Francine the five-year-old chihuahua cross giggled and put her hands over her eyes. She idolized her big bro and would have done anything he asked, but the urge to be contrary temporarily overrode her canine people-pleasing instincts and she opened one eye anyways.
“I said no peeking!” Valentine repeated, putting his hands over her eyes and forcefully walking his little sister down the hall.
Even with her brother’s hands over her eyes, Francine could tell they were headed to the bathroom. She heard him click on the shower radio to a rock station, her favorite music. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in front of the mirror with an array of cosmetics and grooming tools arranged on the sink.
“We’re gonna give you a makeover!” Val beamed, but before he could finish his sentence, the cub’s hands went straight for the trimmer. The older canine called his step-sister’s name and managed to bark out the first letter of the word ‘no’ before he was cut off by a loud buzzing sound as the trimmer drew a line down the right side of Francine’s mop of red hair.
Francine giggled, looking at her now asymmetrical face in the mirror. Valentine covered his face with a hand, his long greyhound snout sticking out under his palm. He took a breath and quickly recovered, not wanting to spoil the mood. “I guess we can work with this,” he resigned, taking the trimmer out of the pup’s hand and drawing another line down the left side of her head. He adjusted the trimmer’s guard and neatened up the edges on either side of her face, warning her to keep still or she’d lose an ear.
“You know,” Val observed, pushing Francine’s head to one side, “it doesn’t look so bad like this. It makes you look kinda cool!”
The younger cub grinned, her step-brother’s hand keeping her from moving her mouth too much.
When the older canine turned off the trimmer, Francine shook her head, sending tufts of fur in all directions. “Itchy!” she snorted, and pulled off her shirt. Valentine blinked, suddenly staring at his step-sister’s flat chest in the mirror. He thought about trying to get his hand on there under the guise of dusting her off but forced himself to focus.
“I also managed to get some fur dye,” Valentine explained as he opened the mirror to show the mohawked cub the cupboard behind it. Stacked up where the bandages used to be were little sample boxes with colored dogs on the front – artificially vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows, bright blues and greens, every color of the rainbow and some in between. “They’re cub-safe so we can-”
“Purple!” Francine barked, grabbing one of the boxes, “And green!”
“Which one?” Valentine asked, leaning over her shoulder.
“Both!”
“No, you’ve gotta pick one!”
“I pick both!” Francine repeated with a snarl.
Not wanting the snarl to turn into a pout, Valentine relented. “Fine,” he sighed again, opening up the box of purple. He read the instructions, not noticing that Francine had grabbed the box of green dye.
“Like this?” she asked, squirting the contents of the bottle onto the top of her head.
“Francine!” Valentine scolded, pushing the cub’s hand away. His jaw tensed, forming a curse word before thinking better of it. He couldn’t stay mad, especially not when he looked into the mirror and saw his shirtless step-sister grinning back at him. He’d just have to make the best of it. He massaged the green dye in where she sprayed it and wiped the excess off her shaved scalp, then put on the cheap plastic glove that came with the dye kit and started to rub the purple dye into the front of her forehead, the only place that she hadn’t already contaminated. Francine closed her eyes, and Valentine could feel her tail wagging against his legs.
An aggressive, uptempo punk song started playing as Francine finally opened her eyes again and saw her reflection – the sides of her head trimmed down to nothing, the front of her bangs dyed purple fading to green as the mohawk crested the top of her head, styled with all the skill her thirteen-year-old step-brother could muster.
“It’s so cool!” She barked, posing in the mirror and throwing up her hands to the beat of the music.
“I love it too,” Valentine agreed, “but frankly I think the grown-ups are gonna kill us both if we don’t start cleaning this up!”
“Frankie?” Francine repeated incorrectly, then looked back at her reflection. This didn’t look like the Francine that closed her eyes a few moments ago. Gone was the mop of red hair, replaced with a bright expression of freedom, rebellion and brotherly love. This wasn’t Francine, this was Frankie.
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Epic story blurb by the always talented and lovely \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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