Niteracy Hour

by John Dougherty

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  A Lousy Start

  Chapter Two

  Lousy Luck

  Chapter Three

  A Lousy Conversation

  Chapter Four

  A Louse Up

  Chapter Five

  A Lousy Group of Friends

  Chapter Six

  Have a Lice Day

  Chapter Seven

  A Lousy Way to End a Story

  About the Author

  Also by John Dougherty

  Copyright

  About the Book

  WHAT A LOUSE!

  Gregory is a good listener.

  Jim is a head-louse, newly-hatched from a nit on Gregory’s head.

  As school story time turns into . . . Niteracy hour, Jim has breakfast – and becomes a good listener too!

  That’s how he hears that big, bullying Duncan is going to push Gregory’s head down the toilet! Can Jim help Gregory do something about Duncan – the real louse in the class?

  A hilarious tale from the author of Zeus on the Loose!

  Chapter One

  A Lousy Start

  Before we start, let’s get one thing straight. A nit is an empty egg, OK? So don’t call me a nit.

  I’m a head-louse.

  Please, don’t go “Eeeeugh!”. I can’t stand some of the noises you human children make, and “Eeeeugh!” is one of the worst.

  So, anyway, I’m a head-louse. But I’m not an ordinary head-louse. And this is my story.

  I hatched out on the head of a small human while his teacher was taking the register. Just before she got to his name, in fact, which turned out to be Gregory. Out I popped and had a look round.

  Mmmm, I thought. Lovely clean hair. Nice!

  I was hungry, so I got out my little mouth-parts and had something to eat.

  What did I eat? I ate Gregory, of course.

  No, don’t be daft, I didn’t eat him all. I wouldn’t have room. I just sucked some of his blood. Not very much. He didn’t even notice.

  I’d just finished my breakfast when the teacher started the first lesson. And this is where I turned out to be different from any other head-louse.

  I listened.

  What I didn’t know then – having only just been hatched – is that most head-lice don’t listen. To be honest, they’re generally a bit thick.

  But I listened.

  I found out later that Gregory was by far the best listener in the class. Better even than his teacher, Mrs Campbell. And the only thing I can think of is – well, you know how, when a human is really good at something, people say ‘it’s in their blood’? I think good listening was in Gregory’s blood. And when I sucked his blood, it got into mine, too.

  So I became a really good listener.

  Wow! What a way to start life! It was amazing! It was fantastic! It was incredible!

  It was . . . story time!

  Actually, Mrs Campbell didn’t call it story time. She called it ‘Literacy Hour’. What she was doing was reading out bits of stories for the children to compare. And every single bit of story she read out was . . . mind-blowing. Hearing them was like being hatched again into some astonishing, marvellous, brave new world.

  My favourite was from a book called Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s about a boy called Jim Hawkins, who leaves his home and his ordinary life and sails away to adventure on the high seas. As I listened I could almost hear the waves foaming and thundering against those far-off shores.

  I was sorry when that bit of the lesson came to an end and the children were set to work, writing about the differences between the stories. I didn’t care how they were different; I just wanted to hear more and more. I especially wanted to find out what happened to Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island.

  But Mrs Campbell stopped reading, and all the children started writing. So I just sat and listened to what was going on in the class.

  Some of which wasn’t very nice at all.

  I don’t mean the lesson; I mean what some of the other children were saying to each other when they should have been working. There was one big kid called Duncan who kept saying all kinds of nasty stuff about who he was going to ‘get’ at playtime, and what he was going to do to them.

  I didn’t like Duncan.

  It turned out Duncan didn’t like Gregory, either.

  At playtime, I was really enjoying being outdoors for the first time ever. I could hear the birds singing in the trees, and the swish of the leaves in the gentle wind. The sounds of the children playing and the traffic rumbling past the school were . . . magic. Really beautiful. All these sounds that I’d never heard before! I rode around on Gregory’s head, clinging to one of his hairs, just loving the sounds and the feeling of being alive and newly-hatched, with my whole life in front of me.

  Then the world shook.

  Well, that’s what it felt like. In fact, it wasn’t the world that was shaking; it was Gregory’s head. And the reason Gregory’s head was shaking was that Duncan had grabbed him by the throat and was shoving him up against the playground wall.

  Then he said, “Listen, Eggy Greggy, if you ever tell on me again, I’m going to stick your head down the toilet and pull the chain, all right?”

  I held on tight and peeked out from the jungle of Gregory’s hair. Imagine a giant with huge nostrils, great big jagged teeth and an enormous pink slug for a tongue. That’s what Duncan looked like to me. I’m only little, compared to people, so he looked enormous. Enormous and ugly.

  Gregory nodded – which made me feel a little seasick – and said he understood, and Duncan let him go.

  But of course the first thing that Gregory did when playtime was over was to go to Mrs Campbell and tell her that Duncan had pushed him up against a wall and threatened to stick his head down the toilet.

  So Duncan got in trouble with Mrs Campbell – and he wasn’t very happy about it. He spent the rest of the next lesson glaring at Gregory and making toilet-flushing gestures with his hands.

  Gregory didn’t seem to be very worried – but I was.

  Because if Gregory was going to have his head flushed down the toilet, then the last place I wanted to be was on that head.

  Which is just where I was – with no way of getting off.

  Chapter Two

  Lousy Luck

  I was getting frantic. It was nearly lunchtime. When the class went to dinner, Gregory was going to have his head flushed down the toilet; and since I was on his head, I was going to be washed out to sea. At least, I might be. I’d seen the toilet, and I really didn’t know if I could hold on to Gregory’s hair in there.

  I’d have loved to go to sea – but in a magnificent tall sailing ship, like Jim Hawkins, not just flushed away on a piece of soggy toilet-paper with no wonderful stories to listen to.

  Then I had a real piece of luck.

  Paired reading.

  For the ten minutes before lunch, Mrs Campbell asked everyone to sit in twos and read to each other in their quietest voices.

  “And I mean quietest!” she said. “Especially you, William!” Gregory’s friend, William, was the noisiest boy in the class, always talking.

  Gregory went to sit beside Lizzy.

  First she read to him, in a really really quiet voice, which wasn’t a problem because Gregory was an extremely good listener. Amazingly, fantastically good.

  Then he read to her, in a really really quiet voice; and that was a problem, because Lizzy wasn’t such a good listener. Not at all. But after Mrs Campbell had looked at her a couple of times and said, “Lizzy, are you listening to your partner?” she stopped fidgeting – quite so much – and stopped looking around �
� kind of— and tried really hard.

  The problem was, she couldn’t really hear what Gregory was saying, because his quietest reading voice was really, really, really quiet and she wasn’t very good at listening. Besides, William was at the next table, reading out loud very loudly – and talking lots as usual, too.

  Lizzy leaned in towards Gregory, to hear what he was saying. But she still couldn’t hear him. So she leaned in even further. And her head touched his.

  I saw my chance. I crawled across Gregory’s head, to where his hair met Lizzy’s, and carefully picked my way across. It was a bit scary, because I didn’t know if Lizzy was going to pull her head away when I was half-way over. Step by step I went, as Gregory read quietly and steadily below my feet.

  Finally I was there.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and settled down in my new home – Lizzy’s lovely thick hair. I felt sorry for Gregory, of course – about to have his head flushed down the toilet by Duncan – but what could I do? I was just a head-louse, after all.

  All that worry had left me feeling very hungry, so I settled down for a nice long lunch. Lizzy tasted delicious!

  Don’t go “Eeeeugh!”. I didn’t go “Eeeeugh!” when I sat on Lizzy’s head in the dinner hall and watched a hundred and fifty kids eating their lunch. Now that was disgusting.

  After lunch, we went out into the playground.

  And Lizzy ran.

  Whoooo-eee! It was such fun. I can’t begin to describe it! It was better than the best roller-coaster you’ve ever been on. Because Lizzy was the fastest runner, the best footballer, the highest high-jumper, the whirliest cartwheeler in the class – maybe even the whole school. She was an absolute red-hot bundle of energy. No wonder she couldn’t keep still in lessons!

  As soon as she got out into the playground, Lizzy was off – faster than a rocket, zippier than a racing car. I held on tight, feeling the wind whip past and watching the world blur. It was brilliant!

  She didn’t keep still all lunchtime. She chased people, she scored goals, she somersaulted and cartwheeled and leaped and jumped and hurdled! I loved every minute of it.

  Well, almost. There were two bits of playtime that I didn’t like.

  The first was when William ran up and said excitedly, “Lizzy! Lizzy! Did you hear? Duncan put Gregory’s head down the loo!” I felt sad, hearing that. I could tell that Lizzy did, too.

  “Someone ought to do something about Duncan,” she said angrily.

  “Yeah, but what?” William answered. “Gregory’s the only person who’s ever been brave enough to tell on him – and look where that got him!”

  The second bit of playtime that I didn’t like was when Duncan stuck out his foot and tripped Lizzy. Then he ran off, laughing nastily. When Lizzy picked herself up, her knee was bleeding.

  “Someone seriously ought to do something about him,” she muttered. I felt really bad for her.

  I felt sorry for Gregory, too, when he came in with wet hair and a drowned expression. I expected him to go and tell Mrs Campbell straight away, but instead he just sat miserably down beside William.

  What could I do? I was only a head-louse. If a great big human child was going to give up, then there wasn’t much hope that I could do anything, was there?

  As Lizzy was sitting fairly still now and not likely to do much running until home-time, I decided to explore.

  Lizzy’s hair, I decided, was a really nice place to live. It smelt lovely and shampooey, and it was all warm and cosy. And then there was the sheer fun of being there when Lizzy ran. I couldn’t imagine why there wasn’t a whole village of head-lice living there.

  Those were the sort of thoughts I was thinking to myself as I crawled along the top of Lizzy’s head, through all the lovely thick hair. I made my way to the back of her head and started to crawl down, pushing aside strands of hair as if they were long, long grass and I was a jungle explorer.

  Suddenly, I heard a terrible sound. It was faint and distant at first, but as I continued down the back of Lizzy’s head it grew louder.

  It was a voice – but not a human voice. It was coming from somewhere on Lizzy’s head, not far away. And it was howling – a wild, painful howl.

  “Doom!” it wailed. “DOOOM!”

  Chapter Three

  A Lousy Conversation

  My first thought was to hide, deep in Lizzy’s hair, close to the skin. But the horrible sound didn’t stop.

  “Doom!” it went. “Doom! Death! A vile punishment on us all!”

  Then I realized something. Not only was the voice not a human voice – it wasn’t speaking in a human language. It was speaking louse-speak. That made me feel braver. If there’d been a wolf or a jaguar or something hiding in Lizzy’s hair, that would have been really scary, but I felt fairly sure wolves and jaguars couldn’t speak louse-speak.

  I know now that wolves and jaguars don’t live on people’s heads either, but I didn’t know that then. I’d only been hatched that morning, after all; and I’d only heard about wolves and jaguars in Mrs Campbell’s Literacy Hour stories.

  I followed the sound, carefully pushing strands of hair aside as I went. The wailing and howling got louder and louder, and finally – sensing I was really close now – I climbed up a hair to see if I could see where it was coming from.

  It was a louse. The first other head-louse I’d ever seen. He was pushing his way through Lizzy’s hair, not far off, and he didn’t look dangerous; just slightly bonkers. A bit like Ben Gunn in Treasure Island. He’s a pirate who gets marooned by the other pirates all by himself on a desert island for years, and he goes mad through loneliness. Mrs Campbell had read out a bit about him that morning, too. I climbed down again and approached the other louse, a little shyly.

  “Um . . . hello,” I said.

  The louse turned slowly towards me, a wild expression on his face.

  “Flee!” he howled.

  “I’m not a flea,” I told him, slightly offended. “I’m a head-louse. Just like you.”

  He rolled his eyes crazily. “Beware!” he moaned. “BEWARE!”

  “Er . . . beware what?” I asked.

  “Your doom! Beware your doom! DOO-OOM!”

  This really wasn’t terribly helpful.

  “What . . . what sort of doom would that be, exactly?” I asked him. “Only, you see, I’m new round here . . . well, I’m just plain new, actually – hatched this morning – and I haven’t seen any dooms. I’m not sure I’ve got one, to be honest.”

  The other louse rolled his eyes at me again.

  “It comes in the night – just before the lights go out!” he groaned. “A monster! A terrible monster, with horrible sharp teeth! Swifter than a louse can crawl, more silent than the darkness! It comes with no warning, hears no pleading, offers no mercy! They call it . . . the Comb! And it is disaster, death, DOOM!”

  “Gosh!” I said. “That sounds scary! But I guess you escaped from it. I mean, you’re not dead or anything . . .” My voice tailed off under his frenzied glare.

  “Yes, I escaped!” he whispered madly. “I alone escaped the terrible doom! Doom, I say! DOO-OOM!” He lowered his voice, so that I had to lean uncomfortably close to hear him. “I have a hiding place!” he muttered “Yes, a secret hiding place! Where the Comb never comes! I hide there, I do, and it never finds me!”

  “Where?” I asked curiously.

  He looked sharply and suspiciously at me. “No!” he hissed angrily. “No! It’s mine! It’s not yours! Never, never! My hiding place! No room for two!”

  “OK, OK, I was only asking!” I grumbled. I felt a bit sorry for this mad old louse, stuck here on his own for goodness knows how long, but I didn’t think that was any excuse for being rude.

  I was beginning to worry a little, too. What was I going to do that night, when the Comb came, if he didn’t let me hide with him?

  Then I heard something that would have chilled me to the bone, if head-lice had bones to chill.

  It was Mrs Campbell’s voice.


  “Lizzy!” she said. “Just look at the state of you! Has your hair been like that since lunchtime? Off you go to the cloakrooms and drag a comb through your hair, now! Every inch of it!”

  I felt the world shake under me as Lizzy stood up.

  “The Comb!” I yelped in panic.

  The effect on the mad old louse was immediate.

  “FLEE!!!” he yelled.

  Before I could do anything, he turned and disappeared into the thickness of Lizzy’s hair.

  “Take me with you! Hide me!” I pleaded, shouting after him, but he was gone. I heard his voice, fading into the distance – “Dooom! DOO-OOMMM!!!” – and then I was alone.

  Suddenly the horror of it all was too much for me. With a cry, I turned and ran. I felt as if the Comb was already chasing me, hunting me down through the long thick glossy hair. I ran as I’d never run before, desperate to escape Lizzy’s head, frantic to find safety on some other human. Up over the crown of her head I raced, across the top of her scalp, towards the place where no more hair grew.

  There was no time to stop; her forehead appeared like the sheer deadly drop of a rocky cliff.

  With a desperate strength, I leaped.

  The classroom air whistled past my head as I rose into the cool silence. It seemed to whisper to me: Head-lice can’t do this! It was true, I was sure of it. Head-lice couldn’t run, and we couldn’t jump. Why could I?

  And then I had a horrible thought: I hadn’t looked before I leaped.

  I was hurtling through the air with no way of stopping, and no way of turning. I was going to splat against the wall, or I was going to fall into the sink. I was going to crash, or I was going to drown.