A Bad Hair Day Everyday Read online

  Reardon Publishing

  PO Box 919, Cheltenham, GL50 9AN, UK, EU.

  www.reardon.biz

  Copyright © Reardon Publishing

  Written by and Copyright © Amy Mah

  www.amymahvampire.com

  Illustrations by Heby Sim

  Layout and Design by Nicholas Reardon

  ISBN: 9781873877944

  k12

  Contents

  A Bad Hair Day : Book 1

  When Things Go Wrong

  Earlier

  Back to Now

  Companion and Host

  Camouflage

  More than just Camouflage

  Back to Normal?

  The Wrong Plan B

  Companion

  Companion Makes a New Home

  Time, Tide and Tom

  Lost and Found

  New Start to Life

  New Start

  Birthday Girl

  Life’s a Beach

  Lost

  Guidance

  Keeping Warm

  The Way Home

  Home Safely

  Time to Consider

  Special Friends

  Brother and Sister

  Normal Teenagers

  Not-so-normal Teenager

  School Days

  Bad Hair Day

  Hair/Host Relationship

  Special Skills

  Putting the Skills to the Test

  Thoughts on being a Mermaid

  Back to Normal?

  Caught on Camera

  Fighting Barbie!

  Facing her Fears

  Practice Makes Perfect

  Between rocks and tangled webs

  Self-reliance

  Made it!

  Aftermath of Adventure

  Telling it all

  Consequences

  And More Consequences

  Next Day

  Next?

  Sharing Love

  Serious fighting

  Sharing of Powers

  Taking Stock

  Acting Their Age

  A Bad Hair Day : Book 2

  School and the Art of War

  Analysis

  Other Books

  Fangs Rule

  Vampire

  Smoking Hot

  A Bad Hair Day

  Everyday

  Book one

  When Things Go Wrong

  Some believe that the world was created in six days and that it will end with a second coming of Christ, or perhaps the anti-Christ. Others say the world will end with Ragnarök when the Norse gods fight the ice giants. Still others maintain the universe started with a bang and that it will end in the same way. To JJ, a small but still a very deadly local big bang seemed the most likely way he was going to die; right now, the end of his world was just about to start as if fate had taken a personal dislike to him.

  There was a blinding flash of light followed by a roar of a sound, which JJ felt as much as he heard as it hit him.

  “This is it! This is it! Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t! This is really it!”

  At that point the large and so-safe-looking metal cabinets behind which he was currently crouching decided to join him in his cramped little hiding space. The room seemed unsure that it needed all four of its walls, while the ceiling made up its mind that four walls was the minimum number it needed and was soon going to have a meeting with the floor to discuss this decision.

  As for JJ, well, fate had decided that he was just in the way… and his present life paraded itself inside his mind as he waited for the end. His real name was John; at the orphanage, he’d been called Just John, which over time had been shortened even further to JJ. He had to admit that it was better than the other names he had, such as “short-arse” and sometimes “dick-arse,” perhaps hinting that he was gay. He was not; he was a normal, hot-blooded guy, but that would be difficult to prove when they discovered his body nicely clad in a short, blush peach-colored cotton dress with matching shoes and clutch bag. The only good thing about being a corpse was that he would not have to explain the dress, let alone the black bra and panties. JJ was not a transvestite and certainly was not gay, but that was not what the papers would say when they reported his death as a burglar who had died more as a drag queen than the master criminal he so believed himself to be.

  JJ did not like pain, and playing Atlas had not been listed as part of the job specification. The job had looked so easy for someone with his skills. The dressing up had not even been his idea, and he only reluctantly agreed after it had been pointed out that that if he wished to terminate the contract he had signed, then the termination would be with a bullet. He was sure he would not fool anyone, but the fact that he soon found himself lying down and shivering, wearing only some paper shorts while some pervert of a make-up artist waxed his legs and plucked his eyebrows meant his clients thought otherwise. If it worked, he could bypass a lot of security under the cover of darkness, joining some girls who were attending a very unofficial party in the same building.

  The clients had been very pleased with his transformation, and the mirror showed him looking far more girl-like than he thought possible. His outer appearance may have been okay, but due to all the discomfort getting there had caused, he wondered whether a bullet would have been a better choice. He felt sick, either from nerves or perhaps due to the strange tablets they had given him to change his voice. His male parts had been taped up in place by the make-up guy, who had seemed to take far too much pleasure in it. JJ’s new underwear was far too tight. His padded bra cut into his shoulders; the wig made his scalp itch, and the shoes were torture to have on, let alone to try and walk in.

  Under the circumstances he had done very well. Apart from ruining his tights and getting crushed to death, he was still alive. Things had in fact been going far better than he could have hoped for….

  Earlier

  Earlier that evening, the world had been a much better place for JJ. The extremely desperate and perhaps very shortsighted security guard was tied up, and his plans of showing JJ where he worked had been thwarted when he had put his hand up JJ’s dress. The shock of what he discovered was followed by unconsciousness as JJ damaged two of his perfectly manicured nails putting him to sleep behind a desk; the sleep was due to the drug he administered, while the broken nails resulted from hitting the sleeping guard as payback for painfully grabbing his balls. He removed the ID pass card along with a copy of the guard’s thumbprint on a clever little device that could be said to be a modern version of a set of picklocks and carefully made his way to the top floor.

  He did not have long, but he did not need long so long as he did not break his legs in the shoes. After the first flight of stairs, he took the shoes off and carried them. If all continued to go well, he should have time to complete the task and be long gone before the alarm was raised. The office located twelve floors above the party he had pretended to attend took longer to break into than he wished, though the codes his employers had given him got him though the first set of doors had worked along with three more rooms and eventually a very secure hidden door. This took all his skills to find, let alone open, but it finally led JJ into what was not so much a room but an overgrown safe.

  “Well, this is what I would call a safe room!”

  It wasn’t much of a play on words, but JJ liked the sound of it.

  The walls were clad in metal, as were the floor and ceiling. In the center of the room, there was a metal cabinet with a slot containing a small silver case that resembled those very expensive document cases designed for high-level businessmen who do not need to carry their own documents; they just keep a daily schedule in their heads. Documents are carried by less important people who have big, heavy cases to carry what thei
r bosses need at their meetings and who probably could not afford one like JJ was currently looking at. It appeared to be very special and expensive and should have come with a prefix of “Bespoke” so he would be sure to check it out before leaving.

  “Oh! Well, back to work!”

  He removed a small box from his bag and fixed it to one of the metal walls with a satisfactory clunk. A flick of a switch lit up a display of numbers, which slowly and relentlessly started to count down from 10,000: 9,999… 9,998… 9,997 …

  “Okay, job well done! Now, for the fast getaway, and maybe time for a bite to eat on the way home…”

  JJ took another look at the numbers: 9,984… 9,983… 9,982… beep… 81… 80… 79… 76… 75… 74… beep… 20… 19… 18…

  “What the hell!”

  He grabbed the small silver case and ran across the room, slamming the door as he left to reseal the room. JJ got as far as the second room and then dove between some heavy-looking filing cabinets.

  “Metal room, small bomb, strong heavy cabinets, perfectly safe… please, please, please, perfectly safe...”

  Back to Now

  As the dust settled, the ringing in his ears and the choking dust were only the first of the problems that now faced JJ as he pulled himself free of the fallen cabinets, which luckily had created a small, tight space that would have been nice and snug if it had not been for dozens of heavy box files that had landed on him on their way to the floor. Coughing from the dust, he stood up and almost fell over again as pain shot up his leg.

  “One painful ankle and a lot of bruises, but still alive, no thanks to cheap foreign equipment! Well, next time I will use my own timers.”

  Alarms began to ring in the distance.

  “So much for a fast and discreet exit!” k'12

  JJ brushed the dust from his clothes and reluctantly put the shoes back on to walk over a nice selection of shards of glass that now covered the floor.

  “Plan B! Go to Plan B, and that is “Do not panic! Improvise!”’

  Limping along, looking more like a refugee from a war zone than a smooth, top-class independent spy in drag (which he thought sounded a lot better than a hired, inexpensive crook that wore a dress for money), JJ knew that any hope of not attracting attention was long gone as he pulled large chunks of plaster from his now dust-gray wig.

  “And so much for the new frigging hair style! I’ve gone from hot chick to looking like a crack whore in a single night.”

  As he made his way to the window he was looking for, he tried to remember the plans of the building, which he had studied so carefully.

  “What I need right now is a perfect escape route. Here we go…”

  He smashed the glass with a nearby fire extinguisher. If he moved along the outside edge of the building, made a short jump to the roof below, and then exited through a door he had left open earlier in the day onto a staircase, it would lead him right onto the street below and provide a fast getaway. But his injured leg would not allow him to do so. Instead, he turned away from the now-broken window and opened an unlocked door into an empty office. Locking the door behind him, he made his way through several rooms until he found the particular locked door he was looking for; this one was soon opened and locked again as he entered the large storage cupboard.

  “Plan B: If someone is after you, then you give them a nice trail to follow. Just be sure you are not on the trail when they come looking!”

  It was going to be a long wait, so JJ set about making himself as comfortable as he could, which meant mostly just kicking the shoes off.

  Companion and Host

  “Let’s see why they wanted this thing destroyed.”

  JJ placed the small silver case on the floor in front of him. It was locked, but he had skills; within moments, it opened with a click. Disappointment surfaced on his face as he stared at the contents. Three-quarters of the case was occupied by some sort of transparent gel with thin tubes leading to or from it from under a handbook, which also concealed a small screen and keypad and which filled the last quarter of the case. JJ picked up the book, opened it, and read at random:

  …The Companion and the Host are best introduced slowly so that they can bond and build up a strong telepathic link...

  …as yet, no problems have been encountered in any of the short-term test subjects, and full separation can be made up to 72 hours afterwards without any problems. The Host has only to place one hand back into the holding area (see Fig. 4), and the switch (see Fig. 5) will cause the Companion to leave the Host, pour itself back into the storage area, and re-enter its original dormant state…

  ...Camouflage can be obtained with just a thought as the Companion can manipulate the body characteristics of the Host to protect the Host from danger… as the protection, health, and safety of the Host is the Companion’s major concern… As with any fixed parasite, it will only survive as long as its Host does. The Companion is believed to be intelligent in its own way, so everything in its power can at times be quite inventive…

  …Fig. 12 shows the skin-blend process…

  …The stated subject, which will now be called the Host, need not be concerned with the nourishment needs of the Companion, as the Companion will take for itself what it needs. This will normally not be noticed as long as a varied diet is followed, but extra nourishment can be added to the body by the use of multi-vitamins in the form of tablets obtainable from any drug store…

  …One of the essential alkaloids it needs to function at its peak is theobromine, and this must be added to any diet. The easiest form this substance can be found in is chocolate…

  …The starting process is both fast and simple. The future Host undresses and places one hand in the holding area (see Fig. 4) and switches off the holding control (see Fig. 5)...

  …rest for several hours is recommended as the process is…

  Camouflage

  JJs mind mulled over what he had read.

  “Camouflage sounds interesting. So what we have is a super high-tech way of changing one’s looks: just what every up-and-coming terrorist group would pay a fortune for… I wonder why my employer wanted this destroyed and not sold on the open market?”

  JJ stared at the case for a few moments.

  “Okay, it’s a risk, but why not try it out now and walk out of here? It’s back to Plan B again. Second version: Plan B mark 2.”

  He placed his hand in the case, and a handprint shape appeared, suggesting the correct hand placement, which he followed. The screen lit up with questions: mostly standard medical stuff along with gender, race, and age. It also warned him that he would feel a slight prick on his fingers, but this was normal as a small blood sample was required.

  Unbeknownst to JJ, something that the handbook called “the Companion” awoke within the gel to the taste of JJ’s blood. Through the small puncture holes in his fingers, a minute trail of gel entered the bloodstream of what it was being told was now its new host.

  The screen offered a menu for a temporary basic body change: either specified or random. JJ selected random with no gender change and pressed Start.

  A warm and pleasant feeling gently enveloped his hand as the gel covered it with a fine film and slowly moved up his arm. JJ reached in with his other hand and reversed the switch, and the gel slowly crept back down his arm and returned to the case.

  “Well, that seems to work okay and feels quite pleasant.”

  JJ examined his hand and arm.

  “Wow, that feels silky smooth! If nothing else, I could sell it as a pain-free waxing treatment! I so don’t want to ever have another experience of real waxing!”

  Stripping down to his bra and panties, he sighed as he thought that he should not even know what waxing felt like and hadn’t until today. He put his hand back in the case and switched it on again.

  The Companion was a little confused over the wishes of this strange creature, so it delicately tapped into the mind of its new host, interested in why none of the painful restrainer
s had been activated. Perhaps this host was more stupid than the ones that had trapped and caged it, and even they were little more than dumb animals that it had tricked into thinking it was a simple organism. Its previous host had been a k-lex , another stupid creature whose poor grasp on faster-than-light propulsion meant it had crashed on this backwater planet thousands of cycles ago. Instead of waiting to be rescued, it had gone exploring and ended up dead, forcing the Companion into a dormant state until another stupid species uncovered it.

  The pleasant feeling returned as the gel once more left the case and moved up his arm and then further on to spread across his body like a small wave, leaving just a tingle in its wake. It dried quickly, and JJ examined his hands to find that there was no trace of the gel remaining: just his hands feeling the same as they normally did but a lot cleaner.

  His attention was now taken away from his hands as he felt the underwear fall to the ground.

  “Now, what’s going on?”

  He picked up the bra and panties and examined them to discover that they were no longer wearable. By the look of it, they had been burnt by acid.

  “Err! Okay, I should read instructions fully. When it says no clothes, it means no clothes. Well, I sure will not miss that bra thing.”

  Then another thought hit him.

  “Ooh! That’s great! Now I am going to have to find something else to wear as the dress is now useless without a bra to give me a fake shape.”

  Looking down at his pubic area, JJ saw his pubic hair dissolve as the gel reached it.

  “Okay, you have no need to go there! And just leave my frigging dick alone!’

  JJ blocked the area as best he could with his hands, but as soon as the gel found its route obstructed, JJ had to pull his hands away with a yelp as the tape holding his equipment in place dissolved, giving him some much needed freedom and a burn to his fingers.

  “Ouch! That stung!”

  A tingle on his feet made him lift up first one foot and then the other. Just as he began to relax, the gel moved up his neck, so he shut his eyes and held his breath as it covered his face. Then a nasty thought struck him.