chocolate chip mint and caramel
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Kitty’s Bed
Rating: G
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #9: wispy
Toppings/Extras: caramel
Wordcount: 520
Summary: Shell Prowse makes a bed for her toy.
Notes: Even Adele has one hell of a time dealing with her daughters...
These things always had to happen when she was in a rush. Slim blazer unbuttoned, Adele Prowse was looking for her daughters-who need corralling to their schools, sharpish-when she first noticed Shell in the kitchen, drinking from a tall tumbler of water. What she noticed in particular was the tuft of hair missing from her scalp. For a moment she simply stared, appalled, before hurrying forwards and turning Shell around by her shoulders.
“Shelly! What’s happened to your hair?” she asked, trying not to sound too horrified. For some reason the word mange popped into her head and stubbornly refused to leave.
“Hmm?” Six-year-old Shell idly moved a hand up to her head. “Oh, I needed to make a bed for Kitty.”
“You...?”
Adele stared, quite frankly speechless.
“I lost her blanket... I think Judy has it,” Shell said, wrinkling her nose. “We going to school now, Mummy?”
“Oh, for-... look what you’ve done to your lovely hair, Shell!” Adele said, school far from her mind as she pulled her youngest daughter close to her and inspected the damage. It had clearly simply been hacked off. And Michelle Prowse’s hair was lovely, dark with a vibrant reddish tint from her father. Another thought struck her. “Did you use scissors?”
Please don’t say you used a knife, Adele thought, pained. It was bad enough when Judy went through that ‘phase’...
“Judy uses scissors all the time,” Shell said indignantly.
“Good grief,” Adele said shortly and began tweaking at Shell’s hair, trying to cover the not-quite-bald-but-very-short patch. “Shell, darling, you really shouldn’t cut bits from your hair. That is not your job. That’s what hairdressers are for.”
“It was just the right thing for a bed!”
Adele wondered if she could send Shell to school with a bald patch. Her eyes wandered to a clock on the wall and her eyebrows lifted. She needed to be at the Palace of Westminster in just under an hour. Could she use a wig? A hat? A balaclava? A bandage, maybe?
“Jude!” she called down the corridor. “Are you ready?”
Her nine-year-old daughter came slumping into the room, dragging her schoolbag with her. Looking at her younger sister, Judy raised an eyebrow.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Do you mind not leave scissors lying around?” Adele replied, quickly grabbing a hairbrush and teasing the curls from Shell’s hair. “Pass the hairpin tin, please. Shell is going to have to Princess Leia it for the day.”
Judy, whose own hair was quite short, brushing against her shoulders, went to one of the kitchen cupboards and pulled out a rattling tin.
“You’ll never cover it up,” Judy said, passing the tin over and seating herself on one of the dining chairs with a little hop, white-socked legs kicking, striped tie loosely dangling from her collar. It was tied in a very slovenly way, and usually Adele would have corrected it, but she had other things on her mind at that moment.
“No matter what the outcome is,” Adele said tartly, “Shell is not going into school with a bald patch.”
“Princess Leia?” Shell grinned happily. “Cool!”