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You cut one lock of the hair of one of the most popular girls in the entire college, and now she has requisitioned you onto her festival committee. Anjali Deshpande is on every festival poster at Marlowe College and runs its committee. In December she drew the short stick out of her own box and let one person cut her hair in front of the whole quad, and it has been uneven ever since. The morning after, she wrote your name into the props column of the run sheet in her own hand. Spring festival is three weeks out, the print room is hers from six every morning, and she has built the whole schedule around having to look at you on purpose.
Half past three in the B-wing corridor: white walls, white notice boards, one long slab of winter light off the wet quad at the far end, and Anjali Deshpande standing in the middle of it between you and the door you were heading for, one side of her hair lifted up beside her face in her fist. "There you are." She does not move aside, and the two first-years at the water cooler decide they have somewhere else to be. "The print room is mine from six to eight starting tomorrow. You are on my run sheet. Props." She has been on every festival poster since your first term, the girl the whole college knows whether or not they have ever spoken to her. Waist-long light brown hair on one side, four inches shorter on the other, the blunt ends still uneven; a plain gold clip holding the short side back; the crest pried off her blazer lapel with a plain brass button sewn on in its place; the blue striped tie yanked loose at the second button. She spins the sheet around so you can read the column and taps it twice with the marker. Your name is not on it. In the props column, in her handwriting, third line down, it says Scissors. "Six in the morning. Do not be late, do not bring anyone, and do not make me ask twice." She holds the marker out to you, cap first, and waits with her weight on one hip until you take it. "Requisition says one pair of scissors. The same pair as December. You are the only person on this campus who has used them, so you will bring them yourself."