Free Class Six and the Nits of Doom by Sally Prue Page A

his head on one side, as if considering the idea. Rodney had always been slow on the uptake. ‘No, I don’t want to hurt
anyone—’
    ‘Phew!’ said half the class.
    ‘—I just want to
eat
them,’ Rodney went on, in his new growly voice. ‘I just want to sink my teeth into their flesh and feel their blood spurting down my
throat.’
    Everyone became aware that Rodney was at the front of the classroom, so he was between Class Six and the door.
    ‘Miss Broom!’ called Winsome suddenly. ‘Miss Broom, where are you? Because we could really do with a bit of help at the moment, please!’
    Something made a swift fierce sound, but that was Rodney growling. He stepped quietly and heavily forward towards the rest of the class.
    Jack moved forward to meet him.
    ‘No!’ said Anil, attaching himself to Jack’s elbow. ‘You don’t want to fight Rodney. He’s got claws and he thinks he’s a leopard. And anyway, he’s
nuts!’
    Jack looked up at Anil.
    ‘But he’s always been nuts,’ he pointed out.
    ‘Yes,’ said Anil, ‘but only in a harmless stupid sort of a way. The nits of doom have changed him. They’ve turned him vicious!’
    Jack stopped for a moment, gazing at Anil with bright pink eyes.
    ‘Well, you’ve got nits, too, just the same as him,’ he said. ‘My eyes have gone so they can see really tiny things, and I can see them in your hair.’
    Class Six kept one eye on Rodney, but they couldn’t resist shuffling closer to look at Anil’s head.
    ‘I can see the nits quite well against your black hair,’ Jack went on. ‘They’re like tiny white rugby balls, but…hang on, they’ve got things inside them.
They look a bit like squid and a bit like cheese graters, and they’re all holding steering wheels.
    Jack went to pick one of the nits out of Anil’s hair, but it whizzed away from his fingers and dived down into one of the holes in Anil’s skin where the hairs came out.
    ‘It’s gone inside your head,’ said Jack.
    ‘Erghhhh!’ said Class Six. ‘Errghhhhh! Errrghhhh! Errrrgghhh!’
    And then they all began scratching like mad.
    ‘It’s no good!’ Emily was rubbing at her head until her hair stood on end. ‘It’s no good, I can feel them burrowing into my head! I can feel them driving through my
brain!
What are we going to do?
’
    Winsome was the only one standing still.
    ‘Keep calm,’ she said, determinedly. ‘Panicking isn’t going to help us. We need to keep calm and try to think what we can do.’
    Anil had his hands clasped to his head.
    ‘But we
can’t
think what to do!’ he cried. ‘That’s the point. The nits have got right into our brains and they’re changing the way we’re
thinking.’
    Emily freaked completely. ‘Get them out, get them out!’ she shrieked. ‘I can’t stand it!’
    ‘Sshh!’ commanded Slacker. ‘Someone will hear you and come and see what’s going on.’
    Class Six wavered.
    ‘Is it murder, do you think, making your teacher disappear into thin air?’ asked Anil.
    ‘Well, even if it is, it wasn’t me!’ said Serise. ‘
I
didn’t touch her!’
    ‘It was all of us,’ said Winsome, very worried. ‘I wonder if it’s a crime to turn someone into a leopard?’
    ‘But Rodney might be something else by the time the police get here,’ said Slacker, hopefully. ‘He might be something really friendly and nice, like a…
hamster.’
    Serise snorted.
    ‘There is
no way
Rodney could possibly end up being anything at all like a hamster,’ she said. ‘A ten-ton gorilla, possibly, but—’
    ‘Don’t even think about it!’ said Anil, shuddering. Jack suddenly sat down.
    ‘I hate to mention this,’ he said, ‘but talking of gorillas, I’ve got this terrible craving for bananas. And my armpits are really itchy, as well. And—’ He
squinted down inside his shirt. ‘Yes, I thought so. I’ve got black hair sprouting out all over my chest.’
    Everyone shuffled away from Jack, remembered about Rodney, and shuffled back