Quick, Let's Get Out of Here

by Michael Rosen

  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.