The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

Pea Museum

Welcome! Thank you for visiting our museum,
which is famous for being one of the smallest

in the world, containing as it does
only a single pea. But oh, what a pea it is.

You all know the story of course,
what made this seemingly insignificant little green ball

one of the most precious objects in the world -
yes, turned our queen black and blue

through twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdowns in a single night,
thus proving what no one could see: her authentic royal pedigree.

You would not believe how many heists we have to foil here
on the daily. Everyone is trying to steal it all the time.

We have to have two guards on patrol 24/7. An alarm system
so sensitive it often goes off if a visitor sneezes.

People have tried everything—
disguises, decoys, and once, a trained goose.

But no one has succeeded. The pea remains
untouched under its crystal dome: A tiny green jewel.

Now, please exit through the gift shop,
where we sell replicas for a princely fee.

About the Writer


Laura Theis

Laura's work appears in Poetry, Oxford Poetry, Northern Gravy, The Caterpillar, Magma, Rattle, Tyger Tyger, Aesthetica, iamb, etc. Her Elgin-Award-nominated debut how to extricate yourself (2020), an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the-Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things (2023) received the Live Canon Collection Prize and the Society of Authors’ Arthur-Welton-Award. Other accolades include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, Poets & Players Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, AM Heath Prize, and Mogford Prize. Her new collection Introduction to Cloud Care and her children's debut Poems from a Witch’s Pocket are both forthcoming in 2025.