Eulogy For A Terrapin, by Annabelle Cooke, age 8½.
Contributed by
Andrew Cheverton on 30/12/08
I liked the way you ate your food,
and swam about the place.
I didn’t like to clean up your poos,
or the way you hid your face.
When you get to your Heaven,
could you ask God (or Jesus)
that Annabelle would like to know
why they thought you should leave us.
(Also, if you aren’t too busy,
please ask Father Christmas
if I can have another terrapin
for my birthday, or maybe Christmas.)
Farewell, Mr. Terrapin,
it will be sadder here without you.
I’m sorry that you died today.
There’s nothing else to say about you.
Nicolas Papaconstantinou
What a lovely approach to take, Mr Cheverton.
The voice of Annabelle is pitched just about right, with the structure and vocabulary solid enough to sound like an eight and a half year old who has spent a lot of time and energy – by an eight and a half year old’s standards – on a speech that means the world to them, but a couple of moments of awkwardness in the rhymes that I think you did deliberately, because, well, she’s only eight and a half.
It’s far too cute and sad. Made me think a little of that girl on Outnumbered, for some reason.
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Andrew Cheverton
Yes, as an adult I agonised over rhyming Christmas with Christmas. It became a sticking point for me.
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