The Way You Wear Your Hair
Sometimes, Violet wondered where she'd gotten her hair from.
Her mom didn't have dark hair, and neither did her father -
and both Dash and Jack-Jack had heads of hair that matched them. In a more petulant mood, she had wondered if
she was adopted - part of an alien race from an uncharted world. She supposed that was normal for a
sixteen-year-old.
The brush crackled like a lightning bolt as she sent it
through the mass of dark strands. No
matter how hard she pushed it through, little loose
strands remained behind. Like life, her
hair would never be perpetually neat.
Discovering the truth about her family had been just the
revolution she had needed. It made her
embrace life, assert herself, stop hiding in the
shadows. Asking Tony out was a part of
that, but more importantly it had made her a leader in the student body -
confident enough to speak up in class and read aloud without disappearing into
the masses.
It had given her a sense of uniqueness - but even a unique
and confident girl such as herself could have hair trouble.
"MOM!"
"Violet?"
Helen Parr burst into her daughter's room, holding Jack-Jack
to her breast and carrying a dust rag.
"What is it? An emergency? Did your father call?"
"It's nothing," she blew a mouthful of hair away
from her lips. "Just
my hair."
"Oh, honey." Helen placed Jack-Jack on the bed and
stood behind her daughter. "Hmm - how about pigtails?"
"
"A ponytail?"
"Oily buildup."
"Did you try a shower?"
"Two."
"Hmm.." She finger-combed a handful of hair over
Violet's left eye, much in her old style.
"How about this?"
"Ick. That's so..."
"Old-school?"
She chuckled.
"The kids don't say old school anymore, mom."
"Oh, poo - what do they
say? Down? I'm down with that look."
"Please stop
trying to be cool."
"I'm just trying to help," sighed Helen.
"Thanks."
"You know it's okay if you want to wear your old
clothing, or your hair in the same old way, don't
you?"
"Yeah - but the way I dressed was a way to cover the
way I felt."
"Shy?"
"Mmm
hmm."
"It's all right to be shy sometimes - and silly, and
courageous. It's all a part of who you
are - part of being a normal teenager."
Helen's sweet tone invoked her daughter's sarcasm. "I'm about as normal as Buddy Pine
was."
"Violet." Her mother's astonishment would have shamed
and silenced her daughter, but not now.
"Why can't normal people be Supers?"
"Because...well...they're not born to it."
"So not having the right genes means you can't be
special?"
"No - just not Super."
"That's not fair!
There are talented mortals who would -"
A horn beeped in the driveway. Helen walked away from Violet's chair and
glanced out her window. "It's
Tony."
"I want to finish talking about this."
"When you get home. You'll miss your ride," Helen kissed her
daughter's forehead. "Don't worry
about it. You look...cool...just as you
are."
Violet studied her reflection in the mirror of her mother
and gradually began to smile, the fight forgotten. "I kind of do, don't I?"
"Don't get a swelled head, young lady," Helen
squeezed her daughter's shoulders.
"But you do."