A Bad Hair Day Everyday 2 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: 9781873877951

  k12

  Contents

  A Bad Hair Day : Book 2

  School and the Art of War

  Analysis

  The Thrill of a Good Fight

  It Started With a Kiss

  Bonding and Chocolate

  Work and the Sisterhood

  Trading Experiences

  The Power of Mr. Tan

  Dim Sum Sleep Over

  Taking Stock

  Getting used to each other

  Taking Control

  Lifes a Test

  Exam Blues

  A Nice, Peaceful Day

  All for One and One for All

  A Trap is Sprung

  Strings

  Morning

  Tournament

  The future

  Book 3

  Other Books

  Fangs Rule

  Vampire

  Smoking Hot

  A Bad Hair Day : Book One

  A Bad Hair Day

  Everyday

  Book Two

  School and the Art of War

  The Coach had them all stay late, and Abbey thought that no one could have assembled an odder group of students if they had tried.

  First was Sue. She was a large girl, but not in a fat way, as she was an ex-ice-hockey player who apparently had been thrown off the girl’s team for excess violence to other players, including those on her own team. In its infinite wisdom, the school had enrolled her in an anger-management course, which included martial arts training. She could now do things with a quarterstaff that ruled her out of ever being allowed to join a hockey team—or, in fact, any team sport. Abbey expected firearms training would be next on the anger-management list!

  Next was Jilly Tan. She was Oriental and was even shorter than Abbey but made up for it by having a massive ego. She must have had a private trainer since she was born, and she was good at everything connected to fighting: not just good, but outstandingly good, and she knew it. If her father hadn’t had plans for her to take over the family business, she could have easily turned professional. Abbey couldn’t help but wonder what type of city finance business they had that required martial arts training.

  Third, of course, was Zoe the love of her life, who had only joined to be close to her. But she was getting better all the time, if you could call the love of using fighting batons or anything hard she could hit people with a character-building trait. Zoe looked soft and gentle but was a lot tougher than she looked. Only last week one of the football jocks had found out the hard way not to make fun of her locks of blonde Hair. He was over six feet tall and must have weighed over two hundred pounds. His first mistake was to make fun of Zoe just before her period, and his second was to forget to wear his cup. Abbey blamed Zoe’s mother; if she hadn’t insisted on all the extra biology lessons, she was sure Zoe wouldn’t have been able to bring the footballer to his knees with just one hand slipped gently inside his shorts.

  The last in the quartet was, of course, herself, and she was far more of a misfit than any of the others: a freak, monster, or a genetic experiment. She didn’t know or, recently, even care. Zoe’s love helped keep her sane, and apart from worrying about her underwear dissolving whenever Zoe was close or making sure that her psychopathic Hair didn’t try and kill someone while she wasn’t looking, life was good.

  Abbey looked again at the other three and thought they were less a “team” and more of a “soap opera!” Just then, the Coach returned. When she heard what he had planned, she mentally changed “soap opera” to “cartoon!” To help with her people skills, he had decided that Jilly Tan was going to spend time training them up before the next inter-school match.

  All eyes looked at Jilly, and Abbey gave another amendment to the imaginary piece of paper, underlining cartoon but adding in parentheses “(not the Walt Disney sort)” but instead the Japanese type of cartoon that has a 15-rated warning for violence on it and lets the characters get killed off while there are still ten minutes left until the end. The words “Jilly” and “people skills” so did not go together that she wondered whether perhaps they could kill her while the Coach wasn’t looking if they all worked together?

  Jilly stepped forward and produced a clipboard, which apparently had their names and details on it. She read aloud each of their skills and faults, but with greater emphasis on the faults, which was just another one of her aggravating habits. She was also very intelligent, and she knew it, too.

  With the Coach still watching, she called them over to her one at a time to use their skills against her. Sue chose the quarterstaff and spun it with such force and speed that Abbey expected Jilly’s head to roll across the hall minus a body. However, the staff did not even reach her body; as it was still moving through the air, Jilly plucked it effortlessly out of Sue’s hands, leaving Sue instantly weaponless and Jilly now armed with a quarterstaff.

  “Strength in fighting is a bonus, but without skill, it is useless,” remarked Jilly.

  “You next, Zoe.”

  Zoe grabbed two fighting batons, which were similar to the old sort of police baton—a format that could give the user two feet of extra reach with each arm. In the hands of someone like Zoe, they could cause the maximum level of pain with little risk retaliation.

  Jilly had armed herself with the same weapons, but the force of Zoe’s strikes had driven Jilly into a corner and made her drop one of the batons. Jilly then threw down her remaining baton in a huff and almost looked as if she were going to burst into tears! Zoe had won! Abbey saw a smile on her face as she looked in her direction, so what happened next came as a shock to both Abbey and Zoe.

  Jilly stepped forward, grabbed both of Zoe’s baton tips and forced them back with such force that Zoe had to let go before her wrists snapped. Then a foot shot out and tripped Zoe so that she hit the floor hard. Before she could move, a baton was pressed down into her throat, stopping any thoughts of getting up.

  “Force in an attack is good, mercy to an opponent can be good, but to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is crass stupidity!”

  Jilly then looked towards Abbey.

  “She’s using our best skills back against us,” thought Abbey. “Bursting into tears was just the sort of ploy Zoe would have used to put off an opponent!”

  Abbey faced her with her long blonde Hair loose and just her hands as weapons. Jilly undid her own hair, which was jet black, and also let it fall loose. Abbey stood relaxed.

  “Okay, Jilly! Just try and duplicate me! This should be interesting, as even I don’t know fully what I can do!” she thought.

  As Abbey stood in her relaxed stance, her mind was rushing out commands to various parts of her body. She warned the Hair to be on guard but to also be careful, as they were being watched.

  Jilly performed a sudden spin, which forced Abbey out of her normal stance, and also flicked her with her black strands of hair, which had something attached to them. She felt the sting of the flesh being cut on her hands where the hair touched her skin.

  Abbey spun herself out of range at the same time as Jilly vanished from her sight, and she lashed backwards with a reverse kick intended to surprise Jilly, who had somehow been able to get behind her. It would have taken out a normal opponent but had somehow missed Jilly and left Abbey slightly unbalanced. She hardened her hands, and with a move as fluid as water corrected her balance and sent in a shower of blows that should have given her something to think about—if only they had connected—but they only found empty air.

  Knowing Jilly was again just behind her and this time slightly to her left, Abbey spun as she stooped down slightly to give extra power to a forward kick, but she was hit full force by Jilly’s hair, which had been flicked to meet her as she turned and was enough to blind her to the punch that landed very firmly on her solar plexus. She slumped to the ground and decided to stay down.

  “The ability always to know where one’s opponent is during a fight will take you halfway to beating them; you just ruin the benefits that gives you with poor fighting skills and holding back. Not using your true abilities fully is just an insult to me, so we will fight again and again. I cannot improve if you do not use everything you have against me.”

  She looked over to the Coach.

  “With the Coach’s permission, the real training starts tomorrow night.”

  Analysis

  Unbeknownst to the girls, the Companion was very interested in this new girl. It liked the way the animal—again, another female—moved and reacted. She would make a perfect second handmaiden to the Host.

  They were alone in one of the training rooms, and Zoe was mad.

  “How dare she trick me like that! I really did have her, and that trick only made it look as if it was all planned. I’ll give her ‘crass stupidity,’ whatever ‘crass’ is supposed to mean! Can’t she even talk American?”

  “Zoe! Your Hair!”

  Abbey quickly checked that they were alone.

  “It’s moving in time with your speech! Emphasizing your speech the same way your hands do!”

  “Stop that, Capillus!”

  Zoe spoke out loud, and the two braids of golden Ha
ir unbraided themselves and fell loosely to either side of her face.

  “Sorry, Abbs. We both get carried away at times.”

  “You call your Hair Capillus? Why?”

  “Because that’s his name, silly! I really don’t know why you are always fighting with your Hair! You two should really get on better; it’s not as if you can ever leave each other!”

  With that, she took out a mirror, held it in front of her face, and stared at her reflection. Lots of golden strands took the mirror out of her hands while she searched her bag for something; eventually, she took the mirror back from Capillus and showed him what she had taken from the bag: a small pack of chocolate drops, which she carefully opened and fed to Capillus.

  After a couple of minutes, she said, “Oh, sorry! Where’re my manners?”

  Then she popped one in Abbey’s mouth and offered the rest to Abbey’s Hair. It reminded Abbey of a frenzied piranha attack!

  “Forget my Hair!” Abbey flicked it back in place. “So what are we going to do about that bitch, Jilly?”

  Zoe passed a pair of batons to Abbey.

  “What are we going to do? We are going to practice, babe! We are going to practice till perfect! I want to be ready for her next time!”

  Abbey sighed. “Okay, but I am sure that this is just what the Coach wants us to do.”

  To herself, she reflected, “Oh, well. We now have a normal relationship. Just like any normal relationship, it all starts off with hugs and kisses, and then you end up fighting!”

  The Thrill of a Good Fight

  Abbey arrived late for the training as she had had to catch up on the latest gadgets the nerds had on show tonight; she just did not have time for everything she wanted to do, let alone the school work that got harder every year. She also needed to finish off a project tonight, which she should have handed in on Monday.

  She just did not have the time to train every night with that bitch Jilly! Looking around the training hall, she saw that both Zoe and Sue were sitting in the corner looking as though they had just walked away from a car crash. Zoe came over and told her she was so out of it that she was going to go straight home tonight for a nice long bath and then an early night.

  She squeezed Abbey’s hand and whispered,

  “Be careful with the bitch tonight. I’m sure she has PMS from hell—and it goes so well with her normal happy nature!”

  Sue finished packing her sports bag and also left. She had an impressive number of bruises covering her face and arms from where Jilly had pointed out her slow defensive skills. Sue had finished all her anger-management training courses weeks ago, and now, from all the bruises, she looked as if she needed to be part of a child protection program! Everyone knew she had requested to be let back on the soccer team or have the school provide her with extra medical coverage.

  She watched Jilly, still full of energy, throw a couple of towels over the CCTV cameras and say,

  “That’s better. I can change now without being watched by pervy teachers!”

  Watching Jilly remove her tracksuit, Abbey couldn’t stop herself from correcting her.

  “They are just standard school CCTV. No one looks at them,” she said. “It just records to a hard drive that no one can look at and is automatically overwritten every 30 days.”

  Jilly finished changing into tight-fitting sports skins, strapped on a couple of leg pockets, and laughed.

  “If you believe that, then I will remove the towels, and we can fight naked!”

  She laughed again. “Then we can take bets on how long it will take to turn up on one of those internet porn sites!”

  Abbey removed her own tracksuit but didn’t answer her as the bitch was probably right. She didn’t have to get Daddy to buy her expensive sports skins. A single thought changed her underwear into black half skins, which were far superior to Jilly’s in every way. Her skin was almost an organic Kevlar. With just a thought she could make the skin anti-cut and slash-resistant. She slowly stretched and smiled at the idea of fighting naked, as that was in fact what she was doing right now!

  “You will not insult me tonight.”

  It was a flat statement without any emotion from Jilly as she prepared to fight.

  “Nor will you continue to treat the noble arts with such contempt. If you do, tonight there will be a forfeit to pay!”

  “I don’t know what the hell you are talking about,” replied Abbey.

  A cold smile slowly formed on Jilly’s face as she spun a kick that forced Abbey to move back.

  “Number one: The Coach is blind to your skills. You could make one of the best in the country, but you do not even try!”

  A leg blocked Abbey’s arm with such power that it forced her to somersault backwards.

  “Number two: I have spent years of painful training to do what I can do, but you are different, perhaps some incarnation of a great warrior. Your body produces moves that no one could have shown you, yet you do not make use of them!”

  A flying double kick missed as Jilly stepped to one side and watched Abbey hit the floor and roll.

  “Number three: You hold back all the time you are fighting me! You will run around until you can pretend I have beaten you! At least Zoe puts some real hate in her attacks. I know with her that if she knew how to use a killing blow, she would use it on the very first attack, but you…”

  A fast-moving leg was only a decoy, as a fist winded Abbey as it sank into her stomach.

  “Number four: You teach Zoe excellent moves, which you do not bother to use yourself.”

  A foot on its way to meet Abbey’s face was blocked, which made her arm tingle.

  “Number five: You can move your chi to different parts of your body. That is a skill that should take years to master, but you can do it instinctively. Without it, that last block would have broken your arm!”

  A hand suddenly grabbed Abbey’s wrist and bent it back with such force that it forced Abbey to the ground.

  “Don’t try moving, or your wrist will snap. Number six: You can block pain so that I could in fact break you wrist, and it would not slow you down until you needed to sign your name!”

  Abbey stopped struggling. “Okay, okay! I give in! You win! Just stop the damn stupid commentary!”

  “Number seven. You have forgotten the forfeit.”

  With Abbey helpless on her knees, Jilly moved forward and kissed her.

  Abbey was taken completely by surprise. For just a second, her body responded, and a thought entered her mind.

  “RELAX . THIS IS NORMAL.”

  Unnoticed by either girl, strands of soft blonde Hair were slowly penetrating Jilly’s skin. Shock then replaced the surprise, and with both mind and voice Abbey screamed.

  “No! No, no, no! What the f*ck do you think you are doing! I’m not that way inclined!”

  Jilly’s icy smile crossed her lips once more.

  “Tut, tut! Mind your language. Number eight: Just a fraction too slow with the outrage. You like watching me change clothes, oh yes! And for someone not that way inclined, you are having a full and no doubt enjoyable sexual relationship with Zoe. Have I left anything out?”

  “Just that I do not cheat on my girlfriend. Now let me up!”

  Abbey tested the grip, and Jilly was right; any move to break away and the bones would snap.

  “Number nine: I like your fighting skins; they are so thin and tactile.”

  With that she moved a hand across Abbey’s breasts, and her smile widened as she watched Abbey’s nipples harden.

  “As I said, really fight me - or pay the forfeit. Either way, I win!”

  Abbey could feel Jilly’s hand on her thigh. The clothes were not real, and as her hand moved closer up to the obvious target, Abbey knew that she would be found out as soon as she tried to get fingers under her clothes.

  “Okay, it looks like you win,” said Abbey.

  Even with the wristlocks still painfully held in place, Abbey turned her head slightly and moved forward to touch lips. As soon as they made contact, she activated her body to full fighting mode and forced Jilly to let go or suffer a full hit in the face by stinging snake-like coils, which forced her back so fast that she almost fell over.

  “Satisfied now?”

  Abbey stood with her arms folded across her chest and with a hairstyle that could have won prizes in a best madwoman contest.