Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

about one thing.” Manship had risen and was staring her down. “That rats’ nest of fake hair has got to go. What’s under there can’t be any more pathetic. Color and restyle, Adair. Right now.”
    Temple would have opened her mouth to protest, except Adair had her by the shoulders. He was dredging her out of the chair and marching her down the hall before she could say “Gamier Fructose.” In one minute flat, she was shoved into a room where the reek of hairspray was sickly sweet enough to choke a skunk.
    This was a part of undercover work Molina had never prepared her for: beauty boot camp.
    For the next ninety minutes, Temple was buckled into a rotating chair where she was washed, styled, spun, dried, spindled, and mutilated.
    She felt like a duck in the weeds whose shelter is ripped away one reed at a time. Huddled under a pink plastic cape, she watched tiny feathered remnants of her Past haircut fall like residue from a tarring and feathering. Too many people inside the Teen Queen Castle knew Temple Barr, redhead and PR whirlwind. Her cover was being stripped away and blown dry even as she sat strapped to the chair.
    “I don’t know why you hate your red hair,” Adair said. “So many girls do. Guess they feel like Raggedy Ann dolls. A shame. Red rocks for me, but change what irritates you. Take a look, pussycat.”
    He handed her a mirror.
    Temple glanced sideways at her reflection through squinty eyes. How would she face Molina when she admitted to having lost her cover to a pair of barber’s shears, leaving the policewoman’s daughter alone in a house crawling with secret tunnels, cameras, and sick stalkers?
    Temple, shrinking in the chair, straightened.
    So had her hair. Straightened somehow.
    It had been bleached into a medley of warm and cool blonde shades! And straightened and razor-cut into shoulder-brushing length. She looked like... nobody she knew. A stranger. The Power of Blonde: hide behind your hair color.
    Her cover was not blown! It was... better than ever. Hallelujah!
    Of course, imagining what the grow-out would be like was a nightmare, but for the moment...
    “Pretty foxy.” Her Aunt Kit was standing there, beaming down on her niece. “This girl has a chance at the prize if her attitude improves.”
    Thanks be to savvy aunts! What an actress! Still, Kit might be onto something. Temple was still studying herself in the mirror. Dang if the blonde hair didn’t make her green contact lenses even more dominant. An eye of another color was a slim sliver of a disguise but it had worked for Max. Temple guessed that her new pale honey hair would even make her real eye color, a wishy-washy blue-gray in her own opinion, resemble the dangerous, deep steel blue of a Fontana Brother’s Beretta.
    “Pink is not her color,” Kit told Adair, “too sweety-sweet with her pale complexion. If she were on one of my book covers, she’d be wearing Nile green or peach velvet.”
    Vanetta, the show’s wardrobe witch had appeared as well. “We’ll go with the icy Easter tones... peach, aqua, and pale lilac for her. This will be one of the more dynamic makeovers. From jet black to liquid blonde.” Vanetta, a brunette and therefore one who might be expected to have issues with blonde, instead grinned from ear to ear. “I love it. I have to put everybody else but that Molina girl in pasty pastels. This honey-warm blonde at least gives me a mid-tone palette to play with.”
    Temple was startled to realize that she and Mariah were the only not-blondes in the finals. And also the reason why: in states with a large Hispanic labor force, Anglo women, even natural-born brunettes, didn’t want to be mistaken for “the hired help.”
    On the other hand, not being blonde made the two of them stand out in a crowd. For a wild, wonderful moment, Temple pictured Mariah winning her category, in her glory, going—oh, all right, no dog in a manger, Temple—going to her school father-daughter dance with Matt Devine, a “dad” to die for.
    Oops. Another prominent brunet haunted the premises: Raft Nadir, Mariah’s real father. Temple didn’t see him playing a role in any fairy tale ending except one of the darkest tales by the Brothers Grimm, maybe Iron John.
    Meanwhile, the moment was all about her, Xoe Chloe, debunked brunette and closet redhead now transformed into a mainstream blonde bombshell. If only Max could see her now. Not Matt. He didn’t have Max’s theatrical instincts and would probably just