to collect it.’
So I got another one off him.
On Wednesday,
same again,
one pint of milk
no orange.
So on Thursday
I waited for him again.
‘No orange yesterday,’ I said.
‘Look I delivered it,’ he says.
‘Well it’s disappearing,’ I say.
‘Someone’s nicking it then,’ he says
And off he went.
Suddenly,
my mind began to think –
Who is it creeping up to our doorstep?
Who’s getting our lovely orange
for their breakfast?
Someone on their way to work?
Someone walking a dog?
Someone who nips out and collects it
and nips back in again
and then shares it out round the family?
So I made a plan.
On Friday
I got up
same time as the milkman,
picked up the orange carton
took it indoors
emptied the orange out into a jug
poured in some orange squash
up to about five centimetres from the top
and then I took some
hot Jamaica sauce we’ve got.
And I don’t know whether you know
what that’s like
but if you just put a little speck of it
on your tongue
it feels as if someone’s put a match
in your mouth.
I love it. I put it on my rice.
So I took this stuff
and I shook in half a bottle-load of it.
shuk shuk shuk shuk
yeah
shuk shuk shuk shuk
yeah.
Then I sealed up the carton
and put it back on our doorstep
in exactly the same place
and then I went back to bed.
Now I had wanted to stay awake
but I dozed off by mistake.
Anyway
when I got up
I went straight to the front door
opened it and
hohoho
there was one pint of milk
and NO orange.
I was so pleased.
And then I thought –
I made up a little scene in my mind.
I thought,
Maybe,
my orange thief is
someone who nips out
nicks the orange,
nips back in
and shares it out with the family.
So this morning,
this person did just that.
Gets back indoors,
opens up the orange
everyone sitting round the breakfast table
pours out a glass for everyone
lifts up the glass
and goes,
‘Here’s best wishes to those lovely people
at number 11
who give us our fresh orange.’
Raises it to the lips,
gulps,
and
phoooooor
It feels like someone’s
jammed a banger in his mouth.
His mouth’s on fire
And he goes dancing round the house
for the next hour,
stuffs his head under the tap
fills his mouth with water,
goes off dancing round the house again
he can’t get rid of it.
Maybe that’s what happened
Maybe it didn’t
It could have been a woman
it could have been a kid.
All I know is
we haven’t lost any more orange
since.
Hohohoho.
GYMNASTICS
When my mum and dad went out
we moved the chair to the end of the settee
and then we used to take it in turns
to do dive-bombs
off the chair
on to the settee.
Standby
Wheeeeeeee
kerflump.
Great.
Jump down on to the floor
back on to the chair
standby for dive-bomb
wheeeeee
kerflump
wow did you see that one?
Then we put another chair
on the other end of the settee
and rammed the table up close to that chair.
Then you could dive-bomb
off the chair on to the settee
wheeeeeee
kerflump
climb on to the chair at the other end of the settee
and then up on to the table
leap off the table
like a RED DEVIL
yahooooo
BAMM on to the floor.
Then we piled up all the cushions
in the corner
so you could go tunnelling
along the wall, round the corner
back to the chair next to the settee
jugga jugga jugga jugga
and banging your feet on the floorboards
thudda thudda thudda thudda
Great.
I asked Harrybo, Tony Sanders,
Lizzie, Grey and Hendy over
and all seven of us went round
Great.
Next day,
we all met up
and it was Lizzie who said
after we’ve dive-bombed the settee
we could trampoline for a bit
bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy
and then if we pulled the flaps
out of the table
we could do marching on the table
clomp clomp clomp clomp.
Great, I said
come over.
Yeah we’ll come over
for gymnastics at Rosie’s place.
So,
that night,
we dashed out of school
into our front room
moved the furniture round
and away we went.
Standby for dive-bomb
Wheeeeeeee
kerflump on to the settee
trampoline
bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy
up on to chair number two
up on to the table
march
clomp clomp clomp clomp
RED DEVIL
yahooooooo
BAMM on to the floor
jugga jugga jugga jugga jugga
under the cushions
thudda thudda thudda thudda
and back to chair number one
all seven of us
great
screaming our heads off
round and round
our gymnastics course.
The doorbell rang.
Right in the middle of our session.
The doorbell.
I went and answered the door.
It was the man from downstairs.
He looked at me for a long time
and then he started to speak.
‘Is your father in?’
‘No,’ I said
‘Tell him I want a word with him
when he comes in, will you?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He went on looking at me.
I could hear him breathing
and his eyes were getting big
his mouth was tightening up
then he shouted:
‘MY LIGHT FITTING HAS JUST FALLEN OUT
OF MY CEILING!!!!
WHAT’S GOING ON?
I’VE NEVER HEARD ANYTHING LIKE IT.
WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN THERE?
A WHOLE HERD OF ELEPHANTS?
MY LIGHT FITTING HAS JUST FALLEN OUT
OF MY CEILING.’
Then all quiet he said,
‘I s
hall tell your mother and father
about this.
Don’t you worry, sonny.
You’ll see.’
He went indoors.
I dashed back into the front room –
they were lying about all over the floor
panting and giggling.
‘That was the man from downstairs.
He says we’ve bust his light or something.’
‘Blimey,’ one of them said.
‘You’re in trouble.’
‘Yeah, Rosie’s in trouble,’ they said.
And they all got up off the floor
and dashed out of the house.
You can bet they didn’t hang about
or anything.
PEBBLE
I know a man who’s got a pebble.
He found it and he sucked it
during the war.
He found it and he sucked it
when they ran out of water.
He found it and he sucked it
when they were dying for a drink.
And he sucked it and he sucked it
for days and days and days.
I know a man who’s got a pebble
and he keeps it in his drawer.
It’s small and brown – nothing much to look at
but I think of the things he thinks
when he sees it:
how he found it
how he sucked it
how he nearly died for water to drink.
A small brown pebble
tucked under his tongue
and he keeps it in his drawer
to look at now and then.
UNFAIR
When we went over the park
Sunday mornings
To play football
we picked up sides.
Lizzie was our striker
because she had the best shot.
When the teachers
chose the school team
Marshy was our striker.
Lizzie wasn’t allowed to play,
they said.
So she watched us lose, instead…
LOSING THINGS
I HATE LOSING THINGS
so I think,
‘What if
there is a place somewhere
where everything you ever lost
goes?’
Somehow or another
all those things you ever lost
found their way there –
to this place?
Maybe there’s a huge hall somewhere
with hundreds and hundreds of doors
and one of the doors
has got your name on it.
I see myself
going to this huge hall one day.
The way in is not very big
but once you get inside –
it’s enormous.
It’s cold and dark and damp
and there are thousands of people there,
and they’re all looking for the door
that belongs to them
the door with their name on it.
Everyone is asking everyone else:
‘Have you seen my door?’
‘What’s your name?’
And people are saying things like –
‘I think I saw it over there.’
or
‘Don’t bother me, I’m looking for mine.’
So I begin to look
and I walk about
and I ask someone:
‘Have you seen my door?’
‘I think it’s over there,’ she says.
So I go over there –
but it isn’t.
So I go on wandering around the big hall.
I ask someone: ‘Have you seen my door?’
and someone says,
‘Up the spiral stair –
it’s on the second floor.’
On the way there
someone stops me and says,
‘Have you seen my door?’
and I say, ‘No, I haven’t.’
I climb up the spiral stair
on to the second floor
but my door isn’t there either.
So I go on wandering around the big hall
And someone comes up to me and says,
‘Have you seen my door?’
‘Have you seen mine?’ I say.
‘It’s at the end by the steel doors,’
and it is.
It’s my door
It’s got my name on it.
I knock on the door
‘Who’s there?’
‘Me.’
‘We were expecting you.’
The bolts draw back,
the door opens
and two old people let me in
and shut the door behind me.
‘It’s all here,’ one of them says.
‘It’s all here,’ the other one says.
And they’re right.
There’s my penknife from Switzerland,
I lost when I was twelve
the old watch I lost in my car accident
my blue anorak with the hood
that I left on a railway station in Paris
my round gold sun-glasses
that I once wore in a play
to make me look blind
the football
that was a birthday present
that I lost on the same day I got it
over a wall in the burnt out church.
They’re all there.
A black white and green towel,
a moroccan leather wallet.
‘They’re all here,’ says one of the old people.
‘They’re all here,’ says the other.
‘Have you got a bag to take them away in?’
says one.
‘Here’s a bag to take them away in,’ says the other.
So I fill up the bag
with all the things that I’ve ever lost
until all the shelves are empty.
‘Come back and see us anytime,’ says one.
‘Come back and see us,’ says the other.
‘You know where we are now, don’t you?’ says one.
‘You know where we are,’ says the other.
‘But you’re taking my name off the door,’ I say.
‘Why are you taking my name off the door?’
‘Because you know where we are now, don’t you?’ says one.
‘You know where we are,’ says the other.
And they shut the door.
I hear the locks and bolts on the door
and I walk away into the crowd
in the huge hall,
and everyone is still walking round
asking everyone else,
‘Do you know where my door is?’
A tall man with a steering wheel in his hand
says to me,
‘You seen my door, have you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’
‘No, I don’t expect you have,’ he says.
I look round to see if I can remember
where my door was.
And it’s out of sight.
Too many people are in the way.
So I say to myself,
‘One day,
I’ll try and find my way back there,’
but something tells me,
some little voice in my head says,
‘I bet you’ll never ever find that door again.
You’ve had the only chance
you’ll ever have.’
So I make my way
out of that huge dark hall
with the thousands and thousands of doors
and the thousands and thousands of people
and I hurry home with my bag
and I get back to my room
and I spread out on the floor
all those things that I had lost
and I’ve now got back again,
and that makes me very happy.
&nbs
p; CHRISTMAS DINNER
We were all sitting round the table.
There was roast turkey
there were roast potatoes
there were roast parsnips
there were broccoli tips
there was a dishful of crispy bacon off the turkey
there was wine, cider, beer, lemonade
and milk – for the youngsters.
Everything was set.
It was all on the table.
We were ready to begin.
Suddenly there was a terrible terrible scream.
Right next to the turkey was a worm.
A dirty little worm wriggling about like mad.
For a moment everyone looked at it.
Someone said very quietly, ‘Oh dear.’
And everyone was thinking things like –
‘How did it get there?’
‘If that came out of the turkey,
I don’t want any of it.’
or
‘I’m not eating any Christmas dinner. It could be full of
dirty little wriggly worms.’
Now – as it happens,
I don’t mind wriggly worms.
There was plenty of room for it
at the table.
It was just that… that…
no one had asked it to come over
for Christmas dinner.
So I said,
‘I don’t think it came out of the turkey. I think –
It came off the bottom of the milk bottle.’
And I picked up the worm,
and put it out the door to spend Christmas day
in a lovely patch of wet mud.
Much nicer place to be –
for a worm.
I’M NOT GOING PLACES WITH THEM AGAIN
When we went to Chessington Zoo
with the club
we all went in
and the leader said,
‘Right, listen, everyone
listen, everyone,
everyone listen.
You can all go off where you like
for the next two hours
and we’ll all meet up here
at 4 o’clock.
At 4 o’clock,
OK?’
Then we all went off
Where we liked
I saw the lions
and the seals
and the parrots
and the giraffes
and the crocodiles.
I ate my cheese and pickle sandwiches
a packet of crisps
and drank some of my fizzy orange
and ate a chocolate swiss roll.
Then I asked someone the time
and she said, ‘4 o’clock,’
so I went back to where we had to meet.
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