Fantasy: Anastasia, Hollerburluke, Gentleman Ghost Poem by Margaret Alice

Anastasia Morningstar

Feeling ill and despondent, in need of
a new perspective, lying down on the
couch, legs curled over the backrest
reading Anastasia Morningstar

She turned a small boy into a frog,
then two kids were turned into rocks,
made the science teacher Mr Wyanth
remember a crystal butterfly

Which had to be freed in order to fly,
his cold and rational perspective of
science, forcing him to flunk Sarah
for being too imaginative, suddenly

Destroyed, his mind expanded to make
room for the unexpected, for magic -
and Anastasia Morningstar!

[Oxford University Press 1985 Hazel Hutchins]


Hollerburluke

Reading “The Invisible Boy” by Sally Gardner
about Sam’s parents who won the first-ever
trip to the moon, left Sam in the care of the
neighbour from hell, Hilda Hardbottom

Who starved him and kept him imprisoned
in order to collect the insurance money when
Sam’s parents got lost in space, stuck inside
a grotter or orgback – a humungous

Space monster that gaggerly-up stars;
a typical scene from reality, as most
immoral people will know - but he was
saved by an alien called Splodge

Whose spaceship was whamdangled, Splodge
turned Sam invisible, easy once you got the
handangle; his parents were finally found
in a grotter causing a hollerburluke

An adventure proving that friendship
from people or spacemen, will always
be the most valuable thing
to everybody on earth!

[“The Invisible Boy” Sally Gardner - Dolphin 2002]


A Gentleman Ghost, Sir Simon Montpellier

There is a book about EVERYTHING
if only you know where to look – and
that’s the thing – I don’t know where
to start looking

Thus reading ANYTHING I can find,
hoping to cover all possible probabilities;
finding material on magical tales and
reading that too

I am greatly intrigued reading that
sensible people accept irrefutable
facts, such as their baby is a magician;
changing his name to Arriman

A sorcerer, painting vampire bats on
his nursery walls, allowing him to
purchase Darkington Hall with a
gentleman ghost called

Sir Simon Montpellier who murdered
all seven of his wives, wandering about
groaning with guilt and moaning with
misery

and welcoming a visiting genie, Mr
Chatterjee from India who felt
England’s cold dreadfully
having lived in the East

doing interesting things like
sending people about on Flying
Carpets, and when they come
down suddenly

impaling their backsides on
spikes – I love all the things
that I find while I’m reading
to expand my mind…

Eva Ibbotson: “Which Witch? ”