A E Baker
Veronica
He’d written please I want a train
and watched the letter going up
the kitchen flue.
He’d got a clockwork racing car
and was taking this to bits
to find out how it worked,
sucking his lip in concentration
as each reluctant lug gave way
(bending up or snapping off)
to the relentless prisings
of his sister’s nail file.
As the top came off the spring shot out,
followed by a fascinating fountain
of brass and iron cogs
of various diameters.
But what really took his eye
was half a Pullman dining car
printed on the inside of the racing car’s tin body,
brown and cream, with silver windows
with lampshades in and people looking out
and called VERONICA.
I don’t believe in Father Christmas,
Freddie Coleman told him.
I do, he said.
The bugger
Page(s) 53
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