Awful Ermintrude

Once there was a tiresome child, her name was Ermintrude,
She broke her mother’s china vase while saying she’d be good,
She let her granny’s budgie loose and fed it to the cat,
And spilled spaghetti on the floor and meatballs on the mat.

When summer came she filled the house with caterpillars green,
And then, of course, they ate the flowers, bought for the pageant queen,
When autumn came they turned to moths and ate her mother’s furs,
And chewed her granny’s underpants and even munched on hers.

Her parents said, oh daughter dear, we must dole out the belt,
But fortunately the cabbage whites had chewed it like a pelt,
And so they packed their naughty child in a box marked “Do Not Bend”
And paid a pilot ten-and-six to throw it off Land’s End,
But a baggage-handler mixed it up and sent it to Bombay,
And Ermintrude did rise again to meet another day.

Copyright © Max Scratchmann. All Rights Reserved