Extract from Bloom by Nicola Skinner

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It took five minutes, and a lot of begging from Miss Mossheart, for us to be coaxed off our desks and back into our seats.

‘You’re being too soft on them, Miss Mossheart,’ said Chrissie, stroking her Head of Year badge and looking at me with a smirk. ‘Send them home. The Grittysnit Pledge clearly states that we won’t “play in class-time”.’

Miss Mossheart gulped and pretended she hadn’t heard her.

‘No backbone, that’s her trouble,’ Chrissie grumbled.

An ear-splitting shriek tore through the air, and everybody turned to look at me.

‘What now, Suck-up?’ tutted Chrissie, her sharp face mottled with frustration. ‘Haven’t you had enough attention today?’

‘Thought I was stung by a bee.’ I rubbed my prickling scalp as subtly as I could.

‘Are you okay?’ whispered Neena.

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‘Dunno,’ I spluttered, feeling confused and embarrassed.

Didn’t bees only sting if you sat on them, or something? And why hadn’t I heard anything buzzing before the sting?

As I rubbed my scalp again, it soon became worryingly clear that those little goosebumps I’d felt earlier were bigger and they were all over my head in a rash.

‘AAARGH!’ shouted Neena, rubbing her head

vigorously. ‘I’ve been bitten too!’

‘Oh, please,’ said Miss Mossheart in the panicky, despairing way of a woman on the edge.

While Neena hopped about, rubbing her head, I was bitten again. I held my hands over my head and ducked down, but despite throwing panicky glances around the room, I couldn’t see the bees.

Perhaps they were invisible.

Invisible bees?

Also, why were they only singling out me and Neena? Everybody else seemed unharmed.

Through the pain, I heard a small voice of doubt in my head.

Most insect bites, as far as I could remember, felt like something trying to bite their way in.

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But this felt as if something was trying to push its way out.

And not just one thing. Loads of them.

As if a million little knitting needles were trying to burst through the skin on my scalp. I wanted to tear my skull open to get rid of the pain. I raked my fingers through my hair, flinching at the size of the swellings.

They had got even larger.

Chrissie made a gagging noise. ‘Bees, my foot! You probably have fleas.’ She raised her voice. ‘Miss Mossheart, Neena and Sorrel are health and safety risks. They’re riddled with parasites. Shouldn’t you send them home?’

I hung my head with shame.

BRIIING! The school bell ripped through the air, breaking the suspense.

Miss Mossheart’s face collapsed with relief. ‘Class dismissed,’ she moaned. ‘I’m just going to have a little cry – I mean, a cup of tea somewhere quiet.’

Once she’d run out of the door, the whole classroom erupted.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Elka, looking as if she wanted to come closer but throwing concerned glances around the room.

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‘Can I get you anything?’ murmured Robbie.

‘I can lend you some of my eczema cream.’ Bertie blushed. ‘It might help with the stings.’

Only Chrissie gave us a scowl, which made her sharp face uglier than usual. ‘Ridiculous attention-seeking tactics.’

‘Tic Tacs,’ said Bella sternly.

‘Sorrel,’ hissed Neena, grabbing me by the hand.

‘Come to the toilets with me. We need to talk. Now.’ * Once we were sure we were alone, we turned to each other in front of the sinks.

‘Now do you believe me?’ asked Neena.

‘About what?’ I said, puzzled.

‘What did I try to tell you yesterday, just before we got sent home?’

I stared at her.

‘Come on, think.’

Finally, I understood. ‘It’s not the Surprising Seeds – it can’t be!’ Quickly, I explained. ‘Before I sprinkled them on our heads, I heard a woman . . . singing at me.

And this voice said the Surprising Seeds would give me what I wanted – or needed. Anyway, it’s more or less the same thing. So it can’t be the Seeds!’

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But my brilliant argument seemed to be wasted on Neena, who was simply staring at my forehead and gasping.

My fingers flew up and met something soft, with little delicate tendrils. Confused, I stared at myself in the mirror.

I no longer had any skin on my forehead. Instead, I had moss. Dark green and soft. My forehead was covered in it. Right up to my eyebrows. There was basically a small lawn on my face.

So that was a new look.

Then things got worse.

A small green stem began to poke out of my scalp.

It was joined by another.

And another.

And then a hundred more.

They shot up quickly and unfurled at the top, like little flagpoles being unveiled.

Those painful swellings on my scalp had been tiny green stems, just waiting to burst.

I gasped as the stems grew longer and longer, - 171 -

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stretching up towards the bathroom ceiling. When they were roughly the height of my finger, they stopped growing. Tiny blue flowers extended slowly from the tops of the stems. And red flowers. They opened proudly and then began to wave about in the air, as if saying hello to each other.

‘Make them stop!’ I said in a begging voice, my hands flying all over my head as I tried to squish the flowers back down again.

But Neena just stood there, gasping and looking as if she wanted to clap.

Within a few seconds, my entire scalp was covered.

I looked like a flowery pincushion.

I grabbed a handful of flowers and tried to rip them out, but although I tugged and pulled till my eyes watered, they remained firmly rooted in my skin.

As I stared in dismay at my reflection, the last remaining patches of my hair went from Cheddar yellow to . . . . . . green.

‘You’ve got grass for hair.’ Neena sounded delighted.

Still the girl in the mirror continued to grow ever more freakish. My eyebrows turned into daisy stalks.

My eyelids turned into tiny red leaves and little bright - 172 -

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purple flowers burst open on my nose.

I moaned with shock as my fingers crept slowly up

to my face, to feel and to prod, but at the very

last minute, I pulled

my hands back. I couldn’t bear to touch any of it.

‘Holy hydrocarbons,’ said

Neena, her mouth hanging open.

‘You look awe—’

And then she stopped and

clutched her scalp, and her eyes grew wide.

‘My turn,’ she said, with what

looked like a smile flickering

about her face. *

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Now it was my turn to stare. Over the last few minutes, Neena’s scruffy black hair had receded, and in its place an entire vegetable plot had popped up, with rows of red tomatoes and tiny creamy potatoes.

Neena reached up, plucked a tomato from her head and popped it into her mouth.

As she stared at herself, munching, I moaned and clutched the sink.

‘We are going to be in so much trouble.’

‘Have a tomato,’ said Neena.

‘They’re very good.’

‘How can you be so calm?’

I yelled. ‘Our heads have mutated! Aren’t you upset?

Aren’t you confused? Don’t you want to know why this is happening to us?’

Neena gave me a firm but kind look.

‘Oh, Sorrel, I’ve been trying to tell you for ages,’ she said. ‘It’s the Seeds, dummy. They’ve finally grown.’

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‘Think about it. Neither of us knows much about gardening, but we do know that plants need water and sunlight to grow, right?’

I gave a miserable nod and the flowers on top of my head bobbed up and down.

Neena grinned at them and then, noticing the look on my face, stopped. ‘Sorry. Anyway, after you sprinkled the Seeds, we really wanted to be in darkness, didn’t we? That was probably the Seeds wanting to – what did Sid call it? Germinate? And then, once we’d slept and found a bit of darkness, do you remember how thirsty we were?’

I moaned at the memory of us dancing in the rain.

‘So that would have been the Seeds needing water to grow. And then, this morning, how we felt about that funny old skylight – what do you think that was?’

Neena’s voice was patient but determined.

‘The Seeds wanting sunshine?’ I suggested reluctantly.

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‘Full marks to you! This is all the Seeds, Sorrel.

It’s not a bug!’ Neena clutched my arms, her eyes bright. ‘It’s our experiment reaching its perfect conclusion!’

I had to admit Neena was right. In which case . . .

That voice. The voice had lied to me.

I frowned, remembering what I’d heard in Neena’s shed.

Go ahead and send them flying, it had said.

And then with joy you’ll surely be crying.

Well, I certainly felt like crying, but it wasn’t with joy. What else had it said?

Sow yourself a seed (or two), And what you need will come to you.

Well, that was another whopper for a start. I’d been tricked. But why?

‘We need to get home before anyone spots us,’ I gibbered, frantic with fear at being caught. ‘We need to find a way of getting rid of it all.’

The caterpillar crawling around Neena’s forehead turned and gave me an angry glare. I tried not to look at it.

‘And we have to get out of here now, before anyone sees us—’ - 179 -

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The door slammed open, and Chrissie’s perfect face peered round.

‘Too late for that,’ she said, her voice dwindling in shock as she saw our heads. She swallowed, regained her composure and rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve been sent to find you as you’re running late for Spanish. And you can tell Miss Mossheart why you’ve decided to have a little game of Dress Up in the toilets.’ * Chrissie led us down the corridor, opened the classroom door and jerked her head at us.

I slunk in, trying to make myself as small as possible, but Neena simply strode in, grinning away.

Elka stared at us and gasped.

Bertie opened his mouth to say something, then went bright red and shut his mouth again.

And then everybody began to howl with laughter.

Which, of course, happened at exactly the moment Mr Grittysnit walked past the Laminators, because those Surprising Seeds knew a thing or two about timing.

By which I mean they knew how to time things really badly.

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