Princess

“Okay, Charles. Your turn!” Danielle pointed to the big chair. “Have a seat, sir. What’s it going to be today? A Mohawk, maybe? Buzz cut?” Charles climbed into the chair and settled in. Danielle shook out a big black nylon cape and fastened it at the back of his neck so it covered his shoulders and chest.

Charles laughed. “Just the usual, I guess.” He smiled into the mirror at his own reflection and Danielle’s.

Danielle had been the Peterson family’s regular haircutter for as long as Charles could remember. Her shop used to be right in downtown Littleton, next to the library, but last year she had moved to this place — called Hair Today —
which was three towns over. So Mom made all their appointments on the same day: for herself, for Charles, for his older sister, Lizzie, and for his little brother, Adam (who everybody
always
called the Bean). They would all drive over together and then head back home together an hour or so later, enjoying what Mom called “that spiffy brand-new haircut feeling.”

Dad got his hair cut by Bernie, down at the fire station where he worked. “It’s convenient,” Dad said, “and the price is right.” Meaning, it was free. But Bernie’s haircuts were sometimes a little weird, and often Mom had to use her sewing scissors to “even things up” afterward, so Dad wouldn’t go around looking like he’d just rolled out of bed.

Charles liked Danielle because she loved to laugh and because she always wore wild outfits, like purple high-top sneakers with pink polka-dotted tights. He liked it when she washed his hair with lots of warm water and her special lemony shampoo that smelled so good he almost
wanted to eat it. He even liked waiting around in the salon while everybody else got their hair cut.

Charles sometimes felt funny about being the only boy in the place. (The Bean didn’t really count, since he was so little.) But so what if he was? It just meant that he got lots of smiles and attention from all the ladies sitting under hair dryers or getting their nails done.

Still, maybe it wouldn’t be so great if one of the guys from school walked by and saw him in there, happily reading a magazine and eating the dainty sugar cookies Danielle always offered. Maybe Charles would be totally embarrassed if word got around that he hung out at a place like that. Maybe it was a good thing that Hair Today was all the way over in Springfield.

Now Danielle snipped away at the hair around Charles’s ears.
Snick-snick!
She was so quick. But she had never cut him with her sharp scissors, not even once, not even a tiny nick. “So, how’s that adorable Buddy? Has he had any foster
brothers or sisters lately?” she asked. She loved hearing about the Petersons’ puppy and about the other puppies that the family took care of.

The Petersons had been fostering puppies for a while before Buddy came along. Until Buddy, Charles’s mom and dad had said that the family was not ready for a dog of their own. But Charles and Lizzie and the Bean
loved
dogs, so their parents had agreed to let them take care of puppies who needed temporary homes. That’s what “fostering” meant.

Each puppy only stayed a little while, just until the Petersons could find it the perfect forever family. But when Buddy came along, everybody knew right away that they could never, never let him go. The
Petersons
were Buddy’s perfect forever family.

Buddy was brown, with big brown eyes and a heart-shaped white spot on his chest. He was cute, smart, and a ton of fun to play with. Charles had always imagined that having a puppy of his own would be the best thing that ever happened to him. And with Buddy, that had turned out to be true.

But it was still fun to foster other puppies. Now Charles told Danielle all about Noodle, the most recent puppy his family had fostered. Noodle was a poodle–golden retriever mix that the Petersons had helped to rescue after Lizzie spotted him swimming, way out in the middle of icy Loon Lake!

“Noodle sounds like a great puppy,” Danielle said. “I bet your sister was crazy about him. Lizzie loves those big dogs, doesn’t she?”

It was true. Charles knew that it had not been easy for Lizzie to give Noodle up when the time came.

“But now that your family has Buddy, it’s a little easier to see the other puppies come and go, right?” Danielle snipped a tiny bit above Charles’s forehead.

“Definitely.” Charles was going to nod, but he remembered just in time that he was supposed to keep his head still while Danielle was working.

Danielle stood back to take a look at her work. “I think you’re all done!” she said. She held
up a mirror so Charles could see the back of his own head, reflected in the bigger mirror on the wall. “What do you think?” she asked. “Like it?”

“Sure!” said Charles. His hair didn’t really look any different: just a little shorter and a little neater. Perfect. “Thanks, Danielle.”

Danielle spun Charles around in the chair, then unsnapped the cape and swept it away. Tiny bits of Charles’s hair flew off to join the other clippings on the floor. “Ta-da!” she said. “Now, where’s that Bean?” She scanned the room.

Near the front door, a little knot of women — some with weird tinfoil thingies in their hair, others wearing curlers or plastic-wrap turbans — surrounded someone who had just come in. Charles had not heard the bells jingle, but now he saw that Angela, one of Hair Today’s other stylists, had just arrived. The Bean, who was always curious, had run over to join the crowd. He stood near the edge, trying to push his way in. “Me ‘scuze! Me ‘scuze!” he kept saying.

But the women were too busy oohing and aahing over something to hear him. Charles saw them reaching out toward Angela as if they were trying to touch whatever it was she was holding.

“What’s going on?” Charles asked Danielle. “Did she bring in a baby or something?”

Danielle rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Not exactly.”

Just then, one of the women stepped aside so Charles could see what Angela was holding in her arms. It was a puppy! A very,
very
small puppy, with silky brown-and-black hair that was touched with silver. It had the tiniest black nose and eyes, and a big pink bow right on top of its head. The puppy was wearing a tiny white T-shirt that said
MOMMY’S LITTLE GIRL
, in shiny pink script.

“That,” Danielle told Charles, “would be Princess. Otherwise known as the most spoiled dog in the history of the universe.”

Charles barely heard what Danielle said about Princess. As soon as he saw the puppy, he was on his feet and on his way over to get a closer look. He had never
seen
such a tiny dog! She was unbelievably cute, like a little stuffed toy.

The puppy looked back at him with sparkly black eyes. Her little ears perked up.

Great, another fan! Hello there! Want to pat me?

Lizzie joined Charles near the crowd of women. “Huh. A Yorkie,” she said. “Cute, I guess. If you like little dogs. I don’t know why people have to dress them up in T-shirts, though.”

“What kind of dog did you say it is?” Charles asked his sister. His eyes were glued to the puppy in Angela’s arms.

“Yorkshire terrier. It’ll get bigger than that, but not much.” Lizzie didn’t sound impressed. She was not a big fan of any dog smaller than, say, Patches, a beagle puppy the Petersons had recently fostered.

Mom had come over to help the Bean work his way to the front of the crowd so he could see the puppy. “Okay, pal,” she said to the Bean now. “Your turn for a haircut. Danielle’s all ready for you.”

“But the uppy —” The Bean reached out his arms toward the puppy.

“Not now,” Mom said firmly. She pulled the Bean away and walked him over to Danielle’s chair.

Charles was so busy looking at the puppy that he had hardly noticed what Angela was saying. Now he realized that she was upset about something — or was she happy? She was sort of laughing and crying at the same time.

“I just heard the good news this morning!” Charles heard her say. “I’ve been accepted to study with on
ree
!”

Charles had no idea what on
ree
was. But all the women gasped. “On
ree
!” they echoed. “Ooh!”

Charles edged closer to Lizzie. “What’s on
ree
?” he asked.

Lizzie snorted. “First of all, it’s
who,
not
what
,” she said. “Second of all, it’s a
name,
spelled H-E-N-R-I. Pronounced ‘On
ree
,’ with the accent on the second syllable. It’s French for Henry.”

“Okay, fine.” Charles rolled his eyes. Lizzie could be
such
a know-it-all. “So,
who’s
Henri?”

Lizzie waved to get Angela’s attention. “Um, who’s Henri?”

Ha! So Lizzie didn’t know
everything.
But she was never shy when it came to asking questions. Charles was curious, too, but he would never have spoken right up like that.

“Henri? He’s just the most famous, most creative, most amazing colorist in the universe,
that’s all!” Angela’s cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright with excitement.

“Colorist? Like — with crayons?” Charles pictured the Bean hard at work at the kitchen table, creating one of his scrawly, loopy drawings. Was the Bean a colorist?

Angela laughed. “No, like for hair,” she said. “There’s nobody better than Henri when it comes to dyeing hair. All the movie stars adore him. They won’t go to anyone else.” She took a deep breath. “And now I, Angela McKnight, am going to Los Angeles, California, to study with him! I leave
tomorrow.
It’s the most amazing, the most wonderful, the most
incredible
thing that’s ever happened!”

She put her face down to nuzzle her puppy, and when she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes. “And the worst thing that’s ever happened, too.” She wiped her eyes and gave a huge sniff. “I’m going to have to give up my darling baby girl, my Princess.”

“Why?” one of the women asked. “Can’t you take her with you?”

Angela shook her head. “I’ll be studying with Henri all day long, every day. Who would look after her? Princess needs a lot of attention.” She nuzzled the top of the puppy’s head again. “Don’t you, sweetie? Momma’s wittle cupcake needs wots and wots of wove.”

Princess licked Angela’s nose.

Whatever. Just keep the love coming!

Charles and Lizzie exchanged a glance, and Lizzie pretended to gag. They both
hated
it when people spoke baby talk to their dogs.

“How long will you be gone?” another woman asked. “Maybe you could find someone to take care of Princess for a while.”

Angela shook her head. “The truth is, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. I’ve always wanted to live in California, and this is my big chance!”

The women started asking more questions about Henri, but Charles slipped away to find Mom. She was over at Danielle’s station, supervising the Bean’s haircut. “Maybe a little more off the back,” Mom was saying as Danielle snipped away at the Bean’s soft curls.

“Mom?” Charles asked. “Can we —”

“Don’t tell me you’re asking if we can foster that little brat,” Lizzie said, coming up behind him.

Charles couldn’t believe it. “That’s not nice!” he told his sister. “Just because you don’t like little dogs doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help this one out, just like we’d help any puppy who needed us.” Spoiled or not, Charles thought Princess was really, really cute. He was
dying
to have her stay with his family until they could find her a new home.

“It’s not that I dislike
all
little dogs,” Lizzie said. “Snowball was okay. So was Rascal. But
this
one! She’s tiny
and
spoiled. I can tell already by the way Angela cuddles her and baby talks
to her. Not to mention that T-shirt she’s got her wearing!”

Mom was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Charles. Lizzie might be right about this puppy. Princess might need more attention than we have time to give.” She looked at Charles, and he looked back at her with big, sad eyes, imitating the “poor little puppy” look that sometimes worked for Buddy when he was hoping for a pat or a treat.

It seemed to work for Charles, too.

Mom sighed. “But you’re right, too. If we call ourselves a foster family, that means we should help out any puppy that needs us.” She pulled out her cell phone and called Dad.

Charles crossed his fingers while he listened to Mom’s side of the conversation. “It’s a Yorkie,” she was saying. “Yes, one of those little yappy — I know, I know, but Charles likes her, and we should help if we can, and —”

She hung up and sighed again. “Well, he agreed. I can’t believe
I’m
talking
Dad
into taking in a
puppy.” Then she winked at Charles. Mom was really more of a cat person, but Charles could tell that she thought Princess was cute. Yay! Charles could hardly wait.

By the time they left Hair Today, Angela had agreed to let the Petersons foster Princess. In fact, she was going to bring the puppy over that very night. “We’ll need some time, so I can tell you all about how to take care of her,” she said. “And of course, I’ll bring the List.”