Night Terrors Poem by Charlotte Peters Rock

Fearful in the living room
she found a desperate way
to slow the bedtime ritual

Folding skirt and blouse
Folding knickers - socks
and tying laces as each shoe came off

Wincyette pyjamas warmed
- first the bottoms then the jacket -
joined her vest and woollen night socks

A cardigan to keep her warm
A milky drink and - last of all -
the shout “Now off to bed”

She looked at Mam
who looked across at Ralph
- and Ralphie sniggered

'Come on..the pair of you
Come on Alright I'll come as well'
And Mam led up the stairs

Ralphie followed silently
and she stepped step on step in fear
in case his threat of rats was right

The landing - dark - with just a glow
red night-light pointing out each door
and then the flood of bedroom white light

Ralphie charged across the room
with whooping sounds of Indian calls
..and she looked nervously inside

“I saw one” Ralphie said
“I saw one underneath your bed
The biggest rat you ever saw”

The lino stretched across the space
- her bed an island far away -
where rats would rise and kill her dead

Mam - exasperated - said
“Alright I'll look again for you
You see there's nowhere rats can hide”

“We've never had a rat in here
This house is new No rat would come inside
And anyway the lino's slippy”

Mam's temper frayed “Now into bed
Come on I'll leave the landing night-light on”
She tried to leap from door to bed - and missed

Mam washed her face and tucked her in
The blankets trapped her arms and legs
- but not her listening ears and eyes

Each time Ralph moved - across the room -
she fancied rats were closing in
Her fear made spring-sounds less familiar

Half breaths and stifled sobs
So loud..the colony of rats..so loud
a-creeping on her bed-springs now
-
‘That's where they hid..that's why she missed them..
Clinging just below the mattress
That's where they are’

She heard Ralph snore and turned her head
‘If I look through the open door all night
the rats will see me watching them’

Rigid in bed she cried
and slowly dared to fall asleep
to nightmare rats with night-light eyes