by Marama Carmichael

Created on: March 23, 2008

RACHAEL SMITH'S REVENGE

Rachael Smith had a little problem. Actually, it was a rather large problem. Her hair! Her hair was huge, crazy and out of control. It was like a big fluffy animal that lived on top of her head. It did what it wanted, when it wanted. If it wanted to be curly, it would be curly. If it wanted to be straight, it would be straight. If it felt tired, it would droop, and if it felt bouncy, it would bounce.

There was no way to control it. Her Mum had tried to brush it, comb it, and iron it, but it didn't do any good. Her Dad had tried to shout at it, saw through it with a saw, and straighten it with pliers, but nothing worked. And Rachael herself had tried to cut it, tie it down with rope, and put it up with pins, but her hair was as stubborn as ever. They tried everything, but it wouldn't do anything they asked, so in the end they let it do what it wanted. Curly, straight, bouncy, droopy, thick, thin, knotty, short, long every day it was different.

At school the boys loved to play jokes and pranks on Rachael and her hair. One bouncy haired day in May, when her hair was in big bushy pigtails, Rupert Rogers crept up behind her and emptied a whole tub of bugs into her hair. Beetles, ants and cockroaches wriggling round and trying to get comfortable in their new home. Little claws tangled in her bouncy curls. Tails wiggled into her pigtails, and antennae stuck in her fringe. Rachael screamed. The other girls screamed, and the boys all laughed.

Rachael's teacher Mrs Taylor was mad. She shouted at the boys, rang Rupert's mother and gave him an essay to write and then spent three hours picking bugs out of Rachael's hair. Mrs Taylor thought she'd got them all, but later a dung beetle plopped from Rachael's hair into her soup.

Rachael had nightmares about bugs and flies and creepy crawlies, and decided that she hated her hair.

A week later, one straight haired day in May, Tommy Tinto was sitting behind Rachael in class. He saw her long, straight hair and wanted to do something to it. His hand crept forward, he grabbed a handful and tied it to a chair. Her hair was so thick she didn't even notice. His hand crept out again, pulled back another handful and tied it to his desk. Backwards and forwards, his hand crept, tying her hair to everything he could find. Rulers, pencils, erasers all tied to her hair till she looked like a walking stationary shop.

And then the bell rang. Rachael couldn't move. Her hair was tied to everything. She started to shout. The other

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