MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

 Fostering is a road paved with little dramas.

I remember learning in school of a UK Prime Minister who was asked what's the hardest thing to deal with. The expected answer was "the economy" or "foreign affairs". No. He replied "Events dear boy, events".

In other words the things that happen that weren't planned. Then suddenly there they are in your lap and you have to make up your own solutions.

This happened;

Late one Friday night we heard a plaintive moan coming from the kitchen downstairs.

There it was again, this time lower in tone. Then it came again, this time on its way to being a sob.

Steeling myself I put on my dressing gown and walked slowly down the stairs. I walked slowly so as not to exacerbate any emotion or crisis.

She was standing by the kitchen table holding the vanity mirror from her room. Laid out on the table was the zip-up case for our electric hair clippers, which I keep in a kitchen drawer. In a small pile next to it was all the different heads. The shorter each head's comb length, the closer the cut. The clippers were in her other hand. She was trying to see the back of her head with the mirror.

"No!" she said "Don't come any closer!"

"Everything alright?" I asked, as neutrally as I could manage. Inside I was fully charged, but I couldn't see any blood (always a good thing…). Nor did it look as though she'd had an electric shock. I know it's daft, but all these things go through your head don't they?

"No! Everything's NOT alright."

"What is it?"

"I wanted to take a bit off my hair at the back…"

"Oh"

"Only I put on the wrong head…"

"Ah"

"Let me see."

"No! Stay back! I don't want anyone to see me like this!"

It seems she'd run an avenue from the nape of her neck almost to the crown. Right down to the scalp.

Ike.

OK it wasn't life threatening, but to a self-conscious young teenager it was worse than a disaster.

We rallied round. First job was to calm her down. We had the remainder of Friday evening and two working days to decide what to do before school. The options came think and fast, as did the rejections of the options.

Could she get dispensation to wear a beanie hat? No, she'd be a laughing stock.

Could we buy a piece or get extensions? No, not in time, and anyway they'd not match.

Could she be excused school until the new hair camouflaged the skinhead bit? No, that would take at least three or four weeks.

Could she shape the rest of her hair to make the bare bit look part of a brave design. No, not without looking like Britney Spears, which apparently no-one wants nowadays.

Then we started to get somewhere; I'd heard about two products on sale mainly for men, one that shades the skin to look like it's got hair.  Another that comes in a spray can that amounts to artificial hair.

I'm not a huge fan of Amazon, but sometimes it's brilliant.  The stuff was with us in time to spend Sunday afternoon experimenting. The two of us got stuck into the make-over to the point where she felt it worked.

And so it did. On Monday she confided in her best friend who was therefore in on the disaster. The best friend said she couldn't tell the difference; "Your mum's a genius."

Emboldened she let her peer group in on her secret. Word somehow got out, and blow me down she became the school's star turn for a week. Even teachers asked if they could have an admiring look at it. She ended up enjoying playing the "I can be stupid too" card, that can be a credential among peers. She is far from stupid, but getting good exam grades is less of a credential in the playground than having a doofus moment, and being able to laugh at yourself.

In the end it turned out to be a great event in both our lives, brought us closer.

Events don't always work out in fostering, goodness knows. But when they do it doesn't half put a spring in one's step.