by Sally Prue
Rodney looked surprised to be asked.
‘Of course there isn’t.’ He frowned so his forehead wrinkled into channels of golden velvet skin, and his green eyes glowed. His teeth were looking pretty pointy, too. ‘Everybody knows that.’
Winsome was used to Rodney, of course. But this time she was so astonished that she could only stand and watch him as he prowled back to class.
Just about everyone in Class Six was scratching, now. They’d given up trying to hide it. And when they answered Good afterNOON Miss BrOOM at afternoon registration, there was a definite hollowness to their voices which they were sure Miss Broom must notice. But she didn’t.
‘Are you getting a sore throat, darling?’ asked Emily’s mum, at home time.
‘No,’ said Emily. ‘I think I’ve caught a special sort of really terrible nit.’
Emily’s mum laughed.
‘Sounds like me when I married your dad,’ she said.
‘But it can’t really be nits, Slacker,’ said Mrs Punchkin. ‘Nits don’t make your voice sound throaty.’
Slacker made a great effort. ‘They do if you’ve caught them from a wer-wer-wer-wombat.’
‘You could well be right, love,’ agreed Mrs Punchkin. ‘But I don’t think we’ve got any wombats round here at the moment, luckily.’
Slacker clenched his great fists and tried again.
‘Miss Broom’s a wreck!’ he said, all in a rush.
‘I’m not surprised, having to teach you all day,’ said Mrs Punchkin.
Class Six ran all the way to school the next morning, and it was only partly because they wanted to find out what had happened to Rodney now.
‘Can’t wait to get here,’ said the mothers to each other, marvelling. ‘Never seen anything like it.’
‘That Miss Broom must be a wonderful teacher,’ said half of them.
‘Yes,’ replied the other half, very impressed. ‘Although, tell me. What exactly is a woggle?’
Jack charged into the playground shouting, ‘I’m growing antennae!’
‘Cool!’ said Anil. His voice was getting back to normal, so now he just sounded like his dad. ‘Can you pick up Radio Gaga?’
‘It’s better than that,’ said Jack. ‘I can pick up League Live Match Updates!’
‘Woooh!’ Anil was deeply impressed. ‘I can’t wait for my antennae to grow.’
Winsome came running up. ‘What are those?’ she asked, pointing at Jack’s antennae, in a voice like slow gravy.
‘They’re digital!’ boasted Jack. ‘I can get about a hundred different stations, just by pushing my teeth in. It’s brilliant!’
Winsome stared, between fascination and envy.
‘Well, I suppose it’ll be all right as long as I wear my hair in an afro,’ she said musingly.
Emily came trotting across the playground to meet them. ‘Hello,’ she whispered.
‘Has your voice gone bellowy?’
Emily nodded. ‘My mum was going to take me to the doctor, but she couldn’t get an appointment. The receptionist said there’s a lot of it about.’
Serise flounced crossly through the school gate.
‘This is just so annoying,’ she said, as she reached them. ‘I wanted to wear my silver sandals today but my toes are such a bright green I had to wear these clumpy old things instead. Look at them! I mean, they are just so last year!’
‘Never mind,’ said Winsome, comfortingly. ‘The green only lasts a few hours. I was lucky, it happened overnight to me and it meant I could read in bed by the light of my own toes. I’ve never been able to do that before.’
Slacker ambled vastly over to them, munching. His hair was sticking up oddly above his forehead.
‘Your antennae are growing, are they?’ asked Jack.
Slacker smiled, displaying a large wodge of mushed crisp.
‘I can get The Foodie Channel,’ he said happily. ‘It’s fantastic. I mean, cooking—it’s so easy. Anyone could do it. Even I could do it. I’m going to make a fudge sundae when I get home tonight. Topped with butterscotch popcorn and pecan brittle. And before that a carrot and peach salad with rocket, drizzled with walnut oil and decorated with nasturtium flowers. Can’t wait!’
He broke off and frowned.
‘Which is a bit odd, really,’ he went on, thoughtfully. ‘Because I don’t usually go in for fruit and stuff. Hey, where’s Rodney? Is he all right?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Anil carelessly. ‘He just jumped up that oak tree, trying to catch a squirrel.’
When Miss Broom entered the classroom that morning she found herself greeted by thirty very excited children.
‘Good MORning Miss BrOOM,’ everyone chanted, not even bothering that they were making enough noise for a Cup Final.
‘What are we going to learn today, Miss Broom?’ asked Anil. ‘Because I’ve always wanted to know about quadratic equations.’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘Can’t we have PE again, please, Miss?’
‘Yes!’ said everyone. ‘PE! PE is just brilliant!’
Miss Broom looked round at them and beamed. Her orange eyes were reflecting something jumbly which might have been a bed of flowers, though it was probably a rubbish tip.
Actually, those shapes swooping backwards and forwards looked a lot like vultures. Yes. Definitely a rubbish tip.
‘I’m very glad you enjoyed PE, dears,’ said Miss Broom, ‘but we mustn’t forget the National Curriculum, must we.’
Class Six groaned.
‘And that means,’ said Miss Broom, ‘that we need to do some Science.’
There was a moment’s silence. Science. Well, even ordinary science could be quite interesting if it involved making bridges, or counting cars.
And as for Miss Broom’s sort of science…
‘What are we going to do, Miss Broom?’ asked Slacker. ‘Because I’ve always wondered how the bubbles get inside doughnuts.’
The vultures in Miss Broom’s eyes did loop-the-loops. ‘Well, I thought we’d do some work on habitats.’
Class Six’s hearts sank.
‘We did habitats in Year One, Miss Broom,’ said Anil.
‘And in Year Two, Miss,’ said Winsome.
‘And in Year Three, Four and Five,’ Serise pointed out.
Miss Broom looked at them fondly. ‘But have you done cockroaches?’
Emily shuddered.
‘Cockroaches?’ she whispered. ‘But they’re huge and black and they’ve got lots of legs. They’re really scary.’
‘And they’re filthy, too,’ muttered Serise. ‘I’m not touching one of them. I might catch something.’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Broom happily, ‘but my cockroaches aren’t like that. They’re rather out of the ordinary.’
She went to the big cupboard where Rodney had hidden and opened the door. Class Six looked, and gasped. Instead of a cauldron and a black hat, the cupboard was filled with quite ordinary shelves stacked with piles of paper and spare pens.
Miss Broom heard the gasp and turned round.
‘Anything the matter, dears?’ she asked.
Everybody shook their heads, and those with trunks shook those, too.
‘Excellent.’
Miss Broom got down a small cardboard box, which was standing on a shelf between some exercise books and a bottle of purple ink, and took it to her desk. She folded down the front of the box, and Class Six found themselves looking into a tiny theatre. There were red velvet curtains, and even some models of small people on the stage.
And then Class Six heard something. It was quite soft to start with, and quite tinny. But it sounded…well, it sounded like Sahara Ice Squirrel’s latest single.
Class Six craned forward to look. Those small figures—they weren’t models after all. They were big black beetles. Four of them. Two were holding guitars, one was sitting at a drum kit, and the other one seemed to be the vocalist.
They were really playing Sahara Ice Squirrel, too. It was hard to see their tiny little legs moving abo
ut the fretboards of the guitars, but that drummer was certainly holding a drumstick in each of its four hands.
Boom, went the drum kit. Boom. Boom snitch tara-diddle, boom snitch tara-diddle boom snitch…
Drrang drrang drrang dodie drrang diddle POW went the bass guitar.
Trrang ti todie todie trrang ti todie todie went the lead guitar.
Class Six found themselves beginning to sway in time to the music. And then they began clicking their fingers and tapping their feet. They couldn’t help it. It was as if the music had tied strings to their arms and legs, and they just couldn’t keep still.
Serise was the first one to start hand-jiving. Anil gawped at her—where’d she learned to do that?—and then, even more amazingly, Slacker suddenly jumped out of his seat, shouted ‘Yeah!’ and threw himself along the aisle between the tables in a long, cool slide.
The tiny beetle band was getting louder, and as it got louder it got more and more irresistible. Anil’s feet were twitching. At first he thought it was just because under his grey school socks his toes were as green as grasshoppers, but it was more than that. His toes wanted to move. To jump up and down.
His fingers had caught the itch of the music, too. They were bouncing about on his desk. Anil watched them, amazed and appalled. He had never danced in his life. He saw other people dancing sometimes, but he never joined in. He didn’t know how to join in. He’d always been sure that his knees and elbows would stick out, and his hands and feet would go all dangly, and he’d look like a complete and utter dork.
But now…
Anil didn’t realise he’d got to his feet until he’d done it. It seemed to happen all by itself. He just found himself doing a high-five with Winsome and discovering that his legs were stomping about in time with the music.
He looked round, dazed, and found that the whole class was dancing. Jack was on the table doing a sort of moonwalk, and Winsome looked like something off an exercise video.
Even quiet little Emily was twirling round very fast on one pointed toe so that her skirt flared out round her. Anil had never seen anyone doing ballet to Sahara Ice Squirrel before, but it looked quite cool. But then, even Rodney looked quite cool. He was sleek and golden and appeared to be dancing a tango with Miss Broom.
Weird, Anil thought—and then suddenly discovered that he loved it. He loved it. He loved dancing.
The music from the beetle band had got even louder, and now there seemed to be words, as well. Yes, when Anil looked over at Miss Broom’s desk he could see that the vocalist beetle (cockroach—of course, they were cockroaches) was holding a microphone.
The words had not been written by Sahara Ice Squirrel.
Hey you guys, come listen to me,
You think you’re great, but just you see,
A roach is cool, a roach is tough
You human dudes ain’t good enough.
And then the rest of the band joined in.
Roach roach roach
The best life coach
Oh roach roach roach
That’s us.
This is mad, thought Anil, but his elbows were doing some really neat things and it was so brilliant he didn’t want it to stop.
Without my head I can live for a week,
I’m happy for a month with nothing to eat,
My brain is fine, my brain’s not shoddy,
My brain is scattered all over my body.
This time Anil found himself joining in with the chorus. Roach roach roach, he sang. He never sang.
If Winsome danced any faster she was going to take off.
Four thousand lenses in my eye,
Look right and left, down low, up high,
I can hiss, I can fly, I don’t need no protector—
My butt’s got its own motion detector.
Roach roach roach, Class Six sang, as they stepped and jumped and twirled.
I’ve teeth in my belly and I’ve teeth in my head,
I eat glue and onions and anything dead,
My kids are never hungry, ’cos what they do
When times are hard is eat my poo.
Anil suddenly realised that he was never going to forget any of this. Never. From now on he was going to be an expert on cockroaches.
Miss Broom and Rodney now seemed to be doing the dance called a rumba.
We’re older than humans, we’re older than bees,
We were flying when the dinosaurs were at their mommies’ knees,
Our mouths open sideways, and though we’re born quite small
We blow ourselves up bigger like a new football.
Anil’s feet were stamping and stamping and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop them.
My blood is white, I’ve eighteen knees,
I’ll give you plague ’cos I spread disease.
And now just one last word of warning—
My methane farts cause global warming.
And then there was a huge crash, and everything stopped.
Anil stood blinking across the classroom. The music had stopped and so had everyone’s need to dance. Winsome was standing frozen with her hands in the air, and Emily was wobbling back down onto the soles of her feet.
Anil looked round some more. Slacker’s huge body was on the carpet. He was panting as if he’d run a—well, actually, given that it was Slacker, he was panting as if he’d just run.
But Slacker didn’t seem to be the source of the crash. Beyond him, at the front of the class, was a tangle of arms and legs. Anil could only tell who was there by the shoes. Two of the legs were wearing pointy-toed shoes with little curvy heels.
Miss Broom. That was Miss Broom.
And the other shoes were great things like paddle boats, only smellier.
Rodney. Of course, Miss Broom had been dancing with Rodney.
‘What’s happened?’ demanded Slacker, trying to get up.
Serise took a cautious step forward. ‘Miss Broom isn’t dead, is she?’ she asked, with only a tiny tinge of hope in her voice.
Emily squealed and jumped backwards.
Everyone looked at Winsome. Winsome was the sensible one: if anyone was going to know what to do, it would be Winsome.
Jack bent down and stared very closely at the jumble of arms and legs.
‘Rodney’s breathing,’ he reported. ‘At least, he’s got puffs of smoke coming out of his ears.’
‘How about Miss Broom?’ quavered Emily.
‘Oh, she seems to be dead all right. No, hang on, I think her nose is twitching.’
Serise frowned. ‘Is that good? I mean, it isn’t a death-twitch or anything, is it?’
‘There’s no such thing as a death-twitch,’ said Anil. ‘At least…there’s not with humans. I don’t think.’
‘Hang on.’ Slacker put up a hand up to one of his antennae. ‘I seem to be receiving something. A sort of howling, like a police car.’
All of a sudden Rodney moved. He kicked out his leg so that one of his vast stinky shoes sailed off his foot, hit the ceiling, and ended up in the sink.
‘Thank goodness!’ said Winsome. ‘Rodney! Rodney are you all right?’
Rodney got to his feet in a swift, elegant way which was as unlike Rodney as it could possibly be. He moved…he moved like a leopard.
Come to think of it, the brown spots on his face looked just like leopard spots, too.
Rodney cast a swift look round at the others.
‘Well?’ he said, in a voice that was almost a snarl.
Class Six smiled uncertainly at each other.
Behind Rodney, Miss Broom was twitching again. In fact she wasn’t so much twitching as vibrating, faster and faster, until all Class Six could see was a blur.
And then she vanished. Completely. Just like that. One moment there was a full-sized teacher lying vibrating on the floor of the classroom, and the next there was nothing but empty space.
Several people screamed.
Rodney’s staring eyes were like emeralds. His pupils had turne
d into big-cat slits.
And then he said the worst thing he could possibly have said.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, and he licked his lips with a long pink tongue.
Emily squawked and tried to jump behind Jack, but as Jack did exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, all they did was bump into each other and fall over.
Everyone else began to back away. Rodney was flexing his fingers experimentally. They’d grown claws.
Serise looked round for a weapon and picked up a small plastic ruler.
‘If only Miss Broom hadn’t gone and vanished!’ gasped Winsome. ‘She could have saved us.’
Jack turned to her, frowning.
‘I’ll soon sort Rodney out,’ he said in a dangerous sort of way—and Class Six saw to their horror that Jack’s face had a strangely hairy look about it.
‘Not him, too!’ said Serise.
‘It’s all right, Jack!’ said Winsome quickly. ‘There’s no need. I’m sure Rodney doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. Do you, Rodney?’
‘Hurt people?’ Rodney echoed. He put 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!’