The Mighty Slide

by Allan Ahlberg

  Relax their minds and recover their wits.

  At dinner time it poured down with rain,

  So they never did get in the playground again.

  While home time was no time for hanging about;

  When the school bell rang, the school was out.

  Sidney and Stanley walked home up the street,

  Discussing what a monster would eat.

  ‘It crunches coke!’ (‘Our dog eats coal.’)

  ‘It swallows sacks of salvage whole!’

  ‘It gets in the classrooms late at night,

  And gives the guinea-pigs a bite!’

  ‘Tulip bulbs!’ ‘Light bulbs!’ ‘Bean bags!’ ‘Yes –

  Tadpoles and sticklebacks!’ ‘Mustard and cress!’

  They stopped at a kerb and got splashed by a bus;

  And Stanley said softly, ‘It could've ate us.’

  Half an hour later, at twenty-past four,

  Stanley was eating and looking for more;

  Till – hearing his friend at the backyard gate –

  He grabbed his boots and, ‘I won't be late!’,

  Bolted a biscuit and left like a shot

  For the Thursday night match against Littlewood's lot.

  This game was played in Victoria Park

  From half-past four till when it got dark;

  Eighteen a side and two half-times,

  With a ball provided by Timothy Simes;

  Coats for goals, one corner flag a tree,

  A brook for a touch-line and no referee.

  And Stan was left back and Sid on the wing,

  Though he'd no business playing with his arm in a sling.

  When the score was thirty: twenty-eight,

  And the sky the colour of a classroom slate,

  The teams all smothered in mud and sweat,

  Steaming like horses and soaking wet,

  And a boy named Horace had broken his glasses,

  And none of them could see to make their passes,

  They decided at last to call it a day,

  And began to think what their mothers would say:

  ‘What time d'you call this?’ ‘Get that mud off the floor!’

  (Their fathers, of course, were away at the war.)

  Through the darkened park with torches gleaming,

  Painful knees and shirts still steaming,

  Sid ’n’ Stan with Albert and Fred

  Replayed the match with their mouths instead.

  ‘Did y'see that shot?’ ‘Did y'see that dive?’

  ‘I scored a hat-trick!’ ‘I scored five!’

  ‘We should've had a penalty!’ ‘Should've had three!’

  ‘We'll hammer ‘em next time – wait and see!’

  They talked at length of the other team's failings,

  And left the park through a gap in the palings.

  ‘But what about the monster?’ protested the class.

  ‘This isn't a football story!’

  ‘We don't want to hear about mothers and mud;

  When is it going to get gory?’

  The teacher was quiet for quite some time;

  A small frown furrowed his brow.

  ‘When is it going to get gory?’ he said.

  ‘Well, come to think of it… now!’

  The trouble really started with Timothy Simes:

  ‘I've been in that boiler-room loads of times!’

  ‘You never!’ said Stan. ‘You liar!’ said Sid.

  ‘Bet you a tanner!’ ‘A dollar!’ ‘A quid!’

  They had bumped into Timmy in Mercer Street,

  Having stopped at the fish shop for something to eat.

  ‘Two penn' orth of chips!’ ‘A bag of batters, please!’

  ‘A couple of scallops and a portion of peas!’

  Well, a row had erupted while they were there,

  Concerning the monster, its diet, its lair.

  ‘I heard he swallowed a cricket bat.’

  ‘No, an apple,’ said Fred. ‘Well, I'd eat that!

  You're pulling my leg, you're having me on,

  You never seen nothin’ – it's all a big con!

  I've been in that boiler-room loads of times;

  It's bare as a barracks,’ said Timothy Simes.

  ‘We saw it,’ said Stan. ‘Well, prove it,’ said Tim.

  ‘I dare you – let's drop a few chips down on 'im!’

  And so it was at half-past seven

  Under a black and starry heaven,

  When they could've been home by a cosy fire

  With toes thawing out and hair getting drier,

  A mug of tea and the ‘Radio Fun’,

  And nothing to fear from anyone,

  Sidney and Stanley, breathing hard,

  Found themselves in the Rolfe Street yard,

  Picking their way over puddled ground,

  Once more in a sweat, once more trouble bound.

  And Albert and Freddy and Timmy were there,

  And Timmy's friend, Denis, to witness the dare.

  Six shadowy figures, five flickering beams

  (The one without was Denis Eames),

  Moving more slowly, fearing the worst;

  Each trying to let the others go first.

  When, all of a sudden, out of the night

  Came a whistle of wind and a flash of light,

  And a noise like the thump of a monstrous drum

  As the school was blown to kingdom come;

  Blitzed to bits – and dust – and rubble:

  And that was only the start of the trouble.

  The boys were lifted off their feet,

  Their eyebrows singed in the searing heat.

  Their clothes were torn, their chips were scattered

  (And fried again, not that that mattered).

  The mud on their boots and knees baked hard,

  As they lay in a heap at the side of the yard;

  Deafened and dazzled, bruised and grazed,

  While the brickwork tumbled and the woodwork blazed.

  The bomb, which had come as a total surprise

  Out of the seemingly peaceful skies,

  (No searchlights, no sirens) was hard to explain,

  Though Fred later fancied he had heard a plane.

  But, whatever the reasons, the likelihood

  Was Rolfe Street had broken up for good.

  Yes, the school was demolished, the landscape scarred;

  But worse was to come in the concrete yard;

  For the playground had split like a pastry crust,

  And out of the clouds of smoke and dust,

  Just like a curtain being parted,

  And lit by the fires the bomb had started,

  Unharmed in the heat that was blistering…

  Came a huge and shapeless, lumbering thing.

  The boys in a heap were horrified;

  Their mouths were open, their eyes were wide.

  ‘It's as tall as two men!’ ‘As big as a bus!’

  ‘It's heading this way!’ ‘It's coming for us!’

  (Though a half-cheering thought did occur to Sid:

  That'll show Simesy – he owes us a quid!)

  Forgetting their bruises, ignoring the heat,

  They frantically scrambled to their feet;

  Fred, Denis, Albert; Timmy, Sid, Stan,

  And like hares from the hounds they turned and ran.

  Well, five of them ran, but one of them hobbled:

  ‘Me ankle!’ cried Stan. ‘I'm gonna get gobbled!’

  Five of them ran and four went free,

  But Sid came back: ‘Here, lean on me!’

  And all the while at a lumbering pace,

  The thing with the terrible hairy face

  Advanced through the smoke – it was getting clearer –

  With arms outstretched, coming nearer and nearer.

  Then Sid ‘n’ Stan in desperate flight

  Saw just ahead a welcome sight:

  The toilets – still standi
ng – untouched by the blaze

  (School toilets were outside in those days).

  Sid kicked at the door, they staggered inside,

  It was really the only place to hide.

  But the toilets, though solid, weren't due to last;

  For while missing the blaze they had caught the blast;

  And as Sid ‘n’ Stan crouched low on the floor,

  The door slamming shut was the final straw.

  (There are times in your life when you just can't win.)

  Then the roof collapsed and the walls caved in.

  In the few split seconds before he fainted,

  Sid thought of his rabbit hutch – recently painted;

  And his rabbit, a present from Uncle Clive,

  And his rotten luck, being buried alive.

  Stan's final thought was the pile of bricks

  That fell on his head and knocked him for six.

  Meanwhile, nearby a witness stood,

  Observing the jumble of roof-tiles and wood;

  A hairy witness, twelve feet high,

  And black against the blazing sky.

  It lumbered closer, and fell to its knees,

  Then with hands like shovels and arms like trees,

  And a body unbelievably big,

  It set to work and began… to dig.

  (And the question is this: what would you choose,

  In a situation where you're bound to lose?

  Buried alive or dug up and… well,

  You see what I mean; it's hard to tell.)

  Now the creature was quick, not to mention strong,

  So the business of digging didn't take long.

  It tossed aside roof-beams and toilet doors

  (Disregarding its splintered paws),

  Scooped armfuls of rubble from the pile

  And glanced around just once in a while.

  It cocked its head at the slightest noise,

  And by-and-by it uncovered the boys.

  Stan sensed a movement and heard a sound;

  His eyelids fluttered, he began to come round.

  He felt himself rising up into space;

  Something hairy was brushing his face.

  A mighty breath was on his cheek;

  He opened his mouth but failed to speak.

  He opened his eyes and looked about,

  And saw his friend being lifted out.

  Sid lay on his back in the bombed-out yard,

  With his trousers torn and his eyebrows charred.

  ‘I saw’ (he said later) ‘this horrible mug –

  A mouth like a coal-hole, a face like a rug.

  I thought – this is it – I've had it – Amen.

  And then after that, well… I fainted again.’

  Which simply left Stan to report what occurred,

  Though his thoughts were confused and his vision blurred.

  (‘My eyes was watering from the smoke,

  My ankle busted and my collarbone broke!’)

  So could he have seen what he said he saw,

  As he sat in a daze on the playground floor?

  A look of concern on that monstrous face,

  When it lowered Sid to his resting place?

  A gleam of intelligence in those eyes

  Of preposterous blue and preposterous size?

  And did he hear what he claimed he heard

  (Though his ears were ringing and his hearing blurred) ?

  Its voice, and the two words: Than 'n’ Thid’?

  Well, decide for yourself, but I think he did.

  The final scene a little while later,

  With the school a quietly smouldering crater,

  The steaming puddles, the sizzling snow

  (Which had started to fall just a minute ago),

  Showed Sid (unconscious) and Stan (unafraid)

  Being ‘rescued’ by the fire brigade.

  ‘Now then, young fella,’ a fireman said,

  ‘We'll soon have you tucked in a cosy bed.’

  Stan tried to point and struggled to speak,

  But his throat was parched and his arm was weak.

  So the fireman failed to understand,

  And never saw the massive hand

  Raised (in a wave?) at the edge of the night,

  As something huge passed out of sight.

  It was dark in the classroom,

  Dark everywhere

  As the fog pressed up to the glass.

  The teacher sighed deeply

  And slumped in his chair,

  And stared at the silent class.

  ‘Did it ever come back?’ the children cried.

  (Their silence was short and sweet.)

  ‘Did it walk the streets at the dead of night

  On its huge and hairy feet?’

  ‘Did it look in somebody's window, perhaps,

  And wish their home was its?’

  ‘Did it creep up somebody's stairs, perhaps,

  And scare somebody to bits?’

  ‘No, it never came back,’ said the teacher;

  ‘At least as far as I know.

  Come on, now, let's have y'chairs up,

  That's it – it's time to go.

  ‘And I'll tell you another tomorrow,

  One that you'll never forget;

  For its horribly strange (as always),

  And quite the scariest yet.

  ‘I'll call it The Boy and the Blob, perhaps,

  Or The Terror of Timbuctoo;

  And remember, it's swimming on Friday;

  Off you go now – home time – shoo!’