“I need to go to the girls’ room,” I told my teacher.
And that’s where Margaret was, all right: curled up under the sink with her head on her knees.
“Margaret!” I gasped. “You’re sitting on the floor!”
Margaret hitched herself over to the side a little so I could see: she’d placed a germ-protective layer of paper towels under her.“Still,” I said. “What’s the matter?”
Margaret pressed her head down harder intoher knees, which were all shiny with tears. She pointed up. Lying on the sink, next to a pair of Do-Not-Remove-from-the-Art-Room scissors, was a chunk of straight brown hair.
Uh-oh.
“Come out, Margaret,” I said. “Let me see.”
Margaret shook her head. “I’m not coming out until it’s grown back.”
“Well, I think I see a germ crawling up your dress.”
Margaret jumped out from under the sink.
She looked at herself in the mirror and began to cry again. “I got glue in my hair,” she sobbed. “I was just trying to cut it out. . . .”
Margaret’s hair was halfway-down-her-back long. It was hard not to notice that the whole part over her left ear was missing.
“Maybe if we evened up a chunk over your right ear . . .” I suggested.
Margaret wiped her eyes dry and nodded. She handed me the scissors.
I cut. We looked back in the mirror.
