Why do lice exist?

5-7
8-10
11-13
14-15

A lot of people think that lice are a type of germ because you might need medicine to get rid of them or because a nurse might find them. Lice are actually just small bugs!

They exist for the same reason ants, roaches and bees exist. They're very good at surviving, no matter how scary or gross we might think they are. Lice can infect your hair and they can infect your clothes, but how do they get there? Most times it's just from being in contact with another person who has lice. If there's lice in your hair, it doesn't mean you're dirty, and you shouldn't feel ashamed. It can happen to anyone!

It's not likely, but having lice could lead to other infections, so it's important to get treated quickly. Most likely you'll just be very itchy. Usually you can get a special shampoo and comb that gets rid of them in a few days.

Exploration

Nitpicking!

Have you ever heard anyone use the word "nitpicking"? If someone nitpicks, it means they are trying to find problems with the littlest details of something. If a friend showed you a picture she colored, and you said: "You colored out of the lines. You should have used red instead of orange, you colored too fast, you didn't shade the picture evenly..." you would be nitpicking.

It's usually not very polite, so try not to do it. But what does nitpicking have to do with lice?! The word actually developed from the way people deal with lice. The tiny eggs of lice are called "nits". Lice have special spit that they use to stick their nits to people's hair. It makes the nits very difficult to remove. To find and remove them, you have to get very close and work very precisely to pick them off. It's the same kind of focus you would need to "nitpick". The English language can be tricky sometimes! Just one "lice" is actually called a "louse". It's similar to how just one "mice" is a "mouse"! But don't think that more than one "house" is called "hice," it's just "houses."