The biracial girl is cornered by her bully in the locker room. The bully and a few other girls threaten to cut her hair, but the girl punches back, prompting an intervention from their coach. In the principal’s office, both girls share their story, and their parents are asked to come pick them up to hear about the altercation. The biracial girl explains to her mother that she was discriminated against and threatened, to which her mother says that she can’t blame her for fighting back. Successfully, the biracial girl’s mother defends her to the principal, causing her to have only a few days of detention rather than suspension.

In detention, the biracial girl sits with a few other kids, including a boy playing with paper airplanes, a girl with a magazine, and a few others. The magazine girl tries to talk to her, but a substitute teacher comes in and tells her to keep to herself. The magazine girl and substitute teacher bicker back and forth to one another, after which the substitute teacher calls her outside for a private conversation. Meanwhile, her magazine is left on the biracial girl’s desk.

Detention is then dismissed. In the hallway, the biracial girl overhears the magazine girl and the substitute teacher talking in a classroom. She overhears them talking about how the substitute teacher is going to be relocated, how the magazine girl wants her to stay. She then sees them kiss.

Still with the magazine, the biracial girl heads to the girl’s bathroom, wondering what she just saw. The magazine girl comes in shortly after, knowing that the biracial girl saw what happened. The biracial girl promises to say nothing, seeing that there are tears on the magazine girl’s face. The magazine girl then says that she knows the biracial girl from the altercation in the locker room, which caused the bully to transfer schools. She says that no one really liked her anyway, that she was just jealous of the biracial girl’s budding beauty. Reunited with her magazine, the magazine girl flips through and shows her pictures of women, pointing out that the biracial girl could cut her hair short into a bob like theirs.

The next day, at lunch, the magazine girl tells the biracial girl to ditch class with her. Outside, she’s introduced to the magazine girl’s friends, and they talk about the locker room altercation again. Eventually, it comes out that the magazine girl is struggling in school. Jokingly, her friends recommend that the biracial girl helps her. From then on, the two girls would ditch together.

In another detention period, the biracial girl and magazine girl, along with some others, are watching a theater rehearsal in the school’s auditorium. They talk more about how the biracial girl should cut her hair per the magazine girl’s recommendation, also how the biracial girl could help the magazine girl with her classwork. They then go to the girl’s bathroom, where the magazine girl lights a cigarette, and further pushes the idea that the biracial girl should cut her hair by offering to cut it herself. The biracial girl hesitantly weighs the risks, after which the magazine girl proposes that she’ll cut her hair and shoulder the responsibility for it in return for forty bucks and a pack of cigarettes.

Over the weekend, the biracial girl hesitantly ponders the magazine girl’s offer. On Saturday, she resolves not to do it. On Sunday, she changes her mind after looking at herself in her mirror, wanting to look cool for herself. Later that night, she sneaks around and steals both the forty dollars and the pack of cigarettes from her parents. She then has a nightmare about getting caught red-handed and having her hair fall out.

The next day, the substitute teacher is dismissed, and the magazine girl is nowhere to be found. Eventually, the biracial girl finds her in the girl’s bathroom. She tries to console her, but the magazine girl says that she’s not planning on staying and that if she wants to have her hair cut, they must do it now. The biracial girl then hands her the forty dollars and cigarettes, and they start. They argue when the magazine girl is rough with the biracial girl’s hair, but eventually, she gets one of two braids snipped off. However, a teacher soon stumbles in to the girl’s restroom and asks them what they’re doing. The magazine girl blames it on the biracial girl, and both are taken to the principal’s office. The girl notices the magazine girl staring at her with the same passion with which she stares at the magazine’s models.