The Big Tidy-Up, page 1
Copyright © 1970, renewed 1998 by Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Golden Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, a Penguin Random House Company. Originally published in 1970 in slightly different form by Western Publishing Company, Inc. Golden Books, A Golden Book, and the G colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007929074
ISBN: 978-0-375-84821-6 (trade)
ISBN: 978-0-375-95821-2 (lib. bdg.)
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-98343-5
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v3.1
Title Page
Copyright
First Page
jennifer knew
As well as you
That everything has its place,
But she just didn’t care
a whit,
a bit,
So her room was a real disgrace!
Her shoe was askew on the windowsill.
Her scarf was under the bed.
Her beautiful box-to-keep-ribbons-in
Was full of old junk instead.
A very old, worn-out lollipop
Was stuck to her bathrobe pocket.
And her bureau drawer, it was plain to see,
Had been struck by a super-rocket.
Jennifer’s mother looked in one day,
And her smiles all turned to gloom.
She couldn’t disguise her shocked surprise
At the state of Jennifer’s room.
“Your new blue sweater is not the thing
To try on the cat,” she said.
“Why is your doll on the closet floor?
And what’s that lump in your bed?
“You must like to live in a mess, I guess,
With your things all every-which-way—
So I won’t touch your room with
my mop and broom
From now until Christmas Day!
But we don’t want people to see this room
With your things all lying about!”
So on Jennifer’s door she quickly hung
A very big sign—
Jennifer had a lovely time
For two or three days or more.
She set her hat on the ivy plant,
And she hung her jeans on the floor.
Her comb, two hankies, and one white glove
Fell under the bedside chair
(So did her slip with the great big rip),
And Jennifer left them there.
Under her pillow she kept some pie
To eat when she woke at night
And a nice raw carrot or two to chew
To give her an appetite.
She did her homework
in ink,
I think,
As she lay flat down on the bed.
She got finger paint on the pillowcase
And never turned down the spread.
Then little by little, things went wrong
Till Jenny was filled with gloom
At the fusty,
dusty,
musty mess
She had made of her nice pink room.
The bed was prickly, the floor was strewn,
The chairs were heaped-up, too.
There wasn’t one bit of room to sit
Unless she sat on a shoe.
Up in the corner (he liked it there)
A spider was calmly spinning.
(He had only a tiny web so far.
But, of course, he was just beginning.)
Jen never could find two socks that matched;
Not one of her shirts was clean.
(She looked at herself in the mirror once,
And she wasn’t fit to be seen!)
Where, oh, where had her hairbrush gone?
There wasn’t a single sign.
Her hair stuck out all over her head
So she looked like a porcupine.
POOR JENNIFER!
Jen sat and thought, with a worried frown,
“Perhaps I should run away.
No one could live in a room like this
From now until Christmas Day!
But it wouldn’t be fun to run and run,
Then have to sleep in a stall
Or a spooky wood (though of course I could)
And not have a room at all!”
So—
Jennifer opened her window wide
To let in some good fresh air;
The spider gave her a nasty look
And scuttled off who-knows-where.
And then Jen
picked up stuff,
blew away fluff,
shook out the mat,
hung up her hat,
swept the floor,
tidied the drawer,
made the bed,
smoothed the spread,
And worked and worked for most of the day
Until every last thing was put away.
And at last,
When her room
Was neat as a pin,
She hung up a very big sign—
Norah Smaridge, The Big Tidy-Up
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