So he turned around and travelled until he came to the Gate of Heaven, and knocked upon it. St Peter happened to be on duty as gatekeeper, and Brother Scamp recognised him right away. ‘Well, look who it is!’ he thought. ‘My old comrade will give me a warmer reception.’
But St Peter said, ‘I don’t believe it! You think you can get into Heaven?’
‘Let me in, Brother, I’ve got to go somewhere. They wouldn’t take me in Hell, or I wouldn’t be stood here now.’
‘Too bad,’ said Peter. ‘You’re not getting in here.’
‘Well,’ said Brother Scamp, ‘if you really won’t allow me in then take back your knapsack, because I don’t want to keep anything of yours.’
‘Hand it over then,’ said St Peter.
He passed the knapsack through the railings and St Peter hung it up behind his chair.
‘Now,’ said Brother Scamp, ‘I wish myself into the knapsack.’
Whoosh! There he was in the knapsack, the knapsack was in Heaven, and St Peter had to let him stay there, fair play.
About the Author
Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow and grew up in Stafford. She won the 1993 Whitbread Award for Poetry and the Forward Prize for Best Collection for Mean Time. The World’s Wife received the E. M. Forster Award in America, while Rapture won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2005. She is currently Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her most recent volumes are New and Collected Poems for Children (2009) and The Bees (2011), which won the Costa Poetry Award. She is Poet Laureate.
Copyright
This collection first published 2014
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2014
Collected Grimm Tales © Carol Ann Duffy, 1996, 1997, 2003
Beasts and Beauties © Carol Ann Duffy, 2004
Rats’ Tales © Carol Ann Duffy, 2012
Illustrations © Tomislav Tomic, 2014
The right of Carol Ann Duffy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31429–4
Faery Tales Page 19
