Green Glass Beads

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Green Glass Beads Page 6

by Jacqueline Wilson


  I curled my fists,

  Tried not to think of friendship,

  Or whispered secrets,

  Or games for two players.

  But the empty seat beside me

  Shimmered with need

  And my loneliness dragged her like a magnet.

  As she sat down

  I caught the musty smell of old forests,

  Noticed the threads that dangled

  At her thin wrists,

  The purple stitches that circled

  Her swan’s neck.

  Yet I loved her quietness,

  The way she held her pencil

  Like a feather,

  The swooping curves of her name,

  The dreaminess of her cold eyes.

  At night, I still wonder

  Where she sleeps,

  If she sleeps,

  And what Miss Moon will say

  To her tattered parents

  On Open Day.

  Clare Bevan

  Mrs Mackenzie

  Mrs Mackenzie’s quite stern.

  She says, ‘You’re not here to have fun,

  You’re here to learn,’

  When I mess about in class.

  And in the corridor, if I run

  When she’s passing by, she shouts

  ‘Slow down! You’re not in a race!’

  Or ‘More haste, less speed!’ –

  Whatever that means.

  I never used to like Mrs Mackenzie much.

  But the other day

  When my dog died

  And she saw me crying

  She said ‘Dogs are such good friends,

  Aren’t they?’

  And she let me stay

  In the classroom with her at breaktime

  When all the other children went outside

  To play.

  Mrs Mackenzie’s OK.

  Gillian Floyd

  The Day After

  I went to school

  the day after Dad died.

  Teacher knew all about it.

  She put a hand on my shoulder

  and sighed.

  In class things seemed much the same

  although I was strangely subdued.

  Breaktime was the same too,

  and at lunchtime the usual crew

  played up the dinner supervisors.

  Fraggle was downright rude.

  I joined in the football game

  but volunteered to go in goal.

  That meant I was left almost alone,

  could think things over on my own.

  For once I let the others shout

  and race and roll.

  First thing that afternoon,

  everyone in his and her place

  for silent reading,

  I suddenly felt hot tears streaming

  down my face.

  Salty tears splashed down

  and soaked into my book’s page.

  Sobs heaved in my chest.

  Teacher peered over her half specs

  and said quietly, ‘Ben, come here.’

  I stood at her desk crying. At my age!

  I felt like an idiot, a clown.

  ‘Don’t feel ashamed,’ teacher said.

  ‘It’s only right to weep.

  Here, have these tissues to keep.’

  I dabbed my eyes, then looked around.

  Bowed into books, every head.

  ‘Have a cold drink.

  Go with James. He’ll understand.’

  In the boys’ cloaks I drank deeply

  then slowly wiped my mouth

  on the back of my hand.

  Sheepishly I said, ‘My dad died.’

  ‘I know,’ said James.

  ‘We’d best get back to class. Come on.’

  Walking down the corridor I thought of Dad . . . gone.

  In class no one sniggered,

  they were busy getting changed for games.

  No one noticed I’d cried.

  All day I felt sad, sad.

  After school I reached my street,

  clutching the tissues, dragging my feet.

  Mum was there in our house

  but no Dad,

  no Dad.

  Wes Magee

  Squirrels and Motorbikes

  Today we went out of school

  Down the lane

  Into the spinney

  To watch squirrels

  We saw lots of grey squirrels

  Scuttling through the trees

  Searching for nuts on the ground

  Some as still as statues

  We all took notes

  Made sketches

  And asked questions

  Back in school

  We drew our squirrels

  Some sitting like

  Silver grey coffee-pots

  While others paddled acorns

  Into the soft green grass

  Some still listening with their tufty ears

  Others with their feather-duster tails waving

  Everyone drew a squirrel picture – except

  George, who drew a motorbike

  But then, he always does.

  David Whitehead

  The Fairy School under the Loch

  (Sgoil a’Morghain, Barra, The Hebrides)

  The wind sings its gusty song.

  The bell rings its rusty ring.

  The underwater fairy children

  dive and swim through school gates.

  They do not get wet.

  The waves flick their flashing spray.

  A school of fish wriggles its scaly way.

  The underwater fairy children

  learn their liquidy lessons.

  Their reading books are always dry.

  The seals straighten in a stretchy mass.

  Teresa the Teacher flits and floats from class to class.

  The underwater fairy children

  count, play, sing and recite,

  their clothes not in the least bit damp.

  The rocks creak in their cracking skin.

  A fairy boat drifts into a loch of time.

  The underwater fairy children

  lived, learned and left this life –

  their salty stories now dry as their cracked wings.

  John Rice

  We Lost Our Teacher to the Sea

  We’ve been at the seaside all day

  collecting shells, drawing the view

  doing science in the rockpools.

  Our teacher went to find the sea’s edge,

  and stayed there, he’s sitting on a rock

  he won’t come back.

  His glasses are frosted over with salt

  his beard has knotted into seaweed

  his black suit is covered in limpets.

  He’s staring into the wild water

  singing to the waves

  sharing a joke with the herring gulls.

  We sent out the coastguard

  the lifeboat and the orange helicopter

  he told them all to go away.

  We’re getting on the bus with our sticks of rock

  our presents for Mum

  and our jotters and pencils.

  He’s still out there as we leave

  arms outstretched to the pale blue sky

  the tide racing towards him.

  His slippery fishtail flaps

  with a flick and a shimmer he’s gone

  back to the sea forever.

  David Harmer

  Ms Fleur

  Though she doesn’t know it,

  Our teacher is a mermaid.

  We built her from Skegness sand,

  Me and Emily,

  Sculpted a swishing tail,

  Curved scales with the edge of our hands,

  And arranged her driftwood hair in a spiky halo.

  All day we piled the sand and patted her.

  Though she didn’t see it,

  We wrote her name, Ms Fleur,

  In our biggest le
tters,

  Me and Emily,

  Next to her blue shell belly button,

  And her squidgy seaweed earrings

  That popped between our fingers.

  All day we piled the sand and patted her.

  Though she didn’t hear it,

  We sang a mermaid song,

  And screeched like seagulls,

  Me and Emily,

  As we fixed her fins,

  And tiny pebble eyes,

  Saw crabs scuttle across her shingle necklace.

  All day we piled the sand and patted her.

  Until finally the sea lapped at her fins,

  Her driftwood hair, her seaweed earrings,

  And she swished her fish tail,

  High into the foam,

  Calling,

  ‘Katie, Emily,

  It’s time to go,

  It’s time for home,

  It’s time to say goodbye you know!’

  Mary Green

  Changed

  For months he taught us, stiff-faced.

  His old tweed jacket closely buttoned up,

  his gestures careful and deliberate.

  We didn’t understand what he was teaching us.

  It was as if a veil, a gauzy bandage, got between

  what he was showing us and what we thought we saw.

  He had the air of a gardener, fussily protective

  of young seedlings, but we couldn’t tell

  if he was hiding something or we simply couldn’t see it.

  At first we noticed there were often scraps of leaves

  on the floor where he had stood. Later, thin wisps

  of thread like spider’s web fell from his jacket.

  Finally we grew to understand the work. And on that day

  he opened his jacket, which to our surprise

  seemed lined with patterned fabric of many shimmering hues.

  Then he smiled and sighed. And with this movement

  the lining rippled and instantly the room was filled

  with a flickering storm of swirling butterflies.

  Dave Calder

  Teacher

  When you teach me,

  your hands bless the air

  where chalk dust sparkles.

  And when you talk,

  the six wives of Henry VIII

  stand in the room like bridesmaids,

  or the Nile drifts past the classroom window,

  the Pyramids baking like giant cakes

  on the playing fields.

  You teach with your voice,

  so a tiger prowls from a poem

  and pads between desks, black and gold

  in the shadow and sunlight,

  or the golden apples of the sun drop

  from a branch in my mind’s eye.

  I bow my head again

  to this tattered, doodled book

  and learn what love is.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  St Judas Welcomes Author Philip Arder

  Welcome to St Judas.

  Because of a mix-up in timetabling

  Miss Horace who was supposed to be looking after you today

  has had to go on a factory field-trip

  with gifted and talented and the two classes

  of students who’ve actually read your book.

  We’ve had to put you with a younger group

  who, like me I must confess, have never heard of you,

  but we did look you up on Wikipedia

  and see that you like cats.

  Perhaps you could tell a story with lots of actions

  and they could pretend to be their favourite animals?

  There’s a note here from Miss H saying that

  we are unable to buy any of your books for the library

  because we’ve spent the budget for this school term.

  The children won’t be able

  to purchase any of your books either,

  following a change of rules recently agreed by the PTA.

  We have arranged, however, for you to sign

  lots of scraps of paper

  of ever-diminishing

  sizes.

  And for you to give two extra talks,

  seeing as how you’re here.

  A photographer from the local paper

  has a small window in his busy schedule

  so can only come halfway through your first event.

  At this stage, we will have to stop proceedings

  and remove from shot those children whose parents

  have not given consent for them to be photographed.

  It shouldn’t take long.

  And I should warn you that

  there are certain children

  unsuitable for audience participation.

  We found that out the hard way.

  I’m going to have to leave you here

  in the staffroom for a while

  while I find an alternative venue.

  Mock exams in the main hall

  mean that you’ll probably have to give your

  little talks in the dining room.

  I’ll ask the kitchen staff to keep the noise

  of table-laying

  to a minimum.

  I’m afraid I’ll have to nip out part-way through

  your first event

  to sort out a health and safety issue

  but Mrs Lomax will be there throughout,

  though she does have to finish

  a pile of marking.

  Mr Goody, our PE teacher, will be just down the corridor

  and has promised to keep an ear out for the kids

  if they get restless.

  At that age, they’re easily bored.

  I’m sorry if things seem a little disorganized

  but you must be used to it.

  I imagine the big names don’t do school visits,

  do they?

  Have you ever met Philip Pullman,

  by the way?

  His books are amazing.

  Ah, there goes the bell.

  Help yourself to coffee.

  The mugs are in the sink . . .

  Philip Ardagh

  BIRTH AND DEATH

  You’re

  Clownlike, happiest on your hands,

  Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,

  Gilled like a fish. A common-sense

  Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.

  Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,

  Trawling your dark as owls do.

  Mute as a turnip from the Fourth

  Of July to All Fools’ Day,

  O high-riser, my little loaf.

  Vague as fog and looked for like mail.

  Farther off than Australia.

  Bent-backed Atlas, our travelled prawn.

  Snug as a bud and at home

  Like a sprat in a pickle jug.

  A creel of eels, all ripples.

  Jumpy as a Mexican bean.

  Right, like a well-done sum.

  A clean slate, with your own face on.

  Sylvia Plath

  Morning Song

  Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

  The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

  Took its place among the elements.

  Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

  In a drafty museum, your nakedness

  Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

  I’m no more your mother

  Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow

  Effacement at the wind’s hand.

  All night your moth-breath

  Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

  A far sea moves in my ear.

  One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

  In my Victorian nightgown.

  Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

  Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

  Your ha
ndful of notes;

  The clear vowels rise like balloons.

  Sylvia Plath

  Drury Goodbyes

  What with getting in the way of the packing

  and not being allowed to go to

  the big event, Great-granny’s funeral,

  we found something silly to do, and did it:

  we sat the new dolls on the potty

  after we’d done wees in it ourselves.

  Next day we were going away in a boat

  so big that you could stand up in it,

  they said, and it wouldn’t tip over.

  There was no time to dry the soggy dolls;

  they were left behind – all but my Margaret,

  who wouldn’t bend enough to dunk her bottom.

  Fleur Adcock

  Not Waving but Drowning

  Nobody heard him, the dead man,

  But still he lay moaning:

  I was much further out than you thought

  And not waving but drowning.

  Poor chap, he always loved larking

  And now he’s dead

  It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

  They said.

  Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

  (Still the dead one lay moaning)

  I was much too far out all my life

  And not waving but drowning.

  Stevie Smith

  Song

  When I am dead, my dearest,

  Sing no sad songs for me;

  Plant thou no roses at my head,

  Nor shady cypress tree:

  Be the green grass above me

  With showers and dewdrops wet;

  And if thou wilt, remember,

  And if thou wilt, forget.

  I shall not see the shadows,

  I shall not feel the rain;

  I shall not hear the nightingale

  Sing on, as if in pain:

 

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