THIS PUFFIN MODERN CLASSIC
BELONGS TO
For
Elizabeth Attenborough
Some reviews for Please Mrs Butler
‘One of the most famous school-life poetry collections… Ahlberg brings great authenticity, affection and compassion to his account of school days’ – The Times Educational Supplement
‘Pick of the bunch’ – The Times
‘Fritz Wegner’s pictures are a delight’ – Junior Bookshelf
‘The book’s appeal goes on and on and I know many teachers who have worn out three or four copies’ – Bookseller
‘The most important twentieth-century children’s poetry book’ – Books for Keeps poll
‘There can be few families in the British Isles who do not possess at least one well-thumbed Ahlberg’ – Independent on Sunday
Other books by Allan Ahlberg
Poetry and Jokes
Friendly Matches
The Ha Ha Bonk Book
Heard it in the Playground
The Mighty Slide
Fiction for younger readers
The Happy Families series
Older Fiction
The Bear Nobody Wanted
The Better Brown Stories
The Giant Baby
The Improbable Cat
Jeremiah in the Dark Woods
My Brother’s Ghost
Ten in a Bed
Woof!
Picture Books
with Janet Ahlberg
The Baby’s Catalogue
Burglar Bill
Bye Bye Baby
Cops and Robbers
Each Peach Pear Plum
Funnybones
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
The Jolly Postman
The Jolly Christmas Postman
The Jolly Pocket Postman
Peepo!
Starting School
with André Amstutz
The Fast Dog Slow Fox series
with Raymond Briggs
The Adventures of Bert
A Bit More Bert
with Fritz Wegner
The little Cat Baby
Please Mrs Butler
ALLAN AHLBERG
Illustrated by Fritz Wegner
PUFFIN BOOKS
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Kestrel Books 1983
Published in Puffin Books 1984
Published in Puffin Modern Classics 2003
5
Copyright © Allan Ahlberg, 1983
Illustrations copyright © Fritz Wegner, 1983
Introduction copyright © Julia Eccleshare, 2003
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-192803-6
Introduction
by Julia Eccleshare
Puffin Modern Classics series editor
Allan Ahlberg likes school and, as a former teacher, he knows a lot about it. In these kindly and witty poems, he reveals all the best and worst details of both classroom and playground – and revels in them. The ignominy when it comes to being chosen last for a team in ‘Picking Teams’ and the potential shame that might be brought about by the visit of the school nurse on one of her regular nit searches in ‘School Nurse’ are just two of the embarrassing moments almost everyone has experienced and which Allan Ahlberg lightly portrays. Then there’s the full range and ridiculousness of the myriad excuses that are offered for not doing homework as relayed in ‘Excuses’ while, in a completely contrasting mood and most poignantly, he highlights the enveloping gloom of the struggling reader in ‘Slow Reader’.
But it’s not just how school seems to pupils that concerns Allan Ahlberg. Without ever speaking down to the real audience, he also captures the feelings of the teachers, with whom adult readers are bound to sympathize.
Allan Ahlberg has an exceptional ability to take you right back to the classroom and playground – and it may not always be easy to escape. There are endless projects to be finished, tricks to be played on unsuspecting supply teachers and a list of missing things that seems to be growing longer.
Whatever the subject – even ‘Slow Reader’ – all the poems are injected with a refreshingly positive attitude and, as a result, Please Mrs Butler makes school a place of creativity and fun.
Contents
SCHOOL TIME
Please Mrs Butler
Back to School
Slow Reader
There’s a Fish Tank
Supply Teacher
Emma Hackett’s Newsbook
Who Knows?
Blame
Glenis
The School Nurse
Small Quarrel
Headmaster’s Hymn
As I was Coming to School
PLAY TIME
Complaint
Swops
Picking Teams
If I Wasn’t Me
I Did a Bad Thing Once
Old Joke
The Gang
DINNER TIME
When I was Young
Sometimes God
It is a Puzzle
Dog in the Playground
SCHOOL TIME AGAIN
Scissors
The Cane
Excuses
Eating in Class
Reading Test
Colin
Only Snow
The Runners
The Ordeal of Robin Hood
Do a Project
Lost
School is Great
Now the Day is Over
HOME TIME
Balls on the Roof
The Challenge
Our Mother
Haircut
Is That Your Apple?
Scabs
Bedtime
SCHOOL TIME
Please Mrs Butler
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps copying my work, Miss.
What shall I do?
Go and sit in the hall, dear.
Go and sit in the sink.
Take your books on the roof, my lamb.
Do whatever you think.
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps taking my rubber, Miss.
What shall I do?
Keep it in your hand, dear.
Hide it up your vest.
Swallow it if you like, my love.
Do what you think best.
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps calling me rude names, Miss.
What shall I do?
Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear.
Run away to sea.
Do whatever you can,my flower.
But don’t ask me!
Back to School
In the last week of the holidays
I was feeling glum.
I could hardly wait for school to start;
Neither could mum.
Now we’ve been back a week,
I could do with a breather.
I can hardly wait for the holidays;
Teacher can’t either.
Slow Reader
I – am – in – the – slow
read – ers – group – my – broth
er – is – in – the – foot
ball – team – my – sis – ter
is – a – ser – ver – my
lit – tie – broth – er – was
a – wise – man – in – the
in – fants – christ – mas – play
I – am – in – the — slow
read – ers – group – that — is
all – I – am – in – I
hate – it.
There’s a Fish Tank
There’s a fish tank
In our class
With no fish in it;
A guinea-pig cage
With no guinea-pig in it;
A formicarium
With no ants in it;
And according to Miss Hodge
Some of our heads
Are empty too.
There’s a stock-cupboard
With no stock,
Flowerpots without flowers,
Plimsolls without owners,
And me without a friend
For a week
While he goes on holiday.
There’s a girl
With no front teeth,
And a boy with hardly any hair
Having had it cut.
There are sums without answers,
Paintings unfinished,
And projects with no hope
Of ever coming to an end.
According to Miss Hodge
The only thing that’s brim-full
In our class
Is the waste-paper basket.
Supply Teacher
Here is the rule for what to do
Whenever your teacher has the flu,
Or for some other reason takes to her bed
And a different teacher comes instead.
When this visiting teacher hangs up her hat,
Writes the date on the board, does this or that,
Always remember, you must say this:
‘Our teacher never does that, Miss!’
When you want to change places or wander about,
Or feel like getting the guinea-pig out,
Never forget, the message is this:
‘Our teacher always lets us, Miss!’
Then, when your teacher returns next day
And complains about the paint or clay,
Remember these words, you just say this:
‘That other teacher told us to, Miss!’
Emma Hackett’s Newsbook
Last night my mum
Got really mad
And threw a jam tart
At my dad.
Dad lost his temper
Then with mother,
Threw one at her
And hit my brother.
My brother thought
It was my sister,
Threw two at her
But somehow missed her.
My sister,
She is only three,
Hurled four at him
And one at me!
I said I wouldn’t
Stand for that,
Aimed one at her
And hit the cat.
The cat jumped up
Like he’d been shot,
And landed
In the baby’s cot.
The baby –
Quietly sucking his thumb –
Then started howling
For my mum.
At which my mum
Got really mad,
And threw a Swiss roll
At my dad.
Who Knows?
I know
Something you don’t know.
No, you don’t,
I know it.
You don’t know it.
How could you know it!
Nobody knows it,
Only me.
I just know it.
Prove it, then.
Tell me what I know.
Tell yourself.
Why should I tell you?
You’re the one
Who knows it.
Yes, but you don’t know it!
You prove it.
I can’t prove it.
How can I prove it?
If I tell you what I know
You’ll say you know it already.
I do know it already.
Well, you prove it.
No, I can’t prove it.
If I tell you what I know
You know,
You’ll change it to something else.
No, I won’t.
If you tell me
What you know I know,
I’ll know if you know it.
Yes, but I won’t know!
That’s all right.
Then I’ll know
Something you don’t know.
Blame
Graham, look at Maureen’s leg,
She says you tried to tattoo it!
I did, Miss, yes – with my biro,
But Jonathan told me to do it.
Graham, look at Peter’s sock,
It’s got a burn-hole through it!
It was just an experiment, Miss, with the lens.
Jonathan told me to do it.
Alice’s bag is stuck to the floor,
Look, Graham, did you glue it?
Yes, but I never thought it would work,
And Jonathan told me to do it.
Jonathan, what’s all this I hear
About you and Graham Prewitt?
Well, Miss, it’s really more his fault:
He tells me to tell him to do it!
Glenis
The teacher says:
Why is it, Glenis,
Please answer me this,
The only time
You ever stop talking in class
Is if I ask you
Where’s the Khyber Pass?
Or when was the Battle of Waterloo?
Or what is nine times three?
Or how do you spell
Mississippi?
Why is it, Glenis,
The only time you are silent
Is when I ask you a question?
And Glenis says:
The School Nurse
We’re lining up to see the nurse
And in my opinion there’s nothing worse.
It is the thing I always dread.
Supposing I’ve got nits in my head.
I go inside and sit on the chair.
She ruffles her fingers in my hair.
I feel my face getting hot and red.
Supposing she finds nits in my head.
It’s taking ages; it must be bad.
Oh, how shall I tell my mum and dad?
I’d rather see the dentist instead
Than be the one with nits in his head.
Then she taps my arm and says, ‘Next please!’
And I’m out in the corridor’s cooling breeze.
Yet still I can feel that sense of dread.
Supposing she had found nits in my head.
Small Quarrel
She didn’t call for me as she usually does.
I shared my crisps with someone else.
I sat with someone else in assembly.
She gave me a funny look coming out.
I put a pencil mark on her maths book.
She put a felt pen mark on mine.
She moved my ruler an inch.
I moved hers a centimetre.
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I just touched her PE bag with my foot.
She put the smallest tip of her tongue out.
She dipped her paint brush in my yellow.
I washed mine in her paint water.
She did something too small to tell what it was.
I pretended to do something.
I walked home with her as usual.
She came to my house for tea.
Headmaster’s Hymn
(to be sung)
When a knight won his spurs
In the stories of old,
He was – ‘Face the front, David Briggs,
What have you been told?’
With a shield on his arm
And a lance in his – ‘Hey!
Is that a ball I can see?
Put – it – a – way.’
No charger have I
And –‘No talking back there.
You’re supposed to be singing,
Not combing your hair.’
Though back into storyland
Giants have – ‘Roy,
This isn’t the playground,
Stop pushing that boy!’
Let faith be my shield
And – ‘Who’s eating sweets here?
I’m ashamed of you, Marion,
It’s not like you dear.’
And let me set free
With – ‘Please stop that, Paul King.
This is no place for whistlers,
We’d rather you sing!’
As I was Coming to School
As I was coming to school, Sir,
To learn my ABC,
I was picked up and put in a sack, Sir,
And carried off on his back, Sir,
By a Russian who took me to sea.
So I had to swim all the way back, Sir,
And I still had my legs in the sack,Sir,
And the waves they were forty foot high, Sir,
Which is really the reason why, Sir –
I would not tell a lie, Sir –
I’m late for school today.
Is it all right to go out to play?
PLAY TIME
Please Mrs Butler Page 1