It’s almost spring, and my hair is suffering.

          Instead of typing up a history essay, which is what I should be doing, I’m staring at the rough ends of my dark hair. My last haircut was in August, right before school started. It’s high time for a trim.

          Without thinking, my hand goes straight to my pencil pouch, and I pull out a rusty pair of safety scissors. My fingers locate a strand of hair with a particularly menacing split-end. Snip, goes the safety scissors. I find another divided end of hair that seems to glint evilly up at me. Snip, goes the safety scissors. I examine my each of my browning ends, vanquishing the dry little monsters with my honorable blades of steel. Snip, snip, snip! The unhealthy ends slide right off their strands, wailing in pain, but my weapon of power will not stop. This is a war against my shriveled ends and I am determined to be the victor. The snipping shall continue!

          My mother suddenly swoops in, holding a bowl teeming with strawberries. When she sees me with metallic blades entangled within my yards of black knots and divided ends, she gasps.

          “Ai-ya! What are you doing?!” she shrieks in rapid Chinese.

          “I’m…cutting my split ends,” I say, confused by her reaction.

          “No, no, no, no, no, stop!” My mother frantically sets the strawberries down on the edge of my desk with a clash. She pulls my weapon out of my fingers, and the war comes to an abrupt halt. My remaining split-ends smirk evilly up at me.

          “What’s wrong?” I ask my mother, annoyed.

          “You cannot cut your hair until next week!” she explains in Chinese.

          “Why?” I stick my neck out towards my mother and put my hands palm up in the most irritating way possible.

          “It is unlucky! You must wait until next week, when haircuts are lucky!”

          “Why? What’s so special about next week?”

          My mother replies with her usual mumbo-jumbo about the lunar calendar, the importance of the days after the spring festival, the placement and phase of the moon in the sky…blah, blah, blah.

          “What?” I ask in the quick way that shows my exasperation. In my opinion, she hasn’t really given me a straight answer. “I don’t understand!”

          “Lu-cy, it doesn’t matter whether you understand or not, okay? Eat your fruit. And for goodness sake, stop cutting your hair! I’ll give you a haircut next week.” My mother pushes the bowl of glinting red strawberries towards me, and begins walking out. I stare down at my shriveled strands. They smile smugly up at me, as if mocking me. Yeah, you dumb teenager. Eat your strawberries, ‘cause you’re gonna have to wait a week!

          “I have Chinese friends at school who have already gotten haircuts,” I fling at my mother as she walks out.

          My mother sticks her head through the doorway. Her curly hair catches the afternoon light, and it appears almost brown. Her eyes glint in…anger? Annoyance? I can’t tell. Like a hawk, she stares at me, and opens her beak to silence her prey.
“Then they mother’s don’t understand they tra-di-tion!” she flings at me, this time in broken English. My mother the hawk disappears with a huff.

          I stare at the strawberries, glowing crimson in the white porcelain bowl. Then my eyes wander downwards and fixate on the multitude of enemy strands that haven’t been vanquished. They’re still mocking me with malevolent smiles, the dry monsters. They think they’ve won the battle. I swerve my head around, checking to make sure my mother is not lingering near my doorframe.

          Mother Hawk is not in sight.

          “To hell with tradition,” I mumble under my breath. I grab my worthy weapon and chop off every last one of my shriveled ends. The battle is won.