‘There are giants out in the hinterland,
There are monsters, horrible frogs,
There are birds of prey out there all day
There are streets of savage dogs.
There are bakers, making their ****** pies
From the girls found out on the street,
I think you’d better stay home and play
For you don’t know what you’ll meet.’

Janelle sat curled in the corner, with
Her eyes as wide as the moon,
She’d always led such a sheltered life
In a house, as dark as the tomb.
She’d never questioned her father, nor
The dreadful things that he taught,
He told her he was protecting her
For life out there was fraught.

She’d peer on out of the windows, see
The trees that waved in the breeze,
‘The sap on the lower branches will
Reach out, and capture your knees.’
She’d hear the wind in its savage bursts
That waited to take her breath,
And wondered why she would have to die
But the world outside was death.

She barely remembered her mother
Who had gone by the age of three,
A wistful smile for a fretful child,
He said she was drowned at sea.
But he often sat by a garden plot
When he said it was safe that day,
And planted a bed of forget-me-nots
To keep grave diggers away.

He’d only leave for a weekly shop
And he’d wear a coat and hat,
Dodging over some fences to
Avoid the giant rat,
The snakes were fierce in the supermart
And he said, ‘I do declare,
Don’t ever let me forget my hat
Or the bats will get in my hair.’

Janelle would sit by a mirror, and
Despair at her pale, white face,
She rarely got any sun on it
And her body was starting to waste,
Her legs were thin and her arms were skin
And bone, her ******* were small,
Her ribs would show in the mirror’s glow
She hadn’t much weight at all.

Whenever he’d leave her on her own
He’d be sure to lock the door,
‘We don’t want the zombies creeping in
And dragging you through the floor!’
He said they lived right under the house
But only came out at night,
And that’s when the cats would shriek and yowl,
They put up an awesome fight!

One day he went and forgot to lock,
He must have misplaced the key,
Janelle stood still by the open door
As the wind blew fitfully,
She took a breath, and it wasn’t death
But the sweetest of perfume,
The air was laden with scent that day
With the roses in full bloom.

She ventured into the garden, felt
The grass, so soft on her feet,
While the preying birds sat up in the trees,
But all that they did was tweet,
There were no bats, nor a giant rat,
Though a dog came wagging its tail,
And she saw a man in a crimson van
Pull up, delivering mail.

She finally flung her arms up high
In a moment then, and cried,
‘The world is wonderful, he was wrong,
He lied,’ she said, ‘He lied!’
By the time he arrived back home again
Janelle was gone with the wind,
But a policeman stood in his lounge and said,
‘At last! Well, do come in!’

David Lewis Paget