"Lily Jamelia Gilliam in the Courtroom of the Nits" - A Children's Story

Lily Jamelia Gilliam was, being a sensible girl, altogether rather surprised to disappear temporarily into her own hair.

It wasn't that she was a dirty girl. She brushed her teeth religiously, and showered every morning, just like her persnickety, "clean freak" of a Dad.

In fact, she prided herself on her personal hygiene.

It was just her hair.

She had "that kind of hair".

The hair that flows like a river of gold from the heads of damsels in castles?

Not quite. Old photographs revealed a long blanket of auburn, ochre and blonde hues.

Then came the nits.

Nature's biggest gits.

One Summer morning, a pair of scissors struck, and the multi-hued mop was cropped to a humble bob.

(Lily Jamelia Gilliam had since recognised that, rather than cutting away her Princess-like elegance, the new hairstyle had rendered her all svelte and grown-up, like a lady from an old film).

Yet, despite this mutilation, the head-lice had not conceded defeat.

Lily Jamelia Gilliam rubbed her eyes.

A room of brownish rope, from which is weaved a throne. Behind her, hundreds of little figures point and chatter. From the throne, the sudden crack of hammer upon table.

Lily Jamelia Gilliam is in a court-room. A court-room of her own hair.

"Would Lily Jamelia Gilliam take the stand."

Lily Jamelia Gilliam walks past nits with pens in their hands, and shirts and ties, like the sort of people you always don't like in old films.

In a booming voice, the High Judge of the Court of the Nits intones gravely...

"Lily Jamelia Gilliam, you have been found guilty of the attempted murder of my brothers, my sisters, and, once or twice, myself."

"But, please your honour, it was not me, it was my mum."

"Regardless, it is YOUR head. You have been sentenced to DEATH BY NITS."

At this point, Lily Jamelia Gilliam realised that, by stepping into her own hair, she had defied countless laws of physics, and broken the fabric of space and time for the first time in human history.

And Lily Jamelia Gilliam won the Nobel Prize for Science.

And Lily Jamelia Gilliam wrote a book on interspace, interdimensional travel.

And corrected many of history's biggest errors.

And solved the problem of world hunger.

And, by opening up the fabric of the universe, created a logical end to all wars.

And, most importantly of all, by introducing the idea of interspecies communication, was able to make head-lice understand that they should only alight on the heads of really awful people. Instead of on the head of lovely, bright girls, like Lily Jamelia Gilliam.