Blue. She'd loved the color since she was little, even wished every now and then that she was born a boy so that the blanket that had been given to her as a child was blue instead of grossqusting pink. Who likes pink anyway? It was sexist to say every girl did and last time she checked, she was a girl. She even had proof. [AN: That was kind of an inside joke. :3]

It was when she was nine that she started to notice and got the idea.

People had wacked-out colored hair!

Of course, everyone in Pontiac had boring blond or brown hair. Every now and then, a platinum blond would show up which was a nice change for the boring place. Through out all of the TV shows, commercials, games and movies she'd seen everything from green to silver hair. It was a commercial for the Simpsons that first gave her the idea. From that day forward, Marge Simpson was her hero.

Coraline Jones walked into her parents bedroom, it being lightly lit from the computer and silent but the buzz of the poor piece of machinery and the tap of a keyboard. They didn't have enough money to buy a laptop right yet, but that was first on their list of things to buy. Since it was around dinner time, Charlie Jones had taken over the kitchen and Mel had her turn on the computer where she was working at her brand new job of writing about plants.

Coraline twisted a lock of brown hair into her small finger that had chipping blue paint over the top. The sound of a excited nine year old's voice filled the room. "Moooooom?" Mrs. Jones looked stopped typing for a second and then started again. "What is it, Coraline?" Coraline smiled. "I wanna ask you a question."

Mel spun around in her black computer chair and looked at her daughter. "Can you make it quick?"

She nodded. "What do you think about colored hair?"

"What do you mean?" Mel started to rub her head from the headache she was getting of not staring at a computer screen.

"Y'know. Like, red hair or green hair..."

"I don't know. Why?"

"I was thinking ab-"

"You are not dying your hair and that's that."

"But!"

"Final answer."

"PLEASE." Coraline got on her knees in front of her mom and put her hands together, doing the puppy dog face.

"No!" She looked the other way, trying to not give in. "Now, go on. Let me work." Mel swiveled her chair once more and faced the computer screen.

Coraline got up and walked out of the room, pretending to look mad at her mom. Then smiled as another idea popped into her head while she walked out of the room.

Dad!

She rushed to the kitchen and found her dad with oven mitts on and pulling something out of the large, white oven.

"Hey there, pumpkin!" Coraline sat at the small, round table.

"Dad. I have a veeeeeeery important question to ask you." She looked at whatever he was making. It was in a flat white bowl, with a fogged up glass on top of it. It didn't look much good at all with what she saw. McDonald's or Burger King would've been fine... He sat whatever the food was down on the counter and took a seat by her.

"Well, go ahead. Shoot this veeeery important question."

"What do you think about different hair colors?" She looked into his tired eyes.

He tapped his chin. "They're different. Odd. What else is there to it?"

"Well, I was just thinking about dy-"

"Dying your hair blue?" He knew her so well.

"Kind of."

"Should I even ask what the boss said?"

Coraline shook her head, and put two fingers behind her head to make it look like she had horns.

Her dad laughed and looked at her. "You really shouldn't think of her like that, you know. I think you should go for it. But she's not going to be hap-"

"THANK YOU!" Coraline hugged her dad tight. Man, did she love him.

Coraline hadn't told anyone her plan yet. Not even her friends at school. She was going to let it be a surprise, that included a surprise to her mom who had to be at her school for some conference. So, the preteen and her dad went to Wal-Mart instead, where they made a mysterious stop at an aisle with little white boxes of women with hair that somehow was in the air, like they were spinning or women with their backs turned towards the box. The excited girl smiled, thanked her dad and ran down the aisle like a kid in a candy store. Which was just down a couple of aisles, but she wasn't going to push her luck.

After much searching, she found a blue that she fell in love with. A dark blue that looked lighter than night, but darker than day. It was perfect. She threw it into the buggy with the squeak of over-used metal following. "This one!"

Her dad picked it up and studied the box. "Okay, if this is the one you like. Are you sure that you want to do this?"

She nodded fastly and walked down the aisle, towards the doors of the large store. "How about some McDonalds for tonight instead?" He nodded his head towards the McDonalds that sat near the entrance of the store. "I don't feel much like cooking." This is going to be one great day.

After rereading the reread instructions, Coraline got to work with the short bob that vacated the top of her head. All of the needed ingredients were sat out in front of her in her room. She had a gameboy sat out even for the times that she had to wait, deciding to play whatever was in it. Which turned out to be a very old Hamtaro game. That was one cute hamster. After forty-five minutes of waiting and making a orange and white hamster do many-a things, the timer she had sat with everything else went off. The box said to get in the shower afterwards. After stripping down, she shampooed her hair until the water ran clear. Once it FINALLY did, she jumped out and wrapped a white towel under her armpits, she started up the hairdryer. Instead of the usual brown that flew everywhere like brown yarn, it was now blue threads. Bright blue to be exact. She laughed the whole time it flew above or beside her until it was dry, then combed through it and exchanged her towel for some normal clothes.

Now it was time to face her death.

She jumped up the stairs, loving being able to see the blue out of the corner of her eye, to her parents lit room and opened the door slowly.

"Well, mom, whaddya think?" She ran up to her mom who didn't look when hearing her enter the room.

"Think of wh-" her mother turned the chair around and looked at her blue-haired daughter. "CORALINE JONES! What d.. Where did... How di... CHARLIE."

Her mother gapped at her while Coraline's dad ran up the steps. After the sound of running up the steps, he stepped up behind her.

"Nice hair!" He smiled.

"Thank you." Coraline smiled back at the very much taller adult.

"You.. You like this?" Mel stared in horror.

"I think it makes her stick out of the crowd, a sore thumb from the rest of us, one that's not like the other, un-"

"Okay. I get it. But..."

"Honey, I need you to calm down. Take deep breathes. I said she could, so she's not technically disobeying you."

"You told her she could? Why?"

"Why not? You're only a kid once! Do something crazy!"

"Fine. Whatever. I think it's very nice." Mel said and then started her work on the computer again. Plants can really suck at times.

Coraline Jones smiled in victory and skipped out of the room, hair shining when hitting the light.