Version I:


Mummy says that you really don’t exist lisped the girl who hated wearing pink shiny smooth baby shoes.
And the gargoyle simply smiled and carried on eating his melon.
Mummy says gargoyles are stone statues and that they are inanimate.
And the gargoyle simply smiled and spat out the melon seeds.
Mummy also says that I should grow up and not get cross when adults say I am a liar.
And the gargoyle stopped smiling simply and started to stare seriously at the girl with the plaits that annoyed him.

Mummy says and suddenly
the gargoyle’s hand sliced through the air
to press a finger tip
to the un-kissed lips
of the six year old girl with a t-shirt on of a cartoon character he supposed he rather fancied.

What mummy says is not what you have to say, said the gargoyle,
and what I say, you do not have to say, either.
Words may asked to be spoken, but lips can always refuse little girl -
now when my hand comes away little girl, little girl when my hand comes away,
please give a message to your nougat-chewing flabby-bellied friends-
that when my hand comes away little girl, little girl when my hand comes away,
stop speaking, start thinking, and please just go (far) away.

And the hand came away and the little girls mouth remained closed and she stared seriously at the stone gargoyle,
parted her lips,
winked before getting off the grass where she’d sat
and skipping slowly alongside the stream,
(outside her mummy’s house),
laughed, before going in for tea.



Version II.

Mummy says that you really don’t exist
lisped the little girl, with her pink shiny smooth baby shoes
dangling from her little girl fists.
And the gargoyle simply smiled and carried on eating his melon.
Mummy says gargoyles are inanimate.
And the gargoyle simply smiled and spat out the melon seeds.
Mummy also says that I should grow up and not get cross when adults say I am a liar.
And the gargoyle stopped smiling simply and started to stare seriously at the little girl with the plaits that annoyed him.

Mummy says&suddenly
the gargoyle’s hand sliced through the air
to press a finger tip
to the un-kissed lips
of the six year old girl with a t-shirt on of a cartoon character
he supposed he rather fancied.

What mummy says is not what you have to say,
and what I say, you do not have to say, either.
Now why don't you run off and play-hey?
Now, when my hand comes away little girl, little girl when my hand comes away,
please give a message to your nougat-chewing flabby-bellied friends, telling them to listen to what you say,
that when my hand comes away little girl, little girl when my hand comes away,
stop speaking, start thinking, and please just go (far) away.

The hand came away,
and the little girl still did stay,
her mouth remained closed as she stared seriously, almost imperiously,
and then quickly she winked, her little left eye-lid so pink
before skipping along
and singing a song
and laughing out loud,
she turned and bowed
to the gargoyle who sat, smiling in the soil,
before spinning around, like she was wearing a princesses gown,
and running in home for tea.