The boy’s mother has given up use of the comb altogether and is pressing his hair against his skull with the flat of her palm. Wet as it is, little black spikes continue to explode from his crown, making their presence known at chaotic angles from the rest of the angular slick 

“Stubborn,” she murmurs. The guests are arriving soon. In her mind flicker nightmarish images of what is surely happening in the kitchen at this moment: the cake is caving, the soup is scalding, the cat is rinsing its paws in the pudding. And here she is, unable to manage a few obscene tufts.  (more…)