Amy opened and closed the sharp scissors in her hands once or twice, and beside her Jade giggled.

"Don't laugh, Sergeant!" snapped Amy.  "What's the procedure?"

Outside it was pouring rain.  Jade was staying over at Amy's house for the weekend and they were alone in the house. Amy's dad had taken her brother to sports, and Amy's mother had gone to the hairdresser, with strict instructions for the two eleven year old girls to behave themselves and watch the TV.  This, of course, had given them ideas.  What would Amy's mother have done to her hair?  Would she go punk?  Never!  That left them in fits of laughter, and it was then they had the idea about the Barbies.

Dutifully Jade looked up the procedure in a hair magazine she'd borrowed from her older sister. It had an article on shaving heads - which had fueled the Barbie fire.

Jade read out:  "Would-be baldies need a lot of hand holding here as they look completely different when they are shaved bald and can sometimes be shocked rather than pleased at their appearance.  Good hairdressers sit down and talk the procedure and the results over carefully with their clients before they begin. First the hair is cut down with scissors to a couple of inches.  Then the hairdresser takes a pair of clippers and, with a low setting of perhaps 1, clips the hair close to the head. If the client is keen to have a completely smooth look, the hairdresser lathers the remaining stubble and shaves the client's scalp with a razor, using small strokes. Finally moisturizer is applied to the client's scalp.  It's important to keep the skin nourished as without hair to protect it....blah blah blah.  Look at these pictures, Amy!"

The girls pored over the magazine.  Stunning model Shannon was shown in a series of photos as her shoulder length hair was firstly hacked off with scissors, then, in close up photos, shorn to almost nothing with the clippers, locks falling over her cape.  A laughing Shannon wore a head of shaving cream, and finally no hair at all.

"Wow!" Amy said. "She looks good, though!"

The girls set to work on their Army of Barbies.  They'd liberated the family set of clippers from the bathroom, where Amy's brother Robert squirmed and complained every couple of months as his hair was buzzed into a crew cut by his father.

Wielding the scissors mercilessly Amy and Jade hacked off long synthetic locks.  Amy turned on the clippers.  "Damn!  They're too big for Barbie's head!"  

They ended up cropping the Barbies with nail scissors and finally borrowing Amy's dad's razor to shave as much of the hair off as they could.

"Still stubbly," said Jade glumly.  

"It's the way they're made," Amy said sadly.  Ten bald Barbie dolls sat on the floor in front of them, wearing idiotic grins.  "All dolls are like that I guess."

They surveyed their tools:  scissors, clippers and razors.

"Shame to waste them when we know how to use them," Jade said.

"I wonder how it feels to shave your head," pondered Amy.

Together they looked in the mirror.  Amy had gorgeous long, curly hair, thick and lustrous and brown.  Jade's hair was straight and blonde, and was cut in a bob.

"Do you want to?" Jade said.

"We'll get killed!"

"I'm brave if you are!"

Amy gulped.  Jade was one of the coolest kids in the class, and she was flattered that Jade was her best friend - this week, anyway!  "Promise you'll shave yours too?"

"You'll be shaving it," Jade grinned.  "I'll be shaving yours!"

One more look at the magazine convinced them.  They picked up their tools and hurried into the bathroom.  Amy grabbed a chair from the kitchen and sat down; Jade put a towel around her shoulders and spread the magazine on the bathroom cabinet.

"First you cut the hair down with scissors." Taking a deep breath Jade picked up a lock of Amy's hair on the top of her head, and, with a SNIT, lopped it off with Amy's mother's big sewing scissors.  Amy now had a short lock of hair sticking straight up and she giggled.

"This'll take forever," Jade said.  She grabbed a handful of hair in front of Amy's ear, pulled it away from her head and severed it, quite close, with the scissors, letting the beautiful curls fall on the floor. 

Amy was having second thoughts, but realized it was too late to do anything about it.  Her long hair was doomed. Even if she decided not to shave it she'd be cropped anyway.  Jade was working away busily, lifting up more hair and arduously hacking at it with the scissors.  One side of Amy's hair was now almost as short as her brother's.

Jade moved around the back and gathered Amy's hair into a ponytail, then bit her lip and crunched the scissors as hard as she could.  Amy winced as she felt hard tugging on her hair, then it was cut off close to her nape and the pain stopped.  Jade was hacking off what was left after the ponytail, confident, scissors flying as she lopped off Amy's hair.  Now she wasn't bothering to hold the hair up before cutting it, simply sliding the scissors alongside Amy's head and cutting non stop.  

"I look weird," Amy said.  The hair on the sides of her head was boy short, and the hair on top still rather long, bouncing into big bubble curls.

Jade grinned.  "Now the fun starts." She plugged in the clippers and hunted around the box for one of the smaller guards. Finding it, she switched the clippers on. 

"Right, private!" Jade yelled in what she hoped was a sergeant's voice.  "Can't have long hair in the Army you know!"  She'd seen a documentary on the military the week before, and the swift brutality of Army haircuts had both shocked and enthralled her.  She copied the actions of the Army barber, and pushed Amy's head to one side.

Without hesitation she pushed the clippers into Amy's hair, and took it off close to the scalp so only tiny bristles remained.  Amy's eyes widened as she saw the white skin of her head, then Jade had moved behind her ear and the clippers felt tingly as they hummed and crackled against her scalp.  Locks of hair fell swiftly all over the towel.

Jade pushed Amy's head so far forward her chin almost touched her chest, and then the clippers were at the nape of her neck. Amy gasped in recognition of what she'd unwittingly been fighting - she was enjoying it, had been looking forward to it from the instant she'd seen Jade's magazine and had been captivated by the pictures of Shannon getting shaved.

The clippers buzzed through Amy's short wavy hair, up and up to the crown of her head.  Her head feel cool where her hair had been clippered.

"Jade," said Amy shakily, "You've got to try this.  It feels fantastic!"

"Can't wait," Jade said softly.  She'd been fascinated by haircutting since she was a toddler and had a feeling Amy was the same. Jade was at Amy's nape again, running the clippers against the other girl's skin softly and slowly, nuzzling at the hairline, then she pushed them up against Amy's taut skin, clipping happily, with Amy almost shuddering in pleasure as her hair was cut off.  In no time she'd done the back and the sides, and there were just the bubbly curls on top of Amy's head to crop.  Jade ran her fingers into them and Amy giggled. Tantalizingly Jade brought the clippers ever so slowly to Amy's forehead, then she was buzzing them against Amy's head, right down the middle of the top, shaving a clean path through Amy's hair.  After a pass either side, the last of Amy's brown locks had been shorn off and lay on the floor or the towel.

Disbelievingly, Amy looked at her reflection.  She rubbed her hands over her stubbly head.  "Wow! I look like Shannon."

"Not quite!"  Jade picked up the can of Rapid Shave and squirted foam all over Amy's head.  They both rubbed it around Amy's scalp, giggling.  Then, after studying the magazine some more, Jade began to shave Amy's head with short strokes, starting at Amy's forehead and working back along the top of her head.  Amy watched as the shaving cream was removed, with every vestige of hair going with it.  Carefully Jade shaved around her ears, then bent her head forward and began to shave the back of Amy's head.  In a few short minutes her best friend was shaved smooth.

Amy looked at the hair on the floor and then at her dazzling reflection.  "Brilliant!" She rubbed moisturizer into her head until her scalp shone.  Meanwhile Jade had sat herself down on the chair and draped the towel around her shoulders.

"My hair's shorter," Jade suggested, "so why don't you go straight for the clippers?"

Amy, her scalp tight and tingling, needed no prompting.  She switched them on and decided to clip the top of Jade's head first, pushing the clippers into Jade's part line and turning it into a wide runway. Jade's smooth blonde hair slithered over the back of her head and onto the floor. Jade closed her eyes in enjoyment.

Amy drew the clippers through Jade's hair again.  They were fairly wide and three strokes had rendered the top of Jade's head bald.

"I look like a clown," Jade giggled, tossing her head so the bob at her sides stuck out.

"Not for long," said Amy, and, as Jade had done with her, swiftly pushed her friend's head to one side and brought the clippers up Jade's cheek, in front of her ears and up to the top of her head.

"More slowly," begged Jade, so Amy began to clip in teasing short bursts, a couple of inches at a time, up behind Jade's ear. They watched each lock fall, grinning at each other's reflection in the mirror.

Automatically Jade bent her head forward, ready for the clippers against her sensitive neck. She gasped as she felt the vibrating and buzzing on her nape and then up the back of her head.  Amy's hand on top of her head was warm and steadying, holding Jade's head into position. 

Amy clipped up the back of Jade's head twice, because she knew how good it felt and how much she'd enjoyed it herself.  Then she was on the final leg, the last side, carefully clipping away behind Jade's ear and then in front of it.  They both sighed as the last lock of Jade's hair, at her temple, fell onto the towel.

Jade rubbed her head delightedly.  "Now can you shave me as smooth as you?"

The can of Rapid Shave was running low but Amy had enough to lather Jade's scalp.  Hesitantly she held the razor, and hoped she didn't cut her friend's skin as her hand was shaking.  She needn't have worried.  It was easier than she thought, gliding the razor along Jade's skin.  Like Jade had done with her, she started at the front and felt the razor rasp through the stubble the clippers had left.  Rinsing it again and again, she was finally around to the back and shaved down, removing the last tiny bits of hair at Jade's nape.  She used a hot face washer to rinse off Jade's head, and expertly applied moisturizer.

"We look like sisters!" said Jade, delighted, stroking her newly shaved scalp.  

They rubbed each other's head, giggling, shuffling through the mounds of hair which lay uselessly on the bathroom floor.

"We had a LOT of hair between us," Amy commented.  

"Mmm.  But doesn't it feel better without it?"

"Absolutely." Amy gathered up the hair and decided to throw it in the garbage outside.

It was still raining outside and Amy couldn't resist standing in it to feel the incredible sensation of cold rain on her bald scalp.  She gasped in delight and Jade shrieked as the bitter rain pounded on her shaved head.

Gasping, they ran inside.

"Guess we'd better put hats on before my mother gets home," Amy said.  "We'll break this to her gently."

"Good idea."

They rummaged around Amy's closet and found scarves which they wrapped around their heads.

"Just in time," said Amy, as she heard a car pull into the garage.

Her mother opened the door into the house, sniffling.

"Mother?" Amy called. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, girls!"  Amy's mother wailed.  "You wouldn't believe what happened at the hairdresser's!  My perm went wrong!  My hair went so frizzy....Amy, don't be shocked, now."

Slowly Amy's mother walked into Amy's bedroom.  She was shaved as bald as her daughter.  "They had to shave my hair off, it was damaged all the way to the scalp. Your father's going to kill me, but I must confess I'm getting used to it."  She touched her head self-consciously, stroking the smooth skin.  "I hear it's all the rage in Europe."  She smiled, a secret smile that Amy instantly identified with.

Amy and Jade grinned at each other. It was going to be okay.  As one, they ripped the scarves from their heads.