23. Discovering a whatsit

Again it was morning. A lonely morning. The kind of morning in which one wonders what will happen next.

Little Hairy-Harry  took out his little pocket mirror and examined his reflection.

‘Aaaaarrg!’

A hair. A teeny-tiny, wispy, puny hair had sprouted on his chin. Impossible! I can’t grow hairs. I am a hair!

His skin was also covered with little black thingies. His complexion, formerly so perfect, so smooth, was now lacking in sheen, utterly void of radiance.

He looked dull, drab and messy.

Little Hairy-Harry took things into hand and after a good, sound purifying scrub, his number one clay masque and a new hydrating masque with oxygen-rich active liposomes, he felt a heck of a lot better. Clean, as it were.

He retrieved his little mirror and examined his tiny hair. Well, now, what to do... epilation? Tweezers? The razor? The laser? A multitude of solutions came to him, but as Top Secret Agent, he would need to select the most avant-garde.

Little Hairy-Harry fell asleep, dreaming about the future of his chin hair.

22. Brimming with emotion

Three days. It was three whole days since Yaya had disappeared. Not a message, not a phone call, nothing. The wasteland. The loneliness of it. Oh, Little Hairy-Harry was desperate, miserable, deep down in the dumps. Despite a pressing need to talk it all through with his shrink, he was keeping his chin up. Tests, the likes of these, he knew were sent to try his resistance. But hell’s teeth, the going was tough!

Furthermore, he had some questions for Yaya. Questions of a personal nature that were no business of anybody else. Of matters that were troublesome, of an... intimate nature.

Well, frankly, to tell the truth, he was having unusual dreams. That was it. And was waking up with a huge idiotic grin on his face, while strictly speaking, he ought to be feeling blue. Little Hairy-Hairy was quite lost. And it is at times like this that one most needs a friend...

‘Yayaaaaa! Where have you gone?!’

Nothing. No response.

A teeny-tiny tear trickled all the way down his little cheek and fell, ker-splat, onto the ground. Followed by another, and then another.

This gave LHH the chance to tidy a bit around his hidey-hole... Is that what tears are good for? Housework? He was not amused. Little Hairy-Harry  vowed solemnly, for the remainder of his days, to turn his back on housework.

He, a refined little bum hair, renounced the military rigour he’d been imposing for weeks prior. After all, looking around, it was evident that he was the one and only making the effort. So there! Harumph.

21. Getting scratched. Again.

Little Hairy-Harry could scarcely believe what was happening to him. What luck! He had a really pleasant, friend, with every hair on his head impeccably conditioned, coiffed, and shiny, who was teaching him heaps of things, who told stories that were passionate, mysterious, and enigmatic. And highly obscure too.

One detail bothered him, nonetheless. The pressure inside him was building up and up and up, to at least as much as... oof! The previous time, it had all been much too much. Just too much for the likes of a little bum hair like him. 

Little Hairy-Harry was concerned about Yaya’s dietary habits. Not that he disapproved of the choice of tomato juice, but the consequences of it put his poor nerves to great test.

‘I’m going to need to treat myself to a spa getaway one of these days. I simply can’t take it any longer,’ he thought.

‘Enough already with this blasted thingumy-whatsit! Heeelp!’

The huge, bizarre thingumy-whatsit dove down towards his hide-out, and scratched and scratched.

The ground was becoming all red and bumpy and Yaya had vanished.

‘Oh, Yaya!’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m here behind you, you silly nitwit. I think I’m gonna chow further off, thataway. Cause it looks like you’re too hyper-bloody-sensitive for a hair follicle.’

Little Hairy-Harry, fretful, but unable to turn around, simply had to trust Yaya. It was at that exact moment that a missile was fired from the launch pad in the direction of an exquisite, ultramarine blue sky. And a soft, pleasant drizzle cooled the air. 

It dawned on Little Hairy-Harry that he was beginning to tire of Yaya.

20. Seeing things

As usual, by the time Yaya came to the end of his story, he was feeling a little peckish. He had his own, idiosyncratic manner of eating: he stood firmly on the ground while drinking something that looked like tomato juice. Of that, Little Hairy-Harry was convinced, because after each meal Yaya had such a healthy glow. It had to be more than just beta carotene!

At that moment, Little Hairy-Harry was struck by a particular detail. Everywhere that Yaya drank, he left behind a rosy spot which puffed up shortly thereafter and seemed to attract that enormous, bizarre object that had nearly given him a heart attack the other day.

‘Mayday! Mayday! The big thingumy-whatsit is back!’

Little Hairy-Harry bellowed into his little walkie-talkie to alert one of his superiors to the danger. Despite this, time after time, the big thingumy-whatsit disappeared and nobody came to his rescue.

Yaya watched him, taken aback. He wondered if it wasn’t time to hit the road.

‘Hey, who ya talking to, nitwit?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t disclose that, Yaya. It’s top secret and highly confidential.’

19. Getting told stories

Little Hairy-Harry spent hours and hours listening to his friend. He even managed to calm down on the talking front, preferring to listen to Yaya’s accounts of crazy adventures abroad. They were was colourful, amusing and mysterious. He couldn’t catch all the subtleties, but promised himself that he’d look them up anon in his little pocket dictionary (evidently, his little hide-out didn’t accommodate the larger edition).

‘Oh, what does “orgy” mean?’

Yaya raised an eyebrow, stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and a tremor shot through the entire landscape.

‘Well, nothing really, it’s a sorta scrum, kinda like you get in rugby.’

This answer took Little Hairy-Harry no further in his query. He had no idea what rugby was, but he had had the opportunity to taste the salad that went by the same name. 

18. Having a friend

Little Hairy-Harry, living life to the mostest, was playing ‘Stare Me Down’ with his mate and for each round that he lost, got a slap for being the first to blink or laugh. Oh, life was sweet! A brand new world had opened up to him, a world of soft and rough, dry and moist, sticky and… not very fragrant. Never mind. He was touching everything he could lay his hands on, with greater or lesser tactile fortune. But the essence of it all was... discovering things.

‘Say, what’s your name?’

‘My name is Phtirius, but nobody can say it, so my mates call me Yaya. Like, it’s nicer. How about you?’

‘My name is Little Hairy-Harry.’

‘Arrggg, poor you, matey. More and more parents who spend too much time in from of the telly.’

‘What’s the telly?’

‘A big moving image that says stuff which isn’t worth much these days. Apart from some of the American series. Hey, wanna play Jump-Jump?’

Little Hairy-Harry started copying his mate. Except it was no mean feat, given that he was a tad stuck in his hide-out. But his heart was in it, and that was the main thing. 

17. Patting and petting

Little Hairy-Harry didn’t dare meet the gaze of his new mate. He had one wish and one wish only: to disappear, vanish in his hidey-hole and be forgotten about. To add insult to injury, what with all the pressure, his pimple had burst. He felt disfigured and ashamed of the ugly, red thing in the middle of his face. Really, this wasn’t his day.

‘Take it easy, matey. It’s no big deal. Do you want me to let one rip too, to make you feel better?’

‘Woaahhhh!’ The smell made him dizzy.

‘Look, it happens to everybody. It’s actually pretty fun. We could even do a competition. Have you got a ciggie lighter? I wanna show you something really cool.’

Little Hairy-Harry was smiling again, despite himself. This mate of his, he thought, was really rather pleasant. The most wonderful surprise of all, however, was that he found himself now at ground level, his arms free!

Very courteously, he asked if he could pat the marvellous fur coat. And oh, it was soft! What a glorious sensation! Little Hairy-Harry was simply thrilled. Thrilled. 

16. A little chit, a little chat

Little Hairy-Harry was in seventh heaven! At last, he had the opportunity to practise that which was known as ‘The Art of Conversation’. Having found a friend, he certainly planned to make the most of him.

‘Blimey, but for such a little hair, you can talk the hind leg off a donkey!’

Taking that for a compliment, Little Hairy-Harry continued unthwarted.

‘But where do you herald from? Oh, what a marvellous surprise this is. And are you a foreigner, perchance? Who styles your hair for you? Might I pet it, just a little?’

At that, he was reminded again of his frightful situation. His little hands. Still wedged in his hide-out. Little Hairy-Harry decided it was time to flail against the elements of nature, once more. He squeezed his little fists, clenched his little teeth, concentrated like blazes, pushed with all his might and... pooot!

‘Cor blimey! Now I get why it’s so whiffy around here. What the bloody hell do they give you to eat?’

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15. Discovering a friend

‘Hey, whatcha got on your shnozz?’ A voice startled Little Hairy-Harry. This voice was rather different from the others he had heard previously. It was a little nasal and high-pitched, but not in the slightest bit nasty. Extraordinary.

‘Who, if I may ask, are you?’ enquired Little Hairy-Harry, politely. ‘I have not yet had the pleasure of encountering you in the neighbourhood…’

‘Yeah, whatever. I was just swinging by. Is there a decent spot around here to catch a bite at?’

Little Hairy-Harry was absolutely staggered. Never before had he met a hair of this ilk. Instead of being long and narrow, he was short and portly and moved about on six legs, sporting a genuine coat of lustrous fur.

Hairs growing on a hair?

‘This object in front of me,’ thought Little Hairy-Harry, ‘must surely that which is commonly referred to as “a tourist”.’

‘I am deeply sorry that I cannot shake your hand. However, as you may have noticed, I am a little on the petite side and somewhat stuck here in my hide-out. Nonetheless, allow me to wish you a warm  welcome to this admirable region of our country. What kind of conditioner, if I may ask, do you apply to your hair?’

14. Getting scratched

A few days later, Little Hairy-Harry suffered a near heart attack. An enormous and strange object flung itself upon him, out of the blue, à propos of nothing, and scratched him. Scratched him really hard. His little heart nearly burst, his head spun and his nose positively throbbed with the blasted pimple that was growing larger and larger by the day. This assault too was surely a new trial as part of his personal training. 

He resorted to the most drastic of measures, drawing from amongst his drawer of personal possessions a clay face masque.