Class Six and the Nits of Doom (7 page)

None of them was anything at all to do with witches or magic of any kind.

‘You’re
such
good children,’ said Miss Broom, when the bell had gone and Class Six still carried on writing even though their clay figures had rolled themselves back
into balls and thrown themselves neatly into the clay bin. ‘But it’s time for lunch now.’

By that time Jack’s nose was beginning to wobble slightly whenever he turned his head and Rodney’s was so long it kept getting in the way when he was trying to eat his pizza.

Class Six edged their chairs as far away from Rodney and Jack as they could, but everyone’s scalps were still itching and it was ever so hard not to scratch all the time.

‘What’s it like, having a trunk?’ asked Anil.

‘All right,’ said Rodney. ‘Except I can tell that this pizza smells of mice and drains.’

‘And burning,’
said Jack—and then clapped his hand to his mouth because his voice had come out in a great huge burp that echoed round like a
moose in a drainpipe.

‘Who’s making that row?’ snapped Mrs Barnett from the hatch, crossly brandishing her ladle. ‘Stop it at once or I’ll send for Mrs Elwig!’

Serise went to scratch her head, and then didn’t. The whole class kept bringing their hands up towards their heads and then pretending they just wanted to wave at someone. All the little
kids in Class Three kept half-waving back and then looking behind them. They were getting really confused.

Anil put down his knife and fork.

‘This is terrible,’ he said. ‘There’s no getting away from it. We all must have caught it.’

Emily began to cry.

‘I don’t want a trunk!’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want a big burpy voice. I like my toes the colour they are!’

Winsome gave her a hug.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said bravely. ‘Rodney’s voice is back to normal, so that shows he’s getting better.’

‘But look at his nose!’ said Serise. ‘I bet he can sniff the crumbs off his own chin.’

Rodney looked pleased, and tried it.

‘I can, as well,’ he said proudly. But the crumbs must have irritated the inside of his nose, because it began to wobble and twitch.

‘He’s going to sneeze!’ shouted Jack. ‘Watch out, he’s going to sneeze!’

Everyone tried to get out of the way, but the dining room chairs were so squeezed together that there wasn’t room. Jack tried to duck and ended up dunking the end of his nose in his
custard, and Winsome tore off a button when she tried to get under the table.

Slacker and Serise, both wedged in helplessly, each got bashed on the side of the head by one of Rodney’s elastic ears.

Class Six stood in the playground, keeping plenty of distance between them, with their arms folded to stop themselves scratching their heads. The rest of the school were playing
happily in the sun, but Class Six didn’t feel like playing at all.

‘But what can we
do?
’ asked Emily, in despair.

‘If we told our mums they’d get us some nit cream,’ suggested Jack.

Anil shook his head.

‘That’d kill ordinary nits,’ he said. ‘But these…these are different. I mean, they’ve turned Rodney’s toes green, so they must have got deep down into
his system. Nit cream won’t help with that.’

Slacker Punchkin heaved a sigh.

‘How can you stop magic?’ he asked.

‘Horseshoes are supposed to work,’ said Emily.

‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ said Anil. ‘In that case all we have to do is look out for a horse next time we’re at the shops and persuade it to let us borrow some
of its footwear.’

Winsome frowned thoughtfully. ‘I think I’ve read somewhere that woo-woo-woo—magic people hate rowan twigs.’

‘Who?’ asked Slacker.

‘Not who
, what,
’ Winsome explained. ‘A rowan’s a sort of tree. It has bunches of red berries on in the autumn. And wik-wik—oh, bother—
wickets
are supposed to hate it.’

Jack’s nose twitched. ‘I think my granddad’s got one in his garden,’ he said.

‘Really?’ asked Emily, quite hopeful. ‘Where does he live?’

‘Canada,’ said Jack.

Everyone stopped looking hopeful.

‘But aren’t there any rowan trees near here?’ asked Serise.

Anil rolled his eyes. ‘Of course not. We wouldn’t have a wer-wer-wer-
wiggle
in the school if there was, would we?’

Emily looked as if she was going to start crying again.

‘No, it’s all right,’ said Winsome, hastily. She went over to the rubbish bin and pulled something out.

‘Errgh!’ said Serise. ‘That’s disgusting! Someone’s drunk out of that water bottle. Eergh!’

‘What’s it for?’ asked Slacker, scratching his head.

‘It’s to make into a wer-wer-wer-
widget
bottle,’ said

Winsome, mysteriously.

‘A what?’

‘A wer-wer-wer, a wer-wer-wer, a—oh, blow it! A cauldron-owner’s bottle. To keep cauldron-owners away,’ said Winsome. ‘And if it keeps
them
away then
it’ll probably wipe out other sorts of magic, too.’

‘A plastic water bottle?’ said Anil, doubtfully.

‘Well, we have to fill it up, first,’ said Winsome.

And she led the way to the long jump pit.

A witch bottle had to be filled with sand, which was easy, and rosemary, which was easy too. It grew in the wildlife garden because it was good for the bees.

‘What else do we need?’ asked Jack.

‘Pins,’ said Winsome.

‘Hm,’ said everybody. But then Anil said
how about drawing pins?
and then it was just a matter of getting Slacker Punchkin to stand in front of the notice board on the way
back along the corridor to class so that Jack, who was skinny and little, could borrow a few without anyone noticing.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Serise, when Anil had poked the drawing pins down into the sand-and-rosemary mixture inside the bottle and screwed the top back on. Miss Broom
hadn’t arrived in class yet.

‘Put it up the chimney,’ said Winsome. ‘That’s what it said in the wer-wer-wer-
winkle
book I read once.’

Everyone looked round hurriedly. The classroom was mostly windows, and the bits that weren’t windows were cupboards or display boards.

‘Well, inside a wall will do,’ said Winsome.

Slacker Punchkin thumped on the wall beside him with a vast meaty fist.

‘I think I could punch a hole through this,’ he said. ‘We could take down this poster of a werewolf and then stick it up again once we’ve hidden the
wer-wer-wer-
welly
bottle.’

‘Idiot,’ snapped Serise. ‘Knocking a hole in that wall will take you straight through to Mr Bloodsworth’s class. And
he’s
a vampire.’

Class Six had never been taught by Mr Bloodsworth, but there had been rumours about him ever since he’d arrived last year.

‘Don’t do it,’ Jack advised Slacker. ‘I mean, just think about the amount of blood you’ve got in you. I bet you look like a walking feast to Mr Bloodsworth. Like a
big pile of doughnuts.’

‘Slacker looks like a big pile of doughnuts to everyone,’ muttered Serise.

‘Quick!’ said Emily, as footsteps sounded in the corridor. ‘She’s coming!
Quick!
’

Anil hastily shoved the witch bottle into a drawer and then joined everyone in rushing to sit down and fold their arms.

‘That was really brave putting the wer-wer-wer-
wolf
bottle in your drawer,’ whispered Winsome to Anil, as Miss Broom’s bosom appeared in the doorway. ‘If Miss
Broom finds it she might cast a spell on you!’

Anil looked at Winsome as if she was mad.

‘I didn’t put the bottle in
my
drawer,’ he told her. ‘Do you think I’m nuts? I put it in Rodney’s.’

‘What
?’ said Winsome
.

‘Well, he’s under a spell anyway. And he doesn’t even believe in wer-wer-wer-
wigwams
, does he?’

Class Six sat, agog to see what effect the magic bottle would have.

Miss Broom went and sat at her desk. She opened the register.

And then she twitched.

She looked round searchingly. Class Six did their traffic cone impersonations.

‘That’s very odd,’ Miss Broom said. ‘I’ve got ever such a funny feeling as if…’

She sniffed the air.

‘… as if someone’s put me in a plastic bubble,’ she went on. ‘As if I can’t breathe properly.’

Her desk drawer slid itself open and Algernon’s head appeared. He slid smoothly up her arm and draped himself round her neck like a fat scarf.

Miss Broom stroked Algernon thoughtfully.

‘What?’ she said. ‘They’ve done what? Really? Where? Great mushrooms of Basingstoke! No wonder, then. Would you mind, Algernon, dear?’

Algernon rippled down Miss Broom’s other arm and powerfully across her desk towards Class Six.

‘Do keep quite still, dears,’ said Miss Broom, kindly. ‘We don’t want Algernon to bite you.’

Algernon was on Winsome’s desk, now. Winsome kept as still as a frozen fish finger as he crawled up her arm and across her shoulders. Then Algernon crawled down her other arm and onto
Emily’s desk.

Emily was a real cry-baby. She was frightened of everything, even paper clips. Emily was going to panic and scream and then Algernon would bite her with his sharp bright fangs, and…

Emily gulped in a huge deep breath, opened her mouth wide—and then closed it again. Class Six could actually see the screams bulging about inside her tummy, but none of them came out. Not
one. Not even when Algernon slid up her front and gazed into her eyes before aiming under her left ear and onwards towards the other side of the classroom.

Algernon made his way straight over the desks to Rodney’s drawer and slid into it through the cut-out handle. He was too big to do that, but he did it anyway. The next thing Class Six
knew, Algernon was coming out again with the witch bottle held between his jaws.

Then, almost too quickly to see, Algernon threw the bottle into the air, and as it came down again the snake’s head struck out so fast that all Class Six saw was a blur of orange. And then
the bottle was on the floor in pieces, and all the sand and rosemary and drawing pins were scattered all over the carpet.

Miss Broom heaved a huge sigh.

‘Thank you, Algernon,’ she said. ‘Oh dear, though, what a dreadful thing to find in the classroom. I wonder how it got here.’

Her orange eyes swept round the class. Everyone tried their hardest to shrink down behind their desks. It was much harder for Slacker than any of the others, but Slacker wasn’t where Miss
Broom’s eyes stopped.

They stopped on Anil, whose teeth started to chatter like icicles in an earthquake.

Miss Broom looked at Anil very carefully, and as she did, Anil began to change. First of all Class Six found they could see the veins under his skin wriggling through his muscles; and then they
found they could see his bones; and then they could see all his insides. His heart was pumping away like anything. Class Six could even see the mixture of pizza and custard that was being squeezed
gently backwards and forwards in his stomach.

Everyone opened their mouths to say
eeergh
—and then didn’t dare.