A/N – A fun little idea I've had kicking around for a while.

To Dye For

Vanessa Fletcher glanced over her shoulder when she heard the footsteps come into her kitchen. Her immediate, instinctive reaction to the sight that met her eyes was, Who is this teenage girl I've never seen before and what is she doing in my house? In a flash, she realized exactly who it was, and her eyes went round with shock, just an instant before the Strange Teenage Girl said, "Hi, Mum."

"Felicia Winifred Fletcher, what on earth have you done to yourself!"

Vanessa's brow narrowed and her jaw clenched as her not-quite-fifteen year old daughter smiled blithely and said, "Do you like it?"

"No, I don't like it!" Tossing the dish towel in the sink, she advanced on the girl. Reaching out to take a lock of Felicia's long hair in her fingertips, Vanessa stared at it, aghast, and demanded, "What were you thinking?"

"I know it's different," Felicia was irksomely unfazed by her mother's ranting, "but I think it turned out all right. I did it myself," she added proudly. "I went to the Beauty Supply store to get the good stuff; took me forever to decide on a color."

Vanessa shook her head in a daze. Did her child not comprehend the enormity of this? "You dyed your hair!"

Felicia's expression clearly said, Duhhh, but at least she had sense enough not to utter the word.

"Your beautiful green hair!" Vanessa suddenly felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye as she murmured, "How could you?"

The girl took a step back and puffed out an annoyed little breath. "Why are you freaking out about it? It matches yours."

"It's not supposed to match mine! It's supposed to match your father's! What is your father going to say when he sees this?" she scolded. That was what hurt; Vanessa had always been so happy that their daughter had inherited Ferb's unique hair color. Seeing her willfully abandon it felt like a slap in the face.

"He won't mind," Felicia argued. "He'll be glad I'm expressing my individuality."

"Dyeing your hair brown is not expressing your individuality," Vanessa retorted. "You look just like everyone else."

"That's the idea!" Felicia snapped, fists clenched at her sides in frustration. "I'm tired of all the comments about my hair. How often do I mow it? Do I use weed killer for my dandruff? Which I do not have, thank you very much."

This confession softened her mother's heart, and Vanessa stroked a tender hand over her little girl's shoulder. "Oh, sweetie…" Turning, she drew a chair out from the kitchen table for Felicia, and took a seat, herself. When they were both settled, she explained, as gently as she could. "Baby, there are always going to be mean people who say things that hurt. If it's not about your hair, it's about your clothes, or the books you read, or the scooter your dad drives," she half-grinned, half-winced at this last example. "You can't let them control your life. Felicia, you are beautiful and special and you should be proud of who you are…"

"Mu-um," the girl groaned, "I don't need some sappy feel-good lecture."

"You're right," Vanessa conceded, with a disgusted half-smile. "That was pretty sappy. But I hate to see you give up your green hair."

"Jeana Carter says it's abnormal."

"I thought you stopped caring what Jeana Carter thought in fifth grade," Vanessa reminded her.

"Ms. Davis in Math says it's attention-seeking and I'm Oppositional-Defiant or something," Felicia glowered, rolling her eyes.

"I'll write Ms. Davis a note," Vanessa promised. "She probably just doesn't believe it's natural."

Felicia let out a plaintive sigh and put her chin in her hand. "Philip Milligan said green hair was kookalaka."

"What does that even mean?" Vanessa wondered, brow furrowed in baffled amusement.

"I don't know," her daughter groaned. "Some of the older kids have started making up these crazy words."

"Well, if you don't know what it means, how do you know it's not a good thing?" said the Voice of Motherly Wisdom. "And who is Philip Milligan?"

"He's this boy."

Vanessa smiled. She had no trouble at all translating those words. And she strongly suspected that Philip Milligan's opinion was the only one that really mattered. "Well," she conceded, "what's done is done. If you think having brown hair will make things better, you'd might as well give it a try. I suppose it never did me any harm," she smiled.

llllllllllllll

Two days later, Vanessa came home from work to find her brunette daughter in a full-blown frenzy.

"Mum! You have to help me fix my hair! I have to get the dye out!"

"What brought this on?" she questioned, bowled over by Felicia's agitation.

"I found out what kookalaka means, and you were right," Felicia groaned. "He liked it!"

THE END

A/N – In the "Tri-Stone Area" episode, "Cantok" makes "Fumfa" (fire), and "Jerebunk" tells her "Fumfa kookalaka," obviously impressed with her. I love that episode so much (and have watched it so many times) that when I needed a nonsense word to mean "cool/neat/awesome," I decided to use that.