11
Raphael was true to his word. Within the hour, the phone (which Pippa had remembered to plug back in) was ringing off the hook.
‘Of course the first person to book was Marble,’ said Pippa, rolling her eyes. ‘How does she manage to always be at the front of any queue?’
‘Who is Marble?’ asked Smug.
‘Marble Wainwright,’ said Mrs Fudge. ‘She’s – how should I put it . . . ?’
‘Our grumpiest client,’ Dash said, with some relish. ‘She is extremely difficult to please. In fact, I do not think anyone has ever managed to please Marble. It’s not all fun and games here, you see, Smug,’ he added. ‘Some of our customers are distinctly tricky, and it takes an experienced hand to know how to deal with them.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about us,’ said Smug. ‘We are used to dealing with tricky people. Do you remember the time we delivered the lawn-cutting machine to that old major-general in Little Snitting on the Wold?’ he said, turning to Tallulah.
‘Oh my goodness!’ squealed Tallulah. ‘Do I ever!’ She burst into giggles at the memory.
‘He was—!’
‘Wasn’t he!’
Dash coughed loudly. ‘I’m sorry to break up your cosy little reminiscences,’ he said, ‘but I think we should be tidying this place up before Marble and the others arrive, don’t you?’ He shot a glance at the wires, flexes and plugs, towels, bottles and pots of lotions that were strewn around the salon.
‘Oh goodness, yes,’ said Mrs Fudge. She looked flustered.
But – DRIIIINNNG!
‘Oh no, Marble’s here already!’ cried Pippa. She sped round the salon gathering up armfuls of towels and chucking them at Tallulah, who merely whirled around on the spot shouting uselessly, ‘What do I do with these?’
Dash raised his eyes to the heavens and gave a small snort (which if he had been a human, would have come out as a sort of tutting noise).
Smug cried, ‘Over here, Tally. Quick, stow them behind the counter.’
Mrs Fudge was hurriedly pushing hairdryers and straighteners into the nearest drawer, and Pippa meanwhile had grabbed a broom and was sweeping the bottles of shampoo, conditioner and hair dye into a corner.
DRIIIINNNNGG! DRIIIIIIIIINNNNNGG!
Pippa took a running leap over the two dogs and skittered out of the salon to reach Marble before she could press the bell again. She flung the door open and the grumpy old woman pushed straight past Pippa, throwing her ugly black tea-cosy hat and her lumpy sack of a coat at Tallulah, who was right behind her.
‘Hello, Marble,’ said Pippa. She stood with her hands on her hips, challenging Marble to look her in the eye and be polite.
Marble sniffed and grunted, ‘At last. What did you keep me waiting for? I hope old Semolina is ready for us. We haven’t got time to hang about.’ And with that she marched off, dragging her little Welsh terrier, Snooks, behind her.
‘Goodness me, what an exceptionally discourteous woman,’ said Tallulah. ‘Not very polite,’ she explained, when Pippa looked at her quizzically.
‘Oh. Yes. Well, that’s Marble,’ said Pippa. ‘If she had a family motto it would be “Why be polite and nice if you can be rude and horrible?”’ She pulled a face. ‘But her dog, Snooks, is totally cute,’ she added.
‘I noticed,’ said Tallulah, as she followed Marble’s big wobbly bottom down the hallway and into the salon.
‘Oh my lawks!’ cried Marble, as she stood in the doorway with an expression of terror on her face. ‘What on earth is that horrible robot doing in the middle of your salon, Mrs Fudge?’
‘You may well ask,’ said Dash. (But of course Marble could not understand him.)
Mrs Fudge gave him a stern look, then came bustling over from behind the counter, where she had been checking through her list of appointments. ‘Marble, dear! How are you today?’
‘I’m not so good, as it happens. I’ve got a chill and an ache and I can’t tell you about my legs. But I feel even so much more worse now that I’ve clapped eyes on that monster!’ she wailed.
Mrs Fudge laid a soothing hand on her customer’s arm. ‘Marble, this “monster”, as you put it, is far from horrible. This is the machine that Raphael has been telling everyone about – the one you wanted to see! And I can assure you it is the most marvellous invention. It is going to change the face of hairdressing forever.’
‘I don’t want to change my face,’ Marble whimpered.
‘Are you sure?’ muttered Tallulah, catching Pippa’s eye and setting them both off into a prolonged bout of silent laughter.
Mrs Fudge looked at them from over the top of her half-moon spectacles and said, ‘Girls, why don’t you make a fresh pot of tea while I get Marble and Snooks settled?’
‘But it doesn’t take two of us to—’ Pippa squeaked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
‘I think it might. Just this once,’ insisted Mrs Fudge.
Pippa glanced at Tallulah and shrugged helplessly and the pair did as they were told. ‘She always does this when she wants to get rid of me,’ Pippa grumbled.
When they came back in Marble was in the chair with the Foghorns’ machine in place over her head.
‘I wonder how she persuaded the old trout to try it,’ Tallulah whispered.
‘Oh, Marble doesn’t like to miss out on anything,’ Pippa told her. ‘I expect Mrs Fudge told her that everyone in Crumbly-under-Edge was desperate to have their hair done with it, and that if she did not want her appointment, there were a lot of other people who would gladly take her place.’
‘So, what are you after today, Marble?’ asked Mrs Fudge. She always rather dreaded Marble coming in, because the dumpy woman always expected Mrs Fudge to make her look like a supermodel.
‘I should like my hair to be very long, very straight, and very, very blonde,’ Marble snapped. ‘Like that terribly elegant Italian fashion-designer person,’ she added. ‘Whatshername, y’know, Donatella Panettone.’
Mrs Fudge said slowly, ‘All right.’
‘Errr-raaoow!’ commented Muffles, which was the closest she ever came to a snigger.
And snigger she might, for Marble’s hair was the very opposite of what she had asked for: extremely short, very curly and very, very black (because the last time she had come for an appointment, that is what she had asked for).
‘The thing is, Marble dear,’ Mrs Fudge began carefully, ‘I am not sure that even the machine can manage that in a half-hour appointment. It would involve putting hair extensions in. You’ll need a few hours to achieve that look.’
‘Hours?’ Marble gasped in outrage. ‘I haven’t got hours. I thought this machine was supposed to be super-speedy. And anyway, I think it’s very rude to imply that it would take hours to make me look lovely.’
‘Hmm,’ muttered Pippa. ‘More like days or weeks.’
‘Or even millennia,’ remarked Smug.
‘Certainly years,’ squeaked Pippa.
‘That’s what Smug meant,’ said Tallulah, giggling.
‘What’s that?’ snapped Marble, turning to shoot a dirty look in the girls’ direction.
‘Pippa said it would be a shame to cover your lovely ears,’ said Tallulah, choking on her laughter.
‘Marble, I did not mean to offend you,’ said Mrs Fudge in a soothing voice. ‘Let’s do a little experiment, shall we? I’ll programme the machine to see what it can do, and if the result isn’t what you wanted, I’ll book you in for a restyling tomorrow, free of charge. How does that sound?’
Now Marble was always one for a bargain. She was a meanie and could not resist anything that was free. So that did it.
‘It will do, I suppose,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Well, get a move on, can’t you? I haven’t got all day.’
So Mrs Fudge bent down and very quietly and swiftly consulted Smug. Then, coming back to the machine, she muttered to herself, ‘Red button, blue lever, green switch,’ and pressed and flicked and clicked and . . .
WHOOSH! The machine surged into life; the white-gloved hands popped out of the little doors, flexing their robotic muscles and wiggling their mechanical fingers. Then one of them whisked out a small, unnoticed drawer from the side of the machine. The drawer was full of golden blonde tresses, which the hand delved into. Both hands proceeded to go into overdrive, plaiting and tweaking and stretching and knotting and weaving. They moved so fast over Marble’s head that you could not make out what they were doing. Everyone, most of all Mrs Fudge, hoped that they were doing exactly what Marble wanted. For if Marble was not satisfied with the results, the news would be around the whole of Crumbly-under-Edge in a matter of hours, and then no one would ever come to Chop ’n’ Chat again.
Then as suddenly as they had begun, the hands stopped their frenzied attack on Marble’s head. They shot into the air as though to salute the horrible old woman’s reflection, and then quick as a flash they zoomed back into the little doors and snapped out of sight.
Mrs Fudge and Pippa could not quite see the results of the makeover as the machine was close up to the mirror and Marble was leaning forward too, making heavy breathing noises through her nose like an outsized whistling kettle.
‘Well!’ she exclaimed finally.
‘What do you – what do you think, Marble?’ Mrs Fudge ventured.
There was a long pause in which every tick of the clock and every gentle purr from the now sleeping Muffles could be heard.
Then, ‘Ahem,’ said Marble. She paused. ‘I have to say, I am . . . hmmm . . .’ she paused again. She twisted her tight little lips. (No one could tell what that facial expression meant. It could have been a frown of concentration; it could have been a grimace of disgust. Potatoey faces such as Marble’s are so difficult to read.)
She pushed back the visor and began awkwardly to extract herself from the chair. Pippa rushed to help, pulling the machine back so that Marble could hop down.
The vision that met everyone’s eyes was astounding.
Marble looked beautiful!
She had a full head of the most gleamingly blonde locks you have ever seen. They shone like spun gold, as though fairies had made it from gossamer or whatever fairies would use to make blonde hair with. But it wasn’t so much the hair that knocked the breath out of everyone. For somehow, in that instant of lifting the visor, Marble’s face had undergone a magnificent change. It was glowing rather than trout-like, and her nose was now buttony rather than potatoey. Her tiny currant-ish eyes were gleaming like bright jewels and her normally puckered mouth was wider and shinier and turned up at the corners as if she was—
‘Smiling? . . . Are you – are you really smiling, Marble?’ stammered Mrs Fudge.
‘I do believe I am!’ said Marble, in a twinkly voice.
That’s what’s so different about her, thought Pippa. It’s not the hair at all. It’s the fact that Marble Wainwright is smiling!
‘I have to say, Semolina,’ said Marble, using the name Mrs Fudge hated so much, ‘I am, for once, more than a little bit satisfied. In fact, I am the happiest I can ever remember being. It’s as if the machine has read my mind!’
‘Oh!’ said Tallulah.
‘Grr!’ said Smug.
‘What’s the matter?’ Dash asked, but Marble was talking over the top of the girl and her pug.
‘Yes! This is amazing,’ she was saying. ‘I shall be recommending this machine to everyone I know in Crumbly-under-Edge. These Foghorns are obviously geniuses. I should like to meet your grandfather, young lady,’ she said to Tallulah. ‘He clearly knows more about what a woman wants than, I’m sorry to say, Mrs Fudge does.’
Raphael had been under strict instructions not to mention Smug’s role in the invention, for the obvious reason that no one would believe a dog could have invented anything.
‘Hey!’ protested Dash. ‘You might look all lovely with your new hair and that smile on your face, but there’s no need to be—’
‘What’s the mutt yapping about now?’ said Marble, her smile fading rapidly.
Pippa scooped him up and nuzzled him against her cheek. ‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘You have to admit this machine must be marvellous if it can make Marble Wainwright happy.’
But Dash merely growled.
That does it, he thought. The next chance I get, I’m going to have a snoop around the Foghorns’ place and find out as much as I can about this family. There is something fishy going on – I just know it!