Malcolm’s eyes were still closed – he may have closed them tighter – when he heard a strange noise. Sort of like a very, very buzzy fly. He wondered if maybe, to save his life, he’d had a last-minute transformation – into a very, very buzzy fly.

But then he opened his eyes, and saw his hooves, and Mr Barrington squinting at him, and realised that, no: he was still a sheep.

He wasn’t, though, dead. What he was, was a bit colder around the bottom area than he had been before. And also, wanting to laugh. Because he was being tickled. Around the bottom area.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha!! Ha! Stop it! Stop it!!” he said.

“Shush!” said Eli. “God. This one’s acting like he’s never been sheared before!”

Malcolm looked round. Using electric shears, Eli was shaving off the wool on his back. Every so often, where there were knots, Eli would cut them off with a knife, from the leather bag.

Malcolm tried to stop laughing, but not only did it tickle, it felt completely silly that huge clods of wool were coming off him: it was like he was a very cosy version of Spider-Man, whose body produced not steel-like threads of silk for enmeshing supervillains, but balls for grannies to knit with. And then, to make it worse, Eli turned Malcolm over, and started to do his tummy.

“That one’s got a funny Baaa!” he heard Barry Bennett say, above his own laughing.

“Yes,” said his friend Lukas. “It sounds more like Baa-Ha-Ha than Baaaa!”

Finally, it was over, and Eli let him go. Malcolm and the Dollys stood up among their shorn wool. It looked like the goat pen had been overlaid with a very badly made shagpile carpet.

“So there you are, boys and girls,” said Gavin. “That’s how you shear a sheep!”

There was a round of applause. Which felt odd to Malcolm. He had never thought about applauding his dad after watching him shave.

“Ah, that’s better!” said Dolly 1.

“Yes, much better!” said Dolly 2.

“Better all round!” said Dolly 3.

“I think it’s cold and a bit embarrassing,” said Malcolm.

“Yes, that’s right, cold and embarrassing,” said Dolly 1.

“Embarrassing and cold,” said Dolly 2.

“Freezing!” said Dolly 3. “And quite humiliating.”

“Also,” said Malcolm, “why were you shouting ‘help’ earlier? You must have known it was only a shearing?”

The Dollys looked at him blankly.

“We were shouting help because you were shouting help,” said Dolly 1.

“Yes, because you were—”

“Yes, all right,” said Malcolm, sighing. “I get it.”

“Now,” said Maven, “let’s take the sheep back to their field!”

Suddenly, over the goat-pen fence bounded Trotsky. As soon as they saw the dog, Dolly 1, Dolly 2 and Dolly 3 ran towards the gate, which was opened by Eli. Then they carried on running. Malcolm watched them go. He was starting to have had enough of the whole sheep thing.

“That’s odd,” said Eli. “That one sheep don’t seem very bothered by the dog.”

“Woof woof woof!” said Trotsky, nudging at Malcolm’s back. Malcolm shook his head.

“OK, children,” said Gavin, “perhaps you can help us get this sheep out of here!”

Next thing Malcolm knew, he was surrounded by his own classmates, cheering and whooping and going: “Come on, sheepy!”, “Wake up, lambkin!” and “Where’s your wool-coat gone? Where’s your wool-coat gone?”

So just to get away from them – Morris Fawcett was being particularly annoying, poking him on his newly-shorn rump – Malcolm ran out of the goat pen and after the Dollys.

And then his year ran out of the goat pen and chased him.

After a few minutes, Barry and Lukas and Taj and Fred and Ellie had caught up with Malcolm. They were all laughing and joking and giggling as they ran. It made Malcolm feel envious, and a bit sad, that they were having such a lot of fun and he wasn’t. He was just running.

“Barry!” said Malcolm, while still running. “Lukas! Taj! Fred! Ellie! It’s me! Malcolm!”

“This one’s really funny!” said Lukas. “He just keeps baa-ing as he runs!”

“Yes, and he’s looking right at us!” said Fred. “Like he’s actually trying to tell us something!”

“I am trying to tell you something!” said Malcolm.

“Baa-baa! Baa-baa!” said Taj, imitating him. Which made them all laugh. And then they ran off back towards the farmhouse, leaving the sheep far behind.

Malcolm carried on running, and caught up with the Dollys. He trotted along with them, in the middle of a big field.

“Where are we going?” he said.

“We’re running away!” said Dolly 1.

“Away! Running!” said Dolly 2.

“Far far far!” said Dolly 3.

“But … the kids chasing us … they caught up with us already. Now, in fact, they’re just running in front of us! Look! There’s Barry and Lukas and Taj and Fred and Ellie and all the rest of them, about fifty metres ahead!”

“We have to run!” said Dolly 1.

“Run run run!” said Dolly 2.

“But it looks like we’re chasing them now!”

“Keep going!” said Dolly 3. “They might catch up!” “They have caught up!”

“Onward!” said Dolly 1.

It was at that point that Malcolm stopped starting to have had enough with the whole sheep thing.

He finished having had enough with the whole sheep thing. He stopped, let the Dollys run on, and just settled down in the field, to go to sleep.