Free Catching Tatum by Lucy H. Delaney Page B

you now ... it's an emergency!”
    “There are pads under the sink.”
    “Oh, my gosh! It's not that! Come here NOW!!!”
    “Tatum Rose, I swear if this is a joke you're going be on solo dishes duty for the week.”
    “It's not a joke. Come here!”
    Usually the boys would have been all over a crisis like that but since mom mentioned the pads they stayed far, far away.
    She opened the door, and stared, then finally asked what I had done to myself.
    I thought I was in trouble. I couldn't read her face. Usually she was easy to read; her face betrayed all of her emotions but I couldn't tell until she started laughing. Then I was mad.
    “Mom! It's not funny. Help me!”
    “What were you thinking?” she asked through her chuckles.
    “The stupid brush got stuck! I hate my hair!”
    “So you cut it?”
    “I thought it would be better shorter. Can you fix it?” I started to cry.
    “Oh, sweetie, I can't fix this!” She could stitch up my face without batting an eye but she couldn't fix my hair? Maybe her saved memories taught her some jobs called for outside help. By then she was laughing hysterically. She had more tears than me. That's when the boys clued in that it was OK to come look. Trav was first.
    “Whoa! Tatum, you look like Theo on that side.”
    “Shut up! Jerk!” I said, throwing the brush straight for his face.
    “Knock it off,” Mom said. “Trav, go find a hat for your sister.” She laughed some more.
    “I'm not going to school like this! You can't make me!”
    “No, but I can't fix it either. You're going to put it in a hat and we'll go get it fixed. I’ve got to get a picture for Daddy first. He's going to die!”
    “Mom! No!”
    “These are the moments parents live for! Yes!”
    “No! You can't show that to anyone, ever!”
    “Just Daddy ...”
    “NO!” I kept blocking the camera shot with my hands.
    “Tatum, knock it off. Let me get a picture. Trust me, you'll laugh about this later.”
    “No, I won't. Don't take a picture!”
    Eventually she got one, but I deleted it from the camera when she wasn't looking. I kind of wish I hadn't now ... it's a moment of time lost forever, even though it's seared into one of those top-shelf bottles in my memory cave. It probably was hilarious but at the time it was pure tragedy. I wore the hat all morning and the boys laughed at me until they left for school. We had to wait until noon to finally get in to the Do or Dye Salon. The lady did her best but there was one chunk I cut so short the best she could do was a bob that started level with my scar. My scar screamed at me when she turned me around to look in the mirror. It had never looked so big or ugly in my life. I was Scar Face again.
    “It's not that bad, Tate … you think it looks way worse than it does,” Mom said to me on the way home. I kept flipping the visor down to try to find a way to pull my hair over enough to cover it up.
    “But they'll call me Scar Face!”
    “You're in high school now. It's not going to happen like that. Those were mean little girls.”
    “High school girls are mean big girls.”
    I swore I would never cut it again. The problem was I hated my hair! It pissed me off, got tangled and greasy and ratty, and I had to take care of it, and get the stupid brush through it. I couldn't do it for the rest of my life … but boys liked long hair and despite my broken heart and appreciation for a beautiful feminine form, I definitely liked boys more, so I compromised ... I grew dreads!
    When I told my mom she was excited. She had a friend with dreads once and she helped to roll them. I didn't know what that meant at the time. She said when I picked the style I wanted she would help me get them started. It wouldn't be a fast process; my hair grew fast but it was still more than a year before they were shoulder length and something I was proud of, and the maintenance was cake compared to having to get a brush through the tangles. I picked a medium thick style and kept them with