The Goobledegok

Her mum kissed Jemima and tucked her in tight;
She stroked her hair softly and bid her goodnight;
Crossed over the room to her brother’s bunk-bed,
And quietly whispered: ‘Goodnight sleepy head.’

His eyes were shut tight and his brow lightly furrowed.
So deep in his duvet was Damian burrowed
That all that remained of the child to be seen
Was his hair and his eyes and his nose in-between.

Their mum softly stepped over toys to the door,
Picking up crumpled clothes that lay strewn on the floor,
And cast one look back at the picturesque scene:
Her two little children lay safe, warm and clean.

She smiled and turned off the light switch before
Slipping out of the bedroom and closing the door.

Jemima lay silent and soon approached sleep
By counting a field full of fluffy white sheep.
But just as she dozed on the threshold of slumber,
Bewitched by the sheep in their infinite number,
The silence was broken as Damian hissed:

‘Jemima, are you awake?  Jemima…pssst!’

A second or two or three more did it take
Jemima to realise she was awake.
She thought she’d heard something, but couldn’t be sure,
And that’s when her brother called out something more:

‘Jemima, I know you’re awake and I’m sorry
To keep you from sleep, and don’t want you to worry,
But out in the dark there appears to be
A monster who wants to eat me for his tea!
His fangs are as long as my arms and his paws
Each carry a cluster of razor-sharp claws!
When there’s not a morsel of me left to chew
Inevitably he’ll be coming for you.’

She reached from her bedside to the table which
Held a porcelain lamp, and then flicked on the switch.

She looked to the window but all she could see
Was the uneven shadow cast down by a tree.
No monster was there to be seen in the dark
Midst the leaves of the trees and the branches and bark.

‘Bunkum and balderdash, pure poppycock.
Oh Damian, look - it’s almost ten o’clock.
There’s only one monster that I can see here
And he’s small and he’s ugly but nothing to fear.
The best way to defeat him is soap and shampoo
And if you’ve not guessed yet that monster is you.

‘Now if you’re quite finished I’m going to sleep
Or, so help me God, I’ll make sure that you weep.’

On that sour note she slumped back with a sigh
And flicked off the light switch to get some shut-eye.

As darkness enveloped the room once again
Poor Damian still had monsters on the brain.
Jemima was older with more common sense
And went back to counting sheep jumping a fence.

In more than a minute but less than a few
She counted a hundred and seventy two.
The sheep and the field and the fence became blurred
Just shy of the hundred and seventy third.

But just as she seemed to snooze soundly at last
Her hopes of a good night’s sleep disappeared fast.
For just as before, though she’d started to snore,
The sound of her brother was hard to ignore.
Impossible really as Damian cried:

‘He’s here in the bedroom!  He’s gotten inside!
He must have crept in here when no-one was looking
To pilfer some children to add to his cooking.
He’s under your bed and we won’t last the night
If you don’t react quickly and turn on the light!’

She did as he asked her then craned her neck down
With her head upside down, almost touching the ground
And peered fearfully under the bed to discover
If there was a monster - aside from her brother.

But as she suspected none were to be found.
Just a pile of dolls and toys forming a mound.

By this point Jemima was starting to tire
Of Damian being a fool, or a liar.
She didn’t care which - just that it was keeping
Her head from her pillow where she should be sleeping.

'You’re really becoming incorrigible,
You wicked, insipid, horrendously horrible
Snotty and grotty bedevilling boy.
What else are you planning to do to annoy
And pester your sister and ruin her night?
Well maybe it’s my turn to give you a fright!

‘I’ll tell you a story so scary and shocking
Your face will turn pale and your knees will be knocking.
Your tongue will go numb and prevent you from screaming.
You’ll wish you were safely and peacefully dreaming.

Remember you’ve nothing and no-one to blame
But yourself, and I do hope you tell him the same;
You’ll shudder to think of the night that he came;
The Gobbledegook - you’ll remember his name.’

‘The Goobledegok?  What the devil is that?’
Cried Damian, ‘Something thrown up by a cat?’

‘He’s real,’ said Jemima, ‘And on his way now.
He likes little liars like you for his chow,
‘Cause that’s what he eats for his breakfast and lunch,
His snacks in-between and his mid-morning brunch.

‘His nose is enormous to sniff out his prey
From hundreds of thousands of miles away.
He’s always surrounded by dozens of flies
And peers at his prey with these ruby red eyes
That frighten the life out of anyone caught
Even thinking deceitful and dishonest thoughts.

‘His hair is all matted and dirty and foul
And his face always features a spine-chilling scowl.
He’s covered in scales and long pointy spikes
And little boys’ lies he especially likes.

‘When boys and girls lie and can’t help but tell fibs
He eats every scrap of them save for their ribs
(He uses these later to pick at his teeth
And flick bits of flesh from his beard underneath).

‘The Goobledegok only has one desire:
To sniff out and eat each and every liar
That walks on the face of the earth and thinks nothing
Of lying and cheating and endlessly bluffing.

‘When they least suspect it he’ll bite off their heads
And mop up their blood with a hunk of white bread.

'So anyone lying is in for a shock
When they come face to face with the Goobledegok.’

‘Oh my, replied Damian, ‘That’s quite a story.
Completely made up but sufficiently gory
To entertain me for a while, but now
I must get some sleep before I forget how.

‘So sweet dreams Jemima, goodnight and sleep tight.
Don’t let the bed bugs or Goobledegok bite!’

And almost immediately all she could hear
Was Damian’s snoring, so loud and so clear
He obviously wasn’t pretending or faking
Which left poor Jemima so mad she was shaking.

Her devious plan had achieved nothing more
Than helping her brother to sleep and then snore.

And so she lay there, wide awake more than ever,
Not nearly so big and so cunning and clever
As she had felt trying to frighten her brother.
So all she could do was go back to another
Attempt to count sheep, but try as she might,
She couldn’t make any sheep fade out of sight.

She lay on her back and her front and her side
And each one again, but whatever she tried
Did nothing to bring her the sleep she desired:
It made Jemima more awake and less tired.

And, worse still, when all that she wanted was peace
The sound of her brother’s snoring wouldn’t cease.

She tossed and she turned and she buried her head
Right under her pillow against the bedspread,
And though with her head there she struggled to breathe
The horrible noise became hard to perceive.

But just as her sought-after peace had been found
The bedroom was filled by a terrible sound!

The pillow did nothing to drown out the howl
That ripped through the room, or the terrible growl
That rumbled and grumbled and then disappeared,
Replaced by a hiss that was equally weird.

Jemima lay frozen throughout the duration,
Hoping what she heard was her imagination,
But knew that she couldn’t lay quiet for long
And simply had to see what was going on.

She sat up in bed and her eyes skimmed the room
But struggled to make out a thing in the gloom.
That is ‘til she switched on the light to behold
A horror so horrid her blood turned ice cold.

Her whole body trembled, her heart skipped a beat,
Her hair stood on end from her head to her feet.

For standing in front of her, five feet away,
The Goobledegok existed, clear as day.

The creature she thought she had made up to scare
Her brother before was now actually there!

The only thing was he was even more scary
Than she had imagined, and even more hairy.

His nose was as big and as fat as a marrow
And pointed in front of him, straight as an arrow.

The flies flew around the foul fiend in a flurry
And hummed in a hastening haphazard hurry.

The ruby red eyes looked at her with a glare
That kept her transfixed by his terrible stare.

His fangs were like daggers, all yellow and green
And red from the blood of his favourite cuisine.

And when he eventually spoke and was heard
The whole bedroom rumbled with every word:

‘Jemima, how right you are - I can smell lies
And each one is like a delicious surprise.
I’ve already eaten a hundred and four-
-teen children today - but there’s room for one more.’

And with that he jumped at Jemima so fast
She knew any chance of escape had now passed,
And in that split-second she offered a prayer:

‘Dear Jesus or God, or whoever’s out there,
I’m sorry for every lie that I’ve told
And don’t want to die - I’m eleven years old!

‘I promise if somehow my life you sustain
I’ll never do anymore lying again.’

But just when she gave up her hopes of survival
And grimly awaited the monster’s arrival
She started awake, and was startled to find
A monster above her of a different kind.

‘Jemima.’ cried Damian, ‘Now you’re awake
And I am as well again, for goodness sake
If you’d be so kind as to try, while I’m trying
To sleep, to stop talking and screaming and crying.
You shouted so loud from the nightmare you had
It’s a wonder you didn’t wake up mum and dad!’

And as she watched Damian go back to bed
She said another silent prayer in her head:

‘All praise be to Jesus, thank God I’m alive,
I figured I wasn’t about to survive.

‘No more fibbing, ever,’ but then, with a smile:
‘Except a white lie every once in a while.’