, "My first sale! Holly Hansson!" And in different handwriting, "My favorite geek girl. Lash."

Oh. Wow. Getting superpowers, her graphic novel going bestseller, saving the world, they had all been thrilling. But Holly would never forget the joy of selling her first short story, Batty Girl Boxes a Bully.

Lash's hand settled on Holly's shoulder. "Holly, you're not a little tomboy anymore. You're a grown-up writer AND super woman, and you need my grown-up hairstylist. Now face the music, young lady."

Ann's schoolteacher stare felt like a shrinking ray. Holly slunk toward the hairdressing chair. "Ann. I'm so sorry. This bad hair day really messed me up."

Ann did a surprisingly good Yoda. "It's more than that. Your temper, your temper, you must control your temper!"

Holly nodded. "I should have done that earlier today. But instead, Harry and I slugged and snorted like..."

THE STREET BEFORE THE BANK. 3:53 P.M.

...two heavyweight boxers with a two-decade grudge! Harry pachyderm-pounded Holly's face, knocking her a few feet back with each blow. But for each blow, Holly yo-yoed forward and clobbered him with five! THOOM! POW POW POW POW POW! THOOM!! POW POW POW POW POW!! THOOM!!! POW POW POW POW POW!!!

Harry laughed like a schoolyard bully. "BAH-WAH HAW— FMMMFF!" A bully with a fist in his kisser. "YELLOW HAIR HIT LIKE GIRL! KISSY KISSY— OOF OOF OOF!"

Holly's right-left-right jabs to a big pot belly stoked the fire in her gut. She hopped back and bent her legs.

A cop blared through a bullhorn. Bennie the Rubber Cop, Holly knew that world-weary voice. "KID, THE SUPER-STUN CANNON IS HERE! BACK OFF AND GIVE US A SHOT!"

"He's MINE!" Holly uncoiled her left leg, adding every iota of ultra-super-duper power to her right-leg kick. Her telekinetic foot—ten times actual size—slammed into Harry's crotch. Feedback ran up Holly's leg and roiled her rump: BLOOOOOOMMMMMBBBB!

Holly shook the ringing out of her ears. That hadn't sounded right.

Harry's eyes crossed. "HARRY... FALL..." He timbered back and dented the pavement: KER-KRUMMMP!

Holly flexed her toes. Hadn't felt right either. She leaned over the mound of muscle. Whose arms were spread. Eyes shut. Split lip. Sweaty muscle chest... which wasn't moving!

She leaned closer. She'd clobbered Harry before. But never on THAT bullseye. She looked to the cops. "Is there a doctor in the house?"

Bennie bullhorned, "LOOK OUT!"

A meaty arm clamped onto her neck. Holly twisted, but was held praying-mantis tight. Ew, a mantis that needed deodorant.

A big mouth thundered in her ear. "BAH-WAH HAW HAW! YOU DUMB! HARRY HELD BREATH! YOUR KICK NOT HURT HARRY! HARRY WEARING SUPER-ARMORED JOCKSTRAP! SEE?" CLANG, CLANG!

Holly did not try to see. That better have been his finger! She pawed at the vise on her neck, but could not grip its sweaty skin. Wait, not sweaty, OILY! Who oils up for a fight— and she knew. She asked anyhow. "Where'd you learn these moves?"

"WRESTLERS!" Harry crowed the word. "THEY LOUD. RUDE. MEAN. FUN!"

Of course. A slab of beef hiding amid slabs of beef. Holly couldn't aim a punch or kick. But she could flex! She tensed her arms and shoulders, sending out a telekinetic blast that could shatter a steel girder.

Harry's arm stayed firm as an elephant's leg. "BAH-WAH HAW HAW! YELLOW HAIR'S STRENGTH SLIP OFF OILY SKIN!"

"Then how come I can't slip out?"

"GLUE INSIDE ELBOW!"

Oh, brother. Holly bent her legs for a bound-over-a-building leap, to be followed by her copyrighted bash-herself-and-big-bully-into-the-street landing. "Up, up, and—"

She tried to jump. She stayed earthbound. But why? She looked down.

Harry's toes were dug into the road like oak tree roots. That loudmouth was just full of ideas today! "BAH-WAH HAW HAW! YELLOW HAIR CAN'T MOVE HARRY! HARRY LIKE ROCK OF GIBRUH, GIBBER, GIB-UH-WALTER, UH..."

Holly hollered, "Rock of Gibraltar, you moron!"

Harry hollered, "STOP THAT! BIG WORDS HURT HARRY'S HEAD!"

Holly slammed her head back. KRRRMP! Yes! Feedback from butthead nose to the back of her cranium felt REALLY GOOD!

"FNUFF!" snorted Harry. His oily torso slickly twisted on Holly's cheek as his free arm reached toward the nearby asphalt heap. Then his boxing-glove hand smacked her skull, reminding her of when she was learning to boogie-board and a wave had slammed her headfirst into the beach and it had taken three days until she could look over her shoulder again. Ow ow OW.

Tar vapor smoked into her lungs. TAR?!?!? NOT MY HAIR! She raked super-fingernails on Harry's arm. "rrrrRRRR!"

"YOU CHEAT! NO SCRATCH!" Harry's bicep ballooned, compressing Holly's windpipe so air molecules trickled down single file. "NOW HARRY USE BIGGEST BADDEST WRESTLING MOVE OF ALL TIME!"

Holly's mind raced. Sleeper hold? Elbow cracker? Eye gouger? Belly bopper?

A fist bashed atop her head and twisted. The knuckles were pounding pile drivers. Harry howled, "NOOGIE NOOGIE NOGGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE!"

Holly squirmed and screeched like a cat in a blender. She tried and failed to bite Harry's arm. Oh well, it would have taken gallons of mouthwash to gargle away the taste of butthead.

A low growl: "HARRY KNOW YELLOW HAIR LOVE HER YELLOW HAIR." A loud roar: "NOW HARRY DESTROY YELLOW HAIR'S YELLOW HAIR! NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE! HARRY LIKE REVENGE! NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE!"

To Be Concluded! (Full version with more stories on Kindle in Dave M. Strom's book, Super Holly Hansson in Super Bad Hair Day.)