Scissors

Nobody leave the room.
Everyone listen to me.
We had ten pairs of scissors
At half-past two,
And now there’s only three.

Seven pairs of scissors
Disappeared from sight.
Not one of you leaves
Till we find them.
We can stop here all night!

Scissors don’t lose themselves,
Melt away or explode.
Scissors have not got
Legs of their own
To go running off up the road.

We really need those scissors,
That’s what makes me mad.
If it was seven pairs
Of children we’d lost,
It wouldn’t be so bad.

I don’t want to hear excuses.
Don’t anyone speak.
Just ransack this room
Till we find them,
Or we’ll stop here…all week!

Copyright: from Please Mrs Butler (Penguin, 1983), copyright © Allen Ahlberg 1983, used by permission of the author and the publisher.

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Allan has written over 150 books for children, including classics such as Each Peach Pear Plum, and The Jolly Postman. He was born in a ...

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About Scissors

I used to be a school teacher and many of the school poems I've written have little portraits or snapshots of me and this one shows me in my classroom at the end of the day getting rather ragged as you will hear.

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