“Mira!” she says. “What happened to your beautiful hair?!” She puts her hands on her hips and looks just like Alyssa when she’s mad. Mira must be more like Mr. Goldstein.

“It’s still beautiful,” I say, trying to help. “There’s just less of it.”

Ben explains what happened and says he’s super sorry. Mom apologizes, too, and offers to take Mira to the hairdresser, but Mrs. Goldstein says, “No, thank you. It’s time to go, Mira.”

“But I want to stay,” says Mira.

“You can come back again soon,” says Mom, smiling at Mira.

“We’ll see,” says Mrs. Goldstein, and she and Mira are out the door.

“What is it with you two and scissors?” Mom asks with a sigh.

Ben is upset for the rest of the weekend. I know this because Sunday is sunny and nice, and Ben is sitting inside on the couch wearing his paint goggles and his soccer mouth guard. I decide to cheer him up with a cat joke.

“Ben, why was the kitty so grumpy?” I ask.

Ben shrugs.

“Because he was in a bad mewd,” I say, trying to get Ben to laugh.

He just takes out his mouth guard and says, “I’m in a bad mewd, too.”

On Monday morning, Ben and I run into Alyssa and Mira on the way into school. Mira’s hair is pretty much gone. She has a super-short cut, but at least now everything is the same length as the part Ben cut off.

“Mira!” Ben says. “You look cool!” Then he asks, “Can I touch your head?”

“Sure,” Mira says, but Alyssa grabs her sister’s hand and pulls.

“Come on, Mira, we’re leaving.”

“It was an accident!” I yell to Alyssa, just in time for Principal Blot to hear me as she walks out of her office.

“Lola,” she says, “must you always be so loud?” That’s me, I think, Lola the Loud.