One day during the summer holidays my sister decided to dye her hair. Nowadays, teenagers with brightly coloured hair are a common sight, but back in the seventies it was practically unheard of. The only people one ever saw with coloured hair were pop stars and clowns.
Rebecca had watched a TV show set in space in the future with her current boyfriend. He had made several comments about the attractiveness of one of the characters who had bright red hair, not as in ginger but actually bright red, and Rebecca thought it would be a good idea to impress him by copying the look.
She had gone into town and spent her pocket money on red hair dye and the peroxide which she would need to bleach her brown hair first. Then she had waited for an opportunity when both of our parents were out to do the deed.
She enlisted my help. I was doubtful.
“Does mum know about this?”
“No, it’s going to be a surprise.”
I was even more doubtful. From my experience, mum was rarely pleased by anything her daughters did that surprised her. I was not convinced she would be overjoyed to see Rebecca with bright red hair. I said so.
“She won’t mind. It’s not permanent dye. It’ll be back to normal after a few washes,” said my sister.
I was still not convinced, but after all it was her funeral. If mum went mad, it wouldn’t be me who was in trouble, so I just shrugged my shoulders and agreed, and the two of us went to the bathroom to perform the operation.
The instructions on the boxes seemed straightforward and we followed them exactly, so it was unclear as to why the bathroom was in such a mess when we had finished. The sink, the walls, the floor, the towels, everything was stained red, and scrubbing at the stains didn’t remove them, it merely spread them over larger areas.
Rebecca’s hair was a lovely shade of red, but so was her neck, and my hands and my clothes were ruined by splashes of bleach. We were still struggling desperately to clear up the carnage when we heard dad’s car pull up outside.
There was nothing we could do. We had literally been caught red-handed and mum was definitely not pleased. Even if she had not minded Rebecca’s red hair, the state of the bathroom was quite another matter.
Needless to say, by the time dad had finished with the slipper my sister and I both had bright red bottoms to match her hair.
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