Heidi's House and Other Rhymes Read online



  HEIDI’S HOUSE

  And Other Rhymes

  by Linda Talbot

  Illustrations by Linda Talbot

  Copyright Linda Talbot 2013

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

  Contact blog: https://lindajtalbot.wordpress.com

  Table of Contents and Illustrations

  Heidi's House

  Where's Fred?

  [Fred the Fish]

  Solomon Tucket

  The Sorry Tale of Slurp, Burp and Slops

  The Black Umbrella

  Rollo the Rabbit

  The Little People

  The Luminous Shoes

  [Timothy Wright]

  An Apple for the Teacher

  [Miss Henshaw]

  Downstream

  Grey-Faced Men

  Two Heads

  [Benjamin Biggins]

  The Wind

  The Camel

  Small Secrets

  Black Tom

  Sailors' Socks

  [Hickory Fish]

  Change of Season

  The Spider

  Winter Sea

  Rock Pools

  The Story of Jeremy Pitts

  Author's Note and Contact Blog

  Here is the house where Heidi was born

  with a patchwork roof and a bright blue lawn.

  Where Heidi sits when the weather’s fair

  or she climbs to the attic or slides on the stair.

  Then one grey day Heidi is seen

  being carried away by the Fairy Queen.

  Everyone sighs for they know very well

  that she’ll shortly be motionless under a spell.

  Her eyes will turn green and her face will go grey

  and she will be shut in a tree trunk all day.

  Her voice will be stolen, her long pigtails knotted

  and she’ll have to eat toadstools until she turns spotted.

  The house feels so empty where Heidi was born

  his unhappy tears tumble onto the lawn.

  He wishes for feet so that he can roam

  and find spotted Heidi and carry her home.

  No sooner has this wish passed out of the door

  than feet begin sprouting from under the floor.

  He moves each one stiffly over the lawn

  and in six strides has flattened a whole field of corn.

  He billows out smoke and crashes through trees

  and “Heidi!” he calls on the soft summer breeze.

  And from where she’s been tied up for more than a week

  Heidi can hear him but she cannot speak.

  Then the house hears a squeal from under his floor.

  He turns down his eyes and by the back door

  the Queen is squashed like an overripe pear

  and Heidi’s voice drifts upon the night air.

  For her voice has returned now the Queen is no more

  and her eyes are as blue as they were before.

  Her spots disappear and her pigtails hang long

  and from far off she hears the house break into song.

  He finds her sitting under the tree

  happily laughing because she is free.

  She blinks at the house and turns white with surprise;

  where windows once were are two very large eyes.

  “Oh house!” says Heidi, “What feet you have grown!

  “Did you really walk all this way on your own?”

  “Yes, come on inside,” the house replies

  and opens the front door at once very wide.

  In ten long strides they reach the blue lawn

  just as the summer night turns into dawn.

  And the feet of the house begin to shrink

  which rattles the doors and cracks the sink.

  But Heidi is dreaming in her small bed

  with the jumbled up bedclothes over her head.

  The house shuts his windows against the cold dawn

  and with a deep sigh sinks back in the lawn.

  BACK TO THE START!

  Where's Fred?

  Through the sea shoot the silver fish;

  the rainbow fish and plaice,

  the invisible fish who fly in a race

  and a fish called Fred

  who is purple and red

  and who has a freckled face.

  The fishermen chase him under the moon,

  while Fred puffs up like a coloured balloon

  as he nibbles at weeds and swallows whole fish.

  He does not want to be fried on a dish,

  so he grows even larger - as big as the boat

  and comes to the surface to splutter and float.

  Then he bursts in a shower of purple and red

  and the fishermen cry, “What’s happened to Fred?”

  Now Fred is a rainbow spread over the sea;

  then a shimmering bridge stretching up to the moon.

  The fishermen step from their bobbing boat

  and walk up the rainbow, cum fish, cum balloon.

  They cry, “Look! There’s Venus.

  “Oh, look! There is Mars.

  “And there is the Great Bear’s head.

  “And there is Orion and millions of stars.

  “And a moon like a cheese, but where’s Fred?”

  “I’m here, here and here,”

  the rainbow declares

  and its colours illumine the night.

  “I will not be fried or battered or beaten

  “And, needless to say, I will NOT be eaten!

  “Now I belong to the night and the day.

  “I’m red, blue and green and I’m melting away.

  “You’ll have to catch other fish instead.”

  The fishermen slide back into their boat.

  But still they demand, “Where’s Fred?”

  BACK TO THE START!

  Solomon Tucket

  Solomon Tucket lives in a bucket

  once used for carrying coals.

  The handle squeaks and Solomon shrieks

  when the wind whistles in through the holes.

  The bucket is tied to a very tall tree

  and sighs as it swings in the air.

  So does Solomon, wondering why

  everyone comes to stare.

  “Why do you live in a bucket?” they ask.

  Solomon shouts through the holes,

  “I looked for a house, but all I could find

  was this bucket for carrying coals.”

  Sadly the people wander away

  this curious story to tell.

  Then an old man with very dim eyes arrives

  and carries the bucket away to the well.

  “Oh, no!” shouts Solomon, “Look at the holes.

  “If you lower the bucket, I’ll drown.”

  But the old man is deaf, as well as dim-eyed

  and slowly the bucket slides down.

  In the slippery well is a slimy smell

  and the ghost of Solomon’s cry.

  The bucket is bouncing against the wet walls

  and Solomon’s waiting to die.

  He remembers the curious homes he has known,

  like the boot with the broken toe,

  the barrel of beer where he lived for a year

  and the saucepan he found in the snow.

  The bucket is best, in spite of the holes

  and the wind when it starts to blow.

  For even the wind is less chilling than beer

  and warmer than inches of snow.

&nb
sp; But what will become of him down in the well

  when the water flows over his head?

  I should have looked for a dry ditch, he thinks

  or an empty box under a bed.

  Then the bucket stops plunging and swings to and fro

  and Solomon’s struck by the thought

  as it starts moving upwards - the old man’s dim-eyed

  and the rope on the bucket’s too short.

  The water is winking a long way below;

  so deep and the colour of lead.

  The bucket bumps twice and two very large lumps

  appear on Solomon’s head.

  At the top of the well comes a sickening lurch

  which increases the bruises to three.

  “I know where there’s water,” the old man mutters

  and stumbles away to the sea.

  Solomon’s bruises are bright black and blue,

  but he happily peers through the holes.

  Seeing the sun, he says, “How well I’ve done

  to live in a bucket that once carried coals.”

  BACK TO THE START!

  The Sorry Tale of Slurp, Burp and Slops

  High on a hill live Slurp, Burp and Slops

  with their legs fat as butter and heads like mops.

  They bumble about in the dead of night

  round dustbins whose lids are not left on too tight.

  With a bang and a clatter each slithers and flops

  among old paper bags and the bones of meat chops

  and carries them off to the hilltop high,

  where the heaps spread and tumble against the night sky.

  For Slurp, Burp and Slops have to hoard all they find

  and seldom leave anything lying behind;

  bits of chicken and crusts of bread,

  a clock with no hands, a doll with no head.

  Stockings with ladders turned inside out

  and stuffed in a teapot without any spout.

  Eggshells, boxes and bags full of holes,

  a sad pair of slippers without any soles.

  The dustmen stare at the empty bins

  and gather a handful of left behind tins.

  “People are tidy,” says one called Fred

  and shrugging his shoulders, he goes back to bed.

  But Slurp, Burp and Slops have such a large heap

  there is nowhere left for them to sleep.

  The tin cans are sharp and lie piled on the floor

  and boxes and bedsteads have blocked up the door.

  For eighteen days they crunch old bones

  and nobody hears their hungry moans,

  until their mops turn brown as leaves

  and they start to rattle around the knees.

  “I know we were greedy,” they weakly moan,

  “But look how pale and thin we have grown.”

  They bumble no more but mope in the gloom

  and flop in confusion around the room.

  The tins turn rusty, the doll’s lost an arm

  “What’s the time?” ticks the clock and rings his alarm.

  The teapot groans, the slippers mutter

  and wish they’d been thrown out in the gutter.

  Soon Slurp, Burp and Slops moan no more

  and their mops fall to pieces and lie by the door.

  The dustbins are bulging, but only the breeze

  plucks out the paper and laughs in the trees.

  Then one day the dustmen pass the door

  and see the mess and the mops on the floor.

  “Here’s all the rubbish!” they shout, “Hooray!”

  And carry Slurp, Burp and Slops away.

  The moral of this tale is “Beware!”

  and carefully choose what you want here and there.

  Or your legs may grow squashy, your heads turn to mops

  and the dustmen will carry you off with the slops.

  BACK TO THE START!

  The Black Umbrella

  The black umbrella lies broken and bent.

  “What a life!” he is heard to mutter.

  “I’m made of best cane and I kept off the rain

  “and here I am, sprawled in the gutter.”

  The black umbrella was blown inside out

  by a wind that blustered and whirled,

  that snatched at the nylon and wrenched at the spokes

  the moment that he was unfurled.

  His owner, a small man, was swept off his feet

  and carried aloft with a cry.

  The umbrella - absurd - flapped about like a bird

  then flopped down in the gutter to die.

  He struggles to gather his spokes in one piece

  and to straighten his handle of cane.

  But they splinter and cry, then subside with a sigh

  as he sneezes, awash in the rain.

  He shivers and sobs at the side of the road

  and hears wet feet hurrying by.

  THEY’RE going home, he thinks with a groan,

  but where do umbrellas go when they die?

  Do they drift through the grey like improbable birds

  with wings black as bad-tempered clouds?

  Or laugh from the heights like flyaway kites

  above wide-mouthed and wondering crowds?

  Or do they lie sighing in rain-spattered fields,

  gazing helplessly up at the sky

  as the rain slowly soaks through their shivering spokes,

  while they dream of the days when they kept people dry?

  The umbrella’s tears wash away with the rain

  as the bright sound of singing is heard,

  and a man in a mac with a bulging brown sack

  picks up the umbrella without a word.

  Inside the sack are other umbrellas;

  broken or blown outside in.

  After bumping around, they are banged on the ground

  and the umbrella mender looks down with a grin.

  He finds old umbrellas and carries them home

  where he mends them with thread and new cane.

  Then he waits for a shower and sells ten in one hour

  before splashing back home in the rain.

  But our broken umbrella has special new spokes

  and is placed with great pride on a shelf.

  And when it rains hard, the umbrella mender

  uses the big black umbrella himself.

  BACK TO THE START!

  Rollo the Rabbit

  Rollo the rabbit takes the air.

  It is March and he feels full of vim.

  He scutters and bounds on his big back legs

  to the stream where a water witch swims.

  She is wavy and sleek with water-weed hair

  and chuckles on seeing the rabbit.

  She must make a spell, for Rollo can’t know

  she cannot get out of the habit.

  She waves a long finger, dripping with slime

  and Rollo is wrapped in a fog.

  She cackles and croaks in her water-weed cloaks

  as she turns Rollo into a frog.

  But the spell is worn out and stops at his snout,

  so he still has his long floppy ears.

  He sits on the bank as the witch waves goodbye

  and fills up the stream with his tears.

  He tries hard to swim, but his ears fill with fish,

  so he sinks in the grass in despair.

  Two children arrive with a net and a tin

  which they drop as they stand still and stare.

  The witch swims back with a shoal of fish

  and the children spread their net wide.

  Thinking they’ve found a different dish,

  they soon have the water witch wriggling inside.

  Spluttering with anger, she musters a spell,

  but her water-weed hair is wound tight round her head.

  The children, fearing she’d be tough to eat,

  decide to play with the witch ins
tead.

  “What can you do?” asks Osbert Simms.

  “I cast spells and solve riddles,” the water witch sneers.

  “Look at this rabbit! Now he’s a frog.”

  But Rollo still flaps his untidy ears.

  “I think you’re a fraud!” says Betty Bulloo

  and wonders now why they caught her

  and before she can turn them from children to frogs

  pushes her back in the water.

  BACK TO THE START!

  The Little People

  At the bottom of forgotten drawers

  and dark and dusty places,

  little people live and laugh

  with funny crumpled faces.

  They are not exactly fairy folk,

  they cannot even fly.

  But when the room is hot and dark

  they may come skipping by.

  They gurgle in the water pipes

  and run along the stair.

  They pull the bedclothes on the floor

  and fumble in your hair.

  You may think this is nonsense,

  but when you’re feeling ill,

  there’s sure to be some on your bed

  or on the window sill.

  To keep them in their hiding place,

  be sure to sweep your room,

  brush your hair and clean your teeth

  and chase them with the broom.

  BACK TO THE START!

  The Luminous Shoes

  Timothy Wright has luminous shoes

  which are ideal for walking on dark winter nights.

  Motorists see them approaching for miles;

  gleaming and glinting like promenade lights.

  Timothy Wright is so proud of his shoes,

  he makes them walk everywhere, in and out town.

  So the shoes begin creaking, their soles are so sore

  and they wrinkle their leather up into a frown.

  “Oh, shoes, do walk faster!” Timothy says.

  But they pull at his heels and grunt instead.

  And when he is sleeping, half way through the night,

  they creep without creaking from under the bed.