Bad Hair Day
Page 2
By the time she caught up to them, they were munching up a wig store.
“Hold it right there, pigs!” Franny shouted. Her pigtails stopped eating and ran toward her and her beautiful pony.
She pulled out her mom’s cordless blow-dryer and hit them with its full force.
“I’ll bet this will make you more manageable!” she shouted.
But her idea didn’t work out as she’d planned.
It just made the pigtails fluffier and puffier. They were even bigger now than before.
“I guess I don’t know how blow-dryers work,” Franny said. “I should have paid more attention to Mom.”
Back at home, Igor watched in horror as the pigtails loomed over Franny on TV.
He raced up the stairs, grabbed some things from Franny’s lab, and bolted out the door.
Franny frowned at the big, hairy pigtails as they pinned her up against a wall.
“Get behind me, ponytail,” she said, trying to protect it from the pigs. “I won’t let them get you, too.”
One of the pigs snarled and lunged for Franny.
Her ponytail whinnied and jumped in front of her. The pig swallowed it down in one oinky gulp.
“That was one really nice hairdo,” Franny said as the second huge pig swelled up and growled at her.
“This looks like the end,” Franny said to herself, and she shook her fist at the monster. “Okay, then. Come and get me!”
But just then Franny saw Igor rise up behind the pig.
“Why is he so tall?” she said to herself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
YOUR HAIR IS REALLY MESSED UP
Igor wobbled around awkwardly on the high heels. He was trying to sneak up on the pig with a pair of scissors.
Amazing! He must have put more formula on the shoes. That’s why he’s so tall, Franny thought.
But what’s even more amazing, Franny said to herself, is that a dog in a pair of thirty-foot heels thinks he can sneak up on anybody.
The pigtail spun around and, with a single snap, plucked Igor right out of the shoes and swallowed him whole.
“NOOOO!” Franny cried. “IGOR!!!”
The distraction gave Franny just enough time to hide behind a trash can.
“Igor did that to save me,” Franny whispered, her eyes welling up with tears. “He would have done anything for me. He would have done anything for anybody.”
She watched as the pigtails sniffed the air and began shambling down the street.
“They want more hair,” she whispered. “No more Miss Nice Girl. These pigs need to be stopped! And I bet I know where they’re headed. . . .
“The zoo!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WE’RE IN PIG TROUBLE NOW
Franny chased after the pigtails.
“I have no idea how I’m going to stop these things,” she said. “I have to think!”
The pigtails crashed through the front gates of the zoo and walked right past the alligators and tortoises.
“They don’t have fur, so the pigs aren’t interested in them,” Franny said.
She watched as the pigs stopped to read a sign. One of them licked his lips as he did.
“Not the orangutans!” Franny whispered as the pigs waddled off toward the apes.
In desperation, Franny rushed up and grabbed a handful of one of the pigtails. She yanked it as hard as she could.
“Nobody likes to have their hair pulled!”
With one mighty swat, the pigtail knocked Franny aside.
Franny sat up and groaned.
“I’ve really messed up this time.”
And then she heard scissors snipping.
And snipping.
And snipping.
Fanny stood up and stared as she saw a little pink paw holding scissors and snipping its way out of the back of one of the pigtails.
It was Igor!
He had snipped his way out.
And so that the pigtails wouldn’t want to swallow him again, he had also snipped off all his hair while he was in there.
He stood there and held the scissors proudly. He looked triumphant, pink, and naked.
One of the pigtails turned around and looked at him.
“Ew,” it said, and kept walking toward the orangutans.
Franny ran up and hugged him.
“Don’t listen to that pig,” she said. “You’re beautiful.”
Igor handed her the scissors and pointed at the pigtails.
“I can’t do much with these,” she said. “They’re too little. But you’re right. We have to do something. After they eat the orangutans, they’ll go for the buffaloes and the bears.”
Igor handed her the backpack of things he’d brought from the lab. Franny dug through it.
“I think I have an idea,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SPLIT ENDS
The pigs climbed over the fence and into the orangutan enclosure. The orangutans cowered and squealed in fear.
One of the pigs reached out a big, hairy hoof, grabbed the tiniest orangutan, and lifted it up to its mouth.
“This has to work, Igor,” Franny said. “We don’t have much of this left.”
She pulled a mascara bottle from the backpack, dipped the tiny brush in the formula, and carefully applied it to Igor’s eyelashes.
Long, lush lashes erupted from his eyelids.
“Now let’s see those beautiful puppy-dog eyes,” Franny said, and giggled.
Igor began flapping his lashes, and Franny hopped onto his back.
The two rose into the sky, lifted by Igor’s masterful fluttering.
“Head for those pigs,” Franny growled.
They swooped over and grabbed the orangutan just before the pig could swallow it.
“Surrender now,” Franny said, “or be glamorized.”
The pigs hissed at her as Igor flew around and came at them fast.
The pigtails lunged and twisted, trying to grab Franny and Igor as they zigzagged around, weaving in and out, until . . . the pigtails fell over on the ground, wriggling and snorting, and gorgeously braided.
Igor dived down to the ground as Franny shook a hair spray can.
As soon as they got close enough, Franny blasted the pigs with a cloud of hair spray, holding them in that position, unable to move.
Igor landed next to them, and Franny stuck her finger in the bottle of formula.
“I’ll bet there’s just enough left. . . .”
She pulled out her finger, and a giant, sharp nail sprang from the end of it.
“This won’t hurt a bit, pigs,” she said, and she cut away strands of hair until her ponytail wriggled out and snuggled her thankfully.
“Let’s go home. I have a little work to do in the lab.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE TAIL COMES TO AN END
Franny’s mom walked into Franny’s laboratory.
“Nice work on those pigtail things,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Of course, you probably shouldn’t have created them in the first place.”
Franny laughed.
“You’re right, Mom. But things like that happen to people all the time.” Franny shrugged.
“They don’t, Franny. Things like that don’t happen to people all the time. Things like that only happen to you.”
Franny showed her mom a jar with her old pigtails in it.
“Look. I washed the formula out of some of the leftover hair and constructed brand-new pigtails for myself. They’re perfectly normal now. I’m going to reattach them.”
Franny put her pigtails back into place and shook her head to make sure they were stuck.
“What happened to your ponytail?” Mom asked.
“It wanted to go back to the zoo. I think it fell in love with that baby orangutan.”
Franny’s mom smiled.
“Oh! And I have a surprise for you!” Franny said, and she ran to get something from the closet.
S
he handed her mom a purple fur coat.
“I used some of the giant pigtails and I made you a fur coat. You can change the style, too, just by snapping your fingers!”
“This isn’t going to try to eat anybody, is it?”
“Nope. The pigtails were greedy because they were pigs. The greed was the problem, not the hair.
“But I got rid of the greediness. Now they’re delighted to just make somebody happy by being a coat.”
Franny’s mom tried on the coat.
“It’s lovely! But how did you get rid of the greed?” she asked.
“I added a dash of Igor’s fur. He’s the least selfish creature in the whole world. The greed just went away.”
Franny’s mom looked at the ground. She felt a little ashamed.
“You were right about Igor all along, Franny. I wasn’t looking at him in the right way. He is beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful dog that ever lived.”
Franny’s mom looked around.
“Hey, where is Igor, anyway?”
“I sent him to the store to pick up a few things. I was thinking of trying that new shampoo you suggested. He won’t be long.”
“The store? But I thought he was afraid of walking past that mean cat next door.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem anymore,” Franny said.
About the Author and Illustrator
Jim Benton is a New York Times bestselling writer and cartoonist whose unique brand of humor has been seen on toys, television, T-shirts, greeting cards, and even underwear. Franny K. Stein is the first character he’s created especially for young children. A husband and father of two, he lives in Michigan, where he works in a studio that really and truly does have creepy stuff in it.
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Jim-Benton
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster, New York
jimbenton.com
READ ALL OF FRANNY’S ADVENTURES
Lunch Walks Among Us
Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid
The Invisible Fran
The Fran That Time Forgot
Frantastic Voyage
The Fran with Four Brains
The Frandidate
Bad Hair Day
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Jim Benton
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Book design by Tom Daly
Jacket design by Tom Daly
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2019 by Jim Benton
The illustrations for this book were rendered in pen, ink, and watercolor.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Benton, Jim, author, illustrator.
Title: Bad hair day / Jim Benton.
Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2019] | Series: Franny K. Stein, mad scientist ; [#8] | Summary: Franny tries to follow her mother’s suggestion to change her appearance, but by turning hair styling into a science experiment she creates some very greedy pigtails that terrorize the town.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015661 | ISBN 9781534413375 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781534413399 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Science—Experiments—Fiction. | Hair—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction. | Humorous stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.B447547 Bad 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015661