Crafty schoolgirl’s plan to skip school spelling test by dotting herself with red pen ‘like chicken pox’ backfires when she realizes it’s a PERMANENT marker and she’s stained for four days
A crafty schoolgirl’s attempt to enjoy a ‘sick day’ backfired after she tried to draw chickenpox spots on her body but ended up covered in red blotches for four days.
Mother-of-two Charlotte Schooley, 34, said six-year-old daughter Lily had noticed some of her friends were absent due to the illness and hatched her own plan to get out of a spelling test.
The youngster borrowed a red permanent Sharpie pen to ‘do her homework’ and then ran downstairs 10 minutes later claiming she had a rash.
Mrs Schooley said she and husband David immediately saw through the trick and had to stifle laughter as they threatened to take Lily to the doctor, causing her to quickly try to scrub the spots off.
But they would not wipe off even after using body wash, soap, baby oil and hairspray.
Lily returned to school the next day and had to do PE, revealing the spots to her classmates who had to be convinced that she was not contagious.
Mrs Schooley, from Saint Austell, Cornwall, said: ‘The house is always full of laughter with Lily. She is very witty.
‘She had a spelling test the next day that she didn’t want to do.
‘A few of the children in school had come down with chicken pox and she’s had it before so she know she stayed off school for a while.
‘She came down and said “I just need a red pen Mummy, I need to do my homework”.
‘Then she came down 10 minutes later and she was stroking her arm. She said ‘Oh mummy, I’m feeling a bit itchy. I’ve think I’ve got a rash’.
‘We turned the light on and she was absolutely covered in it.
‘Me and my husband were aching with laughter, trying not to let on that we knew.
‘She’d been sat on the bathroom floor drawing dots on herself.’
Mrs Schooley added: ‘She [Lily] was deadly serious about it until we said ‘oh gosh, it’s come on so quickly in 10 minutes. We’re going to have to see the doctor’.
‘She quickly disappeared and we went upstairs to find her trying to rub them off with a flannel.
‘She said “I can’t go to school Mummy because everyone will laugh”.
‘We had to send her in with a letter the next day to say they weren’t contagious or real and we just couldn’t get them off.
‘We used body wash, soap, hot water, baby oil, alcohol wipes. I think it was hairspray in the end that got it off – after four days.
‘Everyone was looking at her like she was contagious. We had to tell everyone she wasn’t.
‘She had PE that day as well and had to wear shorts and t-shirts. The teachers thought it was hilarious.
‘Luckily this happened on a Thursday night so she only had one day [in school with the spots].’
Mrs Schooley believes her daughter had taken inspiration from a light-hearted video on YouTube.
She said: ‘She watches a lot of YouTube and she’d apparently watched a video called “10 Ways to Get Out of School” – so there’ll be another nine to come.
‘She’s always dressing up the cat and pushing her around in pushchairs.’