The Curious Journey of William Worm

Most worms I know live underground.

They are really quite quiet and don’t make a sound.

But one big worm stood out in the crowd,

He is Wild William Worm whose voice is so loud.

He lives by the trees at the edge of a wood,

Where he wriggles past leaves looking for food

All the beetles and centipedes gather and say,

‘He will be king of our country one day.’

Now William had feet and tiny wet hands,

And unlike his friends was able to stand

Which gave him a wonderful view of the land,

As he strolled over lumps of soil and sand.

One sunny morning a farmer came by,

Carrying a dripping mouldy fruit pie

When he suddenly slipped on some rubbish nearby,

And nearly fell over as he started to slide,

As pieces of fruit fell all over the place.

The elderly farmer went red in the face,

‘Good heavens above,’ he started to say,

As he sank in a pile of smelly wet hay.

It just so happened that merely by chance,

Wild William Worm who had been learning to dance

Was almost entangled in lemon and lime,

As he tried to avoid the slippery slime.

But he was caught in the farmer’s shoelaces,

And though he tried to break himself free,

Bits of mud in his eyes meant he just couldn’t see,

A way out of the sludge which had big enough spaces.

Then the farmer’s big boots moved out of the way

And William dropped on some straw gone astray.

As he wriggled and fiddled  and tried to get out

Along came a pig with a very large snout.

It sneezed and snorted and blew in the straw,

As Wild William flew up just like a see-saw,      

‘Oops,’ he shouted   and fell on the pig’s back,

Who then waddled away in a deep muddy track.

William tried standing but soon lost his balance,

While the pig carried on without even a glance.

When along came a cat, the farmer called Molly.

She raised a white paw but didn’t say sorry,

As she scraped poor William who lay sick and soggy

Onto the fur at the tip of her tail

Where he tried to curl up and look like a snail

Hoping he’d slide off without leaving a trail.

When all of a sudden, the farmer’s dog Buster

Appeared near the field in a bit of a fluster.

He loved chewing slippers brushes and dusters,

But better than that he loved chasing the cat.

He looked at Molly with his tongue hanging out.

So worried Wild William began to shout out,

‘For goodness sake Molly go as fast as you can,’

But the cat had seen Buster and set off on a run.

A chase began round the field and the trees,

As Wild William Worm hung on by his knees,

Until Molly leaped on top of a fence

And William now feeling quite giddy and tense,

Fell off and skidded along a wet wall,

And onto the old pie which softened his fall.

There were bits of pears, apples and grapes,

All mashed together in very strange shapes.

So, when he stood up, he was dripping in juices,

When he suddenly heard a jumble of voices

All of his friends, the beetles the ants

Had crawled out of places in between plants.

They crowded together and formed into lines,

Just as the sun was beginning to shine.

And Wild William Worm walked past them all,

No longer feeling so hopelessly small.

He’d escaped from the cat the dog and the pig,

And none of his friends had seen creatures so big.

A hero was William with his tiny wet hands.

So glad to be home in his own precious land.

That day Wild William made up his mind.

He was certain his journey was clearly a sign,

That he really should spend much more of his time

With all of his friends who had been so kind.

So, into to his home in a hole in green moss

He invited all grubs who felt lonely and lost,

To a feast of fungi and yummy compost

‘Friendship,’ said William ‘Is what matters most.’

William was determined wherever he went,

 He’d make sure his hours were always well spent,

As so many worms waited their turn,

To hear the tales of Wild William Worm.

Time went by and Wild William grew old,

He started to forget the tales he had told.

He said his goodbyes as the weather turned cold,

And never again would a worm be so bold.