The Worst Hair Yet!

Ever been in one of those rain showers that randomly happens when it's sunny out? Caught in the shadow of some stray cloud saturated enough to start just spitting on you, completely ruining your day? No?

Lucky you.

It usually bites.

And my day at the most cursed beach in the world was no different. Except that day, it was biting even harder than normal, what with the weather perfectly reflecting my clouded, downcast state of mind.

Leave it to the most cursed beach in the world to literally rain on my already miserable parade of failure and guilt.

"Well, look on the bright side," said Fence, "at least this isn't the actual heavy rain yet." I could tell he was just trying to cheer us up, but his supposed "bright side" wasn't doing much at the moment, with stinging raindrops needling down on us in sheets.

But wait. What the heck did Fence mean this wasn't the start of the flood conditions that were supposed to happen today? If not, then what the heck was with the sudden shower? What gave? I asked Fence as much, and whether he had his head screwed on straight.

"Check your phone again, dude. The forecast says the flood-condition-inducing rain won't start for a while. This isn't it yet. And it wasn't the sand rain when the castle collapsed either, obviously. That was just a joke."

I checked my phone again. For once, Fence was completely right. The whole "heavy rains possibly resulting in flood conditions" period apparently hadn't started yet, and wouldn't for some time.

I was about to voice my concerns over the matter. Something to the effect of "man, weird, bro…"

Then I realized Fence had literally made me take out my phone (non-waterproof) in a downpour, and so I switched to: "Man, what the heck, bro—?!"

But I was cut off by a strange and sudden shout.

"AHHHH! My hair! My long, beautiful locks! They're getting all wet and tangled!"

Our faces still waterfalls, Snowball, and Fence all looked at each other, puzzled. We knew this voice. All three of us. In fact, we all heard it on just about a daily basis, and knew exactly who it belonged to. There was no misplacing that nasally, shrill whine, backed by the wet squelch of a permanent throat-lathering of phlegm.

But none of us had expected to hear it here and now of all places and times.

It belonged to Six-Eyed Samson. There he was before us in all his knee-length-haired glory. He was trying to protect his precious hair from the rain. But it was no use. His hair, like the rest of him, was already soaked.

Six-Eyed Samson went to our school, but sometimes I wished he didn't. The guy could get irritating, fast. Mostly because he flipped his luscious locks this way or that, over one shoulder or the other, once every roughly 1.5 seconds, sometimes whipping unsuspecting passersby behind him in the face.

Never stand behind Six-Eyed Samson in line at lunch. Take it from me. I learned that lesson the hard way.

The only thing more ridiculous than his ridiculously long hair was his ridiculous crush on Snowcube, Snowball's sister.

Excuse me. Did I say "crush on?" I meant "deep and unwavering devotion to and unbridled love for." He didn't like it when people called it a crush.

The lengths to which he went to prove his love were just as ridiculous as the length of his hair, and that's why the guy could be exasperating to be around.

What the heck he was doing here now of all times was anyone's guess, and my educated one was that it had something to do with the fact that Snowcube was here too. She had driven us after all. Right about now she was probably lounging around somewhere in this general area.

Just as suddenly as it started, the rain stopped.

"Damn! I dropped my remote. Where is it? Aw, crap. I lost my glasses too! Where did my glasses go?" Samson started pawing around in the sand for his lost specs. I take back what I said before. The most ridiculous thing about Six-Eyed Samson was by far his eyesight. It was so bad his glasses needed glasses. He was even worse than Snowball in that department, and that was a feat.

Speaking of feet, his were sinking into the damp sludge the sand had become, fast. "Rats! Rats!" He kept mumbling as he scooped around in the mush. "Oh, here they are."

He picked up some sort of electronic device, a science-fiction-esque box finished with a sheen of metallic chrome that glinted in the sun. Was that the remote thing he was talking about?

With a practiced hand, Samson tried to fwip what he thought was his glasses on… and smashed the remote thingy against his eyes. "OWOWOW! Sweet mother of—!"

"Here you go." I knelt down and handed him his glasses, which I had found nearby a second earlier.

"Oh. Thanks."

He put them on, clumsily since he was simultaneously stashing the weird device thing in his swim trunks. Did he have a pocket inside there or something?

Never mind. I actually didn't want to know.

"Samson, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Now that he could see again, he was repeatedly wringing his drenched hair hard, and a stupid amount of water was gushing out each time. Like, "blue whale bellyflopping into a kiddie pool" levels of displaced liquid. "I'm here for the surf competition. and when I win that, I'll finally win the love and admiration of my dark queen who rules the night."

"Wait, huh?" Fence cocked his head. "Dairy queen who rules… wait, what?"

"Dark queen who rules the night!" Samson stamped the sand in frustration, sending wads of it jumping up and slapping back down wetly.

"You mean Snowcube?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer was yes. "I dunno, man. 'Rules the night' is kinda stretching things. I mean, yeah, she sleeps through class a lot, but…"

Snowcube didn't need to pay attention at all to maintain her straight As. Lucky her. Perks of being the humanoid clone of a naturally occurring unfathomable cosmic artificial intelligence from the far reaches of space, I guess.

"Exactly!" Samson "And since she's inactive during the day, that means she rules the night, just as wholly as she rules my heart as its one and only queen."

Sure. Whatever you say, buddy. Leaps of logic didn't even begin to cover this. At this point, we were practically pole-vaulting sanity. But eh. I was used to it.

He gave his hair its hardest wringing yet and an ocean's worth of water blasted out and bled into the sea.

Rising sea levels? Ha. Move over global warming. Six-Eyed Samson was on the job.

Speaking of being on the job, it seemed like he'd come out here on his neverending quest to melt Snowcube's heart.

The funny thing about that though? He already had. I take back what I said before: that was actually the most ridiculous part of all of this. As far as I knew, Snowcube actually liked Samson back. In fact, she'd personally told me that she wanted to return his feelings, and tenfold at that, but was just too shy. At the time I was just glad that she'd gotten over her dumb crush on me — Snowball breathing down my neck all the time was bad enough — but now that I thought back, Snowcube had actually mentioned that the only thing she really disliked about Samson was his long hair.

If he cut it short, she'd told me, she'd take the leap and ask him out.

Personally, I thought it was kind of shallow of her. But maybe she had accidentally stood behind him in the lunch line one too many times too. If that was the case, I didn't hold it against her.

In any case, it was what it was.

And that was when I had an idea.

Since it was what it was, and since I knew what it was, maybe, just maybe, I could help.

And that was when I knew it was time to play matchmaker for Samson and Snowcube.

What could possibly go wrong, right?

To be continued!